Leonidas at Thermopylae by Jacques Louis David (1814)

This is yet another true dialog between me and a girl that of course was published with our joint consent. And so it came to pass that the first interlude was published and read by many people with different thoughts and ideas. While many disagreed with man, there were also many that disagreed with woman. But all of us agree on one thing and that is we all may still agree that we disagree. And thus, life goes on.

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Woman: I prefer to have some intellectual conversation between men and women.

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Man: Men and women? Plural? Why not an ‘intellectual’ conversation between you and me?

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Woman: Singular works just fine.

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Man: However, even if we had an intellectual conversation, you know I would lose……in order to win.

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Woman: Damn you!

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Man: Oh, please do not get angry. I do not want to win and therefore I win by losing.

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Woman: What is the consequences of winning the fight/conversation?

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Man: I would feel bad for not being a gentleman. And frankly, whatever hurts you, hurts me.

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Woman: Do you still think that you are a gentleman if you let a lady think she has won even though she has lost?

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Man: Of course not! I am a gentleman by letting everyone else think you have won..

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Woman: Utter nonsense! At the end of the day, you know that you have won! However, looking from this another perspective, is this not a world that the majority wins? So if the majority thinks the lady has won, who is the gentleman to think he has won?

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Man: Here is where you are ultimately wrong. For this is a world where the majority votes but the minority rules! Any form of government and political system in the world has a structure that the minority rules the majority.

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Woman: But this minority is voted by the majority!

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Man: But the majority can never rule..

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Woman: You cannot have the majority to rule the minority! You cannot have a government that outnumbers the people! If that were to happen, there would be no nation at all!

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Man: Exactly! Thank you for supporting my stand!

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This concludes the second interlude. The reader can now see the paradox that plagues humanity. For even if the power of the minority comes from the majority, in reality, the majority can never rule. Furthermore, the purpose of this interlude is not some petty squabble over politics but to show the two different forms of thought and opinions by two different individuals.

Let a hundred flowers bloom and let a hundred schools of thought contend. ~Chairman Mao

~

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David Plays the Harp for Saul by Rembrandt

~ When the Israelites ask for a king, Samuel reminds them that God is king. Yet the people insist and they get a king. However, the people soon realize that a king, whoever he is, may not give them happiness.

A utopian state is a lie. It has never existed and may never come into existence. Even if it did, such a state of never ending happiness and bliss is unsustainable. After failing to build heaven on earth, humanity then decided on trying as hard as they can to create as close as they can the image of utopia. Thus, the various forms of political systems came into existence as we can see in the world today. From the third meditation, we know that a perfect state is an illusion. Therefore, a perfect political system is also an illusion. Yet, is it possible that a particular political system be relatively better than another?

The first political systems after the dawn of civilizations were predominantly authoritarian. There are two forms of authoritarian systems, namely, an autocracy whereby a single head rules the state and an oligarchy in which the state is ruled by an elite group. Most of the early civilizations were ruled by monarchs, pharaohs, caliphs, sultans, and emperors and thus can be categorize as a form of authoritarian states. Although many aspects may differ, most early civilizations were ruled by a single head with absolute power (usually because of being an offspring of God or by heaven’s mandate)

There were however exceptions to this commonality in Greece. In Ancient Greece, all city states (each city was a state by itself) were autonomous to a certain degree even though they may have shared a common culture and geographical location. The Greek city states were an extreme form of democracy which resulted in the each city state fighting amongst one another as much as they fought any external force which threatened their independence.

After the great experiment of the Ancient Greeks, authoritarian political systems would continue to dominate history until the emergence of totalitarian political systems. Totalitarian forms of government have existed in the past (though very rarely) and are an extreme form of nondemocratic ways of governance. Examples of totalitarian states can be found in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, and China under Chairman Mao.

The leadership of a totalitarian state is normally an indispensible dictator whose ideology drives the entire state’s economic, social, and political policies. Totalitarian leaders usually promise the people a state of utopia should their policies succeed and is normally the justification of their absolute power. Indeed, all three totalitarian states in history as mentioned above promised their citizens utopia through the adoption of certain eugenic policies. All three states however, have failed in history to achieve utopia.

Modern democracy on the other hand has no fixed form and is a misnomer. All previous civilizations at the time of their height would have thought themselves as the most ‘modern’ civilization and thus the pinnacle of human achievement. For the purpose of this discussion, our current form of democracy is not one but many. Elections and representatives of the people, by the people, and for the people is the common feature of a democracy. Yet in reality, the presidential system of the United States and the parliamentary system of Great Britain is vastly different in the manner of electing the people’s representative, judiciary system, and administrative structure.

Similarly, the democracies of France, Germany, and Japan are different in many aspects. This difference in the various democracies may, of course, be inevitable as the demographics, agenda, and economic factors from each country differ from one another. While the Americans may be more concerned about their national debt, the British may put more emphasis on the acts of terrorism by Northern Ireland’s IRA (though both countries are currently mainly concerned with the economy) and so both political systems would and should adapt to their respective needs.

Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.’ Lincoln was right but only in a utopian sense of thinking for no form of government and political system is of ‘all’ the people, by ‘all’ the people, and for ‘all’ the people. Just put two individuals in the room and it is likely that they both differ in their wants or need! How then is utopia possible? Therefore, all forms of governments and political systems are flawed as an authoritarian state faces the tyranny of a dictator while a democratic state faces the tyranny of the majority.

This imperfection brought the philosopher Voltaire to say that if we were to ask the rich, they would choose aristocracy, while the people would choose democracy, and the monarchs would choose monarchy. Therefore, in reality each of the above would protect the interest of a certain group at the expense of another group (though this may not be a zero sum game). Thus, we have come to a crossroad and must now answer the question of whether one political system is better than the other.

Yet, the question above is flawed as we already know that each political system is better only for a certain party or individual. Taking this into consideration, the right question should be whether a political system is better at a particular period of time to face a particular form of challenge from the external environment. Here, the answer is not so simple, for one form of government may be replaced by a different form of government which is equally imperfect. However, in a utilitarian sense (the greatest good for the greatest number of people), a perfect form of government can be determined after one fixes the boundary, parameter, conditions and the specific length of time.

The School of Athens by Raphael

Athens versus Sparta, Democracy versus Authoritarian

Both Athens and Sparta were Greek cities that were similar in race, culture, and common language. In reality, we can seldom find cities that are so distinctively different! For Athens was the capital of knowledge of the Ancient world and stood high and proud in the plains bordering the sea and the wind. Sparta on the other hand, is located at the bottom of a deep valley, and detested all forms of foreign knowledge. Athens was a city, a port, and an academy which was always busy with trade and maritime activities while her brother Sparta toiled and trained under the sun and under the rain to churn out the mightiest soldiers the world has ever seen.

In Sparta, people were soldiers for the sake of being soldiers. In Athens, people were philosophers for the sake of being philosophers. Politically, Athens was like the sun, full with passion, and forever changing while Sparta was the moon, consistent, rigid, and resisted change. For Athens was a democracy and all political decisions were made through the vote of majority (ecclesia), while Sparta was an oligarchic authoritarian state in which power rested in a council of old men, five magistrates (ephors), and two hereditary kings with special military power.

The history of Athens and Sparta unfolds akin to two siblings fighting for the attention of their parents (not literally, but who is greater). For a period of time, Athens had the best form of government for it was the light of the world (arts and science) and the might of the sea (its navy). Furthermore, Athens churned out more philosophers, scientists, doctors, and anything else but soldiers than Sparta. However, at the time of crisis when natural disasters and economic instability wrecked havoc on Athens, the votes of the majority (democracy) chose the wrong leader at the wrong time and the city state was doomed to fall.

And fall it did! For during times of prosperity and bliss, democracy is the best form of government. But in times of crisis, the Spartan authoritarian political system reacted faster, stronger, and more united than the Athenian democracy. And so it came to pass that Athens, whose people were fighting internally among themselves as much as they were fighting their common enemy, fell into the hands of Sparta and fell into ruin and decadence.

In history, the story never ends until there are no longer any living human beings. But the apocalypse, the end times, and the Ragnarok did not happen when Athens fell and so we have the privilege to continue the story to a point whereby the strength of arms and the might of shield (Spartan shields in reality were unique with the Greek sign of lambda) of Sparta was no substitute to the freedom and the will of the majority demanded by the people. Sparta fell, and its fall was so great that its form of governance did not reemerge until the 19^th century (Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union of Stalin).

In the knowledge that no form of political system is perfect for all times, we still can find a truth to which we can base our meditations on. For if A does not equal to B and B equals to C, A does not equal to C. Using deductive reasoning, the first meditation shows us that we cannot understand fully and absolutely the will of God due to the limitations of pure reason and the senses. However, even if we do not understand God, ethics is necessary for social order. Ethics on the other hand, is relative to the individual and although necessary for civilization must rely on power to enforce it.

Power then comes through the people’s acceptance of a form of government and political system which, as proven in the third meditation, can never be perfect. So man, unable to create heaven on earth (utopia), must now settle for an imperfect political system. So, which then is the best form of government? The answer depends on the situation and challenges the system is subjected to. For a democracy is the best form of government when times are good and food is plenty but is found lacking when desperate measures are required urgently. Here, we can pose another question as  to how a government enforces the power given to it by the people. In other words, in what form is power found in a state?

This concludes the fourth meditation and opens a path to the fifth meditation.

~

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The Fifth Meditation, Armata – The Limitations of Military Might

The Sixth Meditation, Juno Moneta – The Limitations of Wealth and Money

~ King Solomon, son of King David is commonly associated with wealth and wisdom. But if wealth and wisdom is the key to solve all problems, why did King Solomon’s kingdom fall after his death and why is it not possible for his descendants to continue to grow richer and more powerful?

The Idea Behind The Wealth of Nations

Empires rise and they inevitably fall. As I have argued in the third meditation, mankind has and will probably never achieve a state of Utopia on Earth. No government or political system has been able to outlive its usefulness. The system of the state would inevitably fail due to external or internal factors. We have taken a look at the external factors in the fifth meditation.

However, external factors which normally come in the form of military aggression is not without limitations and is therefore unsustainable in the long-run. War is an expensive business and the state’s coffers may not be replenished as fast as required. Among the internal factors that I have identified, the most important one of all is wealth.

In 1776, moral philosopher Adam Smith published his book called An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. More commonly known as the Wealth of Nations, the book is often credited with the launching of free market capitalism and the Industrial Revolution, and over two centuries of unprecedented economic growth.

In his book, Adam Smith argued that free trade was the best way to prosperity. According to Smith, the adoption of free-trade policies would enrich and bind all of a nation’s citizens, and ultimately extend those benefits and ties to all the peoples of all nations of the world who practiced free-trade. The logic behind  the success of free-trade according to Joseph Schumpeter was creative destruction.

Schumpeter argued that a market economy will incessantly revitalize itself from within by scrapping old and falling businesses and then reallocating resources to newer and more productive ones. This means that the market economy or an economy of which prices of goods and services are set by supply and demand would force an obsolete company to go out of business and forcefully reallocate resources of the fallen business to businesses that will have better use for them.

Alan Greenspan agrees with this line of thought and states that the failure of a centrally planned economy whereby prices and distribution of goods and services were set by central planners, lack the important ingredient of creative destruction.  Furthermore, Greenspan points out that centrally planned economic systems have great difficulty in raising standards of living and creating wealth.

The reason for the failure of centrally planned economies was ultimately the lack of an effective market to coordinate producers’ supply and consumers’ demand. This imbalance and disequilibrium cause the economy to produce a large quantity of products that people do not want (a surplus) and a huge shortage of products the people do want but lack (a shortage). Consequently, the centrally planned economy fails as the economy fails to deliver the right products at the right quantities to the right people.

The Historical Evidence

In line with the thoughts of Smith, Schumpeter, and Greenspan, history has shown us that all the early civilizations had achieved incredible feats through creativity and  innovation that brought forth a period of prosperity and economic growth. The ancient Mesopotamians gave the world the wheel, and the ancient Egyptians geometry and papyrus. More importantly, the early civilizations perfected the art of irrigation that enabled farmers to produce more food than they need.

The emergence of the agrarian economy did not solve all problems under the sun. Of the four (earliest) ancient civilizations, only the Chinese civilization continues to endure (China continues to use the same written language for the last 2,500 years). Yet even the Chinese civilization’s political system and form of government would change over the years and the ancient line of Chinese emperors broken many times in history.

The later civilizations like the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Romans would also follow a period of rapid expansion, decline, and eventual collapse. The eternal city of Rome may still exist today in Italy but the old inhabitants, the ancient Romans are long gone and normally forgotten. Almost every civilization fell not only because of pressure coming from external forces but because of an internally weakened economy.

In studying economics and looking back at history, we should ask ourselves an important question. If the ideas of Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter were correct, why did these civilizations fail to maintain their economic growth? A similar argument could be made against the Western renaissance, and the Industrial Revolution. Both periods brought a period of high economic growth that was in the end unsustainable.

GDP, Inflation, and Unemployment

In order to pursue this subject further, one must understand that in economics, one uses the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to calculate economic growth. GDP is the total market value of all final goods and services produced annually within a country’s borders. GDP per capita to which a country’s GDP is divided by its total population is usually a measure of the standard of living.

Closely linked to GDP is inflation and unemployment. During periods of high economic growth, high rates of inflation (a continuous rise in price level) are a constant threat. High rates of inflation are undesirable as it erodes the purchasing power of money and causes a drop in real income (and standard of living). High rates of inflation are almost always present during times of high economic growth because the demand for resources like assets and labor is high.

On the other hand, periods of high economic growth normally comes with full employment and a rise in real wages (workers can demand higher pay). Following this logic, if high Real GDP growth leads to high inflation and low unemployment, this means that high inflation should generate low unemployment. While this is possible in the short-run, Milton Friedman attacked the assumption that low unemployment can be ‘bought’ with high inflation in the long-run.

In Friedman’s Noble Prize lecture in 1976, Milton Friedman proved that the Philips curve stable negative relation between the level of unemployment and inflation. In the long-run, the negative relationship between inflation and unemployment is unsustainable because workers in an attempt to maintain the purchasing power of their money demand higher wages (with no changes in the level of unemployment) and the stable relationship of the Philips curve collapse.

According to Frederic Mishkin (1997), price stability (a low and stable inflation rate) is the appropriate long-term goal for monetary policy as it promotes a more efficient economic system. Periods of hyperinflation experienced in Germany have given us ample data of the potential destruction should inflation be left unchecked.

The Limits of Economic Growth

High economic growth is not sustainable in the long-run. The Real GDP of an economy (GDP indexed to inflation) normally goes in a roller coaster trend which economist commonly refer to as the business cycle. In normal cases, the Real GDP goes from a peak into a period of contraction, a trough, and then enters a period of recovery before of expansion (to form another peak). This process repeats itself again and again throughout history.

Consider this simple explanation, when we start playing a game of monopoly, the board is empty and none of the players own any parcel of land on the board. As the game progresses, each player then buys different parcels of land. During this period (the first few turns), all players are able to make Pareto improvements to which in gaining a parcel of land causes no harm to the other players (relatively).

In the later parts of the game, the whole board with all its parcels of land will eventually be owned by a single player (you win by owning all the land and buildings on the board and driving everyone else into bankruptcy) and this is a position that is pareto efficient. At this point of the game, every parcel of land one player loses (this may be due to the lack of money) becomes another players gain and thus the players are engaged in a zero-sum game. The lack of resources in the game (there are only 12 hotels and 32 houses) also reflects economic reality.

However, the economy in reality is much more complex than a game of monopoly. In the game, the size of the board, the number of players  and the availability of resources is subject to change. The five important causes of economic growth is the increase in natural resources, labor productivity, capital, technological advances, and property rights. All five may increase as a result of a discovery of a new oil field or a new technology that would yield more crops with the same amount of land.

During periods of high economic growth, the ownership of resources (means of production) would grow at a faster rate than the size of the economy (resources). This would lead to a form of market saturation and a zero-sum game with too many players fighting for too little resources. When an economy faces saturation of ownership, it must contract sooner or later.

Furthermore, during periods of high economic growth, the distribution of income is never equal. Some people who either by higher expertise, competence, and luck would inevitably be able to own more resources (assets) than people who are less able to manage their own finances or lack opportunities (extremely unlucky). Thus income inequality rises rapidly during times of rapid economic growth.

The other problem is demographics. One usually thinks of the aging population we face today as a challenge of the 21st century. This is incorrect as the exact same case of aging population happened during the last days of the Roman Empire (a contraction in economic growth). When the economy is booming, the number of children per family usually rises as there is more disposable income available (wages rise). The opposite is also true as families tend to have lesser children during times of economic crisis (less one mouth to feed).

This can be seen during the end of World War II whereby birthrates around the world was high. Children born between 1945 and 1964 are usually called the baby boomers (the economy was good). On the other hand, children born between 1965 and 1976 are usually called the baby bust (Generation X) as the number of children born each year was declining. This is followed by the baby boomlets (Generation Y) which are children born between 1977 and 1994 (the increase in birthrates was a result of the baby boomers having children.

From the demographic changes above, we can see that birthrates are variable and subject to the environment. This explains why the world economy faces periods of economic growth and also periods of economic contractions. When the world economy is growing, birthrates increase until a point where Pareto efficiency is gained and proceeds into a contraction phase. However, when the world economy is contracting, the children born when birthrates are high become adults and enter the economy.

Due to the fact that the world economy is generally contracting, most of these new adults would be unemployed or employed with the prospect of losing his/her jobs the next day (there are many substitutes). Idle citizens and citizens who live in fear of unemployment are not happy citizens. Furthermore, the periods of high economic growth may have caused a very high degree of income inequality, thus creating a major imbalance in the entire social structure.

The imbalances of income and underutilized workforce would result in the slow accumulation of social unrest triggered by perceived injustice. When the accumulated social unrest reaches a boiling point, it causes enough pressure to force reforms and sometimes a change in the political system governing a society. Hungry citizens as a golden rule almost never vote for the government.

Therefore, this explains why governments rush to secure economic resources either through trade or military means. The failure of a government to do so would mean its days are numbered. Bear in mind that what I am stating here is not a business cycle of 5 to 10 years but a supercycle. The period between the Great Depression to our current international economic crisis is an astounding span of 80 years!

There is however, one question that is left unanswered. If economic activities are carried out by individuals that are a part of the society, why do they make wrong choices? Is it not possible to make a civilization out of superior men who are intellectually and physically stronger than all other men? The next meditation would attempt to find out more on the individual and the freedom of choice.

~

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The Third Interlude – Man and Woman

The False Mirror by Rene Magritte

This is yet another true dialog between me and a girl that of course was published with our joint consent. The world as we know is not perfect and will never be perfect. Yet, should we live our lives in optimism or in pessimism? Is it really better to be in the house of mourning than the house of mirth? Yet one thing is for certain and that we are not perfect and the world we live in is also not perfect.

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Woman: Men have motives when they flatter a girl. They claim to be sincere but their flattery is but a part of their grand scheme which is to derive pleasure in holding power over a girls heart.

Man: But surely at least one man in three is worthy of the word sincere?

Woman: Maybe, but how do I know which one is sincere and which is not? For men are imperfect and thus liable to the faults of mortality.

If a man treats a woman with all gentleness, a woman is sure to doubt his sincerity. It would not matter if a man treats a woman with no gentleness as long as the man does not have a hidden agenda. Would it not be better for man to treat a woman indifferently but retains all sincerity?

Man: But a woman is unhappy when a man is either too gentle or lacks gentleness. And is not a gentleman held as the perfect virtue in society? So I bid that woman makes her choice. For in my opinion, sometimes a man gains happiness by making a woman happy.

Woman: How is that possible? Do you not see that men are taking advantage of women to satisfy their own desires?

Man: Surely not all men are like the beast of the field as surely as not all birds can fly.

Woman: Oh, but I agree, but disagree for there are more men who are of the beasts than of the bird and this fact alone is enough to question the sincerity of all men.

Man: But even you must agree that man clear of motives exists. And if this is so, a man pure at heart is not like the beast of the field but akin to a rose among the thorns and a candle in the darkness of the night

Woman: I do admit that men pure of motives may exist. But reality is cruel and men like clear water are so hard to find because men in their nature are egoistic creatures. However, most of the time a woman is flattered that a man speaks courteously to her although she knows that it is probably insincere.

Man: It is sad that two perfectly innocent beings are doomed to suffer from imperfection. But at least give your heart some space for hope!

Woman: Indifference is less cruel than a facade of lies, for in showing your true color, one does not rouse false hope. Though world cannot and will not change, maybe the individual can.

Man: Yet against all odds one may still find a piece in a jigsaw puzzle that fits your own shape and by doing so augment you and your weakness with his strength while gaining strength from you to overcome his weakness.

Woman: However, like a box of jigsaw puzzle, there is only one piece in many that can perfectly fit and thus the difficulty in forming a perfect bond between man and w0man.

Man: But life is a war against the greater odds and can sometimes be portrayed as a knight charging into an army of phalanx.

Woman: I suppose the only thing we can do is live as we have no say in when, where, and why we were born.

Man: Live and Hope!

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SONNET 138

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When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutored youth,

Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.

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Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.

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But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told.

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Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

~ William Shakespeare

~

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The Seventh Meditation, Homo Sapiens – The Limitations of Man and The Possibilities of Homo Superior

The Inconclusive Synthesis

This is not the conclusion or an epilogue. It is not the last chapter of a tale written for the sake of justifying ideas, ideologies, and beliefs. I have no drama left in me and I fear that subtlety has at last failed me and bluntness and blunders are all that is left. Unlike the first six chapters of the Meditations, I start this one with a diagram of my own creation instead of some historical painting.

The art of men long dead would be by far a more fitting  abstract art than anything that I can produce in my life. However, the diagram above is a simple representation of my will and idea behind the Meditations. No aspect of humanity is a stand alone complex that is self-reinforcing, self-generating, and self-inducing. Everything in life as I have observed are inter-connected, inter-related, and inter-locked. Indeed, the flapping wings of a butterfly can cause a tornado somewhere else or potentially stop one.

In the last of the seven Meditations, I hope to succeed more than I have failed to piece together the broken pieces of One.

Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon by Caspar David Friedrich

The Bias Theory and The Bias Society

Take a coin and toss it into the air fifty times and you would find that equilibrium never exist like the way we think it exist in reality. If you somehow manage by stroke of luck to get 25 heads and 25 tails, toss that coin another hundred times. Things are never perfectly equal! The world and its happenings are like a pendulum swinging from right to left and never stopping perfectly in the center!

If things were in perfect equilibrium, the government and the opposition  parties of any country would get the same amount of votes and the possibility of elections would disappear. Randomness is a lie. Things are perceived  to happen randomly because one cannot comprehend all things under heaven or judge with precision the consequences of ones own actions. In retrospect, things seem to be fated and can happen in no other seemingly probable way.

Einstein was right when he said the God does not play dice.

The hypothetical ‘if’ is for the future and not the past. The past is set in stone and would never change for anyone or anything, save the will of the Creator and the time machine of H.G. Wells. The bias theory is real and it applies to everything in the world worth observing. Why is time a constant movement from present to future? Why is it that twins have different characters when they come from the same mother (and come to the world almost at the same time)? Why do we choose one apple over the other when both looks similar in size and color?

The truth is that the world is never in constant equilibrium but in constant movement. Take a look at the waters of rivers around the world. Watch how the rivers flow to the sea, the water evaporating, the vapors accumulating and at last coming down as rain just to repeat the cycle all over again. Nothing in the world is really stagnant! Everything seems to move as though the Creator’s will is willing it (this is what I believe)! If this is so, does that mean the bias theory applies to all things?

Swarm Intelligence and Societal Intelligence

If ants had intelligence and could comprehend the works of human beings, they would comment on how similar human beings and ants are. While we ‘modern’ (this is such a misnomer) human beings think that our skyscrapers, overhead bridges and construction machinery are the best ever created in history, be surprised because ants have been building highways, underground nests, and staging epic raids for the last 140 million years.

While we call the ability of ants to solve problems as swarm intelligence, we often forget that human society works by a similar concept of societal intelligence. Like ants, I dare say that no human being could grasp the whole picture (absolute knowledge of everything) yet every individual of the society contributes to humanity’s success as a species.

Take a trip back through time and look at the French Revolution in 1789. Instead of eating cake (Marie Antoinette believed ‘cake’ was available for  the peasant class) and starving to death, the French peasants rebelled and executed their King, Louis XVI. Similar to the revolution in France, the 1917 Revolution in Russia also demonstrated a societal intelligence in changing the ruling political system before it was too late (though Communist Russia did not do a better job).

A more recent example is seen in Seattle when anti-globalization activists used mobile communication devices (ironically, mobile phones were one of the devices that spurred globalization) to spread news quickly about the movement of law enforcers. This turned what an otherwise disorganized and unruly crowd into a ’smart mob’ that was able to disperse and re-group like a school of fish. Similar to this, both Google and Wikipedia taps into swarm intelligence to produce outstanding results!

Individual Intelligence, Rational Expectations and Rational Behavior

Aristotle was right when he said that human beings are rational animals. The only problem is that the bias theory applies similarly to an individual as to a society. What is rationality? The answer differs from one individual to another. There is no absolute answer for rational expectations or rational behavior.

To an Eskimo, leaving his parents to die when they are old seems rational. To most of us, this seems absurd (in thinking so, we prove the bias theory). A human being can never accept every idea, behavior, and culture under the sun. An absolute hypocrite (absolutely tolerant of everything) is an absolute impossibility (though we may pretend to be tolerant of all things). Whether we like it of not, we are subject to our own form of personal bias (I like the color black).

In saying so, almost everyone in the world acts out of self-interest (this is distinctively different from selfishness). Even if my parents love me unconditionally, it is in their self-interest to do so (of which I am very very VERY grateful). This is because my parents feel happy to love me as they do (this should apply universally to all parents). Human beings choose to do things that give them the most utility or happiness and thus, they act in accordance with their self-interest. To deny this is akin to denying one’s own existence.

Arthur Schopenhauer was right when he claimed that the world was his idea. The external world is indeed known only through sensations and ideas, hence subject to personal bias (which is why he said his idea). Indeed, how can we, mortal humans, explain the mind as matter when we know matter through the mind? Furthermore, Schopenhauer described it better than I when he said that we do not want a thing because we have found reasons for it, we  find reasons for it because we want it!

The Stages of Life by Caspar David Friedrich

Why is Choice and Free-will Subject to The Bias Theory

Contrary to popular believe that everything in our lives starts with choice, everything in our lives actually starts out of necessity. Rousseau was only partially correct when he said that man is born free and everywhere he is in chains. If all choices were ours to make, and an absolute free-will is ours to use, human beings would be the Creator! Utterly absurd!

Furthermore, if we can choose all choices, there would not be such thing as ‘choice’ because we can obtain everything. Choice would be non-existent. When Rousseau said that man is born free, he was not entirely right. We cannot choose who our parents are, just as our parents cannot choose who their parents were. The choice to come into this world itself is not ours  alone to make, but an accumulation of choices of people long dead.

It is therefore inevitable that humanity’s grasp is forever lower than its reach. We make choices because we can choose but because we must choose! And in choosing one choice over another, we forsake the second best choice (known as opportunity cost in economics). Scarcity is mankind’s immortal enemy. The limitations of resources causes scarcity that forces us to choose what we think is best for ourselves (or others).

In saying so, resources does not only mean land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship but also time which is the ultimate resource among the rest. Peter Drucker was right when he said that time was completely inelastic. No matter how much you are willing to pay for ‘time,’ you can never really ‘buy’ time. Thus the famous saying that time and tide waits for no man.

Remember however, that as long as we live, we still have a  limited degree of choice in certain things in our lives. It is still possible as my friend reminded me to take an umbrella out even though we do not know when it is going to rain. It is possible to achieve something that your heart desires as long as it is achievable and within reach. One should not lose hope even when one knows that he will eventually die. Instead, one lives on in hope that death would come another day.

Perfection is therefore an impossibility unless one defines mortal boundaries within a mortal scope of activity (this is only a ‘perfection’ in human definition). When asked by Alexander the Great of how man can become a God, the Indian philosophers replied that Alexander had to do something that man cannot do. Alexander did not become God and neither can other human beings.

But lo and behold, in this text of pessimistic limits lies an optimistic hope. For surely as an individual is a part of the society and a society is a part of a nation, the nation is a part of the Earth and the Earth a part of the Universe , the Universe is a part of something bigger, greater and beyond human understanding. This is what I believe as the Creator that encompasses all things, omnipotent and omnipresent. Our imperfection is the only prove we need to justify the existence of a Creator. And in the Creator, all the hopes of humanity lies.

The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

The End of the Beginning

This ends the seventh part of One and represents the final piece in the Meditations. The Meditations represent not an ending but a new beginning and a new journey. The Meditations should therefore not be perceived as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony but Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony that gains beauty in its imperfection. Although the establishment of a priori in saying that man is imperfect and thus his understanding is imperfect, it is the will of the human heart to continue to climb knowledge’s endless flight of stairs.

Many of the mysteries of mankind and our world are now being unraveled by the accumulation of human understanding of knowledge. Although perfect knowledge and understanding is beyond our reach, if gives the heart of man joy to continue to pursue it! Even as Voltaire has said that we shall leave the world as foolish and as wicked as we found it, we can still strive to be happy and jovial as Voltaire himself was.

Encourage therefore the practicality of Voltarian wit, tolerance, and spirit and put to rest the impracticality and impossibility of Rousseau noble savage!

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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost

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