The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not real.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.

To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;
To experience with abstraction is to know the world.
These two experiences are indistinguishable;
Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

http://www.taoteching.org/chapters/1.htm

Without going out of your door, you can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without traveling, sees without looking, and achieves without struggle. — Lao Tse

( Individually )

If you would not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.

( Equitably )

The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness.
You have to catch it yourself.

~ Benjamin Franklin ~

( Absolutely )

He is able who thinks he is able.

( Increasingly )

A jug fills drop by drop.

~ Siddhārtha Gautama ~

With increasingly subtle moves, the players in Asimov’s epic Foundation and Earth are confronted with the daunting decision of whether to initiate an all-encompassing ethical framework, one which just might direct humanity into an acceptable future. The agents of change go unnamed for those who have yet to read it.

Dr. Isaac Asimov, in his Foundation series (also iRobot), first places these principles:
(Wording slightly adjusted for clarity. See the original if you wish.)

1. A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm.
2. A robot may not disobey human commands, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to a human.
3. A robot may not allow itself to come to harm, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to a human.

The Zeroth Law (0th) is added by another powerful mind (still some 20,000 years before the grand finale):

• A robot may not harm humanity, or by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
• A robot may not harm a human, or, by inaction, allow a human to come to harm, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.
• A robot may not disobey human commands unless required to in order to prevent harm to a human, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.
• A robot may not allow itself to come to harm unless required to in order to prevent harm to a human, except when doing so would prevent greater harm to humanity.

The Zeroth Law really puts everything into perspective, adding a new level of consideration and calculation; within this framework, every thought, word, and action for robot-kind needs exquisite justification. In Foundation and Earth, we see just how much extra crunching is necessary, evident in the many hardware updates Daneel Olivaw has to go through to keep up with the data produced by a galactic human civilization at a very tenuous place in history. So as not to spoil this epic 7-book series (by my count), I will just give you a recommended reading order, one which allows for ‘optimal absorption of foundational elements’ and also a thorough understanding of the elegantly intricate possible-future-history of humanity that Asimov has created. Here follows what should trump every other sci-fi reading list you may currently have:

1. Foundation (1951)
2. Foundation and Empire (1952)
3. Second Foundation (1953)
4. Prelude to Foundation (1988)   [prequel 1]
5. Forward the Foundation (1993)   [prequel 2]
6. Foundation’s Edge (1982)   [epilogue 1]
7. Foundation and Earth (1986)   [epilogue 2]

How did you read this series? Please let me hear your voice!

Also: An updated version of Asimov’s Laws of Robotics has been drafted for approval in Japan to govern the actions of robots in the near-future.

More on the Zampakuto Rebellion as it is unfolding.

katakana da ze

It’s a deeper level of introspection
that is needed
for to know oneself, is to know all others
and to know oneself completely
is to know all others completely too.

This space
inside
is full of willpower and life
and it directs your soul-power and influence
your soul-power
known by many other names, truth
belongs to you
but you have to claim it
first
you have to claim it
and then never force it
to do your bidding.

Why because when it’s *your* bidding
it is not ours
but when it’s us
and ours
then it *means* something
and in an absurd kind of way
after that, the meaning
the answer, eludes me.

In my view one of the most freeing and individual human-centered takes on the development and potential of the mind was this dialogue from the movie Waking Life:

The main character is what you might call “the mind”.
It’s mastery, it’s capacity to represent.
Throughout history, attempts have been made…
to contain those experiences which happen at the edge of the limit…
where the mind is vulnerable.

But I think we are in a very significant moment in history.
Those moments, those what you might call liminal,
Limit, frontier, edge zone experiences…
are actually now becoming the norm.
These multiplicities and distinctions and differences…
that have given great difficulty to the old mind…
are actually through entering into their very essence,
tasting and feeling their uniqueness.

One might make a breakthrough to that common something…
that holds them together.
And so the main character is, to this new mind,
greater, greater mind.
A mind that yet is to be.
And when we are obviously entered into that mode,
you can see a radical subjectivity,
radical attunement to individuality, uniqueness to that which the mind is,
opens itself to a vast objectivity.
So the story is the story of the cosmos now.

The moment is not just a passing, empty nothing yet.
And this is in the way in which these secret passages happen.
Yes, it’s empty with such fullness…
that the great moment, the great life of the universe…
is pulsating in it.
And each one, each object, each place, each act…
Leaves a mark.
And that story is singular.
But, in fact, it’s story after story.

“In spite of or in defiance of the whole of existence he wills to be himself with it, to take it along, almost defying his torment. For to hope in the possibility of help, not to speak of help by virtue of the absurd, that for God all things are possible — no, that he will not do. And as for seeking help from any other — no, that he will not do for all the world; rather than seek help he would prefer to be himself — with all the tortures of hell, if so it must be.”

—Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

In absurdist philosophy, the Absurd arises out of the fundamental disharmony between man’s search for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe. As beings looking for meaning in a meaningless world, humans have three ways of resolving the dilemma. Kierkegaard and Camus describe the solutions in their works, The Sickness Unto Death and The Myth of Sisyphus:

• Suicide or Escaping Existence: The first solution to the dilemma is simply to end one’s life.
• Religious belief in a transcendent world: Such a belief would posit the existence of a realm that is beyond the Absurd, and, as such, has meaning.
• Acceptance of the Absurd: The absurdist solution is to accept and even embrace the absurdity of life and to continue living in spite of it.

Absurdism is a philosophy stating that the efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe ultimately fail (and hence are absurd), because no such meaning exists, at least in relation to the individual. The word “absurd” in this context does not mean “logically impossible,” but rather “humanly impossible.”

Absurdism is related to existentialism and nihilism and has its roots in the 19th century Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. Absurdism as a belief system was born of the existentialist movement, when the French Algerian philosopher and writer Albert Camus broke from that philosophical line of thought and published his manuscript The Myth of Sisyphus. The aftermath of World War II provided the social environment that stimulated absurdist views and allowed for their popular development, especially in the devastated country of France.

Learn more here about Camus and Kierkegaard.

1. Which idea is more toxic?
A. We should inoculate ourselves against the most toxic ideas.
B. It’s all subjective; we cannot objectively classify ideas.

2. Which belief would be most convenient were you to believe in it?
A. Chaos and physical laws rule my life.
B. God and fate rule my life.

3. Which idea is more useful?
A. There are a few brown eggs in the fridge.
B. Suffering is inevitable.

4. Which of these most tickles your fancy?
A. Believers get an afterlife.
B. Only non-believers get an afterlife, just to confuse them.

5. Circle the most viral concept.
A. Zeus is the king of heaven.
B. Allah is the king of heaven.

6. Eliminate the most intolerable concept.
A. Islam is a harmful belief system.
B. Astrology is a harmful belief system.

The inspiration for today’s dilemmas: Dan Dennett on dangerous memes (with great comments)

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