Recent reports from Turkmenistan indicate that the new President may be a BIG improvement on the old regime. It is so early that it is untested and it could all just be to generate hype. There are now internet cafes open to the public. The cost at $4/hour is prohibitively high for a country where most people officially make $100/month. I say officially because I noticed that in Kyrgyzstan lying to tax authority is standard fair and collecting bribes is also. That makes the official economy the tip of the iceberg. I would count on the same being true in Turkmenistan. That said, people are not by any means well off.
Also he has started to free up the education system and promised some tweaks in the rest of the outrageously eccentric policies of his predicessor. He even made a commission to support human rights and uphold the constitutionally promised rights of Turkmenistan. I won't hold my breath for any explosive revelations. But hopefully, the reforms will keep on rolling.
That info comes from local printed press that is not online. It sited the AP but it must already be archived because it is not on the AP news wire anymore.
And Bush went to LA ostensibly not to counter Chavez, but he is too loud and dissonant to be ignored. I think Chavez is not right fundamentally, but neither are the United States and his outlandish criticisms push the US towards more responsive and responsible policies. It is too bad that the congress is now split from the White House. The Democratic party with its skitzophrenic save-the-underdeveloped-world hippy lobby and its don't-deal-with-the-underdeveloped-world labor lobby does not make for good legislative trade partners.
I would like to see the trade deals we hashed out with Peru, Columbia and Panama signed. This may be naive, but I think it gives Latin America an incentive to cooperate and put leverage on the US in the long run. I think that it will hurt as much as it helps in the short term. But if a few countries can get together and say "you guys are consistently being jerks with these common provisions, we want it changed or we are all pulling out" that will get US attention, especially after our industries have gotten used to exports dependent upon the treaties.
NYT Bush in LA Article
Here is a Russian joke:
Two guys are standing next to each other on the street.
First guy says, "how's it going?"
"aw, you know same as always, always a little different" the second guy says, "First everything was bad, bad, bad. But then things suddenly took a turn for the worst. But again now things are just bad, bad, bad."
I'll say this for the joke. It's very Russian. When I get home, I am going to watch a funny movie. A clever, ironic, intelligent and funny movie. But as long as I am here I will grimace and soldier on. The funny thing about fitting in here is that the world seems bleak and you feel generally estranged. And yet somehow I take great comfort in that.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
Some links to thoughts
"The Must Do List"
The list outlines some of the stuff that gets to me, all in convenient list form. I think America's patriotism-identity is founded on an assumption that we are basically good. History of course shows that that assumption is not always safe (just look into Guatemala or Cuba for starters if you have doubts). But the current tactics by our government are pretty much evil. Remember when we were the good guys because the Soviet Union was documentably evil and even if we were not perfect, at least we better than that? That was nice.
It is an opinion article and some of the potential of the article maybe gets hampered in partisanship. One can let the accusation speak for itself without saying (and I paraphrase) "Bush has shown himself untrustworth of exectutive power let along MORE executive power." But when one set of partisans starts looking like apologists for evil, I'll be an apologist for slipping into partisanship.
"Darwin's God"
This is a long article that explores evolutionary explanations for why people (most all people, most everywhere) believe in God or stuff with God-attributes.
Happy wishes for you all and with good dashes of hardship to make the happiness happier.
The list outlines some of the stuff that gets to me, all in convenient list form. I think America's patriotism-identity is founded on an assumption that we are basically good. History of course shows that that assumption is not always safe (just look into Guatemala or Cuba for starters if you have doubts). But the current tactics by our government are pretty much evil. Remember when we were the good guys because the Soviet Union was documentably evil and even if we were not perfect, at least we better than that? That was nice.
It is an opinion article and some of the potential of the article maybe gets hampered in partisanship. One can let the accusation speak for itself without saying (and I paraphrase) "Bush has shown himself untrustworth of exectutive power let along MORE executive power." But when one set of partisans starts looking like apologists for evil, I'll be an apologist for slipping into partisanship.
"Darwin's God"
This is a long article that explores evolutionary explanations for why people (most all people, most everywhere) believe in God or stuff with God-attributes.
Happy wishes for you all and with good dashes of hardship to make the happiness happier.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Solitude and Internationalism
The Boys and I on Defenders of the Nation Day (Man's Day) I apologize for not writing much about Kyrgyzstan or Central Asia. Being in one place for a few months it sort of blurs together. Corruption sucks, but I will probably end up assisting to it if it means I can get one of my students into tech school and thus set for employment and hope outside of hauling boxes at the bazaar. Teaching English is rewarding but in a slow way. The weather has lingered between winter and spring for the last two weeks, precluding any interesting trips.
I did have a “play defense for US policy/role in the world” conversation today. It is hard to explain why one always seems to end up on the defense. I think it is just to try and explain what the non-malevolent motivations are behind malevolent looking policies and postures. It is a good exercise because it helps me see other perspectives both when assessing my (or US) behavior and when assessing others. Anyway, one critique that is a little flat on the surface is that the US’s actions are “illegitimate” or “illegal” because under Bush we have acted unilaterally to a large degree. It is a little flat because internationalism is not so well established that one can say there is a set or laws that one must abide. There may be standards or norms but countries go to war, use economic leverage and bargain for their own advantage all the time. The US just looks worse for a couple of reasons 1) we are bigger and thus more effective at these self-interested tactics. 2) Other people, like Americans, expect more morality from the US than from other countries. But the critique is fundamentally correct, if perhaps naïve.
But I think that in the long run it is in the US’ interest to establish and follow through on international constraints on state behavior and encourage proto-international governance. Why? Because the US is almost certain to have less influence proportionally in the future than it does now. Thus we can shape the system that will constrain the action of future powers.
I’ve been thinking a lot about solitude lately. I have sort of an odd relationship with solitude. On the one hand, solitude makes me feel lonely and a little down. Not despairing and (thus not depressed) because I have never experienced the feeling down as though it would be unending. But sometimes I know that I would be overwhelmingly glad to see an friend from pre-Kyrgyzstan. Due to that feeling, I think I have cultivated a premium on friendships. It looks, and is, downright corny on the instances I let out of the bag. I get greater joy now out of all my relationships from it.
The sadness and modest frustrations have become an opportunity for growth. I almost feel the growth from loneliness or minor regrets (a word too many or few in a conversation and other social faux-pas). Once the modest suffering is perceived as constructive and instructive, it becomes very bearable to the point of being pleasureable. One can then focus not on the suffering but on the cause of the suffering and thus on a way to avoid or reduce it in the future.
Little pains and sufferings are a necessary part of life. But by learning from it and not feeling ourselves to be the victims or irredeemably guilty of it, the joys and light moments should out shine the adversities. Solitude and the change of pace that setting into a far-away routine provides amplifies the suffering and forces us to deal with it head on rather than procrastinate. Being with friends is not a coping mechanism but not having the luxury forces one to see the sources of discontent more clearly and resolve them from the inside-out. In the states it often seems that time to ones’ self is fleeting. Letting it linger for a longer term feels almost like a kind of long term meditation in that something which at home is always changing and demanding our attention becomes suspended.
Something can be gleaned from that, I think, which otherwise may remain illusive. I don’t know what it is, but I would liken it to a wilderness experience, time abroad or a really intense talk with an old friend. Somehow, things get a little clearer. It may not always be fun at the time, but one would not trade it for anything because it immediately becomes a part of one’s very composition.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Gaspin'
Gasp.
Gasp at the interval of not writing.
Gasp for the opportunity to air it out.
Gasp surprised.
Gasp with pleasure.
Gasp yea, verily.
You know when you are really busy for a while. And all the sudden your not and you sort of have to rub your eyes and look around to take in the sudden change in reality mentality. This is like that.
As long as I am out of breath, stupefied and astonished, might as well roll with it. I am astonished with what I’ve done since being here. I am humbled by how much more could and should have been done. And I am familiarly overwhelmed by the crossroads of time. Dang there is a lot of stuff that brings you to where-when you are and so many place-times possible.
The question of the day for me: Is all this Central Asia stuff going to lead to a concretely related future or will it provide a perspective on a relatively disjointed life? Is there a difference? Ow, my headheartsoul aches so good. Is there happiness here long-time stylie or just lots of interest? Won’t know until I find out I suppose.
I’d take great comfort in knowing that a good friend was on a parallel road in the region. But maybe that would push me away. I worry that an aspect to it is proving my specialness to myself and others by dabbling in the Exotic.
I aint special.
That’s reassuring.
I like honesty because it is terrible and beautiful. I think that the most precious things are like that and that they are precious because they are honest, real, and often expressions of humanity. A sunrise is not terrible and war is not beautiful. But in the most human of things it seems they exist together, complimenting each other, undermining each other and providing that attracting repulsive confusion. Like first love unattainable. It consumes us but fills us with insight into the universe.
On auspicious occasions one can sometimes chose to decide if a reality is beautiful or terrible, funny or sad. It may be both but it usually inspires more so in one direction than the other. Our attitude is influence, if not determination, of truth.
Fittingly, there is a downside to seeing both sides of things. The Hamlet complex: Too much smarts for action. Maybe that’s how we can let the Allpowerful Allknowing Allgood off the hook for alllllll the terrible suffering in the world. But that hardly seems perfect. Damned.
The last couple weeks I have been trying to direct my mind towards stillness, openness and observation and away from the din of savage conciousness. The wellness and stillness will come for a lightning moment on the mashrootka or cooking or watching people while I walk somewhere. But I can’t get it to stick around or comeback. It seems to never strike twice.
Climbing has been big for me lately. I am learning how to build anchors and rappel and getting better but all the accomplices are Anglophones. The linguist purist nags at me to keep my distance and my eyes on the prize but I don’t know what the prize is.
Maybe if I win I get a Fulbright.
Accolades. It’s probably accolades. I fucking love accolades.
Alright. So I want to start thinking about how to apply the crazy implications of physics to other parts of reality, less quantifiable but very real parts. Maybe all it does is allow one an excuse for irrationality. But I like to think that it allows one to make sense of some of the paradoxes that define our little life-boat. It came up in a couple topics of conversation over the last week. I want to make a disclaimer that I only talked about this silly-serious stuff four times in the last few weeks. I am not Mr. Serious Pants 24/7.
The first area that it surface in was the trouble with being an ideological liberal. Is it possible to be accepting of all ideas? Even ideas that do not accept a plurality of views? I cleave toward the following objectionable presupposition, any acceptable idea must respect the right of other ideas to exist. It is a paradox. It is even hypocritical. But if the fundamental building blocks of the universe can exist in two places at once, so too can the basis of logic. I think it would be better to leave it to a moral intellectual obligation to question the basis of a totalitarian ideology because persecuting it legally usually just gives it martyr status.
I hang out with my director and her sister here at the end of the day. I practice my Russian, have a glimmer of a social life and they are great. Her sister studies international relations in grad school now, so it was only a matter of time before the US’s role in the world came up. Being from the US, I rushed blindly to defend it. That’s is not exactly true, but it is funny how when you are a US citizen abroad you feel the need to point out the upsides to contrast all the negative impressions of the US. But even though no half-hearted student of history or current affairs could agree with everything the US has done, influenced, not done I think it is good to try and see both sides of the issue. It also reminds me to remember to see things from the other perspective. If you look at things from a Russian or Iranian perspective, they don’t seem crazy at all. Rather, we do.
Right so the US is sort of like particle physics and relativity. Here it is if you measure it one way. There it is if you measure it another. They are both necessarily interconnected but it is hard to see how one actor could have two such divergent behaviors. Look at corruption. On the one hand, Big Players, especially the US because it is the biggest and playing-est, tilt the field in their favor. Or more importantly, they tilt it against smaller poorer developing countries. That’s not fair. It is bad. Its like the Yankees without a salary cap. Everyone (should) hate the Yankees, right? The US engages in corruption and other underhanded, often violent, manipulations of other governments. If you don’t believe me pick up a book about Latin America since the Monroe Doctrine. I mean if you are willing to believe that the Russians, French and Chinese do it, why wouldn’t the US? Just because they are American. That’s not very capitalist-competitive. If the US is one thing, it is capitalist-competitive. No likes a bully. So from that perspective it seems like reform should come from the top-down and that the rich and powerful have a greater moral obligation to play fair.
But then here in Kyrgyzstan I see very little evidence day-to-day that the IMF is the root of all ills. Rather I see people bribe a police officer rather than pay an extra sixty cents. Every form of administration and justice seems to be on auction. I get Western-righteous. The WTO, the World Bank, the IMF and US-based MNCs are a sideshow. Coca-Cola’s got nothing on the illicit market here. People accept corruption as a fact of life. They use it when they can and then grumble about it when they don’t/can’t. The buck always stops at the next tier up. Everybody is a victim just trying to get by in a mean world. And because everyone believes it, it is true.
In such moments of Western-righteousness I say nuts to the Washington Consensus, find a way to make sure you can’t by a MD degree for US $500, reform things so that a 13 year old kid can’t buy his grade for math and pause a moment to consider what you justice system is going to look like when at least 70% of the students at Law School pay bribes. That’s just education.
But both the international hypocrisy and the local hypocrisy are true and should be addressed simultaneously. Neither is an excuse for the other. In physics quantum craziness explains some stuff. Relativity explains other phenomena. We understand both and true and neither as the final truth for all situations. So it is in the world of International Political Economy. The global and the local are mysteriously related, perhaps too complexly for us to ever grasp fully. But to help resolve these problems most successfully we need to work from both sides, Local and Global.
Gasp at the interval of not writing.
Gasp for the opportunity to air it out.
Gasp surprised.
Gasp with pleasure.
Gasp yea, verily.
You know when you are really busy for a while. And all the sudden your not and you sort of have to rub your eyes and look around to take in the sudden change in reality mentality. This is like that.
As long as I am out of breath, stupefied and astonished, might as well roll with it. I am astonished with what I’ve done since being here. I am humbled by how much more could and should have been done. And I am familiarly overwhelmed by the crossroads of time. Dang there is a lot of stuff that brings you to where-when you are and so many place-times possible.
The question of the day for me: Is all this Central Asia stuff going to lead to a concretely related future or will it provide a perspective on a relatively disjointed life? Is there a difference? Ow, my headheartsoul aches so good. Is there happiness here long-time stylie or just lots of interest? Won’t know until I find out I suppose.
I’d take great comfort in knowing that a good friend was on a parallel road in the region. But maybe that would push me away. I worry that an aspect to it is proving my specialness to myself and others by dabbling in the Exotic.
I aint special.
That’s reassuring.
I like honesty because it is terrible and beautiful. I think that the most precious things are like that and that they are precious because they are honest, real, and often expressions of humanity. A sunrise is not terrible and war is not beautiful. But in the most human of things it seems they exist together, complimenting each other, undermining each other and providing that attracting repulsive confusion. Like first love unattainable. It consumes us but fills us with insight into the universe.
On auspicious occasions one can sometimes chose to decide if a reality is beautiful or terrible, funny or sad. It may be both but it usually inspires more so in one direction than the other. Our attitude is influence, if not determination, of truth.
Fittingly, there is a downside to seeing both sides of things. The Hamlet complex: Too much smarts for action. Maybe that’s how we can let the Allpowerful Allknowing Allgood off the hook for alllllll the terrible suffering in the world. But that hardly seems perfect. Damned.
The last couple weeks I have been trying to direct my mind towards stillness, openness and observation and away from the din of savage conciousness. The wellness and stillness will come for a lightning moment on the mashrootka or cooking or watching people while I walk somewhere. But I can’t get it to stick around or comeback. It seems to never strike twice.
Climbing has been big for me lately. I am learning how to build anchors and rappel and getting better but all the accomplices are Anglophones. The linguist purist nags at me to keep my distance and my eyes on the prize but I don’t know what the prize is.
Maybe if I win I get a Fulbright.
Accolades. It’s probably accolades. I fucking love accolades.
Alright. So I want to start thinking about how to apply the crazy implications of physics to other parts of reality, less quantifiable but very real parts. Maybe all it does is allow one an excuse for irrationality. But I like to think that it allows one to make sense of some of the paradoxes that define our little life-boat. It came up in a couple topics of conversation over the last week. I want to make a disclaimer that I only talked about this silly-serious stuff four times in the last few weeks. I am not Mr. Serious Pants 24/7.
The first area that it surface in was the trouble with being an ideological liberal. Is it possible to be accepting of all ideas? Even ideas that do not accept a plurality of views? I cleave toward the following objectionable presupposition, any acceptable idea must respect the right of other ideas to exist. It is a paradox. It is even hypocritical. But if the fundamental building blocks of the universe can exist in two places at once, so too can the basis of logic. I think it would be better to leave it to a moral intellectual obligation to question the basis of a totalitarian ideology because persecuting it legally usually just gives it martyr status.
I hang out with my director and her sister here at the end of the day. I practice my Russian, have a glimmer of a social life and they are great. Her sister studies international relations in grad school now, so it was only a matter of time before the US’s role in the world came up. Being from the US, I rushed blindly to defend it. That’s is not exactly true, but it is funny how when you are a US citizen abroad you feel the need to point out the upsides to contrast all the negative impressions of the US. But even though no half-hearted student of history or current affairs could agree with everything the US has done, influenced, not done I think it is good to try and see both sides of the issue. It also reminds me to remember to see things from the other perspective. If you look at things from a Russian or Iranian perspective, they don’t seem crazy at all. Rather, we do.
Right so the US is sort of like particle physics and relativity. Here it is if you measure it one way. There it is if you measure it another. They are both necessarily interconnected but it is hard to see how one actor could have two such divergent behaviors. Look at corruption. On the one hand, Big Players, especially the US because it is the biggest and playing-est, tilt the field in their favor. Or more importantly, they tilt it against smaller poorer developing countries. That’s not fair. It is bad. Its like the Yankees without a salary cap. Everyone (should) hate the Yankees, right? The US engages in corruption and other underhanded, often violent, manipulations of other governments. If you don’t believe me pick up a book about Latin America since the Monroe Doctrine. I mean if you are willing to believe that the Russians, French and Chinese do it, why wouldn’t the US? Just because they are American. That’s not very capitalist-competitive. If the US is one thing, it is capitalist-competitive. No likes a bully. So from that perspective it seems like reform should come from the top-down and that the rich and powerful have a greater moral obligation to play fair.
But then here in Kyrgyzstan I see very little evidence day-to-day that the IMF is the root of all ills. Rather I see people bribe a police officer rather than pay an extra sixty cents. Every form of administration and justice seems to be on auction. I get Western-righteous. The WTO, the World Bank, the IMF and US-based MNCs are a sideshow. Coca-Cola’s got nothing on the illicit market here. People accept corruption as a fact of life. They use it when they can and then grumble about it when they don’t/can’t. The buck always stops at the next tier up. Everybody is a victim just trying to get by in a mean world. And because everyone believes it, it is true.
In such moments of Western-righteousness I say nuts to the Washington Consensus, find a way to make sure you can’t by a MD degree for US $500, reform things so that a 13 year old kid can’t buy his grade for math and pause a moment to consider what you justice system is going to look like when at least 70% of the students at Law School pay bribes. That’s just education.
But both the international hypocrisy and the local hypocrisy are true and should be addressed simultaneously. Neither is an excuse for the other. In physics quantum craziness explains some stuff. Relativity explains other phenomena. We understand both and true and neither as the final truth for all situations. So it is in the world of International Political Economy. The global and the local are mysteriously related, perhaps too complexly for us to ever grasp fully. But to help resolve these problems most successfully we need to work from both sides, Local and Global.
Friday, February 09, 2007
The Calm: Before, After and/or During the Storm
Life has a feeling of steady busy-ness and an unspectacular contentment about it for the time being. It is strange to realize that I will be out of Kyrgyzstan in only six short weeks. Right now, things feel very unremarkable. But there may be a couple reasons for that. I am already eagerly wading into planning my mountaineer trip for the summer (destination, unknown but remote; duration, between 30-45 days on trail). And after all the excitement and strain of setting into to Kyrgyzstan having a relatively comfy routine is quite unremarkable. This will definitely be a good time to store up thoughts and energy before the whirlwind that is spring and summer in the states.
Teaching at a snails paces adds to the mental molasses. The kids at Osh Bazaar mean well but it took us an hour and a half to review "this/that is" and learn posessive adjectives (my, your, his...). These things all translate directly into Kyrgyz so the tough going is a little odd to me. I keep telling myself that it will be more fun once we get a vocab base.
And languages... Kyrgyz is really funny right now because I can finally string some thoughts together. It always suprises me when my teacher understands. Unfortunately the magic is gone as soon as a walk out the door. I feel like a baby that needs my teacher to translate my gibberish into real Kyrgyz. The Russian is a little better but I also have more luck with those that know me well than new aquaintances.
A funny exception was at the funny bar a friend and I go to after playing football (soccer) on Fridays. The place is great because it was decorated by a schitzofrenic. One room is hunter themed, the next is mountaineering themed (and has a tacky fountain next to an even tackier fake fireplace). The piece-de-resistance of the joint is a room with a cieling tilework of toilet paper rolls. The walls have pictures of windows. One window looks out to the sea, the next onto the Sarangetti and the last onto a forest. A Russian fellow had just "broken up" with his girlfriend of five years. I up it in quotes because it often means they are in a fight. He was out on the town with his brother, the greco-roman wrestling champion of Central Asia. After a long conversation about how the heartbroken gentleman had just gotten back from a week in London ("After 3 days I had taken all the pictures, seen everything and was homesick") my thin friend challenged his brother (wrestling champion) to arm wrestling. Having had luck with usual alcoholics and scruffy kids that strike up conversations and arm wrestles in bars in the past, my friend's self-respect was utterly shattered. After graciously but firmly refusing to go "meet up with special prostitutes" I went home. But, now that we are best friends for life, I get 20% off at a local retail clothing store.
Teaching at a snails paces adds to the mental molasses. The kids at Osh Bazaar mean well but it took us an hour and a half to review "this/that is" and learn posessive adjectives (my, your, his...). These things all translate directly into Kyrgyz so the tough going is a little odd to me. I keep telling myself that it will be more fun once we get a vocab base.
And languages... Kyrgyz is really funny right now because I can finally string some thoughts together. It always suprises me when my teacher understands. Unfortunately the magic is gone as soon as a walk out the door. I feel like a baby that needs my teacher to translate my gibberish into real Kyrgyz. The Russian is a little better but I also have more luck with those that know me well than new aquaintances.
A funny exception was at the funny bar a friend and I go to after playing football (soccer) on Fridays. The place is great because it was decorated by a schitzofrenic. One room is hunter themed, the next is mountaineering themed (and has a tacky fountain next to an even tackier fake fireplace). The piece-de-resistance of the joint is a room with a cieling tilework of toilet paper rolls. The walls have pictures of windows. One window looks out to the sea, the next onto the Sarangetti and the last onto a forest. A Russian fellow had just "broken up" with his girlfriend of five years. I up it in quotes because it often means they are in a fight. He was out on the town with his brother, the greco-roman wrestling champion of Central Asia. After a long conversation about how the heartbroken gentleman had just gotten back from a week in London ("After 3 days I had taken all the pictures, seen everything and was homesick") my thin friend challenged his brother (wrestling champion) to arm wrestling. Having had luck with usual alcoholics and scruffy kids that strike up conversations and arm wrestles in bars in the past, my friend's self-respect was utterly shattered. After graciously but firmly refusing to go "meet up with special prostitutes" I went home. But, now that we are best friends for life, I get 20% off at a local retail clothing store.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Consciousness and Determinism
I picked up “the universe in a single atom” by the Dalai Lama this weekend. Thanks to the Dad and Jane for mailing me books out here! I always get a lot from reading the Lama; his thoughts are nuanced but holistic and profound as well as humble. The book is an attempt to discuss the implications of science for spirituality, critiquing at times, but most often calling for acceptation, adaptation and reconciliation on the part religious schools. I hope that I have distorted his ideas in this entry.
I found one particular point of his regarding consciousness to be particularly cogent to me (he used the word ‘cogent,’ so I decided I can too). He noted that in Buddhist philosophy the “mind,” encompassing perceptive, rational and emotive consciousness, is “luminous and knowing.” Luminous refers to the ability to interpret and reflect and knowing meaning perceiving. The implication is described by a metaphor,
“As the primary feature of light is to illuminate, so consciousness is said to illuminated its objects. Just as in light there is no categorical distinction between the illumination and that which illuminates, so in consciousness there is no real difference between the process of knowing or cognition and that which knows or cognizes. In consciousness, as in light, there is a quality of illumination” (125).
The Lama goes on to assert that most Tibetan and Indian schools cannot reduce mental world to “a subset of the physical.” This is somewhat at odds with neurobiology, which has been pushing scientific understanding toward a more deterministic understanding of consciousness such that our biological and genetic predispositions combined with sensory inputs determine our feelings, responses and actions and by extension, our consciousness.
I think that the Lama’s analogy is revealing. Like the inseperability between space and time introduced by relativity consciousness and reality may indeed be inter-dependent. I believe The Lama errors however when he associates inter-dependence to indistinguishability and thus with no determinism. By introducing this credible issue of indistinguishability, The Dalai Lama casts doubt on the material basis of consciousness. Or at a minimum he suggests that consciousness is a two-way street such that both brain chemistry affects our conscious state and that our conscious state may affect our brain chemistry. I perhaps agree with the conclusion but I would alter the argument.
But to consider Buddhisms analogy of the objects and illumination, is it possible for the objects to conceivably exist without the illumination? Yes, they would still exist as essentially the same objects minus some characteristics that are incoherent in a universe without illumination. Could illumination exist without objects? No, illumination is differentiation of light and that requires matter. Therefore it is matter that is determines consciousness, though the existence of consciousness alters (though does not determine) the existence of matter.
The Lama admits aversion to the notion that the matter determines consciousness, because, I believe, it weakens the centrality of the main concerns of Buddhism: morality, alleviation of suffering and attainment of happiness and perhaps even whispers nihilism and the irrelevance of moral orders. I assert that while some ground may be lost to moral relativism, there is still plenty of room for consciousness to operate as a powerful affective agent of material reality, if not as a co-determinate.
There are a few concepts that may be fitting analogies/examples of this position. Before the Big Bang, at which time The Dalai Lama (informed by contemporary physicists) asserts that all matter and space-time existed as a singularity. The laws of physics that govern the universe after the Big Bang (and inform our understanding of it) break down at this singularity. Nevertheless, this linguistically incoherent state determined our contemporary spacio-temporal universe. In one sense they are continuous in that at no point is one moment-place divorced from the precedent and following moment-place. Yet over a broader perspective they are clearly distinguishable, in one state the laws of physics apply, in the other they do not. A similar distinction seems plausible pre- and post-consciousness. In fact, as consciousness changes it is conceivable that our universe undergoes change. It seems impossible but quantum physics shows that the measurement of a quality is often deterministic.
A person is more than the sum of body parts, so too may consciousness be more than the sum of the material inputs that compose it.
Basically I would put forward that, at least for now, there may be a middle way that allows consciousness to be fundamental determined by material reality but that allows for consciousness to significantly affect our perception material reality.
This has some basis in my experience and the experience friends have shared with me. My friend Ben describes how certain locations, New Mexico and Washington, have distinct (though sometimes overlapping) realities. When he is in either of these places he feels connected with that “loop” of reality consisting of the people, places and past he experiences in either NM or WA.
For me, traveling in the wilderness with friends allowed me to appreciate the relativity of space-and-time. Going far away without friends has given me some perspective on consciousness and the relationships that, for me, define it. Also, I like wilderness and world travel because they are interesting in their own right as well as revealing of different perspectives. The ideas are related but I don’t want to give the impression that I sit in Bishkek and ponder the nature of consciousness all day.
The upswing of all of this is that I think there is firm ground to say that consciousness affects reality. So it makes sense to be kind, compassionate and understanding as that may disperse positivity and enhance the interconnected reality we share for the better. So even if our consciousness originates from the material world, The Dalai Lama’s quest is not irrelevant.
I found one particular point of his regarding consciousness to be particularly cogent to me (he used the word ‘cogent,’ so I decided I can too). He noted that in Buddhist philosophy the “mind,” encompassing perceptive, rational and emotive consciousness, is “luminous and knowing.” Luminous refers to the ability to interpret and reflect and knowing meaning perceiving. The implication is described by a metaphor,
“As the primary feature of light is to illuminate, so consciousness is said to illuminated its objects. Just as in light there is no categorical distinction between the illumination and that which illuminates, so in consciousness there is no real difference between the process of knowing or cognition and that which knows or cognizes. In consciousness, as in light, there is a quality of illumination” (125).
The Lama goes on to assert that most Tibetan and Indian schools cannot reduce mental world to “a subset of the physical.” This is somewhat at odds with neurobiology, which has been pushing scientific understanding toward a more deterministic understanding of consciousness such that our biological and genetic predispositions combined with sensory inputs determine our feelings, responses and actions and by extension, our consciousness.
I think that the Lama’s analogy is revealing. Like the inseperability between space and time introduced by relativity consciousness and reality may indeed be inter-dependent. I believe The Lama errors however when he associates inter-dependence to indistinguishability and thus with no determinism. By introducing this credible issue of indistinguishability, The Dalai Lama casts doubt on the material basis of consciousness. Or at a minimum he suggests that consciousness is a two-way street such that both brain chemistry affects our conscious state and that our conscious state may affect our brain chemistry. I perhaps agree with the conclusion but I would alter the argument.
But to consider Buddhisms analogy of the objects and illumination, is it possible for the objects to conceivably exist without the illumination? Yes, they would still exist as essentially the same objects minus some characteristics that are incoherent in a universe without illumination. Could illumination exist without objects? No, illumination is differentiation of light and that requires matter. Therefore it is matter that is determines consciousness, though the existence of consciousness alters (though does not determine) the existence of matter.
The Lama admits aversion to the notion that the matter determines consciousness, because, I believe, it weakens the centrality of the main concerns of Buddhism: morality, alleviation of suffering and attainment of happiness and perhaps even whispers nihilism and the irrelevance of moral orders. I assert that while some ground may be lost to moral relativism, there is still plenty of room for consciousness to operate as a powerful affective agent of material reality, if not as a co-determinate.
There are a few concepts that may be fitting analogies/examples of this position. Before the Big Bang, at which time The Dalai Lama (informed by contemporary physicists) asserts that all matter and space-time existed as a singularity. The laws of physics that govern the universe after the Big Bang (and inform our understanding of it) break down at this singularity. Nevertheless, this linguistically incoherent state determined our contemporary spacio-temporal universe. In one sense they are continuous in that at no point is one moment-place divorced from the precedent and following moment-place. Yet over a broader perspective they are clearly distinguishable, in one state the laws of physics apply, in the other they do not. A similar distinction seems plausible pre- and post-consciousness. In fact, as consciousness changes it is conceivable that our universe undergoes change. It seems impossible but quantum physics shows that the measurement of a quality is often deterministic.
A person is more than the sum of body parts, so too may consciousness be more than the sum of the material inputs that compose it.
Basically I would put forward that, at least for now, there may be a middle way that allows consciousness to be fundamental determined by material reality but that allows for consciousness to significantly affect our perception material reality.
This has some basis in my experience and the experience friends have shared with me. My friend Ben describes how certain locations, New Mexico and Washington, have distinct (though sometimes overlapping) realities. When he is in either of these places he feels connected with that “loop” of reality consisting of the people, places and past he experiences in either NM or WA.
For me, traveling in the wilderness with friends allowed me to appreciate the relativity of space-and-time. Going far away without friends has given me some perspective on consciousness and the relationships that, for me, define it. Also, I like wilderness and world travel because they are interesting in their own right as well as revealing of different perspectives. The ideas are related but I don’t want to give the impression that I sit in Bishkek and ponder the nature of consciousness all day.
The upswing of all of this is that I think there is firm ground to say that consciousness affects reality. So it makes sense to be kind, compassionate and understanding as that may disperse positivity and enhance the interconnected reality we share for the better. So even if our consciousness originates from the material world, The Dalai Lama’s quest is not irrelevant.
Friday, February 02, 2007
A lurchy struggling entry
One nice thing about students is that they are generally self-selecting as long as the class is not mandatory and the expectations high enough. As a result I've managed to shed about a quarter of the class at Osh Bazaar. While the benefits for the socially marginalized out state diaspora children may be negligible, the effect on my job satisfaction is good. I may have even managed to scare off a whole class by asking for lump-sum payment for a month. My middle-class students did not show up today, perhaps due to the depressing weather but more likely intimidated by the commitment. That is okay, I only want commited students. This is hypocritical because I will only be here for two more months but, that's life.
I read/edited a disturbing piece by my grad-school friend here that qualitatively documents a serious problem in Kyrgyzstan today: corruption of education. Kids as young as grade school buy their grades. Many parents even encourage it, diluted that their only child/oldest child is God's gift to grade-school and therefore and fault must lie with the teacher (if you have to bribe them so be it, so long as sonny gets a '5'). Her work focused on the Medical Academy here. A survey revealed (performed by a professional organization) revealed that 59% of students have paid for grades. MED STUDENTS. My lexicon is not advanced enough to express my disbelief without four letter words and exclamation points.
There is a whole range of methods to do it ranging from phone calls from powerful relatives to utilizing students with buddy-buddy relationships with professors to flat up ballsy go into the office with some cash and buy a grade.
There are lots of layers to the problem, most of them reinforcing and typical of underdeveloped countries (according to the little academia I have familiarized myself with). First the teachers are over-worked with class hours loads several times that of their US/European counter-parts. The result is that teaching becomes rote, undynamic, uninspiring, and uninteresting. It would follow that anyone in a job with the precedant adjectives would take little pride in their work. And people are underpaid. So if Richie Rich wants to buy a 5 and I can afford a non-Soviet TV, why not?
The students may be overworked too... they have to take stupid classes in Med School like Bibliography, sociology and foreign language. Making people with very specific professional goals study very tangential subjects is a recipe for justification of cheating and grade-buying.
I think the main problem, however, lies in the students. The ability to pay for grades generally benefits the students most of all. They are able to finesse the $/free-time ratio and still get the comfortable life-style persumably earned by rigorous study and excellent talent associated with doctors. But they complain how the professors are corrupt while they pay the bribes. In otherwords their is no ownership of responsibility for the problem. This is a general problem here (and everywhere). People complain about the corruption but when it comes down to waiting in line for a week or paying the bribe, most people pay the bribe.
After an hour of no progress in a line that seemed to have neither beginning or end, I would probably pay the $5 too. There are degrees of evil when it comes to corruption and I think that buying anatomy grades as a med-student is somewhere between cutting in line at the DMV and assisting a heroine trafficker.
I guess the point is that watching great chunks of decent people let engage in tacit support for corruption has refueled that self-righteous fire of self-accountability. So next time I get irritated about global waming (see NYT article 1 and NYT article 2, if the NYT is too leftist for you I've gone some old fashioned British libertarians at the Economist too), I get angry about world povery or US foreign poilicy, I am going to do a little something to change my own consumption patterns.
Then by all means, write I plan to write my congressmen.
I read/edited a disturbing piece by my grad-school friend here that qualitatively documents a serious problem in Kyrgyzstan today: corruption of education. Kids as young as grade school buy their grades. Many parents even encourage it, diluted that their only child/oldest child is God's gift to grade-school and therefore and fault must lie with the teacher (if you have to bribe them so be it, so long as sonny gets a '5'). Her work focused on the Medical Academy here. A survey revealed (performed by a professional organization) revealed that 59% of students have paid for grades. MED STUDENTS. My lexicon is not advanced enough to express my disbelief without four letter words and exclamation points.
There is a whole range of methods to do it ranging from phone calls from powerful relatives to utilizing students with buddy-buddy relationships with professors to flat up ballsy go into the office with some cash and buy a grade.
There are lots of layers to the problem, most of them reinforcing and typical of underdeveloped countries (according to the little academia I have familiarized myself with). First the teachers are over-worked with class hours loads several times that of their US/European counter-parts. The result is that teaching becomes rote, undynamic, uninspiring, and uninteresting. It would follow that anyone in a job with the precedant adjectives would take little pride in their work. And people are underpaid. So if Richie Rich wants to buy a 5 and I can afford a non-Soviet TV, why not?
The students may be overworked too... they have to take stupid classes in Med School like Bibliography, sociology and foreign language. Making people with very specific professional goals study very tangential subjects is a recipe for justification of cheating and grade-buying.
I think the main problem, however, lies in the students. The ability to pay for grades generally benefits the students most of all. They are able to finesse the $/free-time ratio and still get the comfortable life-style persumably earned by rigorous study and excellent talent associated with doctors. But they complain how the professors are corrupt while they pay the bribes. In otherwords their is no ownership of responsibility for the problem. This is a general problem here (and everywhere). People complain about the corruption but when it comes down to waiting in line for a week or paying the bribe, most people pay the bribe.
After an hour of no progress in a line that seemed to have neither beginning or end, I would probably pay the $5 too. There are degrees of evil when it comes to corruption and I think that buying anatomy grades as a med-student is somewhere between cutting in line at the DMV and assisting a heroine trafficker.
I guess the point is that watching great chunks of decent people let engage in tacit support for corruption has refueled that self-righteous fire of self-accountability. So next time I get irritated about global waming (see NYT article 1 and NYT article 2, if the NYT is too leftist for you I've gone some old fashioned British libertarians at the Economist too), I get angry about world povery or US foreign poilicy, I am going to do a little something to change my own consumption patterns.
Then by all means, write I plan to write my congressmen.
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