Tag: Philosophy

Philosophical fate of AI and Humans

Alan Turing was the very first person in the world to formally ask- “Can machines think?” The ideas he presented in his famous paper has laid the pathways leading to the creation of modern computer science and today and tomorrow of artificial intelligence. There is no doubt that there will be a time when machines would be able to think just like humans do, but that should not be a negative aspect. There will be practical limitations to a human-like thinking machine too. So, the game would never be single sided. This should push humanity on a completely new path of evolution. That is also how we have become the humans we are today from the primitive apes.

Alan Turing’s world famous paper on future of human-like thinking ability in machines

The holy doubt – “Can machines think?”

We all know how modern machines/ computers have great abilities to make systematic thinking and take decisions accordingly; this is obviously attributed to the very programming embedded into them by us human beings. Many breakthroughs in storage capacities of computers, size of computers, efficiency of these machines, computation capabilities, evolution of programing languages, intersection of neuroscience and computer science, accessibility of these highly powerful machines to masses have shown world that such machines can do amazing marvels.

You know where I am going with this. Not mentioning Artificial Intelligence in these breakthroughs would be a straight crime. AI has unlocked a totally different capability in computing for which some are optimistic and some are fearful. In a crude sense, how AI stands out from other concepts of computing is its ability to change it programming to achieve given goal. This concept is very normal even for today’s child.

But, would you be open to such self-programming machine 75 years ago? A time when there were only mechanical calculators, electronic computers were in their infancy and were created only for certain restricted problem solving and number crunching. Even the experts of those times found this idea foolish because of the practical limitations of those times. How could a machine think like a human being when for doing some mechanical number crunching it takes such many resources, doesn’t have its own consciousness, its own soul, has no emotions to react to given stimuli? In simple words “thinking” is somehow associated as a special ability humans got because of the soul they have, the conscience they have (granted by nature, the Creator, the Almighty, the God or whatever but some higher power)

It is our tendency as human beings to have this notion of being superior species amongst all which brings in the confidence that machines cannot think. That is why this idea seemed foolish, but now we are comfortable (to some extent but not completely) with the idea of thinking machines.     

Alan Turing – a British mathematician, the code breaker of Enigma, the man who made Britain remain strategically resilient in World War 2, the Father of theoretical computer science wrote a paper which laid down the blueprint of what the future with AI would look like. For the times when this paper was published all the ideas were seemingly imaginary, impractical, and totally impossible to bring into the reality. But as the times changed, Alan’s ideas have become more and more important for the times in which we are living in and the coming future of Artificial Intelligence.

Weirdly enough, this paper which laid the foundations of artificial intelligence – thinking machines was published in journal of psychology and philosophy called “Mind”.

The world-famous concept of ‘Turing Test’ is explained by Alan in this very paper. He called this test as a game – an “Imitation Game”.

The paper reflects the genius of Alan Turing and how he had the foresight of the future – the future with thinking machine. After reading this paper you will appreciate why and how Alan was able to exactly point out every problem that would rise in future and their solutions. He was only limited by the advancements not happened in his time.

The Imitation Game   

Alan posed a simple question in this paper –

Can machines think?

The answer today (even after 75 years) is of course a straight “NO”. (Deep down we are realizing that even though machines can’t think they are way closer to copying the actions involved in thinking or “imitating” a thinking living thing)

The genius of Alan Turing was to pose practicality to find the answers to this question. He created very logical arguments in this paper where he used the technique of proof by contradiction to prove the feasibility of creating such ‘thinking machine’. The AI which has evolved today is the very result of following Alan’s blueprint for making thinking machines.

The famous Turing Test – the Imitation game is a game where an interrogator has to tell the difference between a machine and a human being by the responses they give to his/her questions.

The machine is not expected to think like humans but at least imitate them. The responses may feel completely human but it is not a condition or compulsion that machine should exactly think like a person. This practicality introduced by Alan and his arguments built upon this idea shows what are our limitations when we are actually thinking or making any decisions. This paper will change and also challenge the way we think or do anything. This paper might humble you if you think that we are superior beings because we can think and have/ express emotions. (Trust me you would also question ‘What is love?’ if love was your next answer to justify our superiority after reading this paper but that is not what Alan was focusing when he wrote this paper.)

The idea is not about creating an artificial replica of human, it is to create a machine which would respond just like humans do, the goal is to make their responses indistinguishable from ‘real’ human beings.

There are hundreds of simplified explanations on Turing test (ask Chat GPT if you want) which Alan has discussed in this paper but that is not my interest of discussion hereon.

I will be focusing only on the arguments made by Alan to prove why it is completely practical to create human-like thinking machines. My intent in doing so is that to show how we as humans can also be challenged by our practical limitations. These arguments also show a way to humans where they will get overpowered/ surpassed by AI. This does not mean that AI will eradicate humanity, rather it shows new pathways in which humanity would evolve. So, for me the arguments end on an optimistic note. Surely AI will take over the things which make us who we are but it will also push us into some completely unconventional pathways of rediscovery as the smart species.

The way in which Alan intended the Imitation game was the mode of question-answers – an interview. You would question why didn’t he think of a challenge where exact human like machine need to be created – that would be more challenging for the machines. I think, the idea behind rejecting the necessity for a machine to be in human form is like this-

The creation of human body is very similar to cloning a human body or augmenting the human parts to a mechanical skeleton. What is more difficult is to impart the consciousness and the awareness which is (supposedly) responsible to impart thinking in humans. So, even if a fully developed machine exactly looking like human being is in front of you and you are unable to tell that it is a machine, the moment that human-like machine would start expressing its thoughts everything would be easily given away.

In simple words, Alan was confident that the biological marvels, genetic engineering, cell engineering would easily take us to the physical replication of human form. What would be difficult is to create a set of logics (or self-thinking mechanism) which would demonstrate human like (thinking) capabilities. And such abilities can easily be checked by mere one on one conversation. Such was the genius of Alan Turing to bring such complexities using this simple experiment of Imitation Game.

We as human beings have certain insights, intuitions (I don’t want to use this word but don’t have any alternative word) which gives away if it is a machine or a human.

What Alan did masterfully and why he deserves full credit is that he pointed out the factors which can make machines respond and ‘think’ more like humans. While creating the confusions about the nature of human mind, consciousness, awareness, thoughts and their limitations and ambiguity, Alan also gave the possible arguments to solve these confusions.

Alan proves that human-like thinking machines can be created and he proves this by contradiction of the objections raised against this idea. I am diving deep into these objections hereon:

  1. The theological objection

The rigor that Alan used to prove his point deserves appreciation. Despite being a logical thinker and mathematician, he cared to answer the religious point of view, he wanted no stone left unturned while making an argument.

Alan aggressively (verbally) hammered the idea of God’s exclusivity to grant the immortal soul to only humans, the soul responsible to make humans think. Alan says that if soul is the reason, then animals have souls too. The true comparison then should be between living and nonliving things to support the point that machines cannot think. It is because they are nonliving things they have no soul so they cannot think.

But if the great almighty can give soul to an animal, then why this omnipotent God decided to not give same souls to the machines? Alan knew that any blind theologian would find a contrived argument to prove this idea but he clarifies his point by presenting the historical mistakes religious institutes committed because the truth was hard to swallow. Alan gives the examples of Galileo who presented that earth was not the center of the universe, against the ideas of Church. Later church was proved wrong.

So, even if the religious arguments may seem easy to understand, easy to ‘swallow’ but if they are not fitting in the logic, it makes no sense to take them forward. The theological inconsistency ‘As machines have no soul granted by the God, they cannot think like humans’ which Alan pointed out  was totally false. He justifies this point using the logic of God remaining the ultimate creator.

Alan explained that if we are stealing the powers of God to create a human-like thinking ‘thing’ its not a crime or a blasphemy. Does procreating and making children “to whom also God grants the soul for thinking” mean crime? In similar spirit ‘machines’ – thinking machines are our children whom to God should bless with his powers.    

“In attempting to construct such machines we should not be irreverently usurping His power of creating souls, any more than we are in the procreation of children: rather we are, in either case, instruments of His will providing mansions for the souls that He creates.”

No doubt he would also have been a great priest if he had thought of changing his career to theology.

  1. The ‘Heads in the Sand’ objection

Alan gives worst case scenarios on the superiority of human species out of all species. What if we are “the superior” species? If that is true then there is no reason to worry about thinking machines, they won’t surpass us.

But what if what we know is wrong? We have been proven wrong many times in history. What if we are not the superior species? Then there is no sense in blindly believing that we are superior. Rather this illusion of superiority steels us from the chances to fight the battle of superiority.

So, in either case, we cannot run out of the fate of thinking machines Vs humans. We may fake it, run from it, hide it from rest of the population but it is not in our favor if we do so.

“We like to believe that Man is in some subtle way superior to the rest of creation. It is best if he can be shown to be necessarily superior, for then there is no danger of him losing his commanding position.”
  1. The Mathematical Objection

Very beautifully Alan brought the Gödel’s incompleteness theorem to prove his mathematical argument. According to Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, if we start to prove every mathematical argument there exists in the universe, we end up into some arguments for which there exists no proof. In order to ensure that the whole mathematical system remains stable, consistent on logic one has to accept those arguments true. So, once such logically unprovable but true in existent reality statements are found in nature they create a new system of mathematical understanding.

In simple words, every mathematically logical system is inconsistent in the end, in order to remove that inconsistency a new rule must be accepted which create a new system of mathematics. (Which again would be inconsistent)

Further oversimplification goes like this,

A farmer wouldn’t know how to make a shoe. So, he would need knowledge of a cobbler. A cobbler wouldn’t know how to make metal tools, so he would need help of blacksmiths. Even if they have each other’s knowledge, skills they must accept certain thumb rules passed down from their ancestors (which are always true but unprovable) to master each other’s skills.  

So, even if you are creating a thinking machine based on purely mathematical system the mere limitation of mathematics will stop it from overpowering, surpassing humans.

This also does not mean that thinking machines are defeat-able. A machine with one mathematical system in totally different domain could support this logically inconsistent system just like the villagers with different professions.

Alan Turing’s doctoral thesis contains the ideas of Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem so it is a joy to read these arguments in this paper. They are well formed and super-intelligent.

(If you are really interested what this argument means, you can research the efforts that went into proving Fermat’s last theorem. A new field of mathematics had to be created to prove this simple to explain but difficult to prove mathematical theorem.)

There will always be something cleverer than the existing one – for humans and for thinking machines too.

“There would be no question of triumphing simultaneously over all machines. In, short, then, there might be men cleverer than any given machine, but then again there might be other machines cleverer again, and so on.”
  1. The argument from Consciousness

Even if the machine is feeling and thinking exactly like a human being, how could the “real humans” know that it does so? – Alan’s new argument.

“The only way to know that a man thinks, is to be that particular man. It is in fact the solipsistic point of view. It may be the most logical view to hold but it makes communication of ideas difficult.”

Communication between machines and the humans and its quality would be key proof to understand whether the machine thinks like human beings or not. Even if the machine is really thinking exactly like humans, it is futile if it cannot communicate so to humans.

(That is exactly why The Turing test with mere typed communication is more than enough to check the thinking ability of machines.)

It is the great philosophical mind of Alan to use the limitations of Solipsism to justify his point. According to solipsism all the world exists in the mind of the person because if the person dies then it doesn’t matter if world is there or not.

The key limitation of solipsism is that your survival is not directly connected to your mere thinking. If I think ‘I am dead’ that does not immediately kill me. If I think that I have eaten a lot without actually eating anything, that doesn’t end my hunger in ‘reality’. So, reality is not only your mind.

Also, solipsism fails to answer the common experiences we have in a group. If my mind is my world, I can create any rules for my world and things would always go as I desire. But that doesn’t happen in reality. There are certain ways, truths which are common to all of us that is why our world is not just our mind, rather it may be a shared world. You alone are not the representation of whole reality.

So, even if we accept that the machine ‘inwardly’ thinks like human being, it has to share some common truths to the interrogator to prove its humanly ways of thinking.

“I do not wish to give the impression that I think there is no mystery about consciousness. There is for instance, something of a paradox connected with any attempt to localize it. But I do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question…. (the question – can machines think? Can they at least imitate humans? – the Imitation Game)”
  1. Argument from various disabilities

Alan is challenging the idea that even if machines are successful in thinking exactly like humans, they won’t be able to do certain things which humans can do better.

It’s like a human saying to a thinking machine –

“You machines can think like us but can you enjoy literature and poetry like we humans do, can you have sex just like humans do, enjoy it and procreate just like we (human) do? This is exactly why your thinking is not a human thinking.”

The key point Alan is trying to prove is that people always need a justification of given machine’s ability (through its ways of working, maybe its architecture, its technology, its components, its sensors) to prove that certain capability of the machine. When we are showing these justifications, we are also telling people indirectly what it cannot do thereby its disabilities. One ability would point to other disability.

People do not accept black box models in order to justify ability of the machine.

“Possibly a machine might be made to enjoy this delicious dish, but any attempt to make one do so would be idiotic. What is important about this disability is that it contributes to some of the other disabilities.”

In same fashion one argument is that even if machine could think like humans, it is difficult to have its own opinion. Alan strikes that too.

“The claim that a machine cannot be the subject if its own thought can of course only be answered if it can be shown that the machine has some thought with some subject matter.”

The key disability which was preventing Alan from creating a working thinking machine was the enormous storage space. You will appreciate this point today because you know how drastically storage capabilities have improved over the time. These improvements in storage created the AI we see today, although processing power is also on factor and there are other factors too but it boils down to the ability to simultaneously handle lot and lots of data.

Alan had this mathematical insight that once the storage ability is expanded enough the thinking machines is a practical reality. (Now researchers are not only working on to further improve storage capability but special efforts are also taken to effectively compress data. Ask Chat GPT about the Hutter Prize)

So, Alan makes a point that having variety of opinions in order to ‘think for itself’ machines don’t need logic, they need enough storage space just to process them simultaneously to create a new thought. In terms of humans, the more information and logic you can handle the crisper your understanding are. Same would be the case for thinking machines.

“The criticism that a machine cannot have much diversity of behavior is just a way of saying that it cannot have much storage capacity. “
  1. Lady Lovelace’s Objection

Charles Babbage was the first person to technically create calculator with memory – a programmable computer which they called Analytical Engine. Even though he knew how the Analytical Engine works Ada Lovelace created programs and published them to the masses to prove the effectiveness of the Analytical Engine. She was the first programmer of computer.   

Lady Lovelace’s key argument is based on the idea that the computer thereby a thinking machine cannot think for itself because it can only use what we have provided it. As we have provided whatever we know and have it cannot think outside of that information and generate new understandings, The machines cannot think “originally”.

Alan strikes down this argument easily using the idea of enough storage space. If the machine can store large enough data and instructions then it can create new inferences, original inference.

“Who can be certain that ‘original work’ that he has done was not simply growth of the seed planted in him by teaching, or the effect of following well-known general principles.”

Alan questioned the very nature of originality. Only a genius can do this in my opinion. Alan showed the world that the things which we call original are inspired, copied from something already existent. It is just matter of how unknown we are to this new thing.

He builds further upon that saying that if machines can think originally then they should surprise us. That is reality. Machines do surprise us by using unconventional approaches to our daily tasks. 

Alan links new argument for further justification, if machines can think originally then they can surprise us. In order for us to not get surprised we must get immediate understanding of what machine presents which never happens when such events happen. So, machines can think originally and can surprise us.

“The view that machines cannot give rise to surprises is due, I believe, to a fallacy to which philosophers and mathematicians are particularly subject, This is the assumption that as soon as a fact is presented to a mind all consequences of that fact spring into the mind simultaneously with it.”

What a brilliant argument!

  1. Argument from Continuity

“The nervous system is certainly not a discrete-state machine. A small error in the information about the size of a nervous impulse impinging on a neuron, may make a large difference to the size of the outgoing impulse. It may be argued that, this being so, one cannot expect to be able to mimic the behavior of the nervous system with a discrete-state system.”

Alan talks about an attempt to create thinking machines by mimicking nervous system which is a continuous system. A system which works in wave, signals (analog) and not in ones and zeros (discrete).

Alan says that even if we use such analog system in Turing test, the outputs it would give would be probabilistic instead of definite. This will actually make the interrogator difficult to distinguish human response from the machine one. Humans would be more frequently unsure and will give such probabilistic answers more frequently.  

  1. The argument from Informality of Behavior
“If each man had a definite set of rules of conduct by which be regulated his life, he would be no better than a machine. But there are not such rules, so men cannot be machines.”

The idea that machines work on certain defined rule even if they can alter their own program by themselves in order to think like humans, it feels obvious that they will be more formal and stuck to their rules while responding. This formality would give away their non-human nature.

Alan questions the very nature of what is means to have laws in a logical setup. Taking support from the Gödel’s Incompleteness theorem, not even single system – single logical system can confidently remain purely on its laws. It would assume some arbitrary point to make some sense out of given data even if it is using some mathematical frameworks. (Remember the simulations where you put garbage in and the simulations runs perfectly giving garbage out. But you know its garbage because you have certain test to judge the output with reality which are objective.)

There is no such objectivity to judge informality of a system – the word and logic itself says it all. Our search for formal laws would never end and this will always keep on creating new laws and new inconsistencies and informalities. There is no end.    

“We cannot so easily convince ourselves of the absence of complete laws of behavior as of complete rules of conduct. The only way we know of for finding such laws is scientific observation, and we certainly know of no circumstances under which we could say, ‘We have searched enough. There are no such laws.’”
  1. The Argument from Extra-sensory Perception
“The idea that our bodies move simply according to the known laws of physics, together with some others not yet discovered but somewhat similar, would be one of the first to go. This argument is to my mind quite a strong one. One can say in reply that many scientific theories seem to remain in practice, in spite of clashing with ESP; that in fact once can get along very nicely if one forgets about it.”

Again, Alan left no stone unturned. He made sure that even the pseudo-science fails to support the idea that machines cannot think like humans.

He explains that even if the human competing against the machine mimicking humans has telepathic abilities to know states of the machine or even the interrogator, it would actually confuse the interrogator. The only thing such telepathic person can do differently is to under-perform intentionally which again would confuse the interrogator.

The idea is that even when we are not sure of how such supernatural things works our current understanding of things and their workings are just fine. The supernatural things are not interfering in our formal understanding of nature and reality.

The implications of Alan Turing’s Paper on Computing Machinery and Intelligence

All the ideas explained by Alan in this paper are responsible for the modern technologies like efficient data storage, data compression, artificial neural networks, self-programming machines, black box models, machine learning algorithms, iterative learning, data storage, manipulation thereby data science, analog computing, self-learning, supervised learning algorithms, Generative Pre-Trained Transformers (GPTs) and what not.

This paper is holy grail for not only modern computer science but also for the literature and popular culture. Once you appreciate the ideas in this paper you will be able to see the traces of these ideas across all the modern science fiction we are consuming all the time.

Alan created practical ideas which were possible to implement in future based on the coming technological revolutions he foresaw. He logically knew that it is possible but the genius of him was to lay the practical foundation of what and how it needs to be done which is guiding our and will guide future generations.

Conclusion

What is there for humans if machines start thinking like humans?

For this, I will address each argument posed by Alan

  1.  The theological objection

God will actually bless us because we extended his (or her I don’t know) powers to create something like his own creation through thinking machines.

  1. The ‘Heads in the Sand’ objection

Even if thinking machines surpass us, we have to live with it and create our new ecosystem to ensure our survival. Even though for given times we are superior species, other species are existing with us in the same time with their special abilities. There is no running away from any possible outcome of this scenario.

  1. The Mathematical Objection

The mathematics itself restricts a single machine from knowing everything. So even if multiple machines come together to create superior understandings same would happen for humans. There will always be this race of superiority, sometimes machines will lead sometimes humans will lead. There is no conclusion to this race as far as the inherent flaw of mathematics goes.

  1. The argument from Consciousness

A machine has to be the communicator of its human thinking, it cannot remain in the dark abyss of self-cognizance and remain away from humans. If a machine starts thinking like humans, we all would definitely know about it. A machine has to communicate its ability of awareness to, it will a surprise but a very short lived one.

  1. Argument from various disabilities

If we don’t know how machines think like human that would not prevent them from thinking like humans. We have to accept the black boxes through which machines would think like humans. That is the only sane way out. We humans too are filled with disabilities but they are not directly linked to the ways we are able to think.

  1.  Lady Lovelace’s Objection

Machines will surprise us, they can also create original ideas, because what we call original is something that lies out of the limits of our current thinking. Rather it is an optimistic idea that if machines could think like humans do then they may give us totally new ideas for new discoveries, breakthroughs.

  1. Argument from Continuity

Continuous thinking machine or discrete thinking machine both can confuse humans if they achieve their thinking potentials. So, there is no point in creating an analogue thinker to beat digital thinker. We ourselves are an analogue thinker.

  1. The argument from Informality of Behavior

No system will have all laws already established, the system has to keep on creating new laws to justify new events, outliers. The process is never-ending. So even if machines surpass in human thinking we too have the advantage of informality to make the next move.

  1. The Argument from Extra-sensory Perception

Even if the supernatural abilities are proven be existent, they will have less to no contribution in the thinking abilities of machines. So, if you are a telepathic reader a human like thinking machine can fool you without exposing its real machine identity.

Going through all this you will appreciate how limited our human thinking is. There is no doubt that there will be a time when machines would be able to think just like humans do but that should not be a negative aspect. There will be practical limitations to a human-like thinking machine too. So, the game would never be single sided. This should push humanity on a completely new path of evolution. That is also how we have become the humans we are today.

Further references for reading:

  1. A. M. TURING, I.—COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE, Mind, Volume LIX, Issue 236, October 1950, Pages 433–460, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LIX.236.433
  2. Understanding the true nature of Mathematics- Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem
  3. Questioning Our Consciousness – Solipsism

The Utility of Human Life and Morality

Why doesn’t Batman kill all his villains once for all? Why the sentence passed by judicial systems in certain heinous and extraordinary crimes feel unjust for the pain victim went through? How one can tell that given person was right or wrong when he/she had no intent of doing it? Can you just look at the end consequences of the actions and decide right or wrong for such scenes? Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism tried to answer some of these questions but it revealed certain flaws in our ways of judgement. Even though hedonism and utilitarian philosophy create an objective model of morality, they fail to address the subjective and human aspect of any moral discussion. It reveals that the purpose of living is not mere happiness but self-improvement thereby mutual and overall improvement.

How to judge morality and its impact on human life?

The Moral Dilemma

A healthy sense of good and bad makes a society livable. There are some special, rare events that happen in the society we live which challenge our idea of what is good and what is bad. There are uncountable offenses and also in varying types which create problem of who should actually be punished and what should be the punishment.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Mahatma Gandhi

If this is really the case, the law and order should punish the victim in such a way that it prohibits the future perpetrators to not do such crimes again. But again, as this above mentioned quote goes if the punishment given for the crime is equally dangerous then what exactly are we trying to establish through such punishment?

It’s like that scenario where murdering a murderer creates a new murderer so the net number of murderers in the society remain the same. An Italian philosopher called Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria had given a thought on this. In his book ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’ he discusses that if the punishments grow on crueler and crueler the net mindset of people also grows crueler. It’s like how water levels itself irrespective of the depths. The baseline of what is right and wrong furthermore what is more wrong and what is more right shifts up. Crueler and crueler crimes reduce the sensibility of people of that society. This could be one reason why people always argue that the judicial system does not provide equivalent punishment as a justice to the victims of certain heinous, exceptional cases of crimes. (Although there are many other factors to make such decisions.)

“In proportion as punishments become crueler, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height with that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible; and the force of the passions still continuing, in the space of a hundred years the wheel terrifies no more than formerly the prison. That a punishment may produce the effect required, it is sufficient that the evil it occasions should exceed the good expected from the crime, including in the calculation the certainty of the punishment, and the privation of the expected advantage. All severity beyond this is superfluous, and therefore tyrannical.”

Cesare Beccaria, Of the Mildness of Punishments from ‘Of Crimes and Punishments’

In similar spirit, the relationship between Batman and Joker can be understood. Joker never cares about killing people he will try to stretch the limits of batman in every possible sense where innocent lives are at stake. Batman has one solution to stop all this – to kill the Joker. But with a high moral ground Batman would never kill Joker. What is the motivation behind such character design of Batman. Batman knows that killing Joker would solve the problem once for all. Believe me, this is not just a fictional comic book scenario. The reality that we live in has uncountable such scenarios where exactly same decision dilemmas occur.  

The famous trolley problem also points to somewhat similar moral dilemma. Where should the trolley be directed if one track has single person and another has 5 people tied to the track? Nobody wants blood on their hands.

But the same trolley problem becomes interesting if you start adding additional attributes to the people who are on track.

What if the single person tied to the track is a scientist with the cure for cancer and the track with five people are criminals? Then definitely you would kill the five criminals instead of the single scientist.

Did you notice what change made us to decide faster? The moment we understood the consequences of our actions we had the clarity of what is right and what is wrong. Our moral compass pointed to North the moment we foresaw the consequences of our actions.

The foundation of some of the principles of morality are based on similar ideas. Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham’s an English Philosophers ideas have contributed to the ideas of morality for humanity, especially when we are talking about the human society as a whole. The ideas put by Jeremy Bentham also faced severe criticism, we will see those in detail too. But the key intention of my exploration is to understand how we create the meaning of Morality and how subjectivity, objectivity totally change the way we perceive morality. In the end we may reach to rock bottom questioning the morality itself to be nonexistent – and if morality is non-existent then what separates human beings from animals? (I hope to enter in this territory with some optimism, I don’t know where will it end.)

Utilitarianism

As I already explained in the trolley problem that by adding one simple, short part of information shifted our moral compass in (supposedly) proper direction. What did this information add in the dilemma to make it solvable?

The answer is the foresight of consequence. Once you saw the consequence it leads to you got the hold of what is right and what is wrong. You decided one side to be right and other one to be wrong. This foresight of consequence helped you to weigh the ‘right’-ness of your decision.

Utilitarianism is based on the measurement of morals based on the consequences of the actions you take. What is the other side of taking actions? It is ‘the intent’. This is where the fun game begins.

Many philosophers are always fighting over morals based on the intent of the person and the consequences of the actions they take. For example, thinking of murder (pardon my thinking) makes me less of convict than really murdering someone. My thinking has not led to the loss of the person I hate. Utilitarianism thus calls out for the construct of morality based on the actual actions and their consequences; it’s like saying ‘what a man is more about what he does instead of what he thinks’.

Hedonism, Utilitarianism and Jeremy Bentham

Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.

Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham an English philosopher contributed to the utilitarian ideas of morality. He was not well appreciated in his home country due to the misalignment of his ideas of socio-political reforms with the British sovereignty of those times. The French translation of his works on law, governance gave him popularity in Frenchmen. Bentham was one of the people who pushed the political reforms during French revolution.

While reading Joseph Priestly’s Essay on the First Principles of Government, Bentham came across the idea of “greatest happiness for the greatest number” which motivated him to expand the ideas of utilitarianism.

Priestly brought the idea of “Laissez-faire” (‘allow to do’ in French)- a policy of minimum governmental interference in the economic affairs of individuals and society. Joseph Priestly developed his ideas of politics, economics and government based on the ideas created by Adam Smith (Author of the Wealth of Nations – the holy grail of classical Economics).

The Greek philosopher called Epicurus was the supporter, creator of hedonism. Hedonism defines ethics to pleasure or pain. According to hedonism that which gives pleasure is morally good and that which give pain is morally wrong. The idea behind hedonism is the aversion of pain to live an undisturbed life because anyways this all won’t make sense once you are dead. According to Epicurus – fear of death, retribution is pushing people to collect more wealth, more power thereby causing more painful life. The collection of wealth, power is done thinking that they can avert the death but that is not the reality. So, worrying about the death sucks out the pleasure of living the life which itself is equivalent of death.

Non fui, fui, non-sum, non-curo
(“I was not; I was; I am not; I do not care”)

Epicurus

So, epicurean hedonistic morality tries to maximize the pleasure. The other end of this idea is that if everyone tries to maximize their own pleasure (egoistic hedonism) wouldn’t it disturb others?

If I want to listen to a song on loud speaker while bothering my neighbors, what is the moral standpoint here?

The answer is the overall good of the system. So, if you neighbor also wants to listen music loud and overall loud music is good for the group then we are morally right to play loud music. (Just pray that the group has same music interests!)

So, Jeremy Bentham is known to rejuvenate this ancient philosophy of egoistic hedonism through his philosophy of utilitarianism.

The basic idea behind Utilitarianism is to maximize the utility of anything, value of anything. The utility can be increased by doing what is right which can be done by doing what gives more pleasure or by avoiding those things which increase or give pain.

Utility is a property which tends

  1. To produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good or happiness
  2. To prevent happening of mischief, pain, evil or happiness

So, the right action is the one that produces and/ or maximizes overall happiness. Please understand that the word “overall” is important for Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Because from selfish point of views, what is pleasurable for one may not be pleasurable for others. (This is also where the certain philosophical problems of Utilitarianism are hiding, save this point for later.)

To solve this bottleneck of clarity, there are two types of pleasure in human life – one is happiness from senses, physical experiences and one is from intellect. The intellectual happiness is higher than the pleasure from senses. So, on personal moral dilemmas these two attributes can solve the problem.

All good on personal level but what about the moral decisions for the group, for society? Here, Bentham solved the moral dilemma by using the idea of “greater good for all”. When we don’t agree on what makes us happy together, making sacrifices in your happiness to make others happy is the solution. (Keep this idea parked in your mind.)

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters – pain and pleasure. They govern us in all we do, all we say and all we think.”  

Jeremy Bentham

Felicific Calculus – Measuring happiness

Jeremy Bentham is known as the Issac Newton of the Morality for developing the felicific calculus/ hedonistic calculus. Bentham pointed out the key factors which affect the net happiness and using this factors’ effect as a whole, one can quantify the happiness.

Following are the factors which affect the happiness:

  1. Intensity – how strong is the pleasure from the given action?
  2. Duration – how long does the happiness remain from given action?
  3. Certainty – what is the likelihood of given pleasure to occur?
  4. Propinquity – how soon/ immediate is the occurrence of the pleasure?
  5. Fecundity – what is the possibility that this pleasure will also lead to the newer pleasure(s)?
  6. Purity – what is the change that this pleasure will not bring some opposite sensation?
  7. Extent – how many people are affected?

If one considers these factors and the principle to maximize the communal happiness, most of the social moral dilemmas can be effectively solved.

So, according to this felicific calculus,

  1. Batman should kill the Joker for the greater good of the Gotham
  2. The trolley should go over the group/ person which creates more pain for the society
  3. Baby Hitler should be killed once we get the chance to travel back in time

You must appreciate the clarity which the felicific calculus brings. This clarity is very important for the policymakers, politicians while deciding the fate of the group, state, nation as a whole.

Now a simple question –

If batman keeps on killing the villains, won’t he become the greatest killer of them all? What would differentiate Batman from other villains?

What would happen if you were given false information about the nature of the people tied on track while riding that trolley? Could your wrong decision be undone? If it was the wrong decision then now ‘you’ are morally wrong, with the blood of the innocents.

You would kill baby Hitler only because you have vision that this baby will grow up to be the mass murderer tyrant. The mass murder hasn’t happened yet. So, now you are the killer of a ‘now’ innocent baby.

Maintaining same emotion, now you would appreciate why even for a strong judicial system giving capital punishment for rapists, terrorists is difficult morally. You would solve the problem for now because the act has been already done, the consequences have already happened (which is why moral judgement is effective as it relies on the consequences). Killing the perpetrators or punishing them with equal pain would definitely bring peace of mind using the principles of morality but that also degrades the morality of innocents who fell down from that morality. It is not matter of what one deserves because what bad happened to them, it is about how less human you will become once you perform that act of punishment.

Recall the quote of Beccaria in the early part of my discussion.

Killing joker will create fear among other villains but it also creates chance for the creation of even dangerous villain in future.

Killing baby Hitler doesn’t guarantee prevention of World War and mass murders, as our personalities are the result of our surroundings – another Hitler-like person would have emerged in such given circumstances. (I honestly don’t know if he/she would be worse or less harsh than the original one but you get the point – conditions anyways would have created another cruel person.)

Jumping out of the trolley seems the best way to run away from the pain of murder of other unknown people (joking). The trolley dilemma remains dilemma.

Also, the felicific calculus allows pain for small groups for the betterment/ pleasure of the bigger society. For example, according to this utilitarian idea killing few healthy convicted prisoners to save lives of many innocent people by harvesting the prisoners’ organ is justified. It is for the good in the end.

You see where this goes?

See the level to which any human or a group could go if they start justifying their moral rightness using these ideas. Using these principles any big group can overpower the minorities in morally right way. It is just a matter of time that the felicific calculus principles would get exploited for other “immoral” gains.

That is exactly why many people criticized the felicific calculus saying that a pig laying in the mud for his whole life would be happiest than a human being (Socrates to be specific) if Bentham’s calculus is used to decide morality.

In a crude way, there are two type of Utilitarianism which help to solve the problem to certain extent, but it is not a complete solution:

  1. Act Utilitarianism – to act for the greater good of all
  2. Rule Utilitarianism – to set rules in such way that no one inherently gets the pain or everyone is happy because actions and their consequences are bound by certain set rules in first place now

Happiness is not the ‘only’ and the ultimate goal – the limitations of Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarian Philosophy

What people were not ‘happy’ with Jeremy Bentham’s felicific calculus was that it made humans more like machines and very objective. People don’t always want happiness for their or the group’s greater good. Exercising daily, reducing fat-sugar maybe painful but that guarantees healthy, illness free long life. Doing drugs isolates the person from pain but it impacts the long-term physical and mental health of the person. Hardships and pain make people to reach their difficult goals which is what is the real and ultimate happiness for them.       

Happiness is not always the goal of life, if one is completely tangled in the pleasures of life and if everyone is having same mentality then in the end no one will be happy, because as a group we all would never agree on what makes us happy; different environments in which we grew, our personal experiences, our upbringing, our motivations prevent us from creating a common definition of happiness.

The subjective factor of pleasure or pain is not present in Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism. Building further upon that, the victim who has suffered from the morally wrong action will only be satisfied when he/she gets justice, not when they are made happier than their perpetrators. (This justice must again not be mechanical and objective like the felicific calculus.)

One more flaw of the Bentham’s utilitarianism is the imbalance between personal scenarios and the communal scenarios. In most cases, it demands personal sacrifice irrespective of their subjective morality for the betterment of the group. (that is exactly how many past cruel dictators have justified their moral correctness on their acts against the minorities.)

A British philosopher, Bernard Williams presented a thought experiment to highlight such flaw of the Utilitarianism.

In this thought experiment:

A botanist on his South American expedition is ordered by the cruel regime soldiers to kill one of the Indian tribe people. If the botanist fails to kill one Indian the soldiers would execute all of the tribe members.

So, if we implement utilitarian principles, then the botanist should kill one Indian to save the remaining all. That is morally right.

But on the other hand, one must also understand that the botanist has nothing to do with the cruel regime and even with the indigenous tribe members. He is under no moral obligation to do anything. The consequences are in such a way that whatever he will do he will be called morally wrong. Which in the end is wrong.

The utilitarian philosophy neglects this subjectivity and consequentialism while we are deciding morality of anything.

Maybe that is also why even when we have all the rules in place, penal code in place for all types of offenses, similar crimes – we have a judge – a subjective, consequential observer to grant the final justice.

You must understand that the discussion does not want to pose Utilitarianism as completely wrong idea. The intent of this discussion is to understand how to de-clutter a complex moral scenario and how to inject subjectivity in it so that the correct person will get the justice in the end. As we are human beings and not machines, every day brings new subjective scenarios with new subjective moral dilemmas. Direct implementation of utilitarianism may bring in the transparency in the moral puzzle but it is at the expense of oversimplification and loss of personal subjectivity, consequential personal point of view and also freedom of person to exist.

The ways in which Utilitarianism brings immediate clarity by elimination of some important subjective aspects is dangerous and limits the judgement of real morality. Friedrich Nietzsche had warned new philosophers in his book beyond good and evil about the philosophies which create such “immediate certainties” like Utilitarian philosophy creates-

“The belief in “immediate certainties” is a moral naivete which does honor to us philosophers; but – we have now to cease being “merely moral” men!”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Conclusion – If not happiness then what is the goal of being human?

Jeremy Bentham’s philosophy of Utilitarianism and the felicific calculus can help to decide the morality of what is good for all but it ignores the presence and worth of personal integrity, the well being of the minorities, subjectivity of the person in given consequences. It by default eliminates the possibility of humans remaining human beings instead it attributes them as the machine maximizing a targeted outcome (which is pleasure here).

So, the question remains – If we are not meant to maximize pleasure during our tenure in life because in the end after death there will not be anything to experience or gain happiness – if our existence and final purpose does not align with being happy then what exactly is the purpose of being a human being?

Based on my understanding on what many great people have commented about the purpose of life, I found that most of them point to remaining the human being you always were. I am not saying that the personality should remain the same, rather it should change and keep on upgrading itself till the end but the core should remain same or it should not degrade at least.

Some wrong events, injustice, oppression, cruelty will make you suffer, but that should also not vilify your human spirit. Once we let go the pursuit of happiness and chase the goal of being a better human being (or at least remain the human being you are) we can fulfill the purpose of our lives and also make other people’s lives better.

Once you will let go of such utilitarian, mechanistic setups of morality you will realize that people don’t need gods, religions, governments, judicial systems to keep in the check of right and wrong. Our inner compass is more than enough to take care of what makes us human beings, this inner compass is not about what is right and wrong, for me it is about what better version of yourself you would become if you act in that certain way. It takes care of what you are thinking and what would be the consequences of actions thereby resolving the dilemma of morality which got separated on the basis of either intent or the consequences.

I am highlighting the importance of inner personal human compass because the rules designed to keep morality in check would always need revision and the utilitarian philosophy would wait for the consequences to happen to decide the morality. The goal of human struggle to improve their current version to a better one does not need either of the metrics to decide the morality.

Imagine what the world would become if everyone started appreciating this inner human compass!

(For now, we can only imagine, but I am optimistic on this.)        

P.S. –

Even though the Utilitarian philosophy had many flaws, Jeremy Bentham contributed largely to bring in new political reforms, improve governance, establish penal codes in judicial systems, define sovereignty, reduce the influence of religious institutions on the lives of people and governments. His works were strategically maligned by some lobbies to lessen the impact of his other notable works. He was the proponent of liberty and freedom from religious influences on lives of people. The pushed for the establishment of a secular educational institute in London – now famously known as University College London. Jeremy Betham’s fully clothed wax statue containing his original skeleton remains in the entrance hall of the University main building upon his request.

The Free Spirit – Beyond Good and Evil

The journey to the freedom demands solitude thereby making man responsible, accountable for the consequences of his every thought and action. Friedrich Nietzsche in his book Beyond Good and Evil paved a way for future philosophers to establish their own new perspectives about the truth where there are no two sides – good-bad, sad-happy, moral-immoral, beautiful-ugly, calm-disturbing but a revised and better version of the older truth. Nietzsche in this book focused on the refinement of our perspectives, our versions of truths for the real freedom because immediately surrendering to already established versions of ideologies is the worst imprisonment any man can have. Nietzsche showed how badly our ignorance creates an illusion of freedom and how to come out of it. This is to remember Friedrich Nietzsche on his death anniversary.

Remembering Friedrich Nietzsche on his death anniversary

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most impactful philosophers we as a humanity have ever seen. Reading Nietzsche is a task in itself. But the moment you start getting hold of the things that Nietzsche is trying point to, you will literally undergo transformation. The path that Nietzsche paved inspired many modern philosophers, thinkers, writers. To not mention Nietzsche is to do injustice with our understanding of ourselves as the human beings. This is one attempt to revisit Nietzsche’s ideas in his famous book called “Beyond Good and Evil”, especially his ideas on free Spirit.

Nietzsche in his special style clarified what it means to be really free and how we develop our perceptions, philosophies about the world around us and ourselves.

This is me remembering Nietzsche on his death anniversary. His ideas will keep on living forever.

Oversimplification kills the nuances thereby changing the big picture

Nietzsche strikes powerfully on the idea of understanding the life as simple and easy. It’s a humorous way in which he tried to convey how we consider living life as way to goodness, happiness, pleasure and freedom. The sentences that Nietzsche used to put his ideas about life are built in such a way that you will start questioning the happy nature of the life we desire. You will realize that during the process of understanding life as a pleasurable, happy experience we have submitted our thought process only to the side of pleasure, happiness, and truth. This presumption about life always deviates our search for the truth – “the happiness” that we lookout for as a biased pursuit. Here Nietzsche is not saying that if ‘this’ which you are trying to justify life with is true then it’s opposite is wrong; he is trying to point us towards the idea that as we have attributed life to a happy and pleasurable experience, this attribution has oversimplified what life actually is. Oversimplification has happened because not everyone can understand complex ideas on equal level. It’s not because people are dumb, it is because we have our own ways of interpreting the world around us and the ways through which we interpret the world are totally subjective. Thus, the truth if it exists, it will never be absolute but based on perspectives one has.

“We have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness, and gaiety – in order to enjoy life!”

In order to make everyone appreciate given idea of life on same level we have oversimplified what life is and such oversimplified foundation has led to building even more oversimplified versions of so-called truth. In the pursuit of clarity and ease of interpretation and communication our lives have become false!

That is why Nietzsche here tried to attack the very fundamental way in which we try to break down the things we come across when we live through them. See it in this way, if life by default was supposed to be simple then it is implied that we would have grip on every aspect of life and existence. We know that’s is not the reality. So, if it is not simple then it must be complicated is our next thought. Thus, if life is complicated in reality then oversimplification eliminates certain aspects of life which we keep on missing in the search of truth.

You know what, Nietzsche further explains that when we are denying that life is not simple and happy that also should not invite it being opposite of what was earlier thought i.e., sad and complicated. Nietzsche rejects the idea of polar opposite to portray the lives we live. He calls life, knowledge as the process of “refinement”.

It’s not duality of any aspect of the philosophy, good and bad side of life but the ways and times they have refined themselves which should be the parameter of their worth.

The Death of Philosopher

Nietzsche had his way to express verbal anguish. The sentences are so dense that the prose feels literally repulsive. I think it was intentional. His writings were never meant to be read while sipping coffee or to romanticize the philosophy or the idea of life. They will make sense to those who really want to understand what he is trying to say. Nietzsche in his next idea talks about how every philosopher is trying to find the meaning of life and thereby his/her truth of life. He despises the idea of life or philosophy being explained with a single idea. That is why he sarcastically calls philosophers as the protectors of truth, the thing which itself doesn’t need protection in first place!

Nietzsche thus calls out to the philosopher to get ready accept the martyrdom, the death of their idea of philosophy. The philosopher can only carry his point forward for further refinement but he/she must not – cannot define the life in whole with that simple idea. That idea has to die in the process so that newer refined ideas can be built out of its broken pieces.

In order for philosophy to exist it has to end, it has to kill its older version – that is what is the tragedy of philosophy is as Nietzsche goes.

The Freedom Paradox

When Nietzsche is trying to initiate treatise on freedom, he starts with what it means to be free for any person. One important observation he puts in front is how we get freedom on personal level. On surface it feels if the person is free on personal level, then it is easy to be free in society as a whole. But Nietzsche shows that these ideas of freedom are paradoxical! Man goes inward for the freedom because he/she knows that there is no one else to tie, bound him/her inside his privacy. The man seeking freedom when interacts with the crowd soon realizes that his experiences of life are bound to how crowd handles him, reacts to him, treats him, shapes him. That is unsettling, the burden is difficult to carry for single person hence the man again resorts to privacy, in order to do that he has to let go of certain truths and create his own little lies so that the external crowd won’t disturb his “freedom”.     

“(the man) he was not made, he was not predestined for knowledge”

The point Nietzsche is trying to make here is that the taste of freedom comes with the unsettling feeling of existence. But as a man we are not seeking that freedom for us; freedom is some citadel, a happy place where we expect to have control over course of things. The real freedom as Nietzsche explains will be gained by being in touch with crowd (which sounds paradoxical again) It’s like saying you will understand what you real singular identity is when you start mixing yourselves with the crowd!

Nietzsche further advises philosophers of the future to not turn away from the unsettling ideas about philosophy. He takes support of cynicism to make his point. Cynicism bases itself on the idea that people are selfish, self-interested (so in simple words if anything doesn’t go the way a cynic wants, they would whine and create reasons to justify it.) Nietzsche expects the future philosophers to understand the difference between ill-speaker and bad speaker. The lovers of knowledge should also be able to understand what is unsettling, maybe their lies the next opportunity for better version of their philosophy.

The Freedom of Expression

Nietzsche had already explained how things lose their essence in oversimplification. In same fashion it becomes difficult to interpret what a fast thinker is thinking and then explain it to the relatively slow thinkers and make them appreciate the same idea on same level. Even in our thinking we are not free. You can create an explanation for others to understand what you are thinking but they themselves have to climb up (or climb down sometimes) to your level to appreciate what you are thinking, you may succeed in expression but interpretation, comprehension and its appreciation gets limited by the levels on which others are thinking. (My question, if this is the case then even if you are a free thinker, are you truly a free thinker? I know Nietzsche is paradoxical most of the times)

“What is most difficult to render from one language into another is the tempo of its style, which has its basis in the character of the race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average tempo of the assimilation of its nutriment.”

Nietzsche further builds this “so called” freedom of expression using the limitations of the language. Language is the culmination and mirror of the culture it originated from. So, naturally each language has its own style, flow, breaks, rules and ways to highlight certain aspects of narration. When such languages is used to express an individual’s ideas, the speaker has to let go of the nuances of his culture, his primary way of life so that others having another culture, another way of life can appreciate and understand what he is trying to convey, but what if the nuances were the only thing which made that idea influential? Then the influence of the idea would be lost because of the translation. (This is Nietzsche’s way saying lost in translation!)

The Tragedy of Independence

Another way to become free is to become independent. The very few lines Nietzsche uses to explain independence are equivalent of an atomic bomb! (trust me it is still not an overstatement!!!)

People who become independent are few as Nietzsche says and those who are strong can easily achieve it. This independence is also one way to be free. When a man becomes independent, he is on his own, there is no one like him – he is alone. Nothing is anything alike him – he is alone. Thus the whole world becomes a puzzle for him as he is on his own. Any direction becomes new path for him. As he is the only one like himself, there is no one who would reach to his level and match his thinking. And in such case if he needs sympathy, people cannot even sympathize with him because they are not on his level. What a tragedy! The sadness he has in his heart, mind is rendered useless because others around him are not able to comprehend it – sympathizing gets ruled out automatically.

This is Nietzsche’s way of saying what Hemingway said. (I mean both meant the same although Hemingway came later, but you get the point) You must understand that happiness is not the real pursuit of life, then you won’t feel tragic about what Hemingway is trying to convey here, same is what Nietzsche trying to convey here. Freedom by independence can be a tragedy for the person who was expecting glory out of it.

Foolishness Hides Chances For New Insights

Nietzsche here is trying to remove the lines between what is good and what is bad, what is allowed and what is forbidden.

“That which serves the higher class of men for nourishment or refreshment, must be almost poison to an entirely different and lower order of human beings”

In modern crude sense, Nietzsche says “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”!

Same idea, same act will have different perception of morality, scale of right and wrong. A rebel thinker in common poor public could be attributed to a philosopher amongst the riches. A murderer who killed an evil landlord could become a saint among the people who were victims of this landlord’s oppression.

So, Nietzsche’s attribution of foolishness is a way to point out the exceptional, outlier acts, prohibited acts, crimes to find the better truths. That will make you freer than others.

The Freedom of Youth   

 The stage of youth feels like the freest stage of all the stages of life and it is so because it has let go of the nuances. It also feels free because the youth in the stage of exploration never submits to right or wrong, yes or no to the life as Nietzsche says. But as the time passes when the youth is exposed to disillusions, broken expectations they try to modify themselves in a way that will get things done the way they wanted – the compromise starts to enter. The moment this happens the same youth tries to punish themselves as Nietzsche says. The freedom exists no more, so is the youth.

The Freedom of Actions

(Again, this a hydrogen bomb on morality!!!)

How can we say that the given action is right or wrong?

Nietzsche has very interesting thought process on this question. In the starting times the action was right or wrong based on what it led to – its consequences – the effect. The problem with this thinking is that one has to wait to let the action happen to decide its rightness or wrongness. If the stakes are high, such attribution of right or wrong can be devastating.

So, Nietzsche takes support of Chinese idea where the parents are responsible for the betterment of their child. Meaning that the origin of the thought which led to that action should be the decider of whether the action is right or wrong. Nietzsche called this pre-moral period of mankind. And sarcastically he points out that we have made a total turn around the idea of right or wrong action. Earlier it was what happened after the action i.e., consequences; now it is what led to that action, meaning what was happening before that action i.e., the origin which is the decider of right and wrong of any action!

This is where the origin of action gets named as ‘moral’ which is generated from self- knowledge. Later these morals evolved into “intentions”. As Nietzsche says, intentions serve as the origin of any action.

“people were agreed in the belief that the value of an action lay in the value of its intention. The intention as the sole origin and antecedent history of an action: under the influence of this prejudice moral praise and blame have been bestowed, and men have judged and even philosophized almost up to the present day”

Nietzsche then drops another bomb called – unintentional actions. We are clear that whether action is right or wrong can be decided by the intent. But what if there was no intent or there are no other ways to pinpoint the intent behind certain actions? There is a possibility that the intent may get mistranslated, misinterpreted during the unfolding of events, then how would you decide the attribution of given action.

In such case we would again go to the effect- the consequences of that action!!! You see what is happening here? We might have to resort to that older measuring system of action based on their consequences.

This is Nietzsche’s style to question how we think of morality in general and also on deeper level.

(I can’t resist praising Nietzsche lesser but deep down I know he would question his own worship too!)

The next attack Nietzsche does by using morality is the sentiment of sacrifice. The basis of his thought process is that you should question everything that gives you pleasure at least once. Here, he shows how fake the feeling of sacrifice for others, surrender could be if it is intended to display how moral and virtuous you are!

“There is far too much witchery and sugar in the sentiments “for others” and “not for myself””

In simple words, you are saying that I like to help others because it makes me happy. So, in order to help others you have to become selfless, but if becoming selfless to help others makes you happy, doesn’t that make you selfish? You are selfless because you are selfish!!! (Disclaimer: Nietzsche is paradoxical.) The paradox is resolved when you accept that you are just taking support of morality to display you higher value. Being selfless is just a better excuse to display your high morality. It there was any cruel way to display your high morality no wonder you would have gone for that!!!

In modern ways, it’s fox’s way to say the grapes are sour or I am a virgin because I am waiting for someone special (In reality fox cannot reach the grapes and the person is not able to appreciate other person or people rejected that person continuously – please note that I am not blaming someone’s character – it’s the limitation of language that prevents me from expressing what I am thinking for oversimplification. As Nietzsche has already shown that oversimplification kills the nuances. You get the point!)

The Immoral Philosopher – The Free Philosopher

Building upon the ideas of nuances lost in translation, right and wrong in morality Nietzsche calls the future philosophers to go beyond the dichotomy of philosophy and also distrust the morality in the development of new philosophy, new truth.

“In all seriousness the innocence of thinkers has something touching and respect-inspiring in it, which even nowadays permits them to wait upon the consciousness with the request that it will give them honest answers”

This is Nietzsche’s way to show that in order to find the new truth new philosophy, new philosophers have submitted themselves childishly and blindly to the principles of morality hoping that morality will give them new answers. But it is the same tinted glass of morality that prevents them from getting new perspectives. Hence, he calls them naïve here. They must let go of this childishness.

“The belief in “immediate certainties” is a moral naivete which does honor to us philosophers; but – we have now to cease being “merely moral” men!”

This is Nietzsche’s way of saying it’s good to be bad!

For Nietzsche, morality shows only two sides of reality- right or wrong, this works fine if reality is really dichotomized. But we know there is no such thing as right or wrong for every real-life scenario. So, in order to find the real truth, you have to let go of morality, then you will see that reality has its spectrum and people residing on different biases of such reality have their own attribution of right and wrong for the same action. Morality is the subset of newer truth, not the other way around.

‘il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien‘

(he who searches truth to do good) – I wager he finds nothing!

 Nietzsche make his point by him being the first bad-philosopher!!! (This is why I am loving him more and more. It’s like a brainiac with full grown muscles if you want to picture him thematically!)

The Freedom From Passions and Reality – Will to Power

Nietzsche makes an attempt to show that the reality could also be made up of something totally different that we can even comprehend. What if the world is more real than what we can experience? And if such reality exists, our senses will limit us from experiencing it. So, in order to be free in such reality we have to rise above our senses. That would be the new freedom. Our senses are bound to desires and passions whose interactions – impulses are creating thoughts.  

So, building on these impulses Nietzsche says that many emotions, processes are created in “our reality”. What would make any of such impulses, process free from others? He introduces the idea of causality to show the flow and root of everything. If cause leads to an effect and further that effect becomes cause to newer effect then it is possible that the root cause of all would make us really free. Nietzsche further explains that it can also be one of the processes which would overpower others to become free and not the root one. (For example, the first unicellular organisms would be the most powerful organisms on earth today, that is not the case.)

Here Nietzsche introduces the concept of Will to Power. Whatever overpowers the other processes has the potential to remain in the big game and thus has real chance to be free. Will to power in any process allows it to gain more freedom.

This is Nietzsche’s Darwinian theory of evolution – the survival of the fittest. (I know it is a bastardized translation, but again I summon the loss of nuances during translation.)   

Then Nietzsche puts the idea that by this way of thinking the originator does not necessarily be the most powerful one, thereby questioning the existence of the God! Because if the God was the originator, then then he/she would exist only if he/she has the highest Will to Power. That also does not mean that if God does not exist then devil exists or has the highest Will to Power. It could be anything! We are not sure for now. (typical philosophical answer!)

Using causality, Nietzsche also questions the morality of French revolution. If for the locals the royalty was cruel that is why the revolution happened then why didn’t the remotely located people who considered them noble in first place considered them cruel too? In the eyes of remotely located people the French royalty had a noble past. (The question is intended to think on it not to find the right and wrong. It shows how flawed our thinking becomes when we stick to morality blindly.) Whoever came in power overthrew the less powerful. That is one way to explain Nietzsche’s Will to Power. According to Nietzsche, if Napoleon would have been continuously invested in the morality of his actions he wouldn’t have become the great emperor.

Freedom From Truth

Here Nietzsche starts with the very obvious and common fact that some truths are unsettling. Not every truth ensures happiness. Only an idealist, as Nietzsche says would submit the idea of truth that brings joy, happiness, and beauty.

Here comes Nietzsche’s biggest drop-

“the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of “truth” it could endure – or to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified”

This is self-explanatory. It is just our unsettlement that we need to take care of while looking for the truth. We are thinking animals and thinking is a result of our impulses, desires, and passions. So, not every truth is destined to bring us peace. ‘We would die if we eat poison’ – is a truth which unsettles everyone but that is not how we react to such truths, we prepare for such bad events, that is the wisdom what Nietzsche is talking about in a crude way here.

“There is no doubt that for the discovery of certain portions of truth the wicked and unfortunate are more favorably situated and have greater likelihood of success; not to speak wicked of who are happy- a species about whom moralist are silent. Perhaps severity and craft are more favorable conditions for the development of strong, independent spirits and philosophers than gentle, refined, yielding good-nature, and habit of taking things easily, which are prized, and rightly prized in a learned man.”

Nietzsche prefers learned man more than the moralistic or the virtuous one. A learned man knows the consequences of learning new truth, or sometimes even unaware of it but he does not pivot his happiness on the discovery of new truth. What else could you make freer when you are ready to accept the truth in its crude and real form! This freedom will bring clarity, new perspective and not happiness or sadness or chaos or calmness.

Truth will not decide how and what you are. You just will have added new tinted glass in your collection of perspectives towards life and reality and the philosophy behind all of them.  If your Will to Power is good your truth may become the truth for all others.

Freedom From Identity

The profoundness demands the rejection of submission to any side of existence. If one promotes certain ideology the people around him/ her will try to comprehend that person using the tags they have in their own minds for that idea. The mask thus brings in that ambiguity where people are not associating, tagging you to one definite truth. Even your mind can start creating bias if you let it. That is why Nietzsche focuses on mask in profoundness.

“A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach, and with regard to the existence of which his nearest and most intimate friends may be ignorant; his mortal danger conceals itself from their eyes, and equally so his regained security.”

The mask frees you from attribution thereby biases and even the socio-economical influences. You will never let honor or shame, right or wrong, good or bad, happy or sad justify the events in your life. You will never ever flinch to enter an unsettling adventure which guarantees your growth personally. Embarrassment, failure will just be another emotional response for you (please note that this does not mean that you will be emotionless, it means that you will be able to recognize your emotions and let them pass.)

This is exactly why I would force everyone to understand Nietzsche on their own level!!!    

“Every profound spirit needs a mask; nay, more, around every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to the constantly false, that is to say, superficial interpretation of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he manifests”

This could also be one reason why some the greatest personality humanity has ever seen had a layer of controversial ambiguity around them.

From the idea of mask, Nietzsche moves to the idea of its conservation. The conservation is meant to define the philosophy of containing who you are rather that you submitting to some ideology. Whatever you have collected as an individual, whatever you are on philosophical level personally, how you have upgraded – refined your philosophy you must conserve that instead of giving to some ideology. The mask helps to conserve who you are.

“One must know how to conserve oneself – the best test of independence”

(this could be the reason why superheroes wear masks!!!  Joke aside but it is one powerful thought)   

Further Nietzsche warns new future philosophers to not be people pleaser or submitter to temptations. That will steal them of their judgement and independence.

Freedom From Your Version of Truth

The ways in which Nietzsche is trying to close his arguments are really beautiful. He knows that when the future philosophers will have discovered their new truths in their journey of blood, sweat and tears, it is natural that they will get attached to it. Such is the human tendency. He wants us to get rid of the obsession with this new truth. This truth even if it’s the newer one will create boundaries in your perception, you won’t be free anymore! Nietzsche wants to let the future philosophers let go of the dogma.

“In the end things must be as they are and have always been – the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare”

Freedom From Illusion of Freedom

On closing notes Nietzsche has advised new philosophers to be careful of the “freedom” they are being offered under new socio-political ideas. Nietzsche focuses here on the ways new philosophers are embarking on the journey to new truths. He tells that having fluency in speech and effective grip on written communication will not define you as the new philosophers, even though they are one aspect of it. But the systems having higher Will to Power will use same tools to control new philosophers and change the course to their versions of truth.

New philosophers will be misled with words like “Equality of Rights”, “Sympathy with All Sufferers”, “Modern Ideas” but they should be careful about them. They should be aware that the moment they create a thought process the people on different levels with different Will to Power will interpret these same ideas for their own benefit especially the ideas which are polar opposites of your ideas. Once such separation happens nobody, not even you cannot get the real freedom.  

Nietzsche offers the rule of solitude while embarking on such journey. Only you can free yourself.  

Losing the ‘Grip’ on Escapism

Escapism creates a void in our perception of reality so that new ideas, creative ideas would populate this void for living life with a new perspective, new approach. The healthy escapism is the most important tool, a therapy for many successful creative people our world has ever seen. Once this escapism takes extreme side it may lead to addiction, procrastination and delusion. Freud’s ‘desire to destruction’ and René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire help us to understand escapism in better ways to face the reality head on.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one

Albert Einstein

It is very interesting when we start questioning how we understand, feel and interpret the reality. The reality in which we live in has infinitely many facets which we experience through equally diverse emotions. We as human beings are hardwired for seeking happiness, happiness creates the environment to nurture, grow and multiply. Bear in mind that only growing and multiplying is not enough to guaranty the survival of our species. Adaptation is one aspect to ensure the sustenance over the course of time. Adaptation means getting exposed to adversities, sadness, imperfections of reality to create the strong enough coping mechanisms. What would happen if are continuously in the phase of seeking pleasure and turning our faces away from the challenges of the reality? How we justify our own death (figurative) by our own hands when we submit ourselves to such dark pleasures, addictions, dark temptations in spite of knowing that they are harming us? There is just one perfect song to point us towards such emotions.  The song is called “Grip” by Seeb and Bastille.

The song was written by Espen Berg, Dan Smith, Thomas Eriksen, Mark Crew, Simen Eriksrud and Joakim Haukaas.

Album art for Grip by Seeb, Bastille

Grip – The Lyrics

As the night time leads into the day
And tomorrow spills across the sky
While the sun's a harsh reminder why
We are feeling barely human

The overall emotions this person is experiencing are the emotions of distaste and hatred towards the things which are inevitable. He knows already that it is going to be day after this night, the sun will rise up and he will have to face the day helplessly. The “harsh reminder” here highlights that the person doesn’t want to face the day, the reality, the responsibility and wants to escape to the night where he was someone better than human – someone invincible.

 ‘Tomorrow spills’ shows that the thing/s which this person was trying to postpone, avoid has finally come. The spilling action shows the unwanted eventuality. The things which the person is trying to avoid are the sufferings and problems which for this person are mocking him for his humanistic limitations.  

This rise of the day is a reminder of his humanly limitations and the sufferings which never end. The person is well aware of the sufferings and hence is cursing the Sun for reminding him about his limitations as a human being. The transition of night into a sunny day is also a metaphor for the veil falling down. The veil of enjoyment which was masking the suffering, imperfections, sorrows, problems of the reality.

I really loved the word play to show how the person hates the day which never comes – ‘tomorrow’. It kind of points towards the ‘procrastination’ to avoid the pain of imperfections and the pain, the suffering accompanying with the life itself.

We don't know what's good for us
'Cause if we did, we might not do it
Who knows where our limits lie?
We won't discover 'til we push it

These lines explain the expression “Ignorance is a bliss” in the most perfect way. The person wants to ignore the things which are good because deep down he knows that they come with hardships. That is exactly why he says that even if he knew what is really good for him, he won’t do it; he knows doing the right is always the most difficult path. It’s like running away from the reality and reject it because it is full of pain, problems, unsettling consequences and imperfect.

The next lines show that the person is not completely delusional and detached from the reality. He knows that being a human being with unlimited capacity in the world of infinite possibilities, he can do anything and succeed at it. He is aware of the fact that he just has to expand his boundary to make impossible things possible. This is the moment when you will appreciate that the person expressing his feelings here is aware of everything that is right and wrong. It’s just that he just wants to be happy and maintain that state by rejecting the painful reality.    

I should just walk away, walk away
But it grips me, it grips me
But I should call it a day
And make my way
Oh, it grips me
'Cause the devil's got my arms
And it pulls me back into the dark
But I should just walk away
Walk away, oh it grips me
Cause the devil's got my arms

The person knows that he should completely let go of the things which are deviating his life from reality but now he has found one pity excuse. The person thinks that it is difficult to lose the hold of joyous, illusive but pleasurable darkness. He is ready to ‘call it a day’ get over with this pleasurable but illusive, dreamy life but somehow his mind has found an excuse of the devil which holds him back. It shows how addictive the dreamy, pleasurable alternate reality which is far from the ‘real’ reality, the life his mind has created which is full of pleasure, happiness and he is whatever he wants to be in this dreamy world. Grip of the Devil is just an excuse for him to tell others that he is not solely responsible to stay in this ‘unreal’ illusive life, this shows his lack of accountability. He is blaming the devil for him not facing the reality and taking charge of the course of his life.   

We got drunk on this unholy wine
To deliver us from our old minds
A promise of a better time
'Til we're feeling barely human

Wine in Christianity is a symbol of abundance, enlightenment, celebration, and blessings of the God. The ‘unholiness’ of the wine shows the overuse of this abundance which points to the addiction. Addiction is the worst use of the means preferred to gain pleasure. That is why the holy wine once intended for enlightenment becomes unholy when exploited and overused unnecessarily. The promise of better time is the reflection of what a person suffering from addiction feels, he tries to repeat the act to extract the pleasure – a short lived one. This short-lived pleasure makes him feel something better than human. Once the effect starts to fade out and the person regain the consciousness of weakness of human nature, he again resorts to this short-lived pleasure to regain the better humanly experience.

These are the exact emotions an addictive person goes through – this could be any addiction.

I would rather forget
And wash my memory clean
Oh, I would rather forget
And wash my memory clean

The person knows what mess he is in and the escape is also difficult. He just wants to remove all the traces of what he really is and surrender to the world of the devil.  (‘Cause the devil’s got his arms). He is helpless and just want to reject the painful reality while remaining into dark but pleasurable devil’s night. It an intentional submission the “dark side” to avert the pain of reality brightened with the Sun.

Escapism – Sadness, pain, procrastination and addiction

Escapism lies as the core theme of this song. We humans are pleasure-seeking animals. Remaining in joyful conditions promotes safety, continuation of the species from the evolutionary point of view. That is why we are hardwired to escape from adverse, life threatening, sadness inducing, fear inducing events. Fortunately, we are rarely exposed to wild animals and life-threatening situations as our primal ancestors did. But this instinct has not left us completely. Any event which simulates sadness, fear, great challenge – our response is somewhat still primitive. But as the technology as progressed so much, our ways to escape the hardships of the real, imperfect life have evolved drastically.

Please understand that escapism is not a bad word. But once it shifts to extreme use, abuse then addiction takes over and the person starts hating reality and submits to dreamy, delusional world created by him or someone else.

Reading, writing, painting, doing some happiness inducing activities/ tasks are simple examples of a “healthy escapism”. Such escapism creates a void in our perception of reality so that new ideas, creative ideas would populate this void for living life with a new perspective, new approach. The healthy escapism is the most important tool, a therapy for many successful creative people our world has ever seen.

Now coming to the other (dark) side of escapism – it’s a highway to addiction and constant search for dopamine hits. Deep down we know how we are all addicted to something. It’s just matter of who is affected by them in worse ways. Social media, their algorithms, the culture of overconsumption, the capitalistic urge to prioritize wants for getting social approval, submission to addiction to escape the problems are the real-life challenges that we are facing today due to the technology.  Technology is meant to provide an exoskeleton, an augmentation to improve our lifestyle but this same exoskeleton is weakening our muscles thereby crippling us. (The crippling of our minds.)

Escapism is not a new phenomenon, rather is has an age-old history only the ways in which we try to escape the reality have changed over the course of the time. Creating an alternate reality was always one way to alleviate the painful effects of reality. But, the tools that we have today are more potent and can immediately lead to the state of addiction.

You will see in the lyrics of the song the that the person is well aware of what wrong choices he is making, that it is not good to submit to the devil and the night but now he is so addicted to this alternate reality that he has started hating the reality and don’t want to experience it.

Such is also the way of procrastination. We try to delay the activities knowing that the had to be done anyways but won’t yield the perfect, beautiful results that you want. Procrastination thus creates an illusion of safety until the threat becomes imminent. Procrastination is also healthy unto certain limits to create a space of new approaches but if your fear of creation, action is preventing yourself to postpone their impact on reality thereby residing yourself into your dreamy world then such alternate reality is useless.

Reality is painful – but that is not the only thing it is!

We escape from reality so that we can come back to fight the reality with better tools and ideas not to completely run away from it because in the end reality will catch up with us with far gruesome, dreadful face and consequences.

We are highly prone to our conscious submission to the alternate reality because it creates a potent illusion of safety and comfort. This is because we think that living a fulfilled life means living a life of happiness, whereas upon close inspection you will appreciate that life has never given itself to either sides of the existence – neither good nor bad. Life keeps oscillating between these two and creation, destruction, growth, adaptation happens in between those waves. Buddhism talks about the roots of suffering in attachment. We humans are highly susceptible to immediate attachment to any living or non-living things (which are the parts of reality). Our attachment to such things then leads to the fear of their loss and thereby loss of familiarity and comfort which projects the ultimate fate of the reality as imperfect, painful and hostile one. Once we let of such attachments, we can have a full control on the escapism in our lives.

Once we start to see happiness as a process instead of a stage, we will truly appreciate the beauty in the prima facie unsettling imperfection of reality – this is the same real life, the reality where we actually exist and can truly contribute to affect our and other lives in better ways. It is not that painful as we have thought in our minds.

Also, even when you have achieved that only goal in your life, that full happiness, in the end you will again be miserable because you are going to be clueless about what comes next, what to do next!

I think confrontation is the opposite of the escapism because of the same reasons. Instead of the escaping from unsettling reality for short time again and again, and it catching up with us in the end, why not face it in first place and be done with it! This requires the attitude of rejecting the ultimate purpose of life attributed to the search for happiness. The reality is neither happy nor sad.   

Sigmund Freud – Beyond Pleasure and Desire to Destruction

Sigmund Freud in his early developments of psychanalysis was the strong proponent of the ideas of human beings as the pleasure-seeking animals. Freud actively promoted his ideas of psychology based on the thought that our actions are always intended to maximize pleasure, procreation, and preservation and avoiding pain. He called this force as “Eros”

Freud’s early ideas hence are always pointing towards that continuous search for pleasure (Lustprinzip). But once the world war started Freud went under immense emotional pressure as his two sons were soldiers in war, he also saw soldiers residing to traumatic war experiences. In coming years, Freud lost his beloved daughter to Spanish flue. Here he felt really miserable, guilty and painful that he is able to survive while his daughter died.   

This is where Freud brought in the idea that humans also have a death drive, destruction (Thanatos) where doing nothing helps to cope up with the intense sadness of the reality. This idea was introduced by Sabina Nikolayevna Spielrein – one of the first female psychoanalysts. Under extreme pressure humans may chose to do nothing as doing anything will end in pain.

So, Freud evolved his idea of human psyche as an interplay between the urge to live and urge to die.

The person in the song submitting to the dark, harrowing addictive pleasures shows this same urge to destruction even though he knows that they are not good. We are ready to submit ourselves to darker illusions because of this same desire to die, to destruct ourselves because sometimes reality feels more brutal than death.

When one is exposed to unknown events in life, the urge to pleasure will seek excitement, adventure and adrenaline, dopamine, knowledge from it while for same life event the urge to destruction will resort to confusion, danger, fear and submission to familiar, warm and comfortable environments.

Freud received huge criticism for these ideas too. Freud also mentioned that this death could also be figurative – as the complete distaste towards everything in life and becoming inanimate – a living dead body.

The idea of clearing memory in the end of the song shows this side of desire to destruction to me.

Important thing to come out of these ideas is to appreciate that life never favored any side – good or bad. Life is always multifaceted. There is always something good in bad and bad in something good. Good and bad always coexist.       

Mimetic Desire – Responsibility and accountability

René Girard a French philosopher of social science pointed towards a very innate pattern in human thinking which is called as “Mimetic Desire” in philosophy of social science. He pointed out that even though we may think that our drives are totally created from inside and we are the sole, absolute creator of such desires (like calling ourselves God, the Creator) these are mere effect of our surrounding, they are not created from something absolute. We are always sorting people, things around us to create a place where we say that “we belong”. This helps us to create and justify our identity. The moment someone creates and points towards something as problematic, unsettling then rest of the people also use it as a “scapegoat” to put the blame of anything bad, wrong happening with them.   

We as human beings and social animals are always looking for something to blame which creates an object to blame for difficulties in our life. This grows faster when it happens in group.

According to the ideas of Mimetic Desire given by René Girard, people make scapegoats when the truth, the reality makes them uncomfortable – the reality they don’t want to acknowledge. They desperately lookout for things, groups, people to put blame and make this illusion their reality where they find comfort. People do this because they somehow want to release their anger, tension.

The creation of devil is the same thought. The person in this song is well aware of the truth of reality but as his desires are to always seek pleasure in any possible ways, he finds a scapegoat of “the grip of the devil” to justify his addiction and bad actions. Religious, political beliefs have many examples of such scapegoats.

Responsibility and accountability are very important aspects when we are talking of such ideas. That is why it is very important to rethink our ideas when we are trying to justify them with something delusional.

Conclusion

The key idea to tackle extreme escapism is to accept the imperfect nature of reality. The reality may be fearsome, difficult and unsettling but it is also hopeful, happy and comfortable. Your actions in reality will bring you closer to good experiences rather than submitting to unreal, delusional short acts of pleasure. It’s not the grip of the devil that is holding you in the night, it is you yourself who contain this devil inside who is holding you back. Let your angel overpower your devil to bring you back into the reality. May you grow with every pain inflicted upon you to make you even stronger than you were before. May the creation provide you the physical and especially mental adaptability to handle and appreciate the reality – the only real place where you truly exist.     

Official video shows the transitory phase of a teenage boy who is trying multiple ways to gain pleasure thereby moving away from the awkwardness of reality to become “cool”. But once the balance of pleasurable acts tips to the wrong side, he submits to the pleasurable but dark and devilish side of his personality. This is where he submits himself to the devil.

The video intricately shows the fragile nature of adolescence and the high impact of the choices made in this phase which could have lifelong effect of the personality.   

There a also one lyrical video for this song where you will see fruit butchering (I don’t know why but the producers have made it look very tempting!)

Also, the credit goes to SeeB for adding their iconic style of falsettos to make the listeners feel the grip of the devil in a fantastic way.

The creators of “Grip” Seeb and Dan Smith from Bastille

The song video

Lyrical “fruity and juicy” video

Listen on spotify

Alienation and Creativity

Creation for capitalism, consumerism and pleasure maligns its true purpose which actually is to create joy and a sense of belonging, comfort and safety. Alienation is the end effect of such capitalist processes where people have isolated their humans side for the rat races and FOMOs. Pure creativity, empathy, connect with nature and self can help use to preserve that human core and come out of the alienation.

How true forms of creativity can help us to reconnect with our human core

“On The Train Ride Home” by The Paper Kites

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I found –

Maya Angelou

Humans – the creative animals

I think creativity is the most important quality granted to human beings. Nature in itself is the ultimate and the best creation which at the same time is also the creator of many things. Animals, non-human beings too have the gift of creativity to certain extent but human beings have outperformed in using this gift of creativity. We are always creating something, we have tools, we have automated processes to create anything we can understand. This creation of things has led us to becoming the most developed species on the planet. Creation can be in any sense – creation of music/ art/ cultures, families/ society, factories/ industries/ conglomerates, institutions/ organizations, cities/ metropolitan, governments, policies, supply chain, and what not! All these creations are intertwined to prove how advanced the human species is. You must also remember that once a process of creations starts generating fruitful outcomes it gets automated to optimize, to improve the efficiency. Most of the times we forget that some creative processes are not meant to be optimized because value of their outcomes is not materialistic. The concept of efficiency and/or optimization is purely materialistic concept. But as we are progressing ahead as the species, most of our creation processes are getting robotized, where materialistic outcomes are more important than the process of creation itself.  

Young generation has crucial role in deciding the future course of our species, especially when we have this great tool of creation – our creativity itself. People of my generation (millennials and Gen-Z to some extent) are the key creators of this time who will decide where our future will lead us. This generation is completely busy in various ventures of creation to justify their own life. But, as I have mentioned before, our creation processes have become so mechanistic, so robotic to gain more, extract more materialistic outcomes that this young generation is getting more and more detached from the real purpose of creation in its true spirit. The consumerism and (crony) capitalism has thrown today’s youth into a forced state of alienation in spite of being living in crowd, densely populated resourceful, glamorous cities. We are lonely in spite of being surrounded by the crowd.

This loss of attachment from the spirit of creation has led to the alienation of the today’s young generation – who many times go through the feelings of isolation, meaninglessness, directionless, confusion – it’s not just a normal existential crisis through which every young generation of their times goes through rather it’s the blurring of the true spirit of living in today’s young generation. Please keep in mind that it is not mistake of this same young generation. The system, society, institutions have evolved in such way that the creative processes are getting designed more for materialistic optimization instead of getting created for the real upliftment of the human civilization. Feels like we are losing touch of the real purpose of our being.

An Australian indie rock band called The Paper Kites released a song called “On the Train Ride Home” which in my opinion tries to touch those feeling of “alienation” which our today’s young generation is going through. Deep down we all know what we really want, we know what our core is but the systems in which we are living today have made our lives more and more mechanical, even though we are in the process of creation that creation no more belongs to us, that detachment, that alienation, that freedom from the vicious capitalistic cycle is what we are yearning for in the end. This is what this song for me is.

The Paper Kites
L–R: David Powys, Sam Bentley, Sam Rasmussen, Christina Lacy, Josh Bentley

I will dissect this song from the point of alienation; for me that is what it is all about.

The lyrics of the song is credited to Samuel Bentley, On the Train Ride Home lyrics copyright: Wonderlick Pty Limited

(It’s a song which needs to be treasured, hidden from others so that no one spoils it and I know I am committing a personal crime by exposing it. But such creations need more exposure and deserve proper appreciation too.)  

Waiting down at the station
I don't remember, think it was late then
Standing, always so quiet
We're like elevators filled up with strangers
No sound, no hallelujah's
Still I was praying on the train ride home

The starting of the lyrics creates an imagery of the person waiting for a train home. The complete separation from the surrounding has made this person to forget vivid details, it shows the mundane-ness, the separation from surrounding to just reach a safe, calming place which is home. The feeling of loneliness in spite of being in the crowd shows how there is no emotional connect between people. Elevator filled with strangers shows that people are closer and more connected, more accessible but they are not closer emotionally. This is exactly today’s situation, social networking and internet brought us so close that we can ‘poke’ our friend living in another hemisphere within few seconds and still we will see people craving for true connections more than ever. No hallelujah’s shows the loss of spirit, loss of soul in people who are part of this – physically close but emotionally isolated crowd.

If I can't get the things I want
If I can't get the things I want
Just give me what I need

Here, the person is aware of the difference between wants and needs which shows that his/ her separation from home to go to the crowded place to create a better resourceful life was not the ultimate goal. This is the only way through which this person can live a life. The system based on the cycles of consumption has narrowed down the meaning of living a life to mere survival. One can get as many things by obeying this cycle of consumption but it will not satisfy the hunger – the emotional hunger, that intimate craving of humanity. The distinction and use of wants and needs is a very smart way to show how the person is trapped in the system to survive but deep down they know what actually makes a fulfilled life. That is why person asks for basic fulfilment if not all what they desired.       

Our words fill up the pages
Fill up the days with psalms for the ages 
Still those vows that we all speak
We break them like concrete
And just make our words cheap

This part of song shows how words have lost their worth. Words in the sense the sense of commitment, sense of loyalty to keep the promises. The piousness of the daily prayers, the vows are less cared for. This expression shows how insensitive we have become to just gain the materialistic means, to survive.

This is exactly where it struck me that this song is not just about average existential angst every young generation goes through; this song is more about the alienation of a person where system does not value real creativity – which gives our lives meaning. The system now has been maligned with the materialistic efficiency. Consumption has become more important than the end effect it creates. Mention of “wants” and “needs” thus highlight the culture of consumption here.    

I want someone to grow with
Songs I can sing to, and I family to cling to

The song tries to conclude with the ultimate pursuit for living a better life. Why are we all doing the things which we do? Why do we go on job? Why do we work all week, live paycheck to paycheck without any greater purpose – in spite of knowing that we hate this work at its core? Why knowingly, intentionally are we craving for more and more materialistic pleasures?

I think it is because of the recent vile cycle of consumption. I have a reason to justify this. Somewhere we know that the process of creation in which we are involved is not doing justice with our pure humanistic core.

As a human being all we crave for is the mutual growth, sense of fulfillment, love and intimacy for each other in this limited time on the earth. We know that ultimate goal of creation should be this humanistic goal, but the moment the creation loses this human touch we suffer from alienation, a sense of directionless, sense of being confused, a sense of trapped inside an infinite maze. This is the exact moment when the person craves for home, family and intimacy.

The train ride home is that craving for being the real human being who values emotions, commitment, love and happiness of the loved ones.

But If I can't get the things I want
If I can't get the things I want
Just give me what I need

The person understands that in this seemingly flashy, attractive, glamorous but mechanistic, mundane, lonely and unemotional life there is some hope that they at least will be able to preserve their human core. The request for the “need” over “wants” is the cry for that preservation of the human core.

Alienation

What urged me to completely (and maybe blindly) associate the lyrics of this song to alienation is how Socialism defines the concept of alienation. Karl Marx identified how a process of creation thereby value creation could isolate its creator from its creation. This isolation of creation and creator once intensified removes all the human, emotional attributes from the process of creation and here the brutal capitalism starts. The creation is now mere a mechanical, boring routine of materialistic revenue creation where humanity has no value.

Karl Marx on alienation

Karl Marx presented very beautifully the purpose of creation in human life. It is what separates human beings from other animals, non-humans. We are always involved in creative process which have a personal purpose, a meaning. That is why our creations and it’s end results are so intense and are way different than how other non-human creative processes. The moment such processes start demonstrating the separation of creator, the process of creation and the end-product of creation, capitalism/ consumerism start peeking their head out thereby slowly eliminating what made such things processes humanistic. This exactly is alienation, there is no sense of home, comfort or belonging.     

Marx defined four types of alienation in his discussions:

Alienation of an object –

A factory labor stitching the designer clothing does not bear the capacity to own it and enjoy it. Even though the labor holds the skill and knowledge to create that fancy clothing the system is rigged in such way that the emotional connect between creator and creation is lost forever.

Alienation of process –

The process of creation has become so mechanical, so repetitive to improve the efficiency and to increase the output that humans involved in them have also became mechanical, unemotional. Today’s young generation working in mundane jobs, the jobs they hate only for the paycheck and the job without any personal purpose is the example of that alienation. The separation of creator from objects makes the object accessible to anyone but this accessibility is not equally distributed because the input to output ratio is highly skewed. The value that is created in the creation of the object does not reward the creator in any good way thus creator – the labor remains poor. This also make the creator to lose the faith in the process thereby leading to the alienation of the process.

Alienation of species-being –  

The moment this mundane, highly optimized process does not bear any real humanistic purpose, the creator no longer follows the process to reach a better position in life spiritually, intellectually through the process of creation. It’s like the human creator has become a machine giving throughput. A sense of being a better species is lost forever – this is another form of alienation.

Alienation between humans –

Once the creator no longer has a direct connect to its creation, has no faith in the process for better pivot of meaning, has no sense of humanity, the value for another human life is lost. It is not because the creator or this person demeans or belittles others, it is because the creator himself/ herself does not consider their efforts their value of better worth, hence same treatment is given to people in their surroundings.

There is one famous snippet of a speech from Gabor Maté, a Canadian-Hungarian physician who has done work in ADHD, trauma, childhood development.

Gabor talks about broader scope of alienation which somewhat is based on the Marx’s idea of alienation.

Alienated from nature –

We as the human species no longer have that connect with nature which has resulted in its deterioration. You might have seen that there are still some tribes living in the remotest, inaccessible areas round the globe which are completely in tune with the nature and have preserved it. Today’s consumerism has detached our objects of consumption from their consequences on nature thereby destroying it.

We have to somehow re-establish that connect with nature otherwise nature has its way of adjusting things (we are seeing its effects all around the globe). And remember that this re-connection is also linked to we being the human beings. I mean, who doesn’t like lush greenery, pristine rivers and remarkable biodiversity!

One of the first condition of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be broken.

Leo Tolstoy
Alienated from work –

The works we are engaged in are rarely driven by a meaning or a higher purpose. Even if it has some meaning it is immediately inked to some materialistic thing, there is nothing wrong in it as far as survival is concerned but at least this awareness should push us to work for the things with higher humanistic, spiritual purpose, that is our real core as the creative beings. The alienation from work has led to depression, anxiety, emotionless feeling, numbness among every one of us. We are replacing this meaninglessness by other material means which involve how we look, what we possess. Such means of damage control are creating more damage to who we are and what we work for which defines us. You will see, the economy we live in highly focuses on associating meaningful experiences to materialistic products.

Alienated from other people –

The moment we lose the hope and connection between our surrounding we are losing some human part in ourselves which dims down our perception of humanity for others. We trust very few people or almost no one, the relationships rarely have that depth, that intimacy. Social structures based on the depth of relationship are dwindling. The mental illnesses are emerging due to the lack of social emotional support system, growing intolerance, apathy on global level are also effects of that.

The start of the song where it mentions people filled in the elevator, disinterested and having been lost their spirit is the same alienation.

We have to start forgiving people again, create safer environments where we can express ourselves without any prejudice. It is scientifically backed that putting trust in people and treating them with high worth makes them trustworthy and high performer (see Pygmalion effect) In the end, everyone of is craving for someone to rely on and also someone who will make our sacrifices worth of the hardships. Associating positivity of self-worth to being appreciated and being respected for who we are is hardwired in our human circuitry. Our existence gets redefined to higher standards the moment other people (even single person) recognize it. (History has examples where people did impossible for far lesser people who believed in them without expecting anything in return)  

The urge to cling to a family, sing a song to someone, grow with someone mentioned in the song is asking to escape from such form of alienation.

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night

Margaret Mead
Alienated from ourselves-

We have lost the connect our inner self, our curiosities, our inner child in the pursuit of the consumerist ends. The disconnect with the surrounding and numbness to the processes in which we are involved is furthermore deteriorating our inner human core. We rarely listen to our gut feelings, instincts because presence of lots of data, information around us creates a false sense of understanding of the things around us. This is alienation from ourselves, we don’t even trust ourselves – a simple advertisement or targeted influence is enough to make us buy that next thing that we don’t even want.

The part in the song where it talks about making our words cheap is the alienation from self. There is no concept of morality and inner compass in such alienation.

We know deep down what exactly is happening with us and around us but the system rarely creates conditions to come out of that.

How to de-alienate?

The desire to know your soul will end all other desires

Rumi

The core reasons of alienation lie in the loss of empathy, loss of higher meaning/ purpose and loss of responsibility/ commitment (committing to something to change the course of life requires higher sense of responsibility). We are empaths by default as a human being, so it is imperative to preserve this attribute even if the surroundings force the opposite. I know this is difficult when we are responsible for multiple things and people, but you are also responsible for yourselves. It is worthless if you win, achieve something great while losing yourself in the end.

The creative processes whose outcomes are not attached to any material means are thus the purest paths to avoid such alienation in the times of high consumerism and negative effects of capitalism. High consumption is an addictive form of alienation which can be nullified by pure creation. Consumption will give pleasure but creation will give joy.

The prayer to ride home in the song is the hope that we will again meet ourselves in spite of such extreme disconnect. Pure creativity is the answer to such prayers as far as the process elimination of alienation from our life goes.

What separates human beings from rest of the animals is their creative ventures otherwise we are exactly like all other living things. We are the beings who engage in multiple activities of creation which are driven by conscious intent, a reason. This ability to create something has led us to become the technically advanced species on the planet. If we establish the connect with our inner core through meaningful creation, the victory over all forms of alienation is possible.

True creation is all about connecting to every possibility there is.

Such deep concept of alienation expressed in a wholesome and soulful song by The Paper Kites truly deserves more and more appreciation and recognition. Words failed me to express how it made me feel (that is exactly why I didn’t control my words count, where few verses of this song did the same job. No wonder poetry is highly potent than prose!)

The song-

Deconstruction – reading between the lines

Logic always talks about ones and zeros. But when logical, philosophical arguments end up in a paradox we discover a totally new understanding about reality which is neither one nor zero but a spectrum. Jacques Derrida’s basic urge through deconstruction is the rejection of the duality or presumption, and seeing beyond what is shown using the limitations of language. Deconstruction helps to come out of the duality of any argument by putting relative meaning at the center instead of loyalty towards the signs used to show the meaning.

Jacques Derrida’s philosophy for the better understanding of the reality

Language and its purpose

Questioning is at the core of philosophy. Philosophy’s main pursuit is always to create an understanding about the subject of interest. It provides a way to create a basic and concrete understanding of the subject. It is a way to understand the creation and things that are beyond creation. Philosophy is the process of formalizing any concrete understanding so that a new evolved, more absolute understanding could be built upon that foundation.

The means to create such understandings are languages; it could be any language, of symbols, pictures, sounds, geometries, etc. Language serves as the most important tool to formalize any thought, idea, proof, postulate. So, every component of the language has to mean something to create a bigger meaning; like in speech, every word means something. When I say ‘child’ you will see a human young-ling, when I say ‘apple’ you see a red fruit of that particular shape, and when I am saying apple, you are sure that I am not talking about ‘oranges’, because orange is associated with something different looking ‘fruit’ (some would even think of an iphone when I say apple!). This shows that just like how atoms create molecules thereby the object, in similar sense, words of basic meaning create an expression and thereby some context which shows what we mean when we are saying them together to convey a bigger meaning.

Just like atoms of different elements from the periodic table come together in different permutations and combinations to create variety of compounds and infinite objects rather the whole universe, in the same sense every component of given language carries a value – a meaning which builds a narrative, an expression to create a context, a logical statement; a set of such logical statements together can point to some truth, some fact. If used in smart ways, it can help us to discover the hidden sides of our understanding. That is roughly how science and mathematics work.

But you know what? When we are investigating the boundaries of our understanding, we see that they all end in paradoxes, some self-referential paradoxes. Take for example, Epimenides paradox (the Cretan philosopher Epimenides of Knossos) as follows:

Epimenides, a Cretan says, “All Cretans are liars”.

Now what does this convey? Prima facie it feels like all Cretan people are liars, but then you see that person who is saying this is also a Cretan that makes him a liar, so he too is a liar. But if Epimenides himself is liar then what he said is also a lie, meaning that Cretans are not liars rather they are veracious. If Cretan’s are veracious then what Epimenides says is truth meaning that all Cretan’s are liars and this means Epimenides is also a liar. We end up in a loop, a self-referential paradox.

In the end, the sentence does not make sense, logic, the sentence is meaningless.

What happened here?

We used a language medium to create a meaning which helped to create newer understanding but that new understanding led us to bigger confusion, meaninglessness.

Here, I pose a very important question –

if the context of the sentence is meaningless does that mean that the words from which that sentence is made – words which have their own individual identity, their own absolute meaning a context are also absolutely meaningless?

What if we encounter same situation in the philosophical endeavors? as they are the building blocks our overall understanding of the creation and things beyond creation.

This is where the philosophy of deconstruction given by Jacques Derrida comes into light. I will try to explain deconstruction by building on some ideas. (you will see in the end that nothing “absolute” makes any sense or doesn’t even exist. That is also why deconstruction was rejected by many great philosophers but it has a valid point to prove.)

The flow of thought presented hereon is roughly like building an understanding and then challenging that idea because it does not present the best model of how our reality, our consciousness work.

Logocentrism

Western philosophy is based on the foundations of ‘the reason’. The Greek word logos (λόγος) literally means word, discourse, or reason. So, logocentrism considers language as the expression of reality and hence stands as a mediator between conscious and reality.

It is very important to understand that every type of understanding, knowledge building, sharing, communicating activity is associated with language. You need a medium to give a proper structure to what you are thinking and let others comprehend it. Logocentrism focuses on that.

As we have seen already that use of language in certain way could create meaninglessness, self-referential paradox, does that mean language is failing to create better truths? What exactly is happening? If language and logic is paradoxical then the reality which they are explaining must also be paradoxical but that is not the reality we live in (if it would be paradoxical, then reality would not exist, the paradoxical elements would annihilate each other)

This means that there is something lying beyond the territories of language which we are not able to comprehend and translate which could solve this paradox of language.

(Park this first thought in your mind for some time)

Plato’s definition of reality – Platonism and The theory of forms

Plato called out for “essence” of everything that exists. Essence represents that absolute truth which we try to define using ‘forms’, the forms are ideas which are non-physical, timeless, absolute. The forms create reality but they are beyond our grasp because of our physical limitations.

So, building on the theory of forms Platonism believes that in surety that there is something truly pure and absolute at the bottom – at the root of existence. It supports the existence of abstract objects which are believed to exist in the realm which is different from sensible external world and our internal consciousness.

So, when you try to comprehend the Platonism and logocentrism together, you will appreciate that language and the logic it conveys, the meaning, the context it conveys is the foundation of how we understand the creation, the philosophy itself and the products of philosophy.

Language creates an objective pivot to create absolute ideas whose correlation yields into higher truths. Language creates ‘meaning’, ‘context’, ‘logic’ according to the Platonism.

(Park this second thought)

Semiotics – Language as signs

If language is so important to understand the true reality, it becomes very important to create a structure, rules, grammar to use it effectively. Semiotics deals with these ideas.

A sign is an important part of any language, one can say that any language is made up of signs. Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the two founders of Semiology established the two components of sign as signified and signifier. As these both words are self-explanatory – signified is the one which is of interest (also known as the ‘plane of content’) and signifier is how we are observing thereby expressing the object of interest (also known as the ‘plane of expression’).

So, in written language when I am saying apple, you know I am talking about the fruit called apple which looks red, tastes tart-sweet, is crispy-crunchy in texture when one takes its bite.

(This is the third thought to be parked)

Aufhebung – the sublation

In the modern western philosophy, which considered the language as the path leading to ultimate truth the idea of sublation created ‘logical’ revolution. The language as a tool to develop logic and this logic then leading to the investigation and discovery of the ultimate truth became really vital. For logic to remain ‘logical’ one needs to define the basic objective sides like right or wrong. A given idea must be right to exist in reality otherwise, it is wrong and is invalid. We build many arguments of right and wrong to lead us to the absolute understanding. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is known to develop the idea of sublation. Aufhebung literally means ‘to suspend’, ‘to abolish’.

For example, darkness is the condition when there is no light. If a place is called ‘lit’ it means that there is no darkness. So, this dualism created through sublation gave the greatest philosophical power to language and thereby logocentrism. When something is not good it is called as bad, when there are enough logical arguments like such ‘binary oppositions’, one can reach to the absolute truth as far the logocentrism goes. The process almost becomes objective, self-sufficient, and mechanical, there are no chances of human error when we are handling philosophical treatise; this is the same foundation through which judicial systems created the structure of law.

(the fourth thought to be parked)

Deconstruction

What came first – chicken or the egg? meaning or language?

Just recall the four ideas which we parked before.

Jacques Derrida is the philosopher who developed the ideas of deconstruction who solved the paradox of the logic in the logocentric philosophy.

It is important to accept that wherever a paradox arises there lies an opportunity of the creation of a new branch in our knowledge system. The deconstruction is that new branch which got created here. Derrida rejected the idea of Platonism. His work in deconstruction is highly inspired from the philosophy of phenomenology. Phenomenology is the study of fundamental nature of subjective consciousness and experience.

One would get confused to appreciate the matter of subjectivity in a philosophical discourse but phenomenology presents some valid points when we are questioning the reality and developing its understanding. How can subjectivity guarantee absolute truth?

Life was always there even before chicken and egg and also in both of them

Did you get my point?

The moment we separated egg from chicken and posed them as two distinct objects the famous question about their existence in timeline becomes meaningless. In the same sense, other similar questions have exactly same meaningless fate – what is life and death? what is good and bad? what is right and wrong? what is truth and lie?

Derrida pointed out that the moment we create duality in any argument we are losing some important information which could have showed us the ‘real’ reality. Maybe reality is not just two sides of the coin, maybe absoluteness itself is not ‘absolute’. In the attempt to create purely logical arguments, we lost the possibilities to see the real context behind the existence of these arguments.

Derrida strongly promoted the idea that meaning was always there, language is just a way to convey that meaning. Using language to find out new meaning does not lead to newer meaning because this ‘structured’, ‘logical’ language has already submitted itself to the already established two sides of the result – it will either be ‘right’ and if it is not right it will be ‘wrong’.

(Now bring that first parked thought of logocentrism – idea that language is the expression of the reality)

As the logocentrism goes, language is the mediator between consciousness and reality.     

Now read the lines below:

This is an example taken from internet. Fact is that every average, normal person can read and understand this. Our brain is always on energy optimization mode. It never reads each and every letter to make a meaning out of the given word, it looks at the bunch of symbols to make sense out of it. This is small example to show that meaning is more important than the symbols, signs used to convey that meaning.

If we were to strictly submit to the rules of English vocabulary and grammar, this presented sentence is senseless to all of us. That is why complete loyalty to language instead of meaning is of no use as Derrida says while explaining deconstruction.

(now bring the remaining thoughts parked in your mind)

Meaning is relative

In deconstruction, Derrida talks about how we understand anything, any idea and how logocentrism, structuralism limited our understanding. The example of scrambled words helps to identify the idea of difference – Derrida called it Différence (as in French pronunciation). Whether I call it difference in english or différence in french, you understand what I am talking about because you get the context (that we are comparing something and this is the word to establish the gap between that comparison)

When I say apple how do you know what I am talking about?

You understand that I am talking about a fruit based on the context of my speech. Otherwise, there are definitely some people who would thing of an apple as an iPhone. So, when I say an apple, you think of a class of fruits, compare other fruits with ‘this’ one, this happens really fast and we are unaware of it after some time. This is true because when I am saying apple you are sure that I am not talking about oranges or any other fruits.

When I am saying dog, you know it is dog because it is different from cats, cows, horses. You are sure of the dog ‘animal’ because it is different in some sense than other animals.

Do you see what is happening here?

Our association of given word to any object whether it may be tangible or intangible is not absolute and self-reliant. It is relative. It is built based on how it differs from another objects. This is really important to understand and appreciate when one is trying to understand deconstruction.

The logocentric and linguistic tool that we are tying to use to understand the absolute truth has its limitations of preconception. The logic has already defined its two states of existence. That is why the language based on such logic will be filled with paradoxes and will never yield newer truths.

Derrida posed validity of his idea of deconstruction by showing the limitations of semiotics.

Take speech as the language of philosophy to find the absolute truth. There is a moment in Christopher Nolan’s movie inception.

We always initiate our thinking by creating certain arbitrary point as a pivot to build logic upon it. Here, the person was told to not think about elephants and in order to not think about elephants he had first defined what elephants are – where he paradoxically first thinks about elephants – to not think about them! Did you see what happened here?

Derrida says that even though the ‘sign’ which goes as the fundamental block of language as semiotics show, it is not self-reliant, self-established. For a sign to signify something specific, it has to differ from the other objects on certain attributes, the meaning of that sign will be relative.

The Swastika used by Nazi is a holy symbol in Hindu culture which signifies well-being. (you definitely are aware of its meaning in western civilizations)

Meaning of signs is always relative, contextual.

It is our complete loyalty to symbols which misleads us, where in reality the symbols are mere media to convey the meaning, context and not the other way around. Meaning created signs, language, language does not create meaning. That is exactly why complete and blind submission to language in the pursuit of truth leads to dead end.

The purpose of language/ signs in deconstruction

(recall the fourth idea of sublation, duality in logic)

Derrida attacked the semiotics by showing its limitations.

Now, we already understand what is signifier and signified. Derrida argued that if there was no difference between signifier and signified there would not be any purpose of existence of the ‘sign’.

To explain this argument in simple words, if you are not told about the varieties in the citrus fruits, you cannot tell which one is Lemon, which one is Mandarin, which one is Lime, Pomelo, Kumquat, Grapefruit, Bergamot and Citron.    

If you don’t know the difference, everything would be lemon and orange

The relative difference between objects and ideas gives them their meaning. That is exactly why surrendering to strictly assigned meaning would steal the idea of its real nature. The idea would lose its other aspect due to the loss of information during formalization.   

So, deconstruction shows that meaning is relative. When a sign is presented, a language is used to build an idea,  it invites all its attributes and its contradictions. Again, Derrida says that blind surrender to formal attribute would never help in revealing the true nature of reality.

That is exactly why deconstruction also challenges sublation. According to deconstruction, there are never two extremes of any idea, attribute, sign. If we give into the idea of good-bad, black white, right-wrong we are losing the crucial information which lies in the spectrum that exists between these two ends. If we are able to create different levels in between these extremes of sublation we will discover new ideas.

When we talk about darkness, we know what brightness is, the relation between these two extremes helps us to understand each other. It is also true that there is some limitation in our vision which makes it impossible to perceive the constituents of the darkness, darkness is not darkness in itself, it is made up of other spectrums of light like infrared, ultraviolet. (This is just a scientific example but same can be implemented in purely philosophical treatise)

Deconstruction

So, Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction challenges the logical dualism and the purity, absoluteness of language – a powerful tool and foundation of the philosophy.

Derrida attacked logocentrism by showing the flaws in the structuralism, Derrida showed that language is actually fluid while conveying the meaning instead of being completely static.

Derrida proved his point by showing our preferences for the languages. For discussion he took preference of speech over writing.

Speech involves various modulation while expression which is not possible through writing. Even though writing has certain symbols to signify those periodic gaps they cannot replace the advantages of speech.

Now, when an overly complex idea is to be presented, in order to review the train of thoughts again and again, written language is more effective than speech. Wherever you have to ‘technically’ present a thought, written communication is better, when you want to preserve an idea forever written communication is better than speech.

This is where we realize that there is nothing like the best and the worst. Each language has its own characteristics which can be only understood and appreciated once we see the difference between them. The differences between them show that there is no hierarchy among them. There value proposition is relative.

Now the moment I bring in today’s recorded audio-visual medium which is the most popular language of documentation, writing and speech will seem trivial, but they still hold their value in certain aspects.

The meaning of deconstruction as Derrida says is to break down the language to understand what is also does not mean. Our human instinct and training in language pushes us to stick to the predefined notion of the language whereas we forget that our understanding of that very notion emerged from its comparison to other parts. Derrida through deconstruction urged that while looking at something to understand seeing what lies beyond its appearance will give you the real understanding.

Why seeing beyond what is shown is important? Because the understanding with which we are trying to interpret what is shown was never absolute, it was created only because of the difference between what it is and what it is not.

This is where deconstruction starts to confuse everyone. Derrida called this puzzlement “Aporia”.

Why the idea of deconstruction felt wrong? And is it really wrong?

The tool Derrida used to explain the notion called deconstruction itself becomes the weapon to destroy that same idea.

The very first thing to understand deconstruction is to remove the presumption which logical language, logocentrism gives that these are fully defined, singular objects which are being discussed. The moment object of discussion becomes singular, we lose the possibilities to see its other attributes. To deconstruct is to remove the preconception that there is something really absolute that we are trying to discover.

It’s like searching for star emitting only infrared light by using the camera which only works in the visible spectrum of light, because you assumed that there is only visible light and where the light is not there it is only dark. You won’t even be able to appreciate that there are some stars which emit different type of light. You presumption of duality of dark and light prevented that different knowledge of your reality. Only relative understanding of the light waves can help you appreciate that there are some waves which are different from others, which are on a ‘spectrum’.   

Derrida’s ideas were controversial because most of the critical ideas in philosophy, mathematics are built upon clear distinction between objects and their fixated meaning and attribution.

Even for the word deconstruction, people attributed it to rejecting what the language conveys and accepting rather its opposite.

Deconstruction is not just breaking down any idea to expose its flaws. Deconstruction rejects the complete loyalty to the focal point of discussion while inviting the references which created our so called ‘focal point’. Most of the times our trained brain seeks for exact opposite which is where deconstruction gets misinterpreted.

Conclusion

Derrida’s basic urge through deconstruction is the rejection of the duality or presumption, and seeing beyond what is shown through the language. When we are talking about something we interpret what is our ‘subject matter’ because we know the differences between other subjects and ‘this’ subject. When we appreciate such differences the meaning becomes fluid instead of static, the thinking becomes analogue instead of digital ones and zeros. Possibilities open-up instead on being ended in the paradoxes. Whatever we are thinking about and establishing as the singular truth is inherently non-singular because it always needs its other counterparts to justify its position.

Many religious wars were waged because of remaining loyal to the religious languages, script and not understanding what they actually meant, many laws were exploited because the loopholes were discovered based on understanding only what they meant. This keeps on happening.

Deconstruction becomes very important tool to critique the ideas given in any discussion where the final pursuit is meaning and not the formality.

For Derrida’s deconstruction the ‘Aporia’, the puzzlement is not a sign of weakness rather it is the sign of maturity.

Derrida’s deconstruction thus showed that only fancy formalization of philosophy will not help us to understand the reality. We have to get rid of our loyalty to the idea that there is something really singular out there which would define everything in the end. Meaning is not what the language is conveying structurally, it is also what lies beyond that which is not conveyed.  The things which are not conveyed are the line of comparison to define the worth of the things being conveyed.  

“The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?”

Zhuangzi, Chuang Tsu: Inner Chapters

P.S. You will appreciate the ideas of deconstruction more if you watch Denis Villeneuve’s movie Arrival (2016). The movie beautifully shows the gap between language and meaning and also how potent the ideas of deconstruction are!

Undone – the hymn of Sisyphus for modern times

There are certain moments in life where everything seems meaningless while we take a look at the final fate of all things and nihilism takes over, especially in the times of great unexpected failure. A crystal-clear philosophy of absurdism can come to rescue in such unsettling moments of existential confusion. When such complicated ideas reveal themselves through a simple, soulful yet philosophical song spanning few minutes, the impact is immense. ODESZA & Yellow House’s song called ‘Undone’ from their collaborative album called ‘the flaws in our design’ is one such song which treasures the ideas from the myth of Sisyphus and the philosophy of existentialism, absurdism given by Albert Camus. Absurdism focuses on giving life our meaning through revolt, passion and freedom.

A simple, soulful song pointing towards the philosophy of Absurdism

“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Some songs have this magic where you instantly get hooked to them, you cannot put it in words but it makes you feel good. You love the feeling this song creates, but don’t know why. Now it’s in your mind on loop and you brain is completely saturated with it.

Now, there comes a moment when you are busy with something and the same song is playing in background like an ambient noise, like a filler and suddenly you have this epiphany, a revelation about what the song really means. Has this happened with you?

I came across a song in 2023 and thought that I have checked out every corner of this song in my mind, but I was wrong. This song was on loop for almost 10 months (believe me on loop means hardcore omnipresent music) and recently I found something revelatory about this song. It was beyond my superficial interpretation of this song (as this is subjective, maybe I should consider myself a dumb fool to not recognize that important side of the song – someone might have found out that thing, that meaning in their early listening of the same song or maybe I am surely hallucinating in the lands of overthinking! – only the creators know!)

The song I am talking about is from the ODESZA and Yellow House’s EP album “The flaws in our design” called “Undone”. (Written by Clayton Joseph Knight / Harrison Gordon Mills / Emile Van Staden, © Foreign Family Collective Publishing, Gmr Foreign Family Collective)

Flaws in our design by ODESZA and Yellow House

Allow me to take you on a mind trip (what it meant for me actually and what it revealed to me recently)

There’s no time to hide from the sun
There’s no time to come undone
That’s easier said than done
Just pick your poison and run

The song starts with certain urgency – “there is no time”.

The song-writer wants you to face the day and don’t give up. The writer understands that it is difficult to start fresh when every hope is lost, the path you were on, the things you were striving for didn’t come to fruition or didn’t go the ways you wanted. The urgency to exist is far more dominating than what great things you lost. So, writer asks us to start again even though is will be painful. Whatever you will be doing, in the end you are going to die, that finiteness of life brings in the urgency to live, to survive. That is why the song-writer says that even though the poison of existence is painful you must do something stick to something because when the time of departure will come you will fill empty that you didn’t appreciate what existence had to offer. You will call your existence worthless. At least sticking to something will give a meaning to the life – your life – whatever it may be but that will be “your” meaningful life in the end.

I’m struggling to find out where I stand
I keep wrestling with God and with man
Tryna forge a little life in-between
A man can only but dream

The writers are trying to show how the person is going through tough times, this person is trapped in a fight between the natural forces and the people around him/ her.

This is about where do we stand in this grand existence. On a personal level if someone comes to attack me or my loved ones, I consider these lives so precious that I would go beyond limits to save them and yet in the grandiose of all this creation our planet is just a speck of dust. Even if the whole earth is engulfed into some giant star, black hole or is crumbled to dust or vaporized due to a man-made nuclear calamity, nothing in the universe is going to change.

So, how do I justify my worth in this grand existence? It’s somewhat philosophical interpretation of given lines in the song but even on societal level it shows a conflict of the mind. This is a struggle to justify the position of a person in this complicated and chaotic society.

This could also be called as an existential angst; one has to fight with the natural forces of creation and the people around them to create a life they desire. There is always this innate resistance to survive, anything small or large could be responsible for the termination of your existence.     

This resistance to survive and create the life we desire gets converted to the existential angst when all our attempts fail, when we lose hope, these are the difficult times of directionless-ness where we try to question our existence. It’s this confusion, this question that “even when we tried all the possible things why didn’t the come to fruition?”

Forging a little life indicates how small is the success rate when one tries to create their own perfect life. A ‘dream-like’ perfect life.

The time’s come to lay it on the line
When meaning seems so hard to find
It all weighs heavy on the mind
It’s easier to leave it behind

Writers are trying to reiterate the urgency through the finiteness of the life. When the right time comes it reveals everything and when you are facing multiple failures, tremendous hardships it leads to breakdown. This breakdown, this hopelessness puts gasoline in the fire of the existential confusion. It feels like there is no way out. The writers feel the same but they advise to leave this weight behind. This is the weight which is actually holding us back in hard times. Acceptance of the failures is the only way to calm down the mind, learn something new. Sometimes it’s not just about failures, its also about the way we wanted our life to be, even after making many attempts if the things are not turning out the way you want, its better to leave that weight behind and move on.   

There’s no time to hide from the sun
There’s no time to come undone
That’s easier said than done
Just pick your poison and run

Again, the same advice, whatever you will struggle at will eventually make you feel hopeless, directionless but you should stick to something hopeful and move on.

Life can’t be won, can’t be tamed
The point of it all goes unnamed
The lost and the gained weigh the same
When returned to dust or to flame

There is no way to justify life in certain definitive way. It’s the grandeur of life and the infinite possibilities it provides which are more than enough to confuse anyone, especially those who have faced big failures or totally lost hope. There are these moments when you feel that you are not living a better life than your peers are living, when you feel like others’ lives are more happening and interesting than yours – this is the moment when you must appreciate that many people ready to die for the life you currently have.

And in the end, nothing will matter, everything will return to dust – to nothingness. Every transaction you had during your existence will be balanced to null, Nada.

I’m struggling to find out where I stand
I keep wrestling with God and with man
Trynna forge a little life in-between
A man can only but dream

Living is a struggle, living with failures is even worse but that doesn’t stop us to create those little lively moments in difficult times because our time here is finite.  We cannot waste this limited thus precious conscious existence on things which are resisting us from living the lives to the fullest.

The time’s come to lay it on the line
When meaning seems so hard to find
It all weighs heavy on the mind
It’s easier to leave it behind

When you receive the clarity of failure and the reasons behind it, it is always better to leave that weight of guilt, confusion, hopelessness behind to begin a new journey.

There’s no time to hide from the sun
There’s no time to come undone
That’s easier said than done
Just pick your poison and run

Show up, keep your head up, do something and stick to it, you are going to die anyways but make sure that when you die you won’t regret even a single thing, look alive and live your life.

Undone and its (deep) philosophical consequences!

You can call the things mentioned hereon as the garbage generated from my overthinking but bear with me, I have a point. This exactly might be the point of the song-writers while creating this song or this is just my brain connecting some random dots to make sense out of nothingness (that is how trickster our existence and the creation is – again according to my overthinking!)

OK, enough, now to the point!

In single simple line it philosophically goes like this and you can stop reading if you don’t like it!?!!

The recent revelation I had with the song Undone by ODESZA & Yellow House is the philosophy of Absurdism by Albert Camus, so the Myth of Sisyphus comes into picture. This song has uncanny resemblance to the philosophical ideas in absurdism.

Myth of Sisyphus

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra who was known to trick death, escape it and even trap it in its own chains. Sisyphus had tricked the Gods many times and gods were running out of the punishments to make a statement. In their one attempt Gods assigned Sisyphus a simple task – to roll a big boulder up the hill. When Sisyphus started rolling the boulder uphill and once it reached the top of the hill the boulder would roll down and again Sisyphus had to roll it uphill. This went on and on and Sisyphus got trapped in this meaningless task. Gods were relieved in the end.

Nihilism and Sisyphus

Albert Camus’s work on the philosophy of the absurd is one importance aspect of how we justify our existence in this seemingly meaningless existence. 

The meaningless task of Sisyphus is an analogous our daily mundane routines – sleep, wake up, go to job, come home, eat, sleep (then wait for weekend!). EAT, SLEEP & REPEAT. But even after this repetition, even after this boring routine when it comes to dying, we are always more scared to die than to live this meaningless, mundane life. I mean in the end it is all about coming from and returning to the dirt, even after that we crave for this conscious but repetitive, painful and “poisonous” existence.  

The lives we live are full of many small and big cycles, these cycles keep on repeating and we keep on following them. Remember the moment when you achieved something really great and in the next immediate moment you felt empty and directionless? Now that this great feat is achieved what lies next? And you become clueless, then you move on to achieving something far bigger and better and the cycle goes till you eventually die. In the end you weren’t even able to take your body with which you realized your conscious existence. What’s the purpose of all this if it is meant to end into dirt again?

Nihilism – nothingness thus rejects all the ideas which justify conscious human existence rather the existence in totality. Nothing really matters because everything starts and ends into the same worthless things. All this knowledge, all this kindness, all those relationships, all those friendships, all that discipline means nothing, there is no sense in following rules, routines, morality doesn’t make any sense, winners or losers – all end in coffins buried underground.

You must understand that these are the exact feelings many of us go through when we face some great challenges, great failures in our lives. The ideas from Nihilism may get associated to such feelings of meaninglessness. One might think that Nihilism is totally negative way for philosophy of existence but that is not the case. Nihilism also talks about non-attachment, non-possession which are the roots of suffering in life as explained in Buddhism. So, it’s not chalk and cheese scenario to be honest. Life may feel meaningless, filled of mundane routines like the task of Sisyphus and in this life, we are struggling to achieve something to realize in the end that we have to leave all that behind – what a cruel joke!

Existentialism, Absurdism and Sisyphus

What Albert Camus presented in his essays of the Myth of Sisyphus was the philosophy of the absurd.

The tendency of Sisyphus to always play tricks with death is exactly who we are. We are always trying to trick death, reject the death in many ways. Sisyphus shown as the king and having all the enjoyments of the life is who we are; everyone of us wants to live life to its fullest. Like Sisyphus, we all are tied to our routines.  

So, the philosophy of absurdism believes that the universe is meaningless and if people will try to find the meaning of the universe, then they will end up in a conflict. Absurdism calls out to the cycles we keep on repeating throughout our existence achieving nothing in the end; what came in, it went out leaving no trace behind.

The key difference between Nihilism and Absurdism is the extent of acknowledgement. Nihilism completely rejects any attribution or meaning to all aspects of life thereby rejecting the worth of life, whereas absurdism is more open ended. Absurdism believes that whatever the creation, the universe is we are not in sync with it to understand it completely. Absurdism thus is humbler and better ready to upgrade its ideology compared to nihilism.

“I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that its impossible for me just now to know it”      

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

What Camus beautifully did is provide a justification for such “absurd” nature of existence.

This is exactly why the philosophy of absurdism is in sync with the ideas presented in the song Undone.

Absurdism and Undone

Camus in absurdism explains that when people face scenarios of meaninglessness, scenes of existential crisis they reject the very life they possess – thus suicide.

This suicide could be physical or philosophical.

No need to explain physical suicide in detail, the core is that continuous sufferings reduce the perception of the worth of life, what life offers for the sufferings one goes through.

Philosophical suicide is more interesting (!) people kill their own conscience and submit to some ready-made belief system in order to brutally terminate their own existential confusion. (Now you must appreciate what this philosophical suicide is pointing to – the religions spread across he world and the hatred they create is the best example)

Camus says that our urge to live the life (physically and philosophically) is much more overpowering and influential than our whining, crying excuses to reject life. We value our conscious life more than our submission to death, even if it is mundane.

“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

As Camus says, man is condemned to death and the opposite of suicide is to revolt.

Since we cannot evade death, we must entertain death, keep it busy.

So, Albert Camus gave three possibilities of how one could make sense out of all this absurd life – Revolt, Freedom, and Passion.

– Revolt –

We must not accept any ‘final’ or ‘ultimate’ conclusion or calming justification in our unsettling struggles. Because the moment we get a proper justification to our existential angst, we surrender to that way of life (that is how extreme cases of religion work) and the process of learning and curiosity stops there.

The notion of ‘not hiding from the Sun’ in the song thus signify showing up even when the situations are difficult and unsettling. Sun indicating new day (even though being part of the routine) but with new way to look at it.

‘There is no time to come undone’ creates the urgency. Because, when a person is said to be undone – it means that the person has fallen apart, disintegrated, there is no meaningful attribution, purpose to the life they are living. The urgency to live life in spite of seeming meaningless and in spite of ending into death is a call to follow our instinct of living over suicide (philosophical). The absurdism thus focuses the subjective value of life; even though from outside our routines are mundane, only we know what exactly is happening with our lives and that surely is greatly unique; the way we experience our own life and the way other experience it is very special.

That is exactly why you must not waste your time on whining about the problems, losing hope, giving up on something.

The revolt is appreciating the meaninglessness and is also creating space to grow. Even when in final evaluation when we discover that the life is truly meaningless that should not stop us from giving it our own meaning.

That meaning could be anything, that is why ‘picking “your” poison and run’ becomes extremely powerful in the song and it is scattered throughout the song.

– Passion –

Talking about poison, absurdism talks about Passion.    

Passion calls for living life full of rich and diverse experiences. Again, just because nihilism reveals the meaningless view of life and creation, it should not stop us from appreciating what the life and creation provide us. Just because you know that you will die ultimately that does not stop you from breathing and waking up in the morning hoping that you will live another day.

Passion could be anything, that is why the songwriters figuratively attributed is as a poison. Whatever makes you feel free, liberated is your poison (bear in mind that this is philosophical). Do things that make you feel alive (again philosophically), run, sing, dance, write, fight, curse, play, work but look alive. You will appreciate that every thing you do, every passion you follow, every poison you consume have their own consequences, the moment you face these consequences of your acts – your life will have meaning. That is why this figurative poison in this song is very important.

“Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

– Freedom –

Third possibility is the freedom. We are absolutely free to think and behave as we decide. The perspective of life being free is more optimistic take on nihilism. If the creation means nothing that it is exactly what we call it! We can call it whatever we want, that is what freedom is. When you think that you are free, you do whatever you want and at that very instance you will realize that even freedom has constraints.

But, as the creation is infinitely meaningless it is open to up-gradation and rebooting. A truth which holds the capacity to upgrade itself is the real ultimate truth I would say; and in the same sense the freedom which knows its boundaries truly knows the real freedom and hence is the real, pure freedom.

“Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one’s consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

(Mathematically Godel’s incompleteness theorem, Spiritually Miyamoto Musashi’s the book of Void talk this exact freedom).

“I know simply that the sky will last longer than I.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

‘The struggle with Gods and men to create a dreamy life in between’ is the expression where I associate this song with the Myth of Sisyphus – his actions were exactly like some Greek demigod who challenged both humans and Gods.

‘The heavy weight of meaninglessness in the moment of reckoning’ expressed in the song point towards the that nihilistic and hopeless situations in the struggles of our life. Its better to not cling to such nihilistic thought. Passion explained in absurdism thus becomes the savior in such hard times.

‘The wildness of life’ in the song thus shows the ability of our freedom to upgrade itself in the ocean of infinite possibilities.  

“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Listen to this song again with these thoughts of absurdism in the back of your mind, I am sure you will appreciate the song and its creators more. (‘The flaws in our design’ is a well justified name to this album and each song carries its own philosophy. Also pardon my over-explanation in certain places but you get the point (I hope))

You can listen to the song Undone using following links:

References

  1. ODESZA & Yellow House Team Up For New EP “Flaws in Our Design”
  2. The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays – Albert Camus

Appreciation For the Flow of Life

We, the population of billions round the globe are always trying to create our own version perfect life. What is perfect is purely subjective and thereby has infinite interpretations but there is something very fundamental – common which flows through all of us. It can help us to find the real perfect life. Wim Wender’s masterpiece “Perfect Days” shows how we can appreciate the inherent imperfections that life has and how to appreciate the life and the consciousness to experience it in better ways.

Wim Wender’s Masterpiece – Perfect Days

Seeing life through the lens of practical optimism

What Is a Perfect Life?

The answer is very personal and subjective. Someone (rather most of us) wants to retire with huge corpus, someone wants true love, someone wants their dream job in that dream company, someone wants to travel the whole world, someone wants to follow their passion, someone wants to create something, someone wants the ultimate power/ strength, someone just wants happiness, someone wants knowledge of everything, someone just want their neighbor to turn down that noisy speaker, someone wants to spend time with their loved ones, someone just wants to be left alone, someone wants a fixed routine where there is predictability , someone wants surprises every day, someone just want to lay down in the bed for the whole day, someone wants to eat whatever they want (without gaining weight!), someone wants a healthy body, someone wants to remain young forever. Billions of people and their infinite definitions of perfect life!

In short, even though we have our associations of a perfect life with certain objects, things, qualities, people in life, the common thing about them is that we want them in the way we desire.

So, a perfect life for anyone is a life on their own terms, things would happen in the way they want.

Is your life perfect? I am sure that there are very few people (rather gods, saints, sages, divine people) who would agree that they have perfect life.

Wim Wender’s Perfect Days Movie

From Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days

This Japanese masterpiece led by Kōji Yakusho as Hirayama-san is the perfect depiction of how we try to define our life as a perfect life in our own ways. The personalities, the characters, their choices, and the life they have is designed, intertwined in the narrative in such subtle ways that the whole movie could be discussed as a philosophy of life and the time will fall short. And even after that you would think that it is just a documentation of a normal life of a public toilet cleaner.

Even though the movie is multifaceted like life and can be discussed in greater depths, I will try to touch on the core and simple idea of the perfection in life in the forthcoming discussion.

The discussion will make more sense if you have watched the movie before, this is not a movie synopsis. Even though there will be spoilers ahead, the movie is all about how it made you feel, rather than what you knew about it. (Which is also why movies/ stories are so important, they make us feel that part in us which we never knew we had already)

The discussion will be driven by the major noticeable events in Hirayama-san’s life. 

What We See From Surface? – A Life of Complete Failure

The (Mundane) Routine and the (most) Disgusting Job

Hirayama-san works as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo. There is nothing else to describe anything exciting about this job! He travels from location to location to clean the toilets where you will see the interaction between Hirayama-san and the people around him in such ‘workplaces’ as belittling, demeaning. It’s a job that no one appreciates. 

When we understand that Hirayama-san lives alone, you will find this routine more boring, mundane; being a toilet cleaner adds another weirdness to it. It’s a low paying, thankless job where you will never get recognized for the job you do.

There comes a moment when his junior, his subordinate – Takashi resigns from his job without giving any notice and Hirayama-san has to cover all his locations that day. It’s a disgusting low paying job with possible non-rewarding overwork.        

Low on Money

Money-wise Hirayama-san looks like a person with below average necessities and below average job to fulfill them. Even though he is not poor, he is not hopelessly broke; it is just a very basic life lived on basic income. But you will see that his life is just on the edge of poverty the day when he pays his junior – Takashi to go on a date with his love interest – Aya-chan. As Hirayama-san pays Takashi all the amount he has and when his car stops in the middle of the road due to low gas, he has to sell his cassette to get some money to reach home. On the same evening he eats the cup noodles as he has no money. He stays in the low lying, cheap house, the only coffee he drinks is the regular vending machine coffee.

Failed Relationships

Hirayama-san is a loner. There is nothing exciting about his life from the relationships point of view. No wife, no children, no one to take care of him if something goes wrong. There is a moment when we realize that his father suffering from dementia is in nursing home and he never pays him a visit. Hirayama-san also doesn’t go well with his sister – Kieko. There is certain disagreement (probably the toilet cleaning job) between him and his sister which is why his niece – Niko is prohibited to meet him.

There comes a moment when Hirayama-san sees his (supposedly) love interest – the owner of the restaurant – Mama hugging some man affectionately. Hirayama-san is not shown openly in love with Mama but the interactions between them show that they have some deep connection, deep affection for each other. Hirayama-san’s heart gets broken when he sees that there is already a man in her life. Heartbroken Hirayama-san buys beer and cigarettes that day to numb that pain.

If you go by the standard definition of a perfect life – Hirayama-san’s life is not perfect. It is not even a good life per say.

What is the Reality? – A Life filled with Richness in Every Experience
The Discipline and The Dedication

You will notice that Hirayama-san is a very diligent and disciplined person who cleans the public toilets in Tokyo. Even though he is a toilet cleaner he has a discipline and routine like an army general. Whatever may happen he always sticks to his routine, even on holidays. His van is equipped with every possible cleaning equipment to make sure that he does his job with perfection. There is same level of dedication for every cleaning job he does. He is never ashamed of the job he is doing.

You will appreciate this more when Takashi asks him that even if the toilet is getting cleaned now it will eventually get dirty. You must note that this is the same discipline why Takashi respects Hirayama-san and considers him dependable (although Takashi himself is reluctant to remain in that job)

From Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days

But, imagine if no one cleans the toilet regularly, how dirty will it get. Same is about life. Pardon my analogy of toilet with life but even though seemingly full of randomness our life needs a routine diligence, a routine discipline to take care of our overall health – mental, physical and/or materialistic. These seemingly small, insignificant routines decide our habits and these habits eventually decide who we are – especially when the times are difficult. Our responses to random, unplanned, unfavorable events in life are completely dependent on the how we react to routines. Our habits are the baselines to decide the reaction to unfavorable events.

You must appreciate that even when there are many sad moments in Hirayama-san’s life he always sticks to his routine. This ‘boring’ routine ensures the mental peace that even though many things in life are going wrong there are certain things which have gone perfectly in the given day.

You know what they say, “If you want to change the world, start by making your bed.”

That is why routine is very important psychologically, it is like a subconscious support system to tell our brain that at least some things are going well.   

The Hobbies

Even when Hirayama-san is continuously busy in his toilet cleaning job, he is always in sync with his surroundings. He has that eye of a professional photographer where he is always trying to capture a perfect moment of light and shadows and reflections around him. His job is not preventing him from pursuing his passion.

What this shows is that one must have access to certain intangible experiences which are present all around us to have a healthy living.

So, an ideal hobby is the activity which is accessible to us in any form to elevate our perspective about the world we live in. If listening to music is your hobby, even when you lose your music player, or you have to lose your cassettes (like when Hirayama-sells his cassette for gas) the music in you cannot be sold, you can still reminisce that tune and hum to it.

Even when you have the cheap, outdated camera you can still appreciate the picturesque beauty of nature and the interplay of things in it with your eyes and creativity.    

Hirayama-san’s cassette collection is not an outdated relic, rather it is shown as a valuable classic item. It is wonderful because our hobbies provide this unfair advantage through their intangible nature to outweigh the tangible, materialistic possession. (it’s like as seemingly nonsensical painting made from paints and canvas worth some hundred bucks becomes invaluable because how it touches that intangible aspect of your life.)

Hobbies thus are a powerful tool to bring real wealth in life – this wealth can also create materialistic advantages if used in proper ways. (Some people turn their passions into a career)

Please note that hobbies are not always meant to bring in some materialistic benefit. In Hirayama-san’s case collecting saplings, watering plants is just for his mental satisfaction, it also shows his caring – nurturing side. Some hobbies, most hobbies are meant to carve out your best version. This best version can take care of everything materialistic and non-materialistic.   

Hobbies also help you to create a deep meaningful relationship with the people from different walks of life. You will see young Aya-chan’s appreciation for Hirayama-san on his taste in music. His niece truly values her uncle for making her aware about photography, reading and music, the restaurant owner Mama appreciates his intelligence for his reading habit.

Hobbies provide an access to the pleasures – priceless pleasures which are difficult to trade with anything that is materialistic in nature. Habits make you passionate about something, anything. We are human beings because we are passionate.

Routines bring in that predictability, certainty and thereby comfort in difficult times whereas hobbies ensure that we are always open to appreciate the beauty in novelty, randomness when our routines become mundane. 

Meaningful Connections – Loneliness vs Solitude

A relationship can be predetermined or could be in our hand. And both are equally important in life.

Even though Hirayama-san does not go well with his sister he knows that their worlds are totally different. It does not become a reason to envy his sister. (His sister is shown having a car with Chauffeur) He also teaches his niece about the closeness of relationships despite having differences very well.

Hirayama-san is depicted as lonely person but there are many relationships which are an integral part of his life. The restaurant owner – Mama who is always appreciating him for his intellectual ways despite knowing that he is a toilet cleaner, his deep connection with his niece who hasn’t met him for many years (he almost finds it difficult to recognize her when they first meet)

You must appreciate that despite being a complete introvert, a lonesome person – Hirayama is very effective in establishing immediate and intimate connections with unknown people. Being an introvert does not mean that the person is shy, it just means that they are highly selective and they mean it when they do or say it. (hence, this is one of the most consistent depiction of introverts in movies.)

You will see Hirayama-san immediately comforting the lost boy in garden (even though the boy’s mom treats him badly indirectly), playing tic-tac-toe with some unknown person, recognizing the homeless person whenever he appears, having good relations with the caretaker of the garden where his has his routine work time lunch, the bookshop lady appreciating him for his taste while selecting the books, he is also able to bring calmness to the cancer diagnosed Tomoyama – the ex-husband of Mama –  the restaurant lady.

This shows that you can remain as a single existent person and still you won’t miss life. You will not miss life because you are at peace with who you are and what you want to do with your life, otherwise this same single existent person is engulfed into loneliness. 

Hints of Stoicism

There are many instances in the character of Hirayama-san where you will find the principles of stoicism. Stoicism appreciates the order of nature and not resisting that order. One must be flexible to appreciate the ebb and the flow of the life which is the core of stoicism. If it is in the nature of the given thing, it will eventually happen, how you respond to such things is the only thing in your control.

Conclusion

As the life is multifaceted so is the interpretation of the movie perfect days, but I will try to highlight certain important takeaways.

A River will eventually end into the vast sea, but that doesn’t stop it from flowing

From Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days

When Hirayama-san is talking to Niko about the difference in his and his sister’s world, he gives Niko a life lesson. This simple message has become the popular highlight of the movies all over.

Next time is next time. Now is now.

But this statement comes from the following discussion where Niko is trying to find her place in the world of her uncle and her mother.

The world is made up of many worlds. Some are connected some are not.

And the analogy of river and the sea/ocean is used to justify this scene.

So, even though our lives, our worlds are sometimes connected and sometimes not they are eventually meant to end into the vastness of the overall one existence thereby losing their own identity. But that should also not bring in the fear for the end of our distinct existence. Because even when the destiny of the river is to meet the ocean in the end that does not stop it from flowing.

That is exactly why Hirayama-san tells Niko that you will eventually find the world where you belong and maybe you will have you own isolated world but that should not remain your concern, your concern should be – “are you living in the current moment?” that is where you belong.  

If you keep on justifying your life based on how and where it started from and how and where it will end you will miss many precious things, unnoticed and underrated things, moments, people in current reality which would have made your life actually beautiful.  

Instead of fearing for the end in the future, let us first appreciate the current moment.

One Suffering is equal to many sufferings and many sufferings combined is one suffering

The discussions that happened between the ex-husband of Mama called Tomoyama and Hirayama-san is the most unnoticed message of the movie I would say. Actually, the movie is filled with so many messages that this is normal.

Tomoyama tells Hirayama that he regrets that the terminal cancer he has will prohibit him to live the life to the fullest. There were so many things Tomoyama wanted to know but won’t be able to know only because of this cancer. He also feels sorry that he left Mama and come to realize her worth only when he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. It’s like only when the life is getting snatched away from us is then we start appreciating life of others especially the people we loved.

The doubt Tomoyama presents to Hirayama hence is very symbolic here.

Tomoyama - Shadows...
           Do they get darker when they overlap?
From Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days

I think the gist of whole narrative of the movie lies in this moment, where they both find out that even when the shadows overlap the darkness remains the same!

Do you see what is happening here? It is like ‘even the darkest clouds have silver lining’ – type message that is portrayed here.

The shadows represent the suffering in our life.

You will feel sad when you have a problem in your life, you will be sad on the same level when you are having multiple sufferings/ problems. I have a proof for this.

You cry on one problem as the biggest problem of your life and then you see another person having practically bigger problem than yours which pushes you to think that yours was nothing given to the suffering that person has right now. It is all about how we define abundance, how we define satisfaction where the life itself is infinitely abundant like the light.  Any single shadow of suffering or many shadows of suffering will create same darkness when they overlap but the light of life is far brighter than that.

And where there is light of life there will be shadows of suffering.  

So, this works both ways,

When you have one suffering it will affect only this current moment. If you remain in this moment, you can certainly work over it. 

And when there are many sufferings combined together, they too can affect only this current moment. If you act on the current moment then only can you pass to the next one. It’s one moment at a time. That’s how you live. There will always be many problems, shadows while we live but to live is the highest privilege, the light of our existence.

This is why the movie ends with the term:

KOMOREBI – the shimmering of light and shadows that is created by the leaves swaying in the wind. It only exists once, at that moment.

From Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days

Whatever big problem/suffering, whatever big victory/ happiness/ fulfillment/ satisfaction there is, they both exist only in that moment. You just have to pass through them all the time and appreciate the life granted to you.

This too shall pass.

Nobody can steal from you how you experience life

When we say that many sufferings and one suffering actually impact our lives similarly, we are allowing infinite possibilities, infinite perspectives to take action which are far more positive than these tiny, petty problems.

The problems seem big than the infinite possibilities because we try to limit our lives to remain in our defined ways, our own set standards which we create by comparing ours with the lives of others.

We try to fit the aspects of life on some measuring scales defined by this materialistic society where many beautiful dimensions of life are lost forever.

That is why you must try to create the places, moments, people, habits of your own choices which are not soiled, stained by the comparisons with other lives. Try to connect you moments with something intangible using your hobbies, routines, relationships. You will lose things associated with them but you will never lose how they made you feel. You can share that, amplify that with others but nobody can steal it from you, because you were the originator of that experience.      

Any type of Life and the consciousness of it being granted to us is a privilege

We are always trying to justify our pain as the bigger pain than others and glorify our own best experiences over the experiences of the others but we keep on forgetting that it is the same life flowing through all of us.

A perfect life is a life of appreciation for the privilege of getting a passage through life and its awareness instead of valuing the materialistic privileges like money, fame, career, relationships, lifestyles, possessions.

The life is a spectrum not a side.

We will always have many reasons to cry about our lives over other people’s seemingly better lives but believe me only one reason is enough to justify the grandeur of the life that is granted to you and through you. The so-called imperfections assigned by us to our own life look really petty in front of the infinite possibilities that the same life has to offer.

That is exactly why, appreciation of what good life has offered and the courage to deal with what bad there is in the life is important. Appreciating the imperfections of life is the perfect life. You live it through moments one by one thereby creating your perfect days.   

Cover image from Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days

Dune: Psychology in Science Fiction

Our identity is heavily influenced by the surroundings we live in. A healthy understanding of the gap between ‘labels given to us by our surrounding’ and ‘what we consider ourselves at core’ defines how we perform, how we behave in given situations. Frank Herbert effectively used these ideas of human psyche in his Dune Saga. The antihero story of Paul Atreides indicates psychological ideas of cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, and Pygmalion effect. It is interesting to understand how our minds are so sensitive at the levels of self and group simultaneously.

How Frank Herbert used human psyche in the creation of Dune’s antihero?

We saw how some fantastic philosophical ideas come alive in the character arc of Paul Atreides. The discussion hereon is the extension of the previous philosophical one, now we will dive deeper into the psychological aspects of Dune Part Two.

There will be heavy spoilers for Dune Part Two hereon!!!

Existentialism in Dune Part Two

As Paul gets more and more involved in the events on Arrakis with Fremen, he finds out what needs to be done, he finds clarity and purpose. He is renouncing the leadership in the early part because he does not know what to do with it. The moment he decides to become the Lisan al-Gaib, the moment he finds the purpose of his being, he gets the clarity.

According to Existentialism, there is no other meaning to the life but the meaning you give it yourself. Existentialism says that man is born free and can chose any actions to live but in the end he/ she will feel like they lived for nothing. They will remove this ‘existential angst’ only when they decide what they want to do with their life. The moment people consider themselves responsible for the events and consequences in their lives, take deliberate actions to achieve them that is the exact the moment where they find the meaning in life. Then everything, every action every decision starts to make sense. You feel like you exist for something.

This existential journey of self-discovery is exactly what we see in Paul’s journey to become the Mahdi. Avenging his father’s life becomes the ultimate goal of Paul in early moments but later on things take different turn. This is existentialism on personal level.

Fremen of Arrakis are the best example of existentialism in masses. The Fremen people are able to sustain in the hostile environment of Arrakis not because that is the only choice. They also have a strong belief, a hope that someone from outer world will save them one day and make their planet the Paradise, the Lisan al-Gaib will come to save them. Although Paul and Jessica know that it is a story properly planned by Bene Gesserit, although there are also Fremen who oppose this prophecy (Chani is one of them) still it gives them all hope, a reason to live for, a reason to survive for. Everyone makes sense of this prophecy in their own ways, their own belief systems.

Do you see what is happening here?

There is one group who is religiously putting their faith in the hope of the messiah for their survival and on the other hand there is a group who dismisses this idea and think that they themselves have to take care of their survival. The messiah will be one of them, not someone sent from the outer world.

We know what happens in the end. But from an objective point of view we see that people create there own perspective for survival. It doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong in the end. What matters is whether is guaranteed the survival of Fremen. No wonder Jessica considers the artificially planted faith for Lisan al-Gaib among Fremen as an act of giving them a hope.

In either way, some sort of meaning would ensure survival of the Fremen.

The meaning of the life given to us is the meaning we assign to it.

The Prophecy – A Perfect Example of Confirmation Bias

The Prophecy plays key role in deciding the fate of key characters in Dune Part Two. Although we are aware that the prophecy a highly detailed plan to get the hold on Arrakis there are certain moments which fool us in believing that the prophecy might really be true. There is one justification for the correctness and validity for the prophecy. Somehow any powerful member from Bene Gesserit could have unlocked the exact power to see the future like Paul or Lady Jessica this person who could have seen the future and made this prophecy. We get no such signs in the narrative, but the story has enough resources and reasons to make it a valid point.

The event of Paul riding an elder worm, the worm stopping for Paul and Jessica in Dune Part One while crossing the dessert, Chani’s teardrop bringing back Paul alive (although she is manipulated to do that) are such events which confuse us when we try to reject the Prophecy. Either Bene Gesserit were too good to plan the people and resources for making the prophecy a reality or the person who made prophecy also unlocked the powers which Paul unlocked.

It is very interesting when Fremen come in one-to-one contact with Paul and Jessica. They are so influenced by this prophecy that whatever Paul may do, they attribute it to the prophecy. In early part at Sietch Tabr when Stilgar (who is one of the fundamentalists) is having discussion with the Fremen elders, we are given a hint of this strong Confirmatory Bias in Fremen, especially the fundamentalists.

Stilgar – I saw things.
Elder – Stilgar, your faith is playing tricks on you.  

This is an indication to how a blind faith could drive people into looking for signs and making sense from anything that supports that faith.

You must understand that, the existentialism makes life as a meaningless affair – we try to calm our mind/ our senses by assigning a meaning, a perspective to make sense out of the creation. Cognitive Bias lies on the negative extreme of such existentialism. An existence where we are only accepting the events, signs which support out beliefs. This also the transition region where spirituality is converted into pure religion. Stilgar is the perfect example of one such religious follower suffering from Cognitive Bias.

It is also very understandable for the people like Fremen who have nothing hopeful to live and nothing to pivot on, the idea of savior from outer world fuels them to continue the fight for survival.  

There is subtle hint that Paul may not be the only messiah that Arrakis might have seen. The Emperor in his discussion with Princess Irulan mentions Muad’Dib as “some new Fremen Prophet”.

Confirmation Bias is the prejudice where we try to accept the proofs which support our beliefs and reject those which don’t. Fremen people demonstrate such high levels of confirmation bias because Arrakis is the only reality they live in. People living outside the Arrakis like the emperor, Bene Geserit very well know that this is an intentionally planned act. And they very effectively implant such prophecies over the generations. It also shows how difficult it is to reject and go against the conventional beliefs especially the religious ones.

Did you ever have had an encounter with people who tell that this was already written in the older documents, scriptures? When we made certain scientific breakthroughs only then we are seeing them clearly mentioned in older writings, how is it possible? It feels counterintuitive but I would say going by the data instead of the intuition always helps to break such biases.

It feels against our mind because our mind only accepts that which will support the current beliefs. If the current belief gets falsified then our mind will start looking for another belief system which is much more like an existential angst – the existential confusion and the sadness that comes with it. If one meaning is falsified the mind must stick itself to a newer one otherwise life will feel worthless.

Image source: sketchplanations.com by Jono Hey

Cognitive Dissonance and Identity – What Makes Paul to Seek the Ultimate Power?

The confirmation bias is more powerful when it comes to the questions like ‘who you are?’, ‘what is your identity?’

Generally speaking, you are the best person who knows who you are (except your parents and some people close to you). What would happen if you are presented with the data, proofs which indicate that your parents are not your parents, your friends are not really your friends? They are just some paid actors (just like in the movie Truman Show).

Paul is portrayed as the Prince belonging to the House Atreides which is powerful and believes in fairness, justice, and the truth. The ideas associated with House Atreides support constructiveness, upliftment of those who are getting used for others’ benefits. Paul also strongly associates himself with these ideas even when his house is attacked by Harkonnens. He never tries to take advantage of the Fremen beliefs for personal gains. That can also be explained by one of the reasons he has to reject the Fremen Prophecy.

Then what makes Paul to accept this prophecy even when he knows that there are more proofs to reject the prophecy than to accept it?

It is when he knows the truth about his identity. The moment when he drinks water of life.

Upon understanding the ultimate truth, we come to know that Paul’s mother Lady Jessica is the daughter of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Paul understands that he is as Harkonnen as his villainous cousin Feyd-Rautha.

This is where his identity of Atreides filled with justice clashes with the cruel and much more powerful identity of Harkonnen. You can see him telling his mother that this is the way they survive – by being a Harkonnen.

When a person goes through such uncomfortable events where his/ her beliefs clash it creates a in harmony. These are the events where the person is confused about what exactly he/ she should believe in. As the early beliefs which were true for him, on which the person lived whole life were inherently false what defines him now?

Paul faces this cognitive dissonance about his identity. He himself is a Harkonnes – the Harkonnes whom he was considering the villains of his life and the lives of the Fremens.

What identity would Paul chose makes him the hero or the antihero in the end.

And Paul chooses the Harkonnen identity which make him the antihero. Please understand that he could have chosen a fair Atreides or Fremen ways to fight for the cause. The circumstances created around Paul supported him to become as ruthless as the Harkonnens. The Emperor and the great houses denying his ascension further fuel his wish to remain ruthless to justify the actions. The moment Paul associates himself with the Harkonnens, he justifies his urge for power as a valid one. Paul forgets his Atreides roots which could have made him the hero of the Dune’s story.

The Pygmalion Effect – Is Paul Really the Messiah?

The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

One factor in Paul’s journey to become the leader of the Fremen and ultimately the Emperor can be largely credited to the support system created around him. It is clear that he goes through many hardships and sacrifices to achieve his goal but you cannot deny the inherent public support he receives through Fremen. It only because of the support from the Fremen people you will see Paul build the confidence even though in Dune Part One this was the exact person who tried to deny future leadership in front of his father.

How a person refusing leadership of his own house later accepted the leadership of the most controversial group, that to in very adverse conditions? Leading house Atreides was Paul’s birthright, an easy one. But, leading Fremen in clear opposition of the House Harkonnen, the emperor and the great houses was one very daring act to follow. What gave him all this strength?

The answer is – Pygmalion Effect

In psychology, Pygmalion Effect is the effect where high expectation from a person lead them to perform highly and effectively even in adverse condition.

Pygmalion word comes from the story of a Greek sculptor called Pygmalion who falls in love with his sculpture so much that the statue comes to life.

It’s like worshiping the rock can make it a God which could ultimately is believed to fulfill wishes.

The Bene Geserrit propaganda very smartly takes advantage of this idea. They create such support system around Paul which create one powerful leader in the universe who in his early life was not considering himself worthy.

Pygmalion effect highlights how the environments in which we live, how the people around who put their trust in us can boot our performance. According to Pygmalion effect, if a high performing person can deliver poorly if the environment and people are not supportive, it also is true the opposite way, any low performing person would deliver exceptionally when he is trusted by the people and the environment around him.

Pygmalion effect is also known as Rosenthal Effect in psychology.  Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson conducted a study on classroom students where they found that the students who are inherently reinforced to be the smarter perform better whereas students who are told that they are worthless already show under-performance.

Pygmalion effect shows us that we internalize or identity based on the surroundings we live in. No wonder they say that when you want to be a great man be in the company of great people. This internalization of or beliefs lay the foundation of our performance. That is exactly why so many Fremens believing in Paul gave him the power to stand against the Harkonnens, the Emperor, the Great Houses – entire Universe.

This is exactly why Pygmalion effect is highly associated with the self-fulfilling prophecies. The declaration of such prophecy irrespective of the knowledge of the future conditions people to create ways for such prophesied person; the person who show some signs aligning with the prophecy gets a boost which ultimately follows the prophesied path as the environment now completely supports that path – that is the path of least resistance leading to the glory.

Supporting environment creates high performers

Paul could have chosen another path to fight just like Chani chooses in the end but the Pygmalion effects kicks in, leading him to become the antihero – a high performing powerful antihero.    

You should appreciate that Pygmalion effect also shows how the opposite and downgrading environment will create a villain. A famous and itching question can be answered using this explanation. If baby Hitler was killed way before, would it have prevented the occurrence of the future world war? The answer is – NO. The conditions were developed in such way that even after killing baby Hitler someone else would have risen among that much hatred who would have led to the end effect, the name would have been different but the acts would be roughly same and inhumane. That is why our environment is an important part of our identity, even if the environment is hostile, what we consider ourselves at the core is equally important.

Nonsupporting environment creates low performers

(You can see that, even in adverse nonsupporting conditions of cognitive dissonance and identity crisis, a person can chose to remain good, can choose one identity over the other. I have discussed such scenarios in pop culture before. Read more about that here.) 

The Prophecy – Does ‘Free Will’ Really Exist in Dune?

The identity which Paul chooses after a cognitive dissonance about his origin and the Pygmalion effect from his environment make his the prophesied Lisan al-Gaib. Now it feels like it truly was the plan all along. This goes against the idea of free will.

Existentialism is based on the idea that as man is born free. It is in his mind, his responsibility to assign the meaning to his/ her own life. The ways and reasons for which Paul consistently rejects the prophecy is because he knows he is not ‘the one’. He knows that he is the son of Leto Atreides and should avenge his father’s death, hence his only purpose was to use the ‘desert power’ to defeat the Harkonnens and the Emperor.

Paul despises everything that is connected to the Prophecy. It is his interest in Fremen people and purpose of completing the vision of his father which drives him into becoming one of the Fremen. You will see Paul rejecting the idea of him being the Messiah in the early discussions with Chani.

The creation of prophecy and instilling the faith into Fremen for Paul indirectly always pushes him into doing what is expected. Paul never makes any decision out of the box. There are chances where he could have created other opportunities but the people around him, his blind followers could never let that happen. Paul is center of attraction for everyone that is why he is always bound to do what they want, otherwise he knows that he will lose that advantage and desert will immediately consume him like any common outsider. The advantage of being the center of attraction of your followers is that your followers will justify your every action; But in the end, you will also be bound to their expectations.

The powers of Bene Gesserit to manipulate people to do what they want, the unfolding of events leading to the war during the Fremen rebellion against the Harkonnen, the necessity to prove injustice with Leto Atreides to the Great Houses ultimately make the realization of prophecy possible.    

That is exactly why Paul gets tied up in the expectations of Fremen, his own self-respect and his own duty as a son. He knows he can avoid this path but chooses that path because that is how he will have ultimate power.

On the other side you will see Chani, she is fighting the same war but can chose her own ways to accomplish that goal. Remaining out of the focus of the religious followers gives her more freedom.

Lady Jessica also falls victim to the prophecy. Stilgar informs her in Sietch Tabr that if she doesn’t become the Reverend Mother she would have to die and Fremen people won’t save Paul. Even when she knows that the prophecy is false, she accepts it as a way to get things done according to her wishes. But again, the pressure from the faithful Fremen followers force her to follow the prophecy. Things doesn’t go right for her in the end. Lady Jessica also faces the cognitive dissonance like Paul about her origin as Harkonnen and chooses the predefined path of being the Reverend Mother.

One must appreciate how Frank Herbert created the story of Dune where the psyche of person drives the narrative. Frank Herbert was heavily influenced by Carl Jung’s archetypes and Dune reflects those archetypes. Dune also gives the psychological justifications behind the blind hero worship through some important character arcs.

It becomes very important to notice our end goals and whether our surroundings, our people are supportive of that. We as humans, are the beings of infinite capabilities, what we consider ourselves internally at core becomes very important in the end. Otherwise, the world is already prepared to overwhelm us with its preconceived notions of living a life.  

References and further reading:

  1. Confirmation bias sketch from Sketchplanations by Jono Hey
  2. Cover Image by Johannes Havn from pexels.com
  3. Dune: Philosophy in Science Fiction
  4. The Pygmalion Effect: Definition & Examples by Ayesha Perera on Simply Psychology.org
  5. The Batman- The superhero who ‘unlearned’ – Journey of a person through cognitive dissonance
  6. Existentialism – Zima Blue and Existentialism
  7. Biases and Delusions – Steering on the borders of rationalism and insanity
  8. Answering the questions on existence of “the existence”
  9. The Existence – Why? How? And What?
  10. Dune’s Ornithopters and Biomimicry

Dune: Philosophy in Science Fiction

The focus of Dune saga is on the ill-effects of hero worship. Frank Herbert warned his readers about the life altering consequences of granting too much power in the hands of a person who refrains to be questioned by his followers. The character arc of Paul Atreides depicts a moral dilemma. It also shows how power and aesthetics play a vital role when one is justifying actions, character and intent.

Dilemma of morality in the character arc of Paul Atreides

Dune Part Two shows how any person would react when thrown into the events where morals and ethics clash. Dune Part Two is about the creation of the antihero and his blind hero worship. It is important because it breaks down and effectively depicts the stages in which even a humble and good-hearted person can degenerate. Surrounding around such person has big role in it.

The focus of Dune saga is on the ill-effects of hero worship. Frank Herbert warned the readers of Dune about the life altering consequences of granting too much power in the hands of a person who refrains to be questioned by his followers. Superficially, Dune feels like a story where Bene Gesserit – a low lying powerful sisterhood planting an extremely powerful but manipulable Messiah to control the galaxy and how this Messiah ruins that plan. Deep down, Dune successfully amalgamates many philosophical, psychological concepts like Existentialism, Hero worship/ herd mentality, confirmation bias, free will and determinism.

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Part Two has successfully translated the vision of Frank Herbert’s 1965 Sci-Fi which is more relevant than anything in the current times of 21st century. In Dune Part Two you see the transition of a young, humble, calm boy into an aggressive, extremely powerful leader – a leader who is worshiped like the God by his followers. As a fan of Sci-Fi movies, I would say Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies have made justice with what the source material wanted to convey. (Historically, Dune series is known to be one of the most difficult materials to adapt into visual media)

The discussion hereon is not a movie review rather it is about how some fantastic philosophical, psychological, spiritual, and political ideas are brought together to create a more relevant story which is purely fictional. Despite being a fiction, it successfully depicts some important real-life scenarios and dilemmas we face in our very real lives. This all is credited to Frank Herbert and Denis Villeneuve’s vision.

There will be heavy spoilers for Dune Part Two hereon!!!

After watching Dune Part Two it is obvious that it is all about how an antihero is created. There is a moment in the end when you will lose the sympathy for Paul’s character because of the choices he makes and it is intentional. The movie gives us multiple viewpoints to justify why Paul Atreides becomes who he is. Obviously, his antihero arc creates a deep void in our heart. When I started to understand the narrative from Paul’s perspective, I stumbled upon some of the important ideas we use to justify our actions, decisions.

Boundaries of Right or Wrong – What is Moral? What is Ethical?

Let us understand the stages in which Paul is always rejecting the leadership – the prophecy of Messiah he is offered every time.

Rejection 1 – Paul has not demonstrated any grand act yet. He lacks clarity, vision.

Right from the beginning, Paul knows what it means to become the Lisan al-Gaib – the Messiah. You will see him rejecting the concept of becoming the prophesized leader. In Dune Part One you will see that he asks Leto Atreides, his father – What if he does not want to be the leader, the future of house Atreides? In response, Paul understands from Duke Leto that leadership is not a personal choice and when there will be a moment in which people will choose him as their leader and he will have to answer that call. The fear of leadership in Paul here is created due to very superficial simulation of future possibilities. He hasn’t even landed in Arrakis – the desert Planet. Here, Paul is just a well behaved, properly trained royalty who hasn’t tasted the reality of life yet. He theoretically understands the burden of leadership, the burden of the expectations of the people and that why humbly rejects it – as it is the ‘right’ thing to do. Understand that Paul’s rejection in this instance is because he doesn’t consider himself worthy. It is unethical for him to accept leadership which is granted just from the birthright. Understand that prophecy of Messiah is not apparent here, this is the leadership of his House.

Rejection 2 – The prophecy is just a clever plan. There is clarity on what and how events will happen but no clarity on what will cause them.

When Paul lands with his mother Lady Jessica on Arrakis he looks at the local Fremen people chanting his name as the one who was promised to free them from this exploitation of the foreigners – the Harkonnens for the precious Spice Mélange. Here, Paul understands from his mother that the religious Bene Gesserit sisterhood has planted a very meticulous storyline – a prophecy to ease out their path on Arrakis. The knowledge of ‘the prophecy’ being just a clever plan of Bene Gesserit sisterhood consoles Paul that he will always have the choice to reject the future responsibility of leadership. This rejection of leadership is due to understanding of the underlying truth and how hopeless people are getting fooled. Utilizing such false knowledge for self-benefit makes Paul uncomfortable.

Rejection 3 – Paul has clarity but doesn’t want to take the advantage of the Fremen Faith

After the death of Leto Atreides, Paul escapes to Fremen territory with Lady Jessica. Fremen accept him as he shows his skills in a fair fight. From this moment his goal is to survive with Femen’s to acquire the ‘Desert Power’ as desired by his father Leto Atreides. He still despises the Bene Gesserit Propaganda. He knows he will be fooling the Fremen by following the said prophecy. It is not ethical to utilize others’ faith for the personal benefit. That is why Paul is just trying to learn the ways of Fremen to avenge his father’s unjust murder orchestrated by the Emperor through House Harkonnen.

There is a discussion between Lady Jessica (who is now Reverand Mother) with Paul where she says that the prophecy has given Fremen people something to hope for and to fight for. This is the exact moment when Paul actively and aggressively rejects what she says.

Paul – It’s not prophecy. 
        It’s a story that you keep telling. 
        It’s not their story, it’s yours. 
        They deserve to be led by one of their own.

His rejection to leadership here is because it is unethical to play with other people’s faith.

Rejection 4 – Paul loves Chani. He knows the moment he accepts ‘the prophecy’ he will lose her.

There is a scene where Chani tells Paul that the Fedaykin worship him now, they count his victories. Chani (who doesn’t believe in the prophecy) warns him that people have already started worshiping him and this will not end well. To counter Chani’s fear Paul positively clarifies that he is not the Messiah and will always be a Fremen warrior – the Fedaykin. Paul mentions several times to Chani that he will love her as long as he breaths. As the prophecy goes, he should reserve his hand for the most strategic alliance which is with the Princess Irulan – the daughter of Emperor. Here, the rejection is due to the love he has for Chani.  

Rejection 5 – Paul knows that while becoming the Mahdi, he will lose his comfortable connect with Fremen. He will have blood of billions on his hands.

Upon the encounter with Gurney Halleck, Paul clarifies certain important things. Gurney is surprised that even after having following of 200 people and millions more, why isn’t Paul taking advantage of the prophecy to avenge the death of his father? Paul tells Gurney that the moment he becomes the Messiah, he no longer be friends with Fremen, because even his Fremen friends will worship him as the God – Lisan al-Gaib. He considers it unethical to utilize the innocent beliefs and trust of the people for him for his personal benefit.

Gurney Halleck – With thousands of these guys you can take control of the entire planet. It’s your father’s dream. What you are afraid of?
Paul – Worship, Gurney. They used to be friends, now they are followers. 

Gurney tells Paul that he holds the ability to avenge his father by accepting the prophecy. Then Paul clarifies that the moment he becomes the Messiah, the galaxy will be thrown into the holy war leading to deaths of billions of people. Paul doesn’t want their blood on his hand.

The rejection of prophecy here is due to fear of losing personal connect with the people who define and respect you. It is also because Paul wants to preserve his character.

At the end of the Dune Part Two, you know what exactly happened!

Are Morality and Ethics Objective?

So, even after having at least 5 concrete reasons to reject the prophecy, why does Paul decide to become the ruthless Messiah, Lisan al-Gaib? What made him lose all the ethical and moral standards he had preserved in him?

Simple and superficial answer to these questions is – the circumstances!

Deep down the answer is totally different. Let us understand what are morals and ethics

Morality is the sense of judging a decision, event or an action being proper or improper. Morality is the sense of what is right and what is wrong.

Ethics are detailed down, systematic small-small actions which show what doing good is. The opposite act of doing a good act will be doing a bad act.  

Morality are the universal standards for right and wrong and ethics are the rules to implement this morality in daily practice.

Question – How is it decided whether certain act is good or bad?

This is where the trick starts.

The base line to decide morality or ethics is always changing. It is like deciding ‘What level of big picture are you talking about?’

Frank Herbert was very intentional while creating such moral ethical dilemma through Dune series. As you are introduced to Paul right from the start of his journey, from a kid to the Messiah, you know why he did what he did. His Great House was betrayed by the Emperor and the Harkonnens. They tried to kill him, his pregnant mother, and his people. The responsibility to handle Arrakis was forced down on his house by the Emperor. He had every reason to kill his enemies. Whatever act Paul did to avenge his father/ his house was right and justified.

Does that mean that “whatever” and “everything” that he did and would do is right?

The death of billions of people he would cause (as seen in his visions) will it be justified?

Many Fremens devoted and died to Paul’s cause, will their deaths be justified?

You will see that the moment you shift from Paul’s personal baseline of morality to the baseline of the ‘good for all’, you will appreciate why the same Paul – the Messiah – Lisan al-Gaib – the Savior is also ‘the destroyer’ for remaining others. Thus, it is important to define that baseline while judging his actions.

Philosophy of Morality

There are two ideas on how to decide this baseline for morality of given things.

Immanuel Kant says the duty assigned to you; your obligation decides the morality – The duty-based definition of morality.

Immanuel Kant

John Stuart Mill says that whatever is good for most of all should be good for one – The utilitarian definition of morality.

John Stuart Mill

Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development give us a structured view about how the baseline to justify morality of anything works. This single image deserves a detailed explanation but it is self explanatory.

Morality needs understanding of “the big picture”

In Dune’s case, it was Paul’s duty to avenge his father’s unjust death hence he was right. Whereas letting his followers kill billions of people belonging to the houses who were not accepting his ascension as the Emperor was wrong – immoral. He commanded to destroy such opposing Great Houses just to establish respect for him out of fear. The intent was not pure.

For Fremen, the act of destroying everyone opposing their leader is way better and important than living a life of slave. At the same time same Fremen killing billions in the name of their Mahdi is bad.

For Jessica, survival of her children was more important than anything. She had also promised Leto Atreides that she will save her children not as Bene Gesserit but as a mother first. That is why she eases out the path laid for Paul which guarantees his and his sister’s survival. You will understand that Jessica fears becoming the Reverand Mother, she knows that she will have to carry the pain and memories of all those who came before her but upon hearing to the clarification from Stilgar, she realizes that it is the only way to ensure the survival of her children. So, she controlling the Fremen and spreading the prophecy of the Messiah (despite knowing it as just a clever plan) feels moral.

Stilgar strengthening the events from the prophecy in the minds of Fremen ensure betterment of his people. If his actions to spread and strengthen the path for Paul would lead Fremens people to a better life then his actions are well justified. But, the moment he blindly follows every order from Paul to obliterate everyone opposing him his actions become wrong.

When it comes to mere survival of Feyd-Rautha, Baron Harkonnen, Rabban, the Emperor, Princess Irulan, Reverend Mother Mohiam someone would feel that their actions are justified. (But, we already have many other reasons to assign them villainy.)

It’s like checking which one is more wrong – Killing an ant or murdering a person!

The moment you favor the life of the person than an ant, you will feel bad for what kind of animal you are. And the moment you favor life of that ant over the person you will feel bad as a human being.

Taking any life is bad in the end, but what if it’s about survival. Then it goes in the direction which poses question – whose life is more precious?

The Trolley Problem – Which lever will you pull?

Do you see how this streak goes on and on! This will not end until the questioner will be satisfied with comfortable answer!

One must appreciate the genius of Frank Herbert’s writing which created such important intersecting points in his story.

Power and Aesthetics

So, final question – what ultimately is the right or wrong?

The answer is how deeply are we able understand the scenario (and we may never understand every aspect most of the times.)  Actions are always changing with respect to the circumstances, killing a murderer will always be justified and right at the same time killing a Saint is wrong.

This reminds me of Nietzsche’s quote:

Thus, the dilemma grows bigger.

What is right and what is right is highly dependent on your limits, your capabilities, your ability to reverse the things to exactly how they were before. If you don’t hold that capacity, then you immediately lose the power to justify your actions.

Which is exactly why what Paul believes is completely wrong, it shows how Paul character has made transition…

“He who can destroy a thing has the real control of it.”

The power will enable him to destroy any given thing; but can he reverse that destruction if things did not turn out the way he intended? The ability to restore the consequences of your decisions decides whether you hold the power to assign good or bad.

If Paul does not bear the capacity to reverse or at least restore the impact of his decisions, then he is wrong to send his followers in that direction.

I think, this is the warning Frank Herbert gives to the real-life leaders and followers among us. This is exactly where powerful people go wrong and take their blind followers with them.

So, even though his intent was to avenge his father by becoming the Messiah, the path he would choose is wrong.

The path Jessica chose to control the Fremen through prophecy is wrong. The plans Bene Gesserit orchestrated to plant a powerful yet manipulatable person on Arrakis just to have control over Spice are wrong. There are always multiple choices,

(The conclusion of the Paul Atreides’s story and ‘Dune: the God Emperor’ will make us change our current opinions. That we will discuss again when the time is right.)  

Anyways words fail me when such real-life scenarios are flawlessly presented through fiction. There is no need for anyone to teach us what is right or wrong in such stories. The dynamics of the events and the characters show us the mirror. We always have such inner compass inside ourselves, stories like this are the greatest calibrator of such inner compasses.

The power to restore the consequences of our action is the real power, I think. This idea somewhat frees the justification of our actions from the dilemmas of morality.

There is more to discuss about Dune, find out here….

(Movies Scenes from Warner Brother’s Dune: Part Two)

Further reading:

  1. Dune : Psychology in Science Fiction
  2. Existentialism – Zima Blue and Existentialism
  3. Answering the questions on existence of “the existence”
  4. The Existence – Why? How? And What?
  5. Dune’s Ornithopters and Biomimicry