High level philosophy

[DLJ]

...
So what is stopping me, scientifically speaking?
...

I'm not sure that I can address the science but I might be able to point a stick at it.

Poetically speaking...

To be, or not to be, fuck that fucking question.

Almost every day, there's the thought: "Do I want to bother with today?"
Often the answer is "No" but the commitment to commitments keeps us ticking along. Yes, it would be a damn sight easier just to not wake up today.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.

... oh, so, very devoutly, to be wished.

But for an atheist and one who declares "nihil" to the question "What is after life?", this bit is bullshit:

To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.

That's not the rub. The 'legacy' is the rub. The impact of "not to be" on those who depend upon us ... that's what gives us pause.

We have made commitments to those we care for.

So anyway... here's a clue from the pages of the forum that is no more:



Does this apply only to love?  I doubt it.

My Chemistry lesson started before my children were officially diagnosed with various forms of Autism and my knowledge of Governance and Management practices kicked in.  Of particular use were the inter-relationship between four different processes.

I won't bore you with these but I haz flow-diagrams if you want them. These four are:
Events --> Incidents --> Problem --> Change.

So how did this apply?
Event: Son's patterns of behaviour changed.
Incident: Destruction of bedroom (plaster off the walls and everything!)
Problem: Something happened when a neighbour gave him a doughnut.  Lots of 'RCA' (root cause analysis), clueless medical profession, hours of internet searching to match symptoms with other parents' experiences.  
Change: No permanent solution found.

If there's no permanent solution, a temporary 'workaround' must be utilised.
This workaround turned out to be careful diet control.

The whole family changed their diet (no wheat, no dairy, no additives, preservatives or colourants). I mean, if you put the wrong type of fuel into a system, you're gonna get unexpected results (or expected dodgy results).  The outcome was manageable behaviour.

And for me, guess what? Feelings of desperate lethargy started to fade.
Some self diagnosis later (adding / subtracting food types) pin-pointed wheatiness as the culprit.

Voila! Master chemist!  Control of emotions through diet.

Some artists do their best stuff when high. I write my best poetry while doped on pizza.  

OK. So it's not 100% cos of environmental factors but it's a useful control mechanism. And, of course, the same cause (or causes) ain't applicable to everyone.

Back to the main thrust of the question... why choose "be" over "not to be"?  The "commitment to commitments" thing could be the post hoc rationale, of course... Epimetheus, "afterthought"... the press secretary or narrator finding a justification for deterministic actions.  

I suspect it is this...



Looks complicated?  It's not.  
I can't be or an idiot like me wouldn't be able to teach it and get all my students over the past 6 years successfully through their exams.  

The diagrams depict a high level structure for the Intelligent Design (yes, I really said that) of a Governance System.

What is Intelligent Design?  It's the reverse of Evolution.  

So to get from eukaryotes to "doing the right thing" and "doing things right" (which is the short-hand for what governance really is) i.e to get 'decision-making' from 'unthinking cells', all we need to do is look at a governance system and go bottom-up instead of top-down.

The diagrams depict top-down. We start by identifying the stakeholders and their various needs and use the system to produce value.

The top diagram tells us that we need to balance benefits, risks and resources (costs) and can't do much unless we have some prequisites (enablers) and can't take on the world (at least, not alone) so we have a limited scope (ourselves, our family, pets... our football team, our country, the environment...).

The middle diagram (which is an expansion of the bottom block of the top diagram) is where we might find the answer.

The intended use is for an organisation e.g. a company.

Owners and Stakeholders = There are internal and external stakeholders (workers, management, shareholders, unions, regulators, environmental lobby etc.)
Governing Body = Usually rich white males smoking cigars and taking fat salaries for doing very little.
Management = pouring over spreadsheets and probably drinking too much; creating policies to align to governing body's wishes and trying to keep the workers motivated / incentivised and relatively content (or down-trodden if you work for Amazon, Nike etc.)
Operations and Execution = Not paid to think; they are paid to do... Nuremberg defense notwithstanding.

Let's look at the middle diagram from first a zoom-out perspective, then an evolutionary perspective and then a zoom-in perspective.

Zooming out, example:
Owners and Stakeholders = "We the people"
Governing Body = The Supreme Court
Management = Congress
Operations and Execution = The Executive Branch.

[it doesn't take a genius (very stable genius or otherwise) to work out where the US has been going wrong:
- They've never quite achieved "we the people"
- Congress gives away too much power to the executive branch and
- The Supreme Court can't decide whether the Constitution the sacred text is like the Jewish one (the first word of god) or the Islamic one (the last word of god).]

Evolutionary perspective (in reverse):
Operations and Execution = Reptilian brain
Management = Mammalian brain
Governing Body = Neo-Cortex
Owners and Stakeholders = Genes and memes, the bacteria in our gut etc. etc.

< Insert your own joke about Trump and Reptilian brain, here >

Zooming in, example:
Owners and Stakeholders = Your family, your pets.
Governing Body = Your consciousness
Management = Your limbic and endocrine systems (dopamine and all that shit)
Operations and Execution = Your immune system and motor system.

As an aside... I've watched a few lectures by John Searle.  He often expresses exasperation that people can't see that it's obvious that when you want your arm to go up, your arm goes up.  He's talking shite.  Try it.  Focus all your attention on your arm and, with pure thought alone, try to raise your arm... it can't be done.  Our thoughts do not (at least, do not directly) cause action.

Our thoughts evaluate, direct and monitor (using the governing body's sets of indicators (like the dashboard in a car)) - bottom diagram - but it's our operating and executing systems (the workers) who get the job done.

Due to evolution / natural selection, the management team and the operations team form a survival machine.  They have no thoughts at all about closing down the company.  
Or in the zoomed-out version... surrendering the USA to the Russians (Mexicans, Canadians, Martians, whoever)? Unthinkable!

But the governing body (after evaluation of environmental conditions) might think that.  Close the company.  "Not to be".

If all the 'monitoring' information / management feedback (bottom diagram, red arrows pointing up) are signalling (perhaps, silently screaming at you) that all is well, that value is being produced, that benefits can still be achieved (if not immediately then in the near future i.e. there is hope) then the governing body (your consciousness) will adjust its benefits/risk/costs calculation accordingly. You will choose "to be".

Am I wrong? Consider whether the "not to be" thoughts happen when you are asleep, i.e. when consciousness is switched to 'stand-by' mode.

"Guilt" is a (post hoc) word we use to describe the bio-chemical sensation when Direct (of Evaluate, Direct and Monitor) is at odds with Evaluate and Monitor i.e. a directive to do the wrong thing rather than the right thing.

[of course, as discussed, 'wrong' and 'right' are goal/value (and values) oriented and relate to morality.  Thus morality can be called a 'value stream'.]

Phew!  

Too much?

Well, you did ask.