Alexander Lydiate's Blog
December 10, 2020
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December 2, 2016
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November 28, 2016
The Ballast of Fear
A person's capacity for stress is a finite space.
A person will take whatever volume of stress they have and fill that capacity to the brim.
People are able to deal with extraordinary levels of distress. When we see people live through illness, through bereavement, through war, through famine, we celebrate their ability to compress and contain those horrors within the confines of that space reserved for stress.
People are capable of accommodating extremes of experience, of normalising and processing what previously must be unimaginable, with staggering dignity. At the other end of this spectrum, a life lead around comparatively minuscule problems will see those issues inflated and distorted to fill that very same space.
I see this behaviour in myself, and it is difficult to control, difficult to maintain the necessary perspective. Some examples close to my memory include such tedium as an insurance company renewing a policy without consent, a quarrel with a school about absence, a forced and yet pathetically minor change in lifestyle. All blown out to fill the stress place. At times where I have absolutely no discernible problems I can always rely on my own mortality to fill the ballast of fear.
Yet, relative to these I have dealt with larger issues, as do we all, and the space remains equally as full.
I guess the trick is to occupy the space with issues worthy of the drain.
A person will take whatever volume of stress they have and fill that capacity to the brim.
People are able to deal with extraordinary levels of distress. When we see people live through illness, through bereavement, through war, through famine, we celebrate their ability to compress and contain those horrors within the confines of that space reserved for stress.
People are capable of accommodating extremes of experience, of normalising and processing what previously must be unimaginable, with staggering dignity. At the other end of this spectrum, a life lead around comparatively minuscule problems will see those issues inflated and distorted to fill that very same space.
I see this behaviour in myself, and it is difficult to control, difficult to maintain the necessary perspective. Some examples close to my memory include such tedium as an insurance company renewing a policy without consent, a quarrel with a school about absence, a forced and yet pathetically minor change in lifestyle. All blown out to fill the stress place. At times where I have absolutely no discernible problems I can always rely on my own mortality to fill the ballast of fear.
Yet, relative to these I have dealt with larger issues, as do we all, and the space remains equally as full.
I guess the trick is to occupy the space with issues worthy of the drain.
October 11, 2016
Simulations of the Universe and of the Self
There has of late been excitement about the notion that our universe might be a simulation, and most lately in this article in the Guardian, by Olivia Solon.
Solon chooses for her springboard Elon Musk's recent assertion that “There’s a billion to one chance we’re living in base reality." This in turn, as Solon notes, is inspired by Nick Bostrom's 2003 essay "Are You Living in a Computer Civilisation?" Bostrom talks of "posthuman civilisation", a stage of development where humans have the capability of simulating the human mind. Through a beautifully wild piece of mathematics he argues that "at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;
(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation."
Elon Musk, it would appear, has ditched the first two possibilities in favour of the third.
Solon says the idea goes back to Descartes, but it actually goes a back a lot further. Two and a half millenia back, to when The Buddha told us that all of reality as we experience it is a construct.
Descartes questioned if were possible to provide empirical evidence that his own reality was not a dream, and found that he could not. To this extent we can see parallels with the simulation theories. However, in the famed cogito ergo sum - "I think therefore I am" - Descartes is quite at odds with the simulation theory, and with Buddhism. He places the I am, the tangible self, outside of the construct of his dream and firmly into Musk's "base reality". Bostrum's simulation theory is more in harmony with the Buddhist concept of annata, or the Doctrine of No-Soul. The illusion of the self as considered by the Buddhist philosophy is nothing more or less than the stimuli which is processed by the senses; as the stimuli ceases, so too the mirage it creates, the mirage of the individual.
That Musk chooses to forgo the first two of Bostrum's possibilities in favour of the third is, I would argue, a sign of the great optimism of a man who believed he could make spaceships and subsequently did so. It would seem that many pointers exist to the pessimistic first possibility; that we will not survive to the posthuman stage. These pointers are for another discussion, but include such exciting and cheery topics as the exhaustion of resources, climate change and thermonuclear wars.
Even if we were to survive to the posthuman stage, and the exponential explosion in simulations within simulations that Bostrum predicts does occur, the existence of each and every layer would be predicated on the survival of the technology in the base layer. Should a cataclysmic event occur at that base level all worlds would come tumbling down.
Also and finally, I am not sure what difference it makes, in any case.
Solon chooses for her springboard Elon Musk's recent assertion that “There’s a billion to one chance we’re living in base reality." This in turn, as Solon notes, is inspired by Nick Bostrom's 2003 essay "Are You Living in a Computer Civilisation?" Bostrom talks of "posthuman civilisation", a stage of development where humans have the capability of simulating the human mind. Through a beautifully wild piece of mathematics he argues that "at least one of the following propositions is true:
(1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage;
(2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof);
(3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation."
Elon Musk, it would appear, has ditched the first two possibilities in favour of the third.
Solon says the idea goes back to Descartes, but it actually goes a back a lot further. Two and a half millenia back, to when The Buddha told us that all of reality as we experience it is a construct.
Descartes questioned if were possible to provide empirical evidence that his own reality was not a dream, and found that he could not. To this extent we can see parallels with the simulation theories. However, in the famed cogito ergo sum - "I think therefore I am" - Descartes is quite at odds with the simulation theory, and with Buddhism. He places the I am, the tangible self, outside of the construct of his dream and firmly into Musk's "base reality". Bostrum's simulation theory is more in harmony with the Buddhist concept of annata, or the Doctrine of No-Soul. The illusion of the self as considered by the Buddhist philosophy is nothing more or less than the stimuli which is processed by the senses; as the stimuli ceases, so too the mirage it creates, the mirage of the individual.
That Musk chooses to forgo the first two of Bostrum's possibilities in favour of the third is, I would argue, a sign of the great optimism of a man who believed he could make spaceships and subsequently did so. It would seem that many pointers exist to the pessimistic first possibility; that we will not survive to the posthuman stage. These pointers are for another discussion, but include such exciting and cheery topics as the exhaustion of resources, climate change and thermonuclear wars.
Even if we were to survive to the posthuman stage, and the exponential explosion in simulations within simulations that Bostrum predicts does occur, the existence of each and every layer would be predicated on the survival of the technology in the base layer. Should a cataclysmic event occur at that base level all worlds would come tumbling down.
Also and finally, I am not sure what difference it makes, in any case.
September 23, 2016
Somebody has just done something amazing
I have of late become hyper sensitised to "has just" as used in headlines.
It irritates me, of course, but that can't be the point.
There is something quite tragic in the theme. A desperate cling to the fading moment. A strange word, just, imprecise and less relevant with every passing granule of time. In the context of a headline it is quite meaningless, stretching along the continuum between inaccuracy and the stone cold untruth.
These titles using the adverb often speak to the adjective form; justice is stated as served. There is a finality to the declaration, an inference of a granite conclusion, and very often an implication of moral superiority and advancement.
Present perfect progressive.
I began to cite specific examples but felt nauseous and was forced stop. Instead, and better, here is a link to a Google news search for "has just". Mind how you go.
It irritates me, of course, but that can't be the point.
There is something quite tragic in the theme. A desperate cling to the fading moment. A strange word, just, imprecise and less relevant with every passing granule of time. In the context of a headline it is quite meaningless, stretching along the continuum between inaccuracy and the stone cold untruth.
These titles using the adverb often speak to the adjective form; justice is stated as served. There is a finality to the declaration, an inference of a granite conclusion, and very often an implication of moral superiority and advancement.
Present perfect progressive.
I began to cite specific examples but felt nauseous and was forced stop. Instead, and better, here is a link to a Google news search for "has just". Mind how you go.
September 21, 2016
Cow Mechanics
I've been a vegetarian for nearly twenty years. I follow that diet which airlines refer as a Lacto-Ovo, in that I eat dairy and eggs. And honey.
Over the years I became well practised in defending my philosophy from attack by omnivores. When I began I was passionate, as time passed I became weary, and now I simply shrug and say, "It is was it is."
An experienced vegetarian develops the tools necessary to wallop improvised and insubstantial arguments skywards towards the moon. My late granny, who slipped by only earlier this year, was the only person who really gave me pause for thought. She was a Devon girl, grown on farms, as were countless generations before her. She told me of the mechanics of dairy farming, of the necessity of calving the cows to keep the milk running and of the fate of half of those calves, the male half.
Milk and cheese and yoghurt is subsidised by the trade in flesh and skin of these young bulls.
This is problematic.
In that knowledge, I still drink milk and eat cheese and yoghurt. I would consider not doing so from a dietary point of view, despite cheese being the greatest foodstuff on the planet. I could refrain, I have willpower. The problem comes in stepping out of the house. Britain is very good at providing a lacto-ovo vegetarian option, but to turn vegan is to say, hey, I can't eat with you in that cafe, pub, restaurant, and there is nothing for me in the chilled section of the petrol station. I can't step over that line.
Is there a solution?
Well, perhaps. But many of you won't like it.
What is a cow? Before humans penned them, did they exist?
As dogs were artificially bred from the wolves, so cows were domesticated from their wild bovine ancestors. Over the centuries they have been shaped to the docile oblongs of meat on legs that moo plaintively over hedgerows and wire.
This is genetic modification by selection.
Could expand on our modification and genetically design a bred that will give birth to a disproportionate amount of cows to bulls? Nine cows to every lucky bull that will spend its rarefied life fathering nine cows to every lucky bull?
It would solve my ethical problems, at least.
Over the years I became well practised in defending my philosophy from attack by omnivores. When I began I was passionate, as time passed I became weary, and now I simply shrug and say, "It is was it is."
An experienced vegetarian develops the tools necessary to wallop improvised and insubstantial arguments skywards towards the moon. My late granny, who slipped by only earlier this year, was the only person who really gave me pause for thought. She was a Devon girl, grown on farms, as were countless generations before her. She told me of the mechanics of dairy farming, of the necessity of calving the cows to keep the milk running and of the fate of half of those calves, the male half.
Milk and cheese and yoghurt is subsidised by the trade in flesh and skin of these young bulls.This is problematic.
In that knowledge, I still drink milk and eat cheese and yoghurt. I would consider not doing so from a dietary point of view, despite cheese being the greatest foodstuff on the planet. I could refrain, I have willpower. The problem comes in stepping out of the house. Britain is very good at providing a lacto-ovo vegetarian option, but to turn vegan is to say, hey, I can't eat with you in that cafe, pub, restaurant, and there is nothing for me in the chilled section of the petrol station. I can't step over that line.
Is there a solution?
Well, perhaps. But many of you won't like it.
What is a cow? Before humans penned them, did they exist?
As dogs were artificially bred from the wolves, so cows were domesticated from their wild bovine ancestors. Over the centuries they have been shaped to the docile oblongs of meat on legs that moo plaintively over hedgerows and wire.
This is genetic modification by selection.
Could expand on our modification and genetically design a bred that will give birth to a disproportionate amount of cows to bulls? Nine cows to every lucky bull that will spend its rarefied life fathering nine cows to every lucky bull?
It would solve my ethical problems, at least.
July 14, 2016
BoJo the Bastard Clown
BoJo the Bastard Clown on globetrotting detail.A Brexit chief.Brexit means Brexit.The lady's not for turning.Hold on to your hats, kids, we're on the Article 50 juggernaut.---There has been much chortling about the appointment of Bojo the Bastard Clown as foreign secretary. I believe, viewed through the Tory prism, it is inspired.
Boris on the back bench would be a serious danger to May. This is not conjecture - if recent events prove anything they prove him to be a political atom bomb.
The man is a clown and a bastard, but he is far from incompetent. He ushered in Brexit, and with this appointment he now must shoulder some of the responsibility for making it work. If left at the rear he would be free to watch it fail over the course of the next few years, with May's approval tumbling alongside. He could then bumble forward with his sheepish grin, saying "Ah, yes now, well, of course if I was Prime Minister..."
Just in time to raise a leadership challenge before the next general election.
Sheepish grin he has, but a wolf he is.
She knows what she is doing, does Theresa May.
And, frankly, thank God for that. They are not my lot, the blue lot, and there is much about Theresa May's politics that I find terrifying. The Snooper's Charter, in particular, will now surely go through in this term, laying the foundations for a state machinery that would quake Orwell in his grave.
However, someone needs to take charge of the debacle seeded by Farage, sewn by Cameron and watered by BoJo the Bastard Clown. Labour is, from any perspective, currently a shambles. Of the Tories May is, at least, a professional. Brexit means Brexit, and not one serious political force is standing on an anti-Brexit ticket. To whit, May is correct in saying it needs to be made a success, and she is correct in ensuring that Johnson is clamped into the team that must provide that success.
June 13, 2016
Faith and football
I was close to loosing my grip as England played Russia at the weekend.
It's been like this for thirty years, since Mexico 1986.
I'm so tired.
But I can't let go.
Because, what does that mean? If one lets go to the throbbing truth that it means absolutely nothing, these young men hurtling after a bag of air, then let slip the dominoes of existential collapse. Popular music, means nothing. Dramatic arts, mean nothing. All bloody art, nothing. The laws of physics? If you like, and the sun will explode and end us all. Love, hate, descendants, antecedents, lost pets, fifty hours of watching Breaking Bad.
I don't know.
We play Wales on Thursday.
It's been like this for thirty years, since Mexico 1986.
I'm so tired.
But I can't let go.
Because, what does that mean? If one lets go to the throbbing truth that it means absolutely nothing, these young men hurtling after a bag of air, then let slip the dominoes of existential collapse. Popular music, means nothing. Dramatic arts, mean nothing. All bloody art, nothing. The laws of physics? If you like, and the sun will explode and end us all. Love, hate, descendants, antecedents, lost pets, fifty hours of watching Breaking Bad.
I don't know.
We play Wales on Thursday.
