The Ethics of Importance - Reflections on Tsunamis
Why we pay attention
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Ok, my beef is with the idiots who torched the library. THE Library. You know, the world library at Alexandria, where the collected wisdom of virtually all mankind West of India and East of the Americas resided. All that lore and history and science and myth and poetry - gone. And who is to blame? Allegedly the Moslem hordes, proclaiming that the only book necessary is the Koran. But wait, it turns out that the library was burned, partially or totally, on several occasions over the centuries. Nonetheless, the tragedy of the distillation of human progress going up in flames like a piece of worthless timber almost makes me weep just to contemplate it.
Then there was the Thera Event , which devestated the ancient world around 1600 BC. There is arguable evidence that it was involved directly in the fall of the highly advanced Minoan civilization to Greek raiders and pirates, scavanging in the aftermath. The Minoans were centuries ahead of anyone else at the time in technology and art, and their destruction by relative barbarians set human progress back, perhaps by several centuries.
My mind turns to these two cases because for me the advance of civilization and reason and science and technology and art is important. People have died for as long as there have been people. One day soon we may fix that - or at least drastically postpone our demise, and when we do, it will be mostly because of all the advances made before us. The recent disaster in the Indian Ocean area was not totally unimportant - certainly not for the individuals directly involved - but in real terms, it was a drop in the bucket, unlikely to have any significant impact on general progress. Sure it looks horrific, and the personal tragedies are just as real there as anywhere else, but how many people bothered to really pay attention to the mass murders in Ruanda? As opposed to the next episode of "The Practice?" Or, what was happening in the Chandra Levy investigation?
We discount the triumphs and tragedies of others largely based on their percieved relevance to our own personal needs and goals. This is inevitable, almost tautalogical. As I said, for me that progress of humanity in terms of science and technology - and ethics, etc., is critically important. There ain't no angels out there waiting to rescue us or reward us for being good. There's just us, and we are within shouting distance of some real breakthroughs - such as indefinite life extension. I'm willing to put considerable effort into making it happen, as I hope to be one of the beneficiaries. And, even if I personally don't make it to "the Singularity," what greater task is there to be a part of. But, we could blow it.
The librarians were doubtless proud beyond measure of the great library of Alexandria, with its million volumes, an almost inconceivable triumph for its time. And the Minoans no doubt felt secure in their advanced culture that they were the leading lights of humanity, destined to ultimately illuminate the world with their accomplishments. Never could they have concieved that it all was going for naught, that only thousands of years later would archeologists discover how far they had progressed, sifting through ancient rubble and ash.
Like the mass murders in Ruanda, we implicitly discount events separated from us by time or distance. In terms of actual impact on humanity as a whole, the fall of the Minoans may have been worse than the holocaust of World Wars 1 and 2 combined, but it takes a bit of study to parse out what is important in this long-term sense, and what is trivial.
Aristotle was important. His ideas were the intellectual springboard of Western and ultimatley global progress, laying the foundation for logic and the scientific method. Similarly, Isaac Newton, who, building on the base of logic created by Aristotle, demonstrated that the world could be understood as a whole, an insight perhaps as important as his virtual creation of physics and calculus. From that implicit insight into the ultimate nature of reality, we see springing forth diverse applications, such as John Locke and the host of philosophers whose aim was to bring to human relations a similar coherancy, and whose efforts resulted in our modern democracies and whatever superior institutions may follow them in future times, or the medical pioneers who refused to accept the idea that disease was simply a fact, a divine judgement.
Perhaps there were Aristotles or Newtons or Lockes among the victims of the recent Tsunamis. That is probably unknowable, but statistically unlikely. And it does not appear that anything the equivalent of Minoan Crete has been lost. While we mourn the useless deaths and the destruction of the life work of tens of thousands of our fellow humans, before we simply go on in our daily lives, we might ask what allows us to go on, forgetting such an event in the days and weeks that follow. Should we feel guilty? Or should we take this as a sign that perhaps we ought to inquire into what it is that we really value in fact, if not in lip service?
The great unknown territory for most people of today's humanity is in fact the question of real value. What is value? Is it just something we instinctively know, from supernatural causation, or embedded irrevocable instinct? That makes little sense - particularly from the basic Western perspective that the universe is knowable, which itself requires the corrolary that we have the capability of testing and challenging our most fundamental beliefs, yet most people are clearly adrift when they come to this topic, taking whatever melange of socially absorbed values as if God handed them down. And many people do exactly hold that opinion. God decides what is of value and you had better go along with the great dictator in the sky - or else!
But from that standpoint, taken literally, whatever God has allegedly dictated should be the most important thing in your life. And unless you think that God has some preference for people born in North America, or perhaps with paler skins, then the deaths of tens of thousands of unforgiven doomed sinners in SouthEast Asia should be considered a major tragedy, and you should be dedicating your very lives to doing something about it... Right?
But, regardless of all the lip service and the sermons for the Sunday Christians, most of us will go on surfing, gambling in Vegas to prove that we're winners, buying monster RVs, and in general doing what makes us feel good. But that's begging the question now, isn't it? What makes us feel good is when we see our values realized. We still simply accept a set of values without question, with perhaps consistency our only check or moderator.
My contention here is that most of us are essentially zombies, not because of any genetic deficiency or demonic possession, but simply because we never challenge those basic assumptions we accepted when we were too young and ignorant to do otherwise. Values are chosen! They can be correct or incorrect, like any other choice. Breaking free of the idea that any particular set of values cannot be questioned is essential to being human and free. A person who does not challenge his values is basically a slave to the choices of others. In fact, it is worse than mere slavery, as the slave can still plot and work to free himself, but those who unthinkingly accept values and refuse to question them have no hope of freedom. Willy-nilly they follow like robots the program they have been handed, shying away in terror from doubt, lest God or their Mother, whose disembodied voice has taken up residence inside their skulls, strike them down for their arrogance.
And the costs of that failure are a LOT more catastrophic than any mere geological event.
My reading suggestions for those who might think that this is a real issue in their lives:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
The Ego and His Own by Max Stirner
The above authors are not authorities - although some will doubtless try to take them that way - but rather guides, fellow explorers in a land virtually undiscovered. As such, they can be expected to take many false turns. But, they are not responsible for your choices - or failure to chose. You are. It is your choice to be human or robotic slave.
Have a good trip.
Then there was the Thera Event , which devestated the ancient world around 1600 BC. There is arguable evidence that it was involved directly in the fall of the highly advanced Minoan civilization to Greek raiders and pirates, scavanging in the aftermath. The Minoans were centuries ahead of anyone else at the time in technology and art, and their destruction by relative barbarians set human progress back, perhaps by several centuries.
My mind turns to these two cases because for me the advance of civilization and reason and science and technology and art is important. People have died for as long as there have been people. One day soon we may fix that - or at least drastically postpone our demise, and when we do, it will be mostly because of all the advances made before us. The recent disaster in the Indian Ocean area was not totally unimportant - certainly not for the individuals directly involved - but in real terms, it was a drop in the bucket, unlikely to have any significant impact on general progress. Sure it looks horrific, and the personal tragedies are just as real there as anywhere else, but how many people bothered to really pay attention to the mass murders in Ruanda? As opposed to the next episode of "The Practice?" Or, what was happening in the Chandra Levy investigation?
We discount the triumphs and tragedies of others largely based on their percieved relevance to our own personal needs and goals. This is inevitable, almost tautalogical. As I said, for me that progress of humanity in terms of science and technology - and ethics, etc., is critically important. There ain't no angels out there waiting to rescue us or reward us for being good. There's just us, and we are within shouting distance of some real breakthroughs - such as indefinite life extension. I'm willing to put considerable effort into making it happen, as I hope to be one of the beneficiaries. And, even if I personally don't make it to "the Singularity," what greater task is there to be a part of. But, we could blow it.
The librarians were doubtless proud beyond measure of the great library of Alexandria, with its million volumes, an almost inconceivable triumph for its time. And the Minoans no doubt felt secure in their advanced culture that they were the leading lights of humanity, destined to ultimately illuminate the world with their accomplishments. Never could they have concieved that it all was going for naught, that only thousands of years later would archeologists discover how far they had progressed, sifting through ancient rubble and ash.
Like the mass murders in Ruanda, we implicitly discount events separated from us by time or distance. In terms of actual impact on humanity as a whole, the fall of the Minoans may have been worse than the holocaust of World Wars 1 and 2 combined, but it takes a bit of study to parse out what is important in this long-term sense, and what is trivial.
Aristotle was important. His ideas were the intellectual springboard of Western and ultimatley global progress, laying the foundation for logic and the scientific method. Similarly, Isaac Newton, who, building on the base of logic created by Aristotle, demonstrated that the world could be understood as a whole, an insight perhaps as important as his virtual creation of physics and calculus. From that implicit insight into the ultimate nature of reality, we see springing forth diverse applications, such as John Locke and the host of philosophers whose aim was to bring to human relations a similar coherancy, and whose efforts resulted in our modern democracies and whatever superior institutions may follow them in future times, or the medical pioneers who refused to accept the idea that disease was simply a fact, a divine judgement.
Perhaps there were Aristotles or Newtons or Lockes among the victims of the recent Tsunamis. That is probably unknowable, but statistically unlikely. And it does not appear that anything the equivalent of Minoan Crete has been lost. While we mourn the useless deaths and the destruction of the life work of tens of thousands of our fellow humans, before we simply go on in our daily lives, we might ask what allows us to go on, forgetting such an event in the days and weeks that follow. Should we feel guilty? Or should we take this as a sign that perhaps we ought to inquire into what it is that we really value in fact, if not in lip service?
The great unknown territory for most people of today's humanity is in fact the question of real value. What is value? Is it just something we instinctively know, from supernatural causation, or embedded irrevocable instinct? That makes little sense - particularly from the basic Western perspective that the universe is knowable, which itself requires the corrolary that we have the capability of testing and challenging our most fundamental beliefs, yet most people are clearly adrift when they come to this topic, taking whatever melange of socially absorbed values as if God handed them down. And many people do exactly hold that opinion. God decides what is of value and you had better go along with the great dictator in the sky - or else!
But from that standpoint, taken literally, whatever God has allegedly dictated should be the most important thing in your life. And unless you think that God has some preference for people born in North America, or perhaps with paler skins, then the deaths of tens of thousands of unforgiven doomed sinners in SouthEast Asia should be considered a major tragedy, and you should be dedicating your very lives to doing something about it... Right?
But, regardless of all the lip service and the sermons for the Sunday Christians, most of us will go on surfing, gambling in Vegas to prove that we're winners, buying monster RVs, and in general doing what makes us feel good. But that's begging the question now, isn't it? What makes us feel good is when we see our values realized. We still simply accept a set of values without question, with perhaps consistency our only check or moderator.
My contention here is that most of us are essentially zombies, not because of any genetic deficiency or demonic possession, but simply because we never challenge those basic assumptions we accepted when we were too young and ignorant to do otherwise. Values are chosen! They can be correct or incorrect, like any other choice. Breaking free of the idea that any particular set of values cannot be questioned is essential to being human and free. A person who does not challenge his values is basically a slave to the choices of others. In fact, it is worse than mere slavery, as the slave can still plot and work to free himself, but those who unthinkingly accept values and refuse to question them have no hope of freedom. Willy-nilly they follow like robots the program they have been handed, shying away in terror from doubt, lest God or their Mother, whose disembodied voice has taken up residence inside their skulls, strike them down for their arrogance.
And the costs of that failure are a LOT more catastrophic than any mere geological event.
My reading suggestions for those who might think that this is a real issue in their lives:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
The Ego and His Own by Max Stirner
The above authors are not authorities - although some will doubtless try to take them that way - but rather guides, fellow explorers in a land virtually undiscovered. As such, they can be expected to take many false turns. But, they are not responsible for your choices - or failure to chose. You are. It is your choice to be human or robotic slave.
Have a good trip.
