Book Review: I Think, therefore I Am a Machine

I Think, therefore I Am a Machine, by Yoram Har-Lev

The book began with an apt thought, "..failures are, more due to the inability to presuppose the others' reactions". It then went on to discuss the human mechanisms behind thinking and forming opinions. Next chapter analyzed the community's role in all this, with religions taking the prime spot. How it introduces a non-linearity in our affairs, and colors our reaction. We think freely, but end up providing a response that is always a modulated one, religion being the most significant and expansive regulator. I agree, this is quite in line with the working of a machine.

I liked the thesis of this book: humans are just sophisticated machines with an organic computer called brain. Naturally, there is no room for other incomprehensible entities like soul, whose actions cannot be anticipated. Therefore we can estimate the thoughts, feelings, and reactions, if we can collect sufficient data. Machines are not mysterious beings. It is easy to understand those, only need is a try.

But, we are not able to do it, since we are not able to recognize those machines. We close our eyes to it, when we are living in a group. Since, here, many a time we need to suppress inconvenient facets and invent convenient ones, altering the original composition and characteristics of whatever we are busy with. Consequently, we see the real physical world through filters that effectively hide the machines in us.

Lenz’s law of Life

Lenz’s law of Life

Which is the most fundamental of all laws? I think Lenz's law fits here the best. Though well known in connection with things like electrical machinery, this law is the one that can doubtlessly explain everything in plain terms, including those abstract. Also, even the ones that are rather imponderable, and are part of the unfathomable human.

Roughly put, the law is like this.

The ultimate effect of every reaction is to nullify the action which gave rise to it.

Let us take a few examples and see how this applies to life and living.

Hunger makes one eat, and eating takes away hunger.

Tiredness leads to rest, and rest stops tiredness.

Ignorance calls for learning, and learning puts a stop to ignorance.

Good many examples can be cited from our political landscape. Where, parties or ideals grow, die, and resurrect for no specific reason. Though we tend to link this with things like charismatic leadership, the truth is, nothing else but the Lenz's law of politics is in action.

For all activities performed by all species of life, it is possible to arrive at a relationship or transactional specification. When guided by this law, this can become, say, an equation. Living, in fact can be expressed as some such equations in action, where we manipulate the LHS to obtain a desired RHS, or vice versa.

But there is one exception, will. In case of human, in almost all cases, and in case of all other forms of life, in a few cases, this introduces a non-linearity. Which is nothing but the propensity to manipulate both the LHS and the RHS  at the same time, for no specified reason. In fact, will, is nothing but the freedom, one has, or the readiness, one shows, towards such a manipulation. And, will gets valued in direct proportion to the abstractness of the willed matter.

As long as one can manage to keep living a life clear of abstractions, Lenz's law is all that is needed to make a mathematical model for qualitative analysis of one's life, and even for a more useful quantitative study of the complete flow of life.  And, one can see that the transactions where Lenz's law do not fit are the ones that lead to social strife.

We Need a Lifestyle that Fits our life Better

We Need a Lifestyle that Fits our life Better

It seems, humankind was not endowed with the ideal mental faculties for understanding the world. Else, since mankind was in existence for millions of years, they would have been appreciating things uniquely. And would have started to master human specific activities, say read and write, much earlier. In fact we would have been having a seamless flow of life, where, all that we explore, learn, and imbibe, would be in sync with everything else, just as it is with all other forms of life.  

Also, for everything we notice, we are in fact coming up with quite a few conclusions and explanations, which, even if are confusing and damaging, look grave enough for at least a few. Hence, someone is there to espouse each inference, however useless, vague or inconvenient, it turns out to be. Human race, perhaps is not one designed for appreciating the world, as well as reacting appropriately in the natural turn itself, to all events and circumstances?

Let us revisit the origins of knowledge, a much celebrated one that separates us from the rest. It seems, when people started to wonder, ‘why things are as they are’, or, ‘why things behaved as they did', and when someone mostly answered as to, 'how', they all chose to be happy and jumped to the next question. Thus, the earliest of exponents, the path or conclusions of whom all would have been of great use or influence to subsequent generations, left the 'why's unanswered. And knowledge is nothing but the accumulated version of those answers.

As a result, knowledge dwells a lot on ‘how’, and as a result of it, we tend be full of answers to questions that may not arise at all. (‘What’ could be a question of every inquisitive mind, ‘how’, only of those who would like to learn to do.) But those answers effectively leave out most of what we wonder as wonder itself. And, at any time, each of us feel encouraged to align with the facet of the wonder that grabs our interest the most. 

That leaves a wide gap between the actual reality and our perception of it. That is why, all the natural philosophers, whether of Ancient Greece, India, or elsewhere, chose to dedicate much of their time in looking for the essence of reality. Their answer was always abstract, since it enabled them to keep those gaps filled without the need of anything real and substantive. Some of them found the answer in 'stability', and some others specifying it as nothing but a state of 'constant change'.

Times changed. All those who followed the ancients, kept themselves busy in trying to redefine those abstract concepts. Every definition opening up some more such ideas, fresh insight into the essence of reality is constantly on the make. A new unfilled gap is thus generated, whenever an existing one gets filled by whatever was signified by the current level of abstraction.

I feel we need to revisit knowledge. In fact the existing notions of our society are not at all a good fit, as far as arriving at an optimum living style for ourselves. For example, there is room for re-defining theology and materialism, while replacing all the abstractions with something real. Perhaps, that will trigger the true lifestyle, we should have been having all the while.