From the Notebook

            The title of this post is from the movie “The Ugly Truth”.  I heard some bad reviews about it, and at least it had something to do with while I did not see it in the theater.  So, when I saw the DVD, I basically wanted to check it out to see how bad it could be.  But to my surprise, I don’t think it is too bad, and to certain extent, it might be more valuable than many romantic movies we often see.

            The reason I am writing this post is because it is a continuation about the subject of love.  In the post “Love”, I basically talked about love in abstract.  In this post, I will write about the problems related with love, mostly about question why men and women are still not “settling down” after passing certain age. 

            There are many films related to this, but most films often come across as with certain degree of bitterness, so they did not do well with audience and critics.  But in the case of “The Ugly Truth”, the audience reactions are well enough (measuring from box office number), but critics seemed to be less forgiving.  Perhaps most movie critics are at heart romantic, so they could not bear the ugliness of the truth.

            The leading roles in this movie represented this modern day problem: Successful man Mike (Played by Gerard Butler) who cannot settle down, and successful woman Abby (played by Katherine Heigl) who cannot find the man to settle down with.  The title of the movie came from Mike’s show in the movie that had the same name.  His theme was that the truth is ugly, so deal with it.  But what makes the movie not so hopeless is that the story developed actually proved him wrong, that he was telling half of the truth, and the truth is not so ugly.  Not only his own action undermined some of the important part of the theory, even his theory sometime undermined his own theory. 

            For example, he said that men are simple, that they don’t care about personalities, only the looks of women.   Actually, I think caring about looks apply to men and women.  In modern days, as women are becoming more independent, they are more free of the “conventional wisdom”, many could emphasis more on looks than previous generations. 

            But there are many good looking people around, so actually attraction, connection and establishing relationship with will also based on something else.  So, we often hear people talking about types.  Even if a person might be attracted to someone based on look alone, but whether a meaningful relationship will develop depends more on personalities. 

            In the movie, Mike told Abby that men don’t like to be criticized, so he advised her not be show herself as a control freak.  That advice is about her personality, so it proves that personality does count.  Towards the end, to the question what makes him so bitter towards relationship, he listed various personality flaws of the women he knew, nothing about they were not beautiful enough

            The movie attempted to point out the problems with these men and women through the argument between Mike and Abby.  In their argument, Abby pointed out that Mike’s tough guy who did not care persona was all an act to protect his fragile ego not to be hurt, and Mike responded that her insisting to find someone perfect made her goal unrealistic. 

            These are good points, but I don’t think they are the whole story.  First, why these men have the fragile ego problem?  To most people, life seems to treat them relatively well.  Why they felt hurt more than others?  Second, seeking perfections are the tendencies of most people, why it became a bigger problem for these women?

              The truth is, ultimately the reason for most men to be single is also that they have not find the “right one”.  If you think the standard of many women are high, then the standard of many men are simply impossible (literally).  To put it simply, for many men, the most attractive feature of a woman is her unavailability.  There is a theory that teach men to gain the attentions of attract women by ignoring them (mentioned in the movie).  I don’t know whether it is the case, but for all I know, it seems that this theory probably works better on men.  This can explain why many “eligible bachelors” having trouble finding the one (because women could be too available to them), this might also offer an explanation on why many men like to cheat. 

            The devoted love from a man to a woman is mostly found in the medieval era, where knight in the Crusade would project his love to a lady that he realistically has no way of getting close to, some even never saw her (from the historical background, there was probable some religious influence).  We can see it in many Gothic stories and novels, even in Dante ’s  “Divine Comedy”.   The romantic journey for many men became the chasing of phantoms, bitterness is understandable.

            One the other hand, say what you want, the model for love story for many women is still basically the Cinderella story, that she would find someone to give her happiness, and change her life for the better.  As a woman’s life depends solely on a man, can you blame her for being too careful?

            Going back to the movie, it is interesting that Mike did somewhat follow the rule of unavailability, but Abby actually did not follow her rule.  You can argue that he was attracted to her from the very start, otherwise he would not pay that much attention to her.  But what eventually make him falling in love with her does seem to have something to do with the fact that her attention was on another man, which made her unavailable for him. 

            On the other hand, instead of trying to find the perfect man according to her rule, Abby finally realized that perfection is actually a word with relativity.  Should she choose a man who loves who she pretended to be, or should she choose a man who loves her for who she is?  She chose the latter.

            In the end, he felt in love with her knowing fully about her personality flaws, the explanation could be not just he like to be challenged, but he might have insecurity issues, that he would feel safe with a woman with strong personality.  So, in this case, it could be that her “personality flaws” that could be liability for others might become an asset for him.  Thus, perfection could be relatively. 

            Here, we might find a new rule that there should not be one fixed standard for finding the “right one”, it should depend on what is important to you.  More importantly, is it too much to ask one person to bring all the happiness to you (if this person is gone, all the happiness will be gone)?  Instead of hoping for someone to change your lives, maybe you should find someone that you are happy sharing your lives with? 

            Changing the focus from finding the right one to finding happiness will prevent people to be the victim of the circumstances.  With this goal, we will stop chasing the phantoms, but focusing more on enjoying life together, because that is what love is about.   Happiness is a useful tools for measuring the success of the relationship, we all know whether we are happy or not, in fact, most of are very good at it.  With this standard, we are not in a path of uncertainty, but with definitive measurement that we can use.   

            On this notion, is it such a big problem for men and women not to settle down at particular age?  Aren’t individuals best to decide what to do, not lead by calendar?  Isn’t better to be single and happy, not married and miserable? 

            I just saw a DVD of “Mona Lisa Smile”.  Besides breaking people’s fantasy about the good life of women in the past, it also illustrated the point I just make.  It is quite an inspirational movie.  Does one have to take the options that were offered to her?  What if she wants something better?  Each person should have her own choice to make and her own action to take, as her stay true to herself, fulfilling her own purposes, she can make the world a better place.   

            So, here you have it.  The truth might not be so ugly, and the truth can set you free.

             In my last post “Free Will”, I said that value system mostly related to what not to do, rather than what to do.  This statement is a little careless.  Here, I will try to write more detailed analysis on the value system.

            In essence, the value system is the system we assign various values to different actions, inactions and factors in decision making process.   In general, we can say the value system is like a gate keeper.  After desire arises, the mind will use the value system to evaluate it, and decide whether to pass it as goal or not (while assign the priority of the goal).

            It might be a little backward discussing the human value system without talking about human knowledge system in general.  But value system has been standing out alone in our civilization (mostly in religion, and in other culture traditions), so, I will talk about value system mostly in the sense of social influence, maybe later I will write in the context of overall human knowledge system. 

            I recently watched a TED conference video, where Richard Dawkins displayed how religion is different from science.  It would be ridiculous if science in certain region belief in one thing, while scientist in other region believe sometime completely different.  But this is basically what happens in our value system.  So, we will ask the question of how and why.

            Here, I have to make a statement about my observation of human knowledge system.  Philosophers have long puzzled about how humans acquire knowledge, or where human knowledge came from.  For example, in “The Republic”, Plato argued that knowledge is priori, so did Kant in the “Practice of Pure Reason”.  It is obviously a strong evidence to support religion, if it is true.  But it is not.

            It is true that our knowledge system and language system are structured so that our mind (the physical aspect of it) would be able to receive it and make use of it.  But how knowledge came to shape in our minds is not by divine power, but through human communications.  The good example to prove this (again) is the fact that humans raised by other animals would not have language abilities and human knowledge.

            The confusion about the origin of human knowledge system is because in its long developing process, in each particular time it seems to be static and given.  But the actually building of human knowledge system is no difference from individual learning process, by trial-n-error. 

            In this process, the establishment of religion is a disruptive force at it takes particular findings in certain point of the process and make it absolute by giving it divine blessing.  The reason for this type of actions can be historic necessity.  We ought to understand that in ancient time, knowledge is something of rare commodity.  For example, in medieval time, many of the kings in Europe were not literate.  This certainly makes rational thinking that requires the ponderence of various concepts difficult if not impossible. 

            So, we can say the establishment of religion and other rigid value systems in cultures are the signs of the time, and it is time to re-evaluate this practice.   In the information age, not only most of the people in the world gained literacy, information is assembled and dissembled in fast speed and broad spectrums.  Globalization will inevitably lead to certain degree of culture integration, and revision. 

            Obviously the establishment of the value system is for certain purposes.  Most of the time, there are people benefited more from certain value systems than other people, and certain value systems favor certain people and behaviors more than others.  But for value systems as a whole to exist, they ought to achieve certain fundamental goals of the society. 

            These are values (moral rules) that are more intuitive than others, so there are distinctions about natural laws and moral or religions rules.  But what is natural and reasonable is relevant to the cultures and traditions. 

            Going back to the question of why science is so different from religion, I think the answer is value system dealt with our internal structure, which is the making of our own doing, it is not direct reflection of anything existing in the nature world, only that it is something intermediate in our minds that will govern our actions.  Therefore, theoretically, there could be multiple value systems coexisting in the same world.  But in reality, many fundamental values are at least similar, although there could be certain values significantly different reflecting different external conditions.  Ultimately, when we evaluate the value system, we can only evaluate the effects of our actions, in order to determine what values are beneficial.

            Here, I like to talk again about the operation of the minds, and the minds as physical existences.  Our mental processes operating based on our knowledge system including value system are for the most part almost irrelevant to its physical compositions.  In the mental process, how minds structured physically would not matter much unless there are defections that cannot do what it supposed to do. 

             Therefore, analyzing our value system would not have much to do with human minds in physical sense, even in the case regarding how the value system setup that influence emotions could be related to how our minds operate.  The mechanism of process can only be explained by the rules of the process, going back to small scale to study the compositions of the brains will only miss the point. 

            Simply speaking, examining the value system only requires us to do just that.  For example, another TED conference talk by Sam Harris raised the question why in now a days, in some Muslim countries, the first thought of the father whose daughter was raped is often to kill her in defend of the family honor.  I believe the answer does not need to (and would not) come from scientific studies of the brain, but from analysis about how value system operates in the society, and the reason of the existence of the value system. 

            In this case, it is because the father’s value system rules includes a rule that the honor of the family is far more important that the daughter’s life.  However does the rule come about?  Because it is enforced by the society, and I give an explanation why there is such a rule.  Occasionally there are people who’s value systems are far outdated, but most of the time people’s value system are inline with the level of enforcement.

            For example, the family whose daughter was raped could face serious consequences if the “dishonor” were not “cured”.  For example, the entire family could be attacked and lost all their lives.  Not to mention other daughters would have no chance of finding husbands, the sons would not have chance to find wives (which means that blood line of the family will die), etc.  Plus, especially if life is not much joy to speak of, death would be less of a horrible thing. 

            The way to change this culture and the value system is to target the source, i.e., enforcement.  If the law makes it illegal for honor killing, and family can escape from the environment and start anew, most fathers would not choose to kill their own daughters.  Not too long ago, there were stories about India turning widows after the husbands just died.  But after the government put effort to solve this problem, and as Indian society is making process, we are not hearing these stories any more.

            The difficulty of changing value system could be increased when it is strongly supported by religions believes (this is why I call religion could be disruptive force).  As religions often take the all or nothing approach, the adoption of value system is not by individual merit but buddle up together.  This is why culture residuals could take long time to change.  One of the most effective ways is through arts.  Arts are other intermediate systems that only generate effects on people, not the physical world.  As arts directly affect emotions, the emotional conflicts provoked by arts often motivate people to be more acceptable to new ideas and new values. 

            My belief is there is nothing in any given culture and value system that is unchangeable, all we need to do is to make conscious decision to change it and make effort to push for the changes.  It is the same no matter what the underlining mechanism supporting the value system. 

            As to the difference between science and religion, there are scientific theories as improbable and fanciful as religious claims (as long as there is no reliable way to verify).  Although the difference between science and religion is the underlining principle, when there is no way to verify the ultimate results, science could be just as lost as religion.  This proves again that the ultimate results are the best measurement of any system.. 

            Aristotle had pointed out that ethics is based utility, and it is the key for understanding, analyzing and revising the value system.  Going back to chastity of women, why women’s bodies became the all important concern of the society in the majority of history and culture? 

            To answer this question, we just need to look at the structure of the society.  The establishment of civilization requires the mechanism of reliable continuity.  For the most part of history, this continuity is maintained by legacy of male desedents.  But there is a weakness in this system, because there was no reliable way to assure the accuracy of the blood line.  This is the reason why the society put insurmountable pressure for women to be faithful, in the extreme case, the value system would put value of chastity above the value of their lives.  Here, we have better understanding about the social background why the father would rather kill the daughter when she lost her chastity, no matter what was the reason. 

            To go a little further, why in Arab world chastity is valued more than other society?  The answer could also be found from practical analysis.  Historically, in many of the Arab world polygamy in the form of one husband multiple wives is somewhat the norm.  The reason could be that this might have more benefit in their nomadic lifestyle, as nomadic life could be more dangerous than farm lives, more potential dangers could occur, larger family unit with more young males (sons) could best benefit the families (it is a matter of choice, as not all nomadic cultures adopt polygamy, and in history people in China mostly lived farm lives, polygamy was also practiced). 

            But from human nature polygamy is not a naAs culture developed, the legacy has been maintained in different forms such as causes and ideas, various entAs culture developed, the legacy has been maintained in different forms such as causes and ideas, various entities for various purposes, legacy through blood line is less important.  ities for various purposes, legacy through blood line is less important.  ture state.  With respect to sexual partners, people do not want to share, as one would not have undivided attention.  As the nomadic life is mobile, and the attentions of husbands are constantly divided, women could look elsewhere, so in nature state, there could be more danger of sexual affairs in this situation.  This might be the reason for vigorously emphasizing the importance of chastity. 

            Now a days, DNA testing would almost definitely determine the blood line of a child, so the pressing need for assuring the legacy is not long valid concerns.  But interestingly enough, in the western world, sexual freedom (relatively) came earlier before this technology became available.  The explanation for this could be the change of the role of legacy in western society.  As culture developed, the legacy has been maintained in different forms such as causes and ideas, various entities for various purposes, legacy through blood line is less important.  As individuals rely on their own skills to earn livings, properties descending from past generating also become less important.  In this stage, human emotions and human bonds are not just based on blood lines, contacts and affections became more important.  So, maintaining blood line not to be “infected” is not as important. 

            On the other hand, as women have more freedom to choose, less likely they will be in a situation that they will be the wife or life partner of someone, but bear children of other men.  There are theories speculate that women might try to use the seed of Alpha Male to optimize the genetic composition of her offspring, while choosing partners that can give them more attentions.  But Alpha Male is a myth.  Before Einstein became synonymous with genius, he was an insignificant person with insignificant education and insignificant job.  Before his theory of physics shook the world, he was considered not good enough to even be in the field of physics.  In most significant ways, it is not what kind of body or brain you have, but what you do with it that makes the difference. 

            Sexual relationships changed noticeably in modern society.  But very often, people often blame the openness (especially related to sexual relationships) in the culture for the problems of the society.  I believe this is a passing problem.  The value system based on reason and effects are more dynamic than rigid system based on doctrines and unbreakable rules.  This mechanism required more active participation of individuals in establishing their value systems. 

            The key for the success of this system is first that people need to learn rational thinking.  If individuals are responsible for establishing their own value systems (not passively acceptable doctrines and rigid rules), they ought to be well equipped with means to do so, and first and foremost rational thinking is needed. 

            There should also be some simple basic theories that they can drawn on.  Here, there is a problem with our culture and tradition.  With the co-existence of traditional culture, and false science theories, the modern culture itself is in a state of confusion.  Individuals often are trembling among this state of confusions trying to make the best of it. 

            Considering this reality, we ought to admire the abilities of individuals, in this state of confusions, most people managed to stay afloat and did the best they can.  We ought to applaud the resilience of human spirits   But it is an urgent need to develop new model value system (at least start with the foundation of this value system).  One thing we ought to remember is that value system based on utilitarian reasons should not be considered too narrowly.  When we conduct cost and benefit analysis, we should put as many factors into consideration into to obtain sensible results.  It is a collective effort, through trial-n-error.   

            The question about free will first started as part of religious discussion, but it then goes beyond the scope.  And, the question goes to not just what is free will, but whether there is such thing as free will.  To this, my answer is yes, there is something that you can call it free will, but it might not be what you think exactly.

            To start, the thing that I call free will can be unpredictable for someone else (but not to oneself), but free will is not the same as random act. In fact, free will is often haled as the most important part of humanity, and the underlining reason is not biological, but mental.

            The confusions about free comes from two major sources.  First, there is the long lasting debate about God’s will and free will.  If everything is under the control of God, then there would not be free will.  This is one of the primary contradictions of Judeo-Christian religions.  Establishing the sin-punishment system inevitably confirm the existence of free will (at least God is not in control all the time).

            One the other hand, the doubt about free will comes from the world where there is no God.  The question is: If all worldly phenomenon is governed by physical law, and physical law’s basic principle is certainty (i.e., with given condition, the outcome will be certain), then how can there be free will?

            This is a question that hunted people in recent times, no clear answer is given.  Many people even used the un-solved mystery of quantum physics to explain the un-solved mystery of free will.  So, there are many modern day bizarre theories that can rival the ancient myths.

            I think the explanation in concept is relatively simple (although the operation is not), and frankly plain, thus not as entertaining.  I will try to make a point about the basic concept, and then explain in some details.  Basically, it all comes done to the fact that although our mental processes are embodied by physical (biological) processes, the mechanism of mental processes is based on the rules of their own, which are the rules of the human knowledge system, primarily human language system.

            I will explain how we established the human knowledge system (based on the analysis of human language system) in later posts, here I will say that human knowledge system is highly evolved that most of the language elements have no direct worldly references, and free will is the outcome of our mental processes with operations of this system with abstract and intermediate concepts and rules. 

            Although our mental processes are essentially physical (biological) processes, because our mental processes operate under the rules of symbol systems (mostly image and language system), how the triggering signals operate cannot be explained by physical (biological) rules alone. 

            For example, if you look at a picture of an apple, it might stimulate your brain and make your mouth watering.  But the picture of the apple can be different shape and color, on different media (photo or computer screen etc.) but the effect to you will be the same.  If you try to analysis the chemical composition of the photo or computer screen, or even analysis the shape and color of the picture (not in the sense of symbol system), there will not be predictable rules that can give you reasons for your reaction.   Meanwhile, the same mental process can be embodied in different biological systems (or even computer systems) with different compositions but same logic designs (this is the reason computer simulation of the brain is possible).  

            Human activities and reactions to the world are less predictable than animals (not to mention physical objects, even machines).  This is because of the free will.  Animals’ primary activities are hunting for food and mating (when in season).  I am not aware of any animal will pick up a stick to draw something or writing a poem (although animals can imitate human behaviors, especially for pets.  My point is they will not do these things on their own).

            But humans do these things because we like to express ourselves (forms of communication to others), hoping to make a career and even for fame, etc.  When we talk about free will, we will need to talk about decision making. Looking into decision making process, we will have a better understanding on what is free will.  The reason we call it the decision making process is because the outcome is not automatic.  So, this leads us to think about predictability.  If we can make decisions that lead to difference outcome, what is the underlining mechanism that leads to our decisions?

            This leads to the most relevant factors to free will, mostly values, desires, and goals.  Many human behaviors would seem to be mysterious until we know their intentions.  In fact, we often spend a lot of time trying to figure out people’s intentions. 

            First of all, although emotions can play a part in decision making, related to the subject of free will, its effects are related to values, desires and goals.  The operation of emotions basically emphasizes the impact or weight of values, desires and goals.

            Ultimately, the decision making process reflects the role of our value system, our desires and our goals.  Values are basically rules, they often related to what you will not do more than what you will do, and it is a part of our belief system.  From the aspect of free will, it can determine the choices we make.  For example, if we believe that harming other people is wrong, then our value (rule) will be not to harm other people (usually with certain condition attached).  If situation arises that there are choices to be made on what to do, then we will choose the option that we think will not harm other people (you can see this is a complicated process, it will require the understanding of the situation, making predictions on what will be the possible results of different options and weighing different rules).  If the rule of not harming other people is given high priority, then you will make the choice of not harming others even if you predict the other option will benefit you significantly. 

            What make people’s minds so complicated is also because our desires are highly evolved.  For example, when Gauguin left his comfort life and family and went to Tahiti to seek his dream world, many could think something went wrong in his head.  But we can also see it is where desire played an important part in free will.

            The effects of goals are somewhat different.  The operation of goals can lead to sequences of deliberate actions that would take years (or life time, or even many generations) to accomplish (it depends on the evaluation of the importance of the goals).  A good example of how goals will affect our decision is education.  Many of people spend significant amount of time, effort and resources in education because they perceive it as necessary for achieving their goals.

            Having goals and achieving goals have been viewed as the road to success.  But lately this notion was challenged somewhat.  Having goals means we know what we want, but what if we don’t know what we want? 

            In fact, we are at the time that technology development having been making ground shifting impacts on the society.  This leads us to re-exam our values, desires and goals under new lights.   The time of change could be the time of confusion, so it might be helpful to find some basic rules that one can rely on. 

            First, values (and belief systems) are the products of time, as social condition changes, values (and belief systems) will change, and could be for the better.  The traditional belief systems often are accepted without questioning.  But to establish new system, we ought to leave no stone unturned, and the bases are the prediction of over all outcome based on reasons. 

            The role of desires are over played and under played at the same time.  Many people interpreted free will as act on impulses, thus they are basically become the prey of our biological limitations, thus degraded from human potentials.  But desires are also the core of the free will (our ultimate goal is to fulfill our needs and desires), without them, there is no free will to speak of.  It is important to distinguish desires that lead to self destruction (or over obsessive indulgence) and those that lead to change our lives for the better. 

            Goals are not static.  There are times one would be searching for goals, and then achieving the goals.  As free will is pushing the limit from where we are to where we want to be, and many existing limitation are crumbling down, the goals can be shifting based on what we know is possible.  But in order to achieve goals, there ought to be a sense of what to do. 

            Here, I think the practice of educational system is somewhat limiting when it comes to ground breaking activities.   It is clear education cannot tell people what to do, because what need to be done is not clear here.   Simply accumulating knowledge could cause people to be limited by the knowledge, what is needed is to learn to how to actively select useful knowledge and skills for the intended goals. 

            So, what is the definition of free will?  I can provide a definition by function: Free will is something within that can lead us from where we are to where we want to be, and it may turn the world from what it is to what we want it to be.  It made wonders in the past, it can achieve much more in the future. 

          Love is a subject that is difficult to write about.  It is simple, yet so complicated.  I have been trying to write something that is comprehensive, clear, and not contradictory, but I realized that I can only start with a sketch, and leave the unsaid for later. 

            In this post, I will talk about romantic love, in a somewhat abstract version.  First, I like to make a distinction, about love and being in love.  I like to identify love as a type of emotion, and being in love as a type of status.  As an emotion, love can be dynamic, can be unstable, it can vary in reference to time; as an status, being in love is more defined and stabilized, you will be in love until you fell out of love.

            But as emotion is changeable and can change constantly, how can we be in love as a status?  Although emotions are dynamic phenomenon, the stimulates that evoke the emotions could be fixed.  In fact, the association between emotions and stimulates could be an exclusive bond, i.e., only one stimulate is associated to one type of emotion.  This is what is falling in love means.  When one sees (or even thinks) the person one loves, the emotion of love will emerge.  When one thinks of love, the one he or she loves will come into mind. 

            The underlining mechanism for establishing this connection is the process of association, which is the process of establishing any emotional responses to stimulates.   This is why falling in love is a process.  It is a process of enforcing and re-enforcing the association of love through continues confirmation. 

            So, now we have a more complete definition of love and being in love.  If love is the happy feeling we can have with the presence or even awareness of the presence of someone, then being in love is the fixated association of this feeling.  Fundamentally romantic love is not much different from other kinds, only that the cause of it is different. 

            The process of falling in love starts with attraction.  People usually do not get close to someone without being attracted to someone.  Many often use chemistry to describe it, basically they are saying that they don’t know what it is. 

            When we feel we are not able to describe something, it often means that there are too many things going on, so we cannot pin point one thing only.  But I think it is clear that attraction is not just physical attraction, and even physical attraction is not simply based on appearance. 

            It is quite possible that you can think someone as good looking, but are not attracted to him (or her), and it is possible that you don’t think someone is good looking, but are very attracted to him (or her).  I believe this is because even in appearance, we often can see characters, and we are attracted to people not just because how they look, but also who they are (or at least who we think they are).  We ought to have a feeling of akin in order to be attracted to people.  Of course we can make mistakes.  After knowing them a little better, the attraction can go away (or come to you) they are not what you think they are.

            Most of all, attraction is a two way street.  The actual attraction can only occur when two people are drawn to each other (otherwise, it will be called admiration, or obsession, depending on the degree of fascination.)   Even in this stage, the attraction can be exchange of emotions and could be felt as if there is actual magnetic force in between.  You may feel the impact (of chill or warmness) when the other is closing up (without actually being touched). 

            Attraction leads two people to each other.  Then the process of developing a relationship begins.  Relationship is the process of cultivating love, and hopefully fixating the association of love.  The goal or task of developing the relationship is to make each other happy and be happy.  As physical attraction is an important part of the attraction, getting close to each other means embrace each other, and communicating their passion for each other with the interactions of their bodies.  As the pleasurable moments are intertwined with the memories of sights, sounds, touches, smells, and tastes of the other, the motional bond with the other can be naturally established.       

            Abstinence often relates to the concept of sexual purity, and sexual purity originated in the attempt to objectify women, and the harm does not stop there.  If men can objectify women, the ones that they presumably are mostly close to, then they will have little trouble of objectify other people, (thence the alpha male theory, etc.)  Here, we find the underlining problem of the civilizations.   

            The fundamental reason we need to love and be loved is because we are conscious beings with intelligence.  We need to confirm our feelings, and confirm our existences.  In fact, I think the significant part of religion is really about filling this need.  We need a being that is aware of our existences to confirm our existences, and give meaning to our existences.  For this, we not only took all the trouble of making things up, we also are willing to pay hefty price for it. 

            But it is all in vain.  In religion, we often feel more about our insignificance, and have more questions than answers.  But the rejection of gods led to materialism, and lead to the generations of lost souls.  However, just like in “The Wizard of Oz”, the solution is close to home. 

            Ultimately, what we seek in love is to fulfill this need.   I will feel the existence of “me” through the existence of the other.  Plainly speaking, we are each other’s light, salvation, and anchor. 

            In love, “I” forgo judgment.  As the presence of the other will be the source of “my” happiness, the only thing “I” need to do is to accept love and be happy.  And, because the other holds the key to “my” happiness, “I” will do what is best for the other, to protect the source of “my” happiness. 

            Love is a gift.  But it is the kind of gift that could cost nothing and give you more.  Just by being in love, you are giving the best gift that anyone can give to another, and  in love, the only thing “I” am seeking is the love in the other.  As we see love in each other’s eyes, moves, and reactions, we can confirm our existences, and we can find the meaning of life. 

            Through the collective efforts of our minds, by the helps of language systems, we built a kingdom that can not be seen, but can be felts.  The fundamental element is the comprehension of the existence of others. 

            There is a story about heaven and hell.  The story goes, people in hell were invited to a feast but were given spoons that were too long that they could not feed themselves, so they were just staring at the food and tormented by the situation.  While in heaven, it is the same setting, but the results were far different.  They were feeding each other and were having a very good time.

            This is probably the lesson of love.  Through the exchange of love, happiness is real and plentiful.  Over time, it could be an accelerating process that can bring more and more happiness.

            Here I like to point out the differences between sensations and emotions.  First, sensations exist mainly for the purpose of avoiding danger.  So, sensations are the strongest when there are sudden changes.  In other words, our feeling of sensations related closely to the degree of changes than the degree of magnitudes.  This is why merely seeking sensual pleasures often lead to excessive obsessive behaviors and to the road of no return. 

            On the other hand, as emotions are parts of mental processes (in different defense mechanism system), not only emotions are generated by the minds, their magnitudes are measured individuals (not by the measure of differentiations), the feeling of love can remain constant without losing its effects, so eternal bliss from love is possible. 

            Sensations are closely related to the bodies.  Sensations give us vivid experiences because that is what the sensing system is about.  But the memories of sensations can only fade, when the stimulates are not there, there is no way to actually reproduce the sensations to the same effects.  This why sensations from all physical experiences, including sexual experiences, no matter how strong they were, and how good they felt at the moment, we cannot vividly recall them after, and the lapse of time will only make matter worse.

            But it is not so with emotions.  Since emotions involve mental processes with the symbols as stimulates, one can relive the emotions, and even enhance the emotions by simply thinking about the symbols (such as images or any others related to the loved one) that are stimulates.  This is probably why there are phrases such as “undying love”, “eternal love”. 

            If this is true, then how any thing could ever go wrong?   Well, this is a pure version of love.  In reality, many factors can come into play, so there could be many problems (I will write in later posts).  One common reason for people to have trouble in love, or lost their love is because they can go through a different cycle.  This has something to do with the dynamic of the relationship.  When two people first feel the attraction to each other, they become each others light and refuge against the world.  But when they establish their relatively closed universe, they can often feel that they are in the opposite sides. 

            Argument is the most common way to divide people.  People are different.  No one can be the same as the other, having a disagreement is not the problem, but argument is.  Argument is emotionally charged.  People don’t have an argument every time they have disagreement.   They have arguments because they are emotional invested to win the arguments.  There is a difference between argument and discussion.  Discussion can turn disagreement into agreement but in argument between a couple, the only predictable result is they will all lose, because one way or another there will be hostility and resentment.  If not repaired, the cracks will grow bigger and bigger. 

            Discussion requires rational thinking and agreement on the fundamentals.  This is why people put high value on understanding for relationships.   This generally means that they ought to have similar ways of thinking, and they ought to accept the similar assumptions.  Of course it helps to be agreeable and open minded.  People can always learn from each other, it is no difference between two people in love.  In fact, they often unknowing rub on each other because they are fascinated by each other, that they some how would like to be like the other, so naturally they would somewhat each grow into the person having the trace of the other.  

            So, I think there is a hopeful picture for love, and for life.  When we learn acceptance of another human being from love, we would learn the principle of respect and understanding in life in general.  Like the story in this post about heaven and hell, we hold the key to heaven or hell for the others.  We can make the world a better place.

           Yes, I am going to talk about the proposal in California about legalizing marijuana, although I am a marijuana user, I doubt I will ever be.  Actually, I don’t like the smell that much, and if the smell gets stronger, I will get some kind of headache. 

            But I do support this proposal, and it is not just for revenue generating.   The mechanism of our legal system is based on deterring through punishment.  The rational is that people will not do something if they see that they will be punished.   But the effectiveness of this mechanism is often in question.  In this particular case, there are difficulties in enforcement. 

            First, if we treat this as a crime, it is a victimless crime.  I am say this not in the sense of its moral impact (I will talk about it later), I am merely talking about in the sense of detecting it.  If someone did something that affects other people’s lives, then someone else will likely report to the police.  But if someone smoking marijuana in his or her home, unless someone else gets close enough to see it or smell it, no one would know.  Plus, because smoking marijuana is merely misdemeanor, the police departments would not spend much time running into people’s home for it. 

            The enforcement on this is mostly focusing on the supply and distribution.  But because it is easy to carry small amount and not to be detected, the real focus is really on the source of supply for large amounts.  Selling marijuana is a more serious crime, and we often hear that people do get arrested on this.  But the danger of getting caught actually leads to some people into the business.

            Of course they are not in this because they want to get caught.  They are in this business because of the financial incentives.  The danger of getting caught work as part of the mechanism that makes this a ludicrous kind of business, because it reduced competition.   

            First of all, because it is not legal to sell marijuana, there is limited comparative shopping.  People cannot get on the internet and compare prices for it.  And, to the extend that there could be some competition with the suppliers, they often use any method including violence to assure profitability.  As the bet is on not getting caught, nothing is off the table.

            As we can explain why people will sell marijuana illegally, then we have to ask the question why people are using marijuana.  The short answer is that it makes them happy.  Marijuana users admit that it is a mind alternating substance, but they want to point out that it has no serious side effects (at least no more than alcohol), that the effect they are seeking is better than what is produced by alcohol, and it will not lead to addiction.  In fact, some people even say that the laws against marijuana use is the conspiracy of tobacco and alcohol producing companies, because marijuana will post a serious threat to their industries. 

            It is probably true that marijuana does not have long term serious side effect, especially it is not additive.  In this matter the objection is about that it is a gate way drug for more harmful and additive drugs.     

            And there is the movie “Reefer Madness”.  The fear is that people will turn mad and all hell will turn loose.  California legalized medical marijuana and I am sure many people short circuit it, but the sky did not fall.  In fact, Holland as a country where marijuana use is legal, and global surveys keep ranking it as one of the happiness place on earth. 

            But there is more to it.  Perhaps people are against marijuana because the effect of mind altering is more than alcohol, and this makes them uncomfortable.   “Wasted” is used for people under the influence of alcohol, but more so for marijuana.  Perhaps they are afraid that people will become living zombies that will be out of touch of reality, literarily. 

            To this, there are many people that like to point out that many artists have had inspirations when under the influence.  In fact, there are noticeable artists that claimed drug use was the main source of their creativities.  One of the most noticeable examples is Charles Baudelaire.  In fact, someone actually implied that his book of poetry “Les Fleurs du mal” (The Flower of Evil”) is actually his name for opium. 

            Of course, we have to admit that most of the drug users are not Baudelaire, and ““Les Fleurs du mal” did not grow in the flume of opium or any other substances.  The issue of creativities with relationship to mind altering substance is a complicated one.

It is conceivable that using certain substances could help someone’s creativities.  But the adventures for most people will be similar to gold rush, someone might get something, but most will be disappointed.  What I am saying is that in weighing the possibility and probability and cost and benefit, using substance for increasing the chance of creating great arts is probably a long short.

            This leads to the question of human enhancement in general.  What if we can make some substances or using genetic engineering to enhance people’s ability if there are no side effects?  I think we need to realize that increased ability is not the same as the increased success.  If you don’t know where you are heading, it would not help that you can run faster. 

            To be more specific, there seems to be a common misconception that since all our mental processes are embodied in physical processes, then we will be able to achieve more if we simply change our physical composition.  This is not true.  Although minds are physical process, the operation of the minds cannot be explained by physical process alone.  The simple example is that even if we can build super computer with enormous capacity, without relevant software, it still will not be able to do anything.  (I will write more about it in later post). 

            The question really becomes to what extend people can have the freedom of doing what they want.  It is clear that people cannot do things that harm other people (especially if it will cause significant harms), but what people can do to themselves?

            There are debate about whether video game, internet, etc. (or even sex) are addictive.  I think the answer is no, at least not in chemical substance sense.  But it is the wrong question to ask.  The concern is actually about something else.  The concern comeback to the word “wasted”.  So, the question becomes, would people like video game, internet, etc. too much that they just keep on doing it when they should do something else (or even when it could harm themselves.  In this sense, there is no sex addition because the direct harm is mostly on someone else)?

            Well, people do things that are not good for them all the time (and presumably they may waste themselves even more).  Government and society cannot be the big brother monitoring all their moves and telling them what to do.  The real solution is education, changing people’s minds through reasoning and making them recognize that it is not good for them. 

            The most common reason for people to get trapped on something is that they are seeking escape.  Pure thriller seekers are not likely to be in this situation because their senses of adventure will maintain their mobilities and not to be trapped in somewhere they do not want to be.  So, the more fundamental solution is social changes that will motive people more, instead of trapping them in places that they are constantly seeking escape. 

            You can see that my discussion includes not just marijuana,, it actually goes further, to other chemical substances as well.  My point is legalization of chemical substances could be done if effective education and treatments can be provided. 

            The truth is not everyone will start using them even if they are legalized.  First, many people’s body reactions to them would not be pleasant, so there is no reason for them to do so.   And, most people would not do it because they know the harms and would not risk it.  For those who do, having it under safety and control is much better than in the madness of underworld.  Drugs sold legally can be assured quality and with better instruction, so accidents and overdose will be reduced.  In addition, have it on the open will make detecting the side effects and addition easier, so that treatment can be provided quickly and more effectively. 

            There are many related issues to the drug policies.  As prisons are filled with drug related offenders, the focus on many other dangerous criminals is reduced.  For example, there are studies show that sex offenders are likely become repeat offenders.  But the sentences for them could be very low (even for child rapists), so it is no surprise the rate of sex offenses are shockingly high (we can imagine the trauma of sexual violence could be a reason for people to seek escape in drug use).  If the law enforcement resources can be freed up from chasing drug dealers, then more resources can be available for dealing with sex offenders, to lock them up longer, work more on studies and treatment, and monitor them closely when them are released. 

            Changing the drug policy will also reduce violence and improve world peace.   Urban gangs are mostly financed by selling drugs.  Eliminating this significant source of income will reduce organized crimes.  This rational applies to global scale.  Many disturbances in part of Asia (for example Afghanistan) and Latin America (for example Mexico and Columbia) are caused by drug productions and distributions, and United States is the main destination.  Without this consumer base, reduced financial resources will lead to reduce of disturbing powers.        

            The goal of legal system is prevention, so punishment is only means, not the end.  When punishment is not effective to reach the end, then we need to rethink about the means.  In my view, the trend of changing the model of punishment to other effective way of prevention is the reflection of advance of civilization. 

            For rational standpoint, it makes sense as the political system inspired to change from domination and suppression to cooperation and common consensus, the legal system should be no difference.  So, the transformation from punishment to education, inspiration, treatment and rehabilitation is not only preferable, it is inevitable.

            Again, there is a distinction that needs to be made.  Legalizing drugs use is not the same as promoting drug use.  Mind alternating drugs often have the effect of leading people out of reality and social connects.  So, despite of the issue of addiction or any other long term effect, the concerns for using these drugs are valid. 

            For example, for substances such as marijuana, regulation and restriction need to be in place to prevent aggressive advertising to allure more and more people into it.  For other substances that may cause harms and/or addiction, the source that made these drugs available to the public should be non-profit organizations with the purpose of educating, counseling and treating people that using these drugs (this approach can also be use for marijuana as well).  And for those they still want to sell them illegally, the key target is to reduce there financial incentive (as there are sources that can provide assured quality and safety, there are little incentive for users to go to illegitimate source, because most drug users do value safety). 

            In addition, if there are situations that drug uses caused harms to others, such driving under the influence, then people should be punished for these results.  And, work place can have the policy of drug free, the only thing actually changed is to use different ways to achieve the intended results. 

**Please look for my other posts regarding the Modern life, Legal system, Mind and body, about discussions related to issues in this post.

**Permission is needed to use contents of this blog.  All rights reserved.

            In my last post, when I talked about immortality, the question of what is human conscious came up.  So, this post will be about this question, and more will be said about this or related subjects later. 

            First, like many other commonly used words, consciousness is used to refer to different things.  But we do have some general understandings. For example, when a person wakes up from a coma, we will say he or she regains conscious.  From external point of view, this means that this person is responsive.  From internal point of view, this means that this person is aware of the situation.

            So, a simple explanation is a person with conscious will be able to receive signals from the outside world, process the signals and respond to the signals.  But as I am typing in these words, the computer is doing the same thing, i.e., receiving the inputted words from the key board, processing the signals and outputting the words to the screen.  But we don’t think computers have conscious. 

              Most people will say that consciousness means subjective experience.  But the understanding about subjectiveness is also lacking.  Certain Supreme Court justice’s comment came to my mind.    

            So, is there any way to have any explanations in words for this?  This is what I am trying to do now.  The problem with consciousness really started with how people use this word.  When we define an existing thing or even an abstract concept, it must have unity, i.e., there must be common characteristics to unify what you want to define (there ought to be more discussions about human knowledge system and language system in order to explain it fully, but I have to write other posts for them). 

            To really get things started, I will circle back to say consciousness has something to do with our minds or brains, and look at different things that our minds or brains can do (as I said in my previous posts, I use the word minds to present the processes of the brains). 

            First, again, the brain can receive information, process information, and respond to the information.  But these activities in the brain are more dynamic and complex than the processes in the computers. 

            One noticeable difference between computers (and robots controlled by computers) and humans is that humans can respond to many different kinds of information.  The simplest explanation is that humans have the ability to understand. 

            But then we encounter another word that we do not have real definition.  What is understanding?  This obviously is a topic for another post, but the simple answer here is just that you understand something if you can give the correct response (I will deal with the argument about the “Chinese Room” in my later post, I actually said something about this in my patent applications).   

            So, the explanation about the difference between the abilities of humans and computers is not exactly correct.  By my simplest definition about understanding, we can say that the difference between humans and computers is that humans have the abilities to understand more things.  So, when we talk about understanding, we should always indicate what is the thing that we have the ability to understand. 

            The mechanism of responding to information seems simple.  Once a triggering signal is received, an output will be produced.  Here, the trick is setting up various responding mechanism and a mechanism to sort out which input signal is the triggering signal for which mechanism.  But if you received an input signal that you do not have a match with any responding mechanism, you will not be able to respond, this means you will ignore the signal.

            To go further with the difference between computers and humans, humans not only have vast number of responding mechanisms, we also have the abilities to guess.  Here we encounter another difference between humans and computers.  We receive information in flow, and actively bundle them together to comprise triggering signals.  The signals received in isolation might be ambiguous or incomplete, but in the context of other information it can be clear.

            There is another kind of ambiguity related to responses.  This is when there are several possible responses, and which one to choose can be related to our purposes or goals.    

            Humans not only respond to input signals, we also take our own initiatives.  This is what we called we are driven by certain purposes.  As living beings, we are equipped to act on the needs to keep us alive.  This is not much different from animals hunting for food. 

            The goal to attend our needs is achieved by sensory inputs of our bodies to our brains.   The awareness of our bodies is an important part of our conscious. 

            Awareness of our bodies is also used to achieve the goal of self protection.   The sensation of pain is clearly for this use.  The animal rights movement started when lab chimpanzees lost their senses of pains due to lab testing and started chewing their limbs.  It is an indication about the use of the sensation of pain. 

            From sensations, there are also emotions.  Emotions also help our goals of survivals, although they are more complex.   Our minds have the ability to appreciate sensory inputs because we have emotions, and emotions are closely related to our bodies and minds.  We have feelings of emotions because they are sensations generated by our bodies.  The reason I say they are more complex is because the mechanisms that trigger the emotions are more complex.

            Body sensations such as pain, hunger, etc. are triggered directly by local biological or physical activities, but emotions have to have the participations of the brains.  The brains’ reactions to certain input information include triggering the release of certain chemicals that will make the brains feel the sensations such as joy, sadness, etc. 

            This seems to be the bridge way between physical existence and intelligence.  Emotions are an important part of natural learning process.  In other words, although humans may have innate abilities to have emotions, what triggers the emotions is learned. 

            This is the mechanism of association.  For example, if you put your hand in the fire and get burned, then you will likely have a fear about fire.  But this type of association may not even be correct association, as people (or animals) often attribute wrong causes for their pains, this often related to psychological condition of phobias. 

            Here we can see, the learning process is an association process (this is consistent with the concept of understanding).  And, the mechanism of natural learning relies on trial-n-error. 

            The acts of association may lead to establishment of symbol system that is developed by humans into language system.  Language system is closely related to human intelligence, because it is the result of learning process and it is what enables us to think.    

             “I think, Thus I exist”.  This is basically talking about human conscious in the sense of human intelligence.  The interesting thing is it is most difficult to think about thinking (obviously, this could be a subject for another post).  My head hurts whenever I am thinking about it.  So, I think about how computer operates instead. 

            The mystery really starts with the question of how we can think of something.  It makes us feel that the brains are generating something out of nothing.  But on a closer look, it is not so.  You cannot think about something if you know nothing about it.  Whenever you are thinking of something, you are essential using certain information as input signals and responding to the signals according to the purpose of your thinking.  This means that our internal programming often determines what we think and how we think, and our internal programming is the set of rules about goals.   

            Ok, it is a long way to go back to goals or purposes.  But this lead me to the point that in order for humans to build machines that can perform certain tasks that until now only humans can do, the machines do not need to have conscious (if it means like human in all aspects), let alone the machines will rebel or become human killing machines. 

            The mistake people made is that they believe that understanding and learning are inseparable from over all human consciousness.  It is not true.  For example, computers can understand language for the purpose of language process (the fact that we do not have human like language processing system is because there are many confusions about human language and knowledge system and how the computers should reconstruct it).

            The computers can also have the abilities to learn, especially in the area of language.  This is because all language systems (for any given language system) are closed symbolic systems.  So that it is a closed universe that computers can navigate. 

            However, understanding and learning for a computer would not be the same as the natural understanding and learning experiences of humans.   This is because it is difficult (and unnecessary for purposes other than purely for the sake of being able to create a human body) to build human bodies using processes other than biological process (mostly because we don’t understand much about human bodies). 

            In other words, the computers that can understand languages would not be able to appreciate them, i.e., it will not be able to draw pleasure (or any other kinds of emotional reactions) from them.  This basically leaves the tasks of artistic creations solely to humans, because the process of creativity requires judgment and at least some of the judgment will require appreciation about the subjects.  Although it is possible for the creators to simulate the sense of appreciation in computers, but I do not see what will be the point. 

            As for creative activities related to subjects such as science and technology, there might be possibility for involvements of computers, but I don’t think they will play important roles.  The trick about human knowledge system is that although there is general consensus for frame work of the system, each individuals actually have their own knowledge system.  This difference is due to their personal experiences and their natural learning processes.   The learning processes based on their personal experiences are how theories are made.  This is why it is very important to respect individual freedom (especially the freedom of the mind).  It is not only difficult but also unnecessary to build computers to simulate all personal experiences and learning processes and knowledge development processes. 

            So, if the problems are those that can be simulated in certain models, and the scale is too large for humans to comprehend, computers could do much better jobs than humans.  But, the most difficult problems are those that we do not know where are the problems, so the best approach is guessing.  Here, the scale is about how many guesses, not how good are the guesses, because we don’t know.  So, I think the best approach is more humans with different experiences and different types of thinking processes to do the guess works, and sooner or later someone will get something right.  

            A majority part of human conscious is for the purpose of self preservation.  The reason of self preservation related for the most part to the fact that nature does not have a way of reversing the life form from dead to alive, nature cannot duplicate.  In another words, life is precious mostly because it is irreversible.   

            So, if we can build machines according to specifications and predictable processes, then we can reproduce them, so the purpose of self preservation is not so pressing.   There is no need to fully adopt the mechanism of body sensations and emotions (the machines can have sensors in order to perceive the environment, and responses and actions can be made to avoid damages to themselves), and there will not be aggressive behaviors in order to protect themselves (unless you purposely build such machines). 

            As machines are built differently from humans, even if the machines have the ability to fully understand human knowledge, because they would not be able to appreciate the knowledge by making reference to themselves, they would not be able to accidentally adopt human behaviors.  So, at least for a long time, there would not be the possibilities that someone will accidentally build a human killing robot.  If there is any human like robots, it will be like Marvin (it does not make sense for him to have feeling at all, but if he does, then feeling depressed is about right). 

**Please look for my other posts regarding the Mind and body, Human knowlege system and Language system, arts, entertainment and science, about discussions related to issues in this post.

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          This post is basically a follow up for my earlier post “The Purpose of Life”.  Many people had said that the purpose of life is to be happy.  I think this is a fair statement.  But what is happiness is often debated.

            In Chinese culture, happiness is closely related to worldly events.  For example, there is a popular phrase “double happiness arriving at the door” (which is considered the great happiness), obviously here happiness is referred to as something happened in real life.  But happiness after all is an emotion, or a state of mind.  Granted that emotion usually are evoked by experience, or that it is something that responding to what one just experienced, but what has to happen that will make one feel happy is not very clear cut. 

            Some say it has something to do with expectations.  If you expect too much, then most of the time you will be disappointed.  But, many have said that the secret of success is to set high expectations.  If you cannot dream big, you cannot win big.  So, it seems that the most successful people would likely to unhappy people. 

            This seems to be the irony of life.  In order to have many of the things that will make most people happy to come to you, you ought to not to be happy about them.  This is probably what makes people feel hopeless.  In fact, religion often lead people to go beyond this world, for example Buddhism sees attachment to the world as the ultimate obstacle. 

            Perhaps this is what they called you can’t have it all (because in order to have it all, you ought to feel you have nothing).  But I believe here simplification leads misunderstanding, so I like to talk go into detail here. 

            Perhaps the key is at execution.  It is what is often called “happiness is from within”.  Here, my interpretation is that the reason or reasons for keeping you happy ought to be within yourself, which is the ability to keep your self happy.  For example, some are able to “make lemonade if life gave you lemon”, and some emphasis the importance of being content. 

            It is because for most people, the world is not our oyster, and it does not rotation around us (even though from time to time, a few people are offered the delusion of it).  And ultimately no matter who you are, what you have, you cannot have everything happen as you like it.  So, being happy for what you have, and make the best use of it is essential for sustaining happiness.

            But it is not in contradiction with aiming high, and desire for more (the development of civilization is build on this desire), although it does depend on what it is that you are desiring about.  Many seemingly highly successful people had been depressed or deep despair because they are desiring for something just impossible (which usually is the ultimate control).  The desires of kings or emperors to have absolute control often result in spinning out of control which leads to defeat.  People of great talents and accomplishments often desire for absolute command of the domain, which will always elude them. 

            What we should all remember is the rewards of aiming high is not just at the finish line, but in every step of the way, the enjoyment from the actions, the realization of self worth by being useful, and the dream of a better future.  But the work never ends.  A common mistake people made is that they will assume that success will change them, that it will make them better, more capable and happier persons.  But the actually results of success is simply higher expectations from themselves, especially from other people.  And most of the problems arise from unable to deal with this reality.   

            Much has been said about possession, access and control is that they do not necessarily guarantee happiness.  But lack of them will mostly guarantee some unhappiness.    However, the sense of lacking is not as devastating as the sense of lost, deprived of something that one relied on often lead to grief and anger.   It may be a human survival mechanism that things that will have negative effects on us will certainly provoke negative emotions (perhaps to lead us to instinct responses).  But as we can consciously appreciate these negative occurrences, the emotion impacts on us seems to be something redundant, and most likely they will lead us to do things that will harm us or others for no good reasons, rather than help us. 

            I believe the best way for dealing with this is distraction.   This means not to love less, but to love more, the key is to diversify.  No, I am not suggesting to love more than one person at once, but to love more than one type of things at once.  Success requires dedication, but it does not mean that you can only love one type of thing only.  The point is different things make our happy for different reasons.  The common misunderstanding is that in order to be goal oriented, one cannot stop and smell the rose. 

            I believe this is a big mistake.  The reason is that it over look the power of fusion. One of the unfortunate side effects of success is the limit of potentials.  The rich inheritance of civilization also makes one wonder what more we can do.  In seems that in whatever fields, what you think you can do, there are someone else that can do it better, if not that it has been done before.  So, the key is often not about the intensity or degree of dedication, but the new ingredience, or better, new ways in doing things. 

            In this day and age, humans are not only feeling pressure from the peers, we are also feeling pressure from the machines, as for what the machines can do, they can often do it better and cheaper.  But what machine cannot do is dealing the unexpected or to be creative, that is where human can excel.  In human society, traditional cultures often inferred a stigma on diversity, but modern society is built on diversity.  It is often more useful (and easier) to be different than to be better.

            Maybe life is a mystery, or maybe like anything else we should not assume we have the nature abilities to appreciate it.  Perhaps happiness is from within, but as most of what we are is acquired during our lives, the ability to appreciate life and be happy is also something we can learn how to do. 

 

            I am not talking about the place that an accident happened not too long ago involving a killer whale.  I am talking about the actual sea world, the vast space beyond the land.

            I heard quite a few people commenting about how we know very little about the sea, even in the age when spacecrafts have been sent to other planets.  But my focus here is something more practical, mostly in the area of mariculture including algaculture.

            In my earlier post “It is a small world”, I talked about population growth contributed to many environmental related issues.  Essentially, energy (in the form of food for humans and fuel and electricity for machines) consumption is a major cause of many environmental problems.  As the populations grow and improvement of living standards, there are more demands for food and energy, which leads to reduction of wild lands. 

            I don’t think it is practical to drastically reduce consumption, so we need to find new ways to meet the demands.   For this, we need to look at the new frontier, the vast space in the ocean for our solution.

            Maybe because we are land animals, our relationship with sea is quite primitive.  Primarily, humans’ productive activities in the sea are mostly related to fishing, which is an activity tracing back to the hunting and gathering era.  On the broader base of energy source, people only are thinking about off-shore drilling. 

            But there should be more to it.  In my earlier post “It is a small world”, I talked about the benefits of capturing solar energy as the energy source.  Because it not only is a sustainable clean source, it does not add to the global heat balance equation.  Solar energy is directly related to surface receiving the solar energy.

            I am now looking at a little jeweled globe I bought as a souvenir in Las Vegas.  In this little globe, the lands are filled with various types of nature stones, but the ocean is filled with some type of purple colored man-made materials (probably it can be interpreted as about the opinion about the value of the land and sea).  My point is, I see a lot more purple than various colors of the nature stones.  So, if we are thinking about solar energy, we ought to look more into the ocean. 

            The question is how.  I think the starting point to go beyond solar panel, and think about biological process.  Here, algaculture can come into play.  The reason algaculture is related to solar energy is because algae growth absorbs solar energy from the sun lights.  So, no matter in the forms of food or biofuels, our energy source is solar. 

            The biological process when solar energy is absorbed will also absorb carbon dioxide at the same time.  This is why biofuel is a clean energy source, because it is carbon neutral.  In the case of algaculture, because algae will absorb carbon dioxide in the ocean, it will reduce the acid level of the ocean if in large scale, which will help to maintain health environment for marine lives.

            In one of the trips to Everglade National Park, there was a scene in the south side left a lasting impression in my mind.  In an observation point, I had tasted a little piece of heaven, where happiness was in the air.  All animals were so content, and lived peaceful lives.  On this spot, there were plenty of plants and algae, so the fish were huge.  Because there were plenty of fish around, the alligators were so full, they would not even blink as schools of large fish swimming around them.  Oh, did I mention that there are also various kinds of birds added to the picture?

            The reason I mention this experience is because it is related to the global environmental issue about endangered spices, including sea creatures.  The food chain starts with plants.  In land and sea, if there are more plants, there will be more small animals, going up to larger animals, including whales and lions. If we can preserve more wild lands, there will be more nature environment for various animals to survive.  And, if there are more algae in the sea, more fish will grow, and more large sea creatures will survive.

            Seaweeds are already part of the food source, they are high in protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, and low in calories, and fat, so it is obviously a healthy food source.  Even processed food such as Jello can be considered as healthy food (if sugar and color additives are controlled).  Nutritional additive such as Omega-3 can also be obtained from algae.    

            What is more is that algae can not only be food source for humans, it can also be food source for animals.  Not only it can be feed to fish (more fish as food source will obviously be a good thing), it can also be feed to land animals as well. 

            The attempt to develop biofuel had some backslash when the focus was on corn as raw material.  But what if the source is something from the vast ocean?  Of course there are many challenges, especially if we want to look into the vast ocean, not just the area very close to the land (so far, these areas are where the focus is on). 

             But I believe if we can do deep sea oil drilling, we should be able to do open sea algaculture.  The potential is almost unlimited, the benefits are so many.  In large scale, algaculture will not only save the environment, it may also help us to reduce nature disasters.  There are several devastating hurricanes and tsunamis in recent memories.  They are related to activities of surface water in the ocean.  If we successfully developed algaculture in the open sea, then algae near the surface of the water will change the behaviors of the surface water (the mass of algae will damper up drastic movement of the surface of water), so that it could reduce the effect of hurricanes and even tsunamis. 

            In my earlier post “Stop global warming – Change the world”, I suggested we should channel sea water to the desert areas, in order to reduce global warming.  If this is done, then algaculture can be developed in this in land sea environment, so that there will be more usable surface on earth (my little global does not indicate where are the cultivatable land, but from my memory, there are significant portion of the lands are desert now.  If we don’t do something, it will be worse.  Looking at the human history, we did many things that was not possible before it becomes reality.  We can save the planet if we want to.  

           The question about the purpose of life is a recurring question for the society.  Many people tried to provide answers, yet the question still is asked again and again.  Here, I like to provide an analysis for this question.

            There are many layers to this question.  As a biological phenomenon, the purpose of life is to stay alive, this apply to individuals and species as well.  For this purpose, it has the demand that in order to stay alive, we must have certain things (food, tolerable living conditions, prevention of dangers, prevention of diseases, etc.) 

            But life for humans gives us consciousness, and judgment.  So being alive is not just to stay alive, but to live as we like it.  This often leads to how we live our lives.  Life does provide us with the platform of many possibilities, for doing what we want to do.  However, there are also limitations that could eliminate many possibilities, such as abilities, access and control. 

            The development of the civilization is mostly about improving the abilities of the human race.  And, more and more people realized that determination is more important than individuals’ natural abilities.  However, social limitations such as access and control are more difficult to overcome. 

              Access and control relate to people’s abilities to interact with others.  Here is where money and power come into play.   Money provides access, while power relates to control.   Money and power are closely related to the ability to survive, and the ability to interact with the society, to conduct various activities, so most people can’t ignore them, and many would be focusing on them. 

            Admitted or not, most people have thought about how to get money and power (in modern society, money often lead to power, and most people would be more concern about money than power, as power is more remote for most people.)  The conclusion many reached could be troubling. 

            For example, “An Education” is not just about the purpose of education, it is also about the purpose of life.  We can understand that a young girls’ search for life relates to good food, culture activities, but it also raise the question about at what cost.  Be dazzled by the lifestyle she can only dreamed of, she knowing accepted the skipping operation of the man that provides her this lifestyle, so that she is morally compromised in many different ways. 

            Needless to say it is not just happened to a young girl, it could happen to anybody.  The desire to have a comfortable life is not in itself the problem, the problem is in the society in how to reward people.  If we allow more and more people benefit from activities that harm the society, then it is inevitable that more and more people would knowingly conduct and participate such activities.  You can call it social engineering or whatever else, but in order for more people to get a better life, we ought to reward those that are working hard on this goal, but not those that harm the society.   

            Human existence is not just an experience of physical existence, it is a mental experience as well.  Humans are social animals, culture and social interactions are also important parts of life.  In this sense, the purpose of life is defined by social experience and culture influences. 

            In social interaction, access and control are also related to approval, admiration, and love.  When money and power operates between strangers, dealing with the exchange of materials, approval, admiration, and love are the exchange of emotions, and are operating between friends, and loved ones, and extending in the society that people often call communities. 

            The key for obtaining approval, admiration, and love is to give, and to participate in the communities is to contribute.  In short, people ought to do what would benefit others or societies in order to obtaining approval, admiration, and love. 

            If you think money and power is all about taking, then obviously there is a conflict.  However, it should not be so.  Fist of all, money relates to access, and access is about the ability to give.  Although power and control is more dynamic, they are also related to results.  We should not forget that commercial activities are based on the foundation of mutual benefits.  Those that take without giving are violating the fundamental principle of the modern society, and should not be tolerated.

            On the other hand, the activities that eventually benefit individuals are also those that benefit the society.  This really goes back to the point that humans are social animals.  To feel the existence of self is not just through the feelings of oneself, it is mostly through the impacts on the world.  Achievements will generate the sense of control.  So, it seems that the purpose of life is a life with a purpose.

 

            There are science fictions that are based on science and there are science fictions that are not supported by science.  Originally there were people who write stories that filled with imaginations based on new and established theories.  Many turned out predicted what happened later.  But fictions need to have story lines, so many science heavy books may not be fascinating for the readers, and more so for the science fiction films. 

            In fact, most of the science fiction films are not so much different from general story telling, only that the back drops have some science fiction elements.  But there are many fictions that are based on misunderstanding of the science development, and created new fantasies that can never be realized.  As a results, it often spread ignorance, not knowledge, even love for knowledge.   

            Science fictions may lead people to be interested in science, after experience the magical world of science, and often science fictions are used as a tool to expose and provoke us to think about the problems within our society.  But very often science fiction films become a form of entertainment by toying with the tendency of the fear about the unknown, and turned out reinforcing many misunderstanding. 

            It is obvious that science fiction ought to push the limit of science, but can we call it science fiction if the fiction is clearly against known scientific principle and common logic, while serving no particular social purpose?  For example, time machine has often been a recurring theme in science fiction.  But it is a fantasy that is not supported by science and against common logic.  It probably all started with Einstein’s relativity theory.  But what this theory actually said is that difference in time could occur for different observers, not for participants.

            Time is an internal concept that does not exist as matters in the world (Emmanuel Kant’s had explained it in “Critiques of Pure Reason”, I will write more about time, space and matter in my later post).  As one see the world, one is setting the time for the world.   So, in this sense, a person in the world as one knew is not an observer but the creator of time, so, reserving time is not possible.

            Time is related to space, and space is also an internal concept similar to time.  As everyone internalized the space, there is a space with each of the individuals.   However, they are not parallel, as they are all bound by the existence in the outer world.  So, the theory of parallel universe is also not creditable. 

            There are also misunderstandings about matters as well.  In the movie “Star Trek”, the space ship was drawn to the black hole, but magically escaped.  But how a space ship can escape and all the humans and machines were intact?  It is simply impossible.  If not even light can escape the black hole (that is why it is called black hole, then nothing can escape black hole, and the intense gravity of the black hole will crash anything that was drawn to it).

            These are only a small portion of the problems.  Many so called science fiction films are not only against scientific principles and common logic, the underlining message is often against science and social development.   Although the imaginations may be going even outside of the world of actual science, the imaginations about social structure is actually very lacking.  Many of the science fictions movies drawn heavily from the social reality of the past, many went back far in history, provided us the strange combination of advanced technology under ancient social structure, this inevitable provide a gleam prediction for the future.   We can find many examples, such as star war movies, or “Star Trek”.

            It is quite a contradiction.  The year’s phenomenon “Avatar” heavily relies on technology while seems to deliver a message that is rather against technology.  In the movie “Land of lost”, the harsh reality of historical societies was revealed to certain degree.  But it is not so in “Avatar”.  In the effort against colonialism and Imperialism, many had idealized many “indigent cultures”.   Modern sentiments longing for simpler life also contributed the tendency to romanticize the past. 

            Technology first and foremost makes things possible.  But what to do with technology and how society will develop is ultimately determined by human beings.   Although history has not progressed in a straight line, the overall impact of technology development is not only improvement on living condition, but also social advances.  But improvement does not happen automatically, it requires constant, conscious, collective efforts of the individuals. The first step is the awareness and correct identification of the problems.

            On this note, I found the movie “District 9” seems to strike the right note.  “District 9” is a good example of a social drama in the back drop of science fictional themes.  By introducing the fictional scenario into the mix, it accurately revealed the complicity of the global reality.  Unlike “Avatar”, it did not romanticized the reality of “indigent culture”.  The conflicts between the individuals, and the profit focusing corporation, the indifference modern society, and gangsters with ancient mystical believes not only provide action sequences, twists and turns of the storyline, it also makes us reflect on the reality of our global society. 

            The task of artistic creation is not actually find solution for our social problems, but it often leads us to ask the right questions.  In this sense, “District 9” not only did well, but it could as well over performed, while “Avatar” seems to be misleading.  We certainly cannot go back in time in order to fix all our problems (not even environmental problems), and no gods ancient or modern can save us unless we save ourselves.  As illustrated by “District 9”, the fundamental problem in the modern society is individual indifference.  We might think the problem is not ours until it is too late.  In the conflicts between society and individuals, we ought to realize that society is collection of individuals, and the solution is everyone should treat the problems of each and every individual as if it is our own, because it could turn out to be. 

         It seems that pop culture is a new type of phenomenon.  Through out history, in various cultures, there are high cultures, and there are folk cultures, where high cultures emphasis on ideals, some are called arts, while folk cultures focus more on entertain, to make folks feel good.

            But pop culture is something different.  It is for entertainment, yet it is treated as high culture in reach and prestige.  On one hand, you can call it the culture democracy, what is good for the mass is viewed as what is good for the society, on the other hand, it seems to reject the a fundamental culture tradition.  In form and substances, pop culture often rejects the idea of ideals, and attunes to individual reality.

            In the tradition of western civilization, arts and high cultures are often closely related to religion, ideals are close to the assertion of the God.   This is not directly reflected in the pop culture.  Yet the pop culture is also different from the folk cultures, as it is not simply the reflections of life, but the indications of something larger than life. 

            Pop culture is not just a folk culture because it is supported by high culture concepts.  It is where the high culture and folk culture merged.  Philosophical ideas had provided supports for the underlining ideas of the pop culture.  It is the freedom of the individuals.

            When people look at Dadaism piece the “Fountain”, it is clear that it is making a mockery of the high culture.  But when Andy Warhol exhibited the “Campbell soup “, he was making a statement.  No wonder many consider it as the beginning of the pop culture. 

            We can interpret the “Campbell soup” as the statement about consumerism, it certainly is, and it is not in conflict with the idea of instant gratification, but it may also represent some thing structural.  It is the mass production itself.  In essence, pop culture itself is closely related with mass production. 

            Consumerism and mass production make many modern comforts available to the masses.  No doubt it increased the quality of life for most people.  But the close relationship of the pop culture with consumerism and mass production has its drawbacks.  In order to have mass appeal, in search of commonality of the audience (consumerism is all about giving the mass what they want), pop culture often had to strip down to human biological existence, rather than social existence.  This leads to the effects of dummied down, and the focus on sex and violence.

            It seems that majority of the people accepted without question that human knowledge is innate existed, people talking about who they are as if that were who they were, and who they are going to be.  It seems that most people seem to be happy with accepting stimulate to entertain biological or semi-biological desires more than to grow as a person.

            But culture influence is a tool for building social consensus and is a form of education.  Unfortunately, many entertainment products are designed to please people, so that when people think they are learning from what they see, they are actually reinforced with the idea for self indulgence and self gratification. 

            In format, there are many religious organizations in operating.  But the function of them is hardly helpful.  We have to admit in the western society, religion had lost its gripping power.  More and more, they are like a commercial institution, for making people feel good about themselves.   This is to say that they are also part of the pop culture. 

            There were debates about whether God is dead, and there are also debates about whether art is dead.  The bottom line is in the culture development, what was used as foundation of cultures was no longer useful.  New foundation need to be established.

            Pop culture not only reduced the substance of the culture by emphasis on desires based on biological needs, it also limited the culture to focus mostly on the first level of conscious, i.e., the conscious of self and perceive the world based solely on the conscious of self.  Traditionally, the high culture requires people to elevate the conscious to a higher level, i.e., the perception is based on the paramount view of the world.  However, the traditional high culture did not actually based on the perception from a paramount view, but often from the view of privileged people. 

            In history, God is the foundation of the western society, and individuals were asked to obey the rules of God.  The new era with democracy bring demand for individual freedom.  Regardless of what is the attitude towards God, individual freedom was asserted as paramount.  But we ought to remember that humans are social animals.  And what we view as an individual is a social component.  We know nothing when we were born.  What is then becomes “I” is a collection of knowledge and rules that we accepted from the society. 

            Individual freedom first and foremost is the freedom of the mind, not the unrestricted freedom of the body.  The purpose for freedom of the mind is to question and challenge the existing social knowledge and social rules, in order to advance social development.  Granted in order to maintain social structure, the freedom of individuals in the society (especially as an average citizen) is limited.  We ought to aware the consequences of our actions, and be aware of the knowledge and rules of the society.

            But when the pop culture rejected the paramount view, it also segmented the society, basically resulted in the world separated into many different parallel universes (the universe of each individuals).  It is viewed as the rejection of established culture, but most often it results in the rejection of rationality.  There are many discussions about the political polarizations in the United States.  Fundamentally, the influence of pop culture is the key. 

            Society needs common consensus, and cultures reflect common consensus at any given time.  But the indication of the pop culture is that the common consensus is that there is no common consensus.  This is certainly troubling.  In a democratic society, there is no governing class (at least in theory), everyone is part of the governing body.  So, it makes sense that the pop culture is also the high culture. 

            If you read the novel “The Brave New World”, you might consider the theory of conspiracy.  But I believe that it just gives too much credit for them.  It is obvious that people will try to do what is good for them, and many will try to manipulate the situation to benefit themselves.  But the environment that provides them the ability to do so should be exam first.  This is the confusion of the culture development.  New ground for building consensus needs to be discovered and developed, and the foundation is what is commonly known as utilitarian view.  The existing utilitarian theory had taken much of the heat because it lacks full development.  In essence, there should only be one measurement, that is the measurement of reality, but it is not the isolated individual reality, rather it is the unified social reality in view of the individual reality.

           The word “Change” had gotten much of the attention during last Presidential election, most will agree that the theme of “change” helped President Obama to be elected.  Although the concept of change is often well received, change in reality is difficult, especially if you want to actually change for the better.

            One of the problems with democracy political system is that politicians are often awarded with praises and admirations for their policies when the long term effects are disasters, and people set out to save the country from disasters are wrongfully blamed. 

            I am always amazed when some well respected investment experts or economic policy makers declared that they did not see the coming of financial crisis.  This does raise the question of how much we can trust the “experts”.  Are they all focus on the fancy tricks and ignore the fundamentals completely?  For some, this is a possibility.  I remember reading about some comments of financial professionals, that no one actually are reading “The Wealthy of the Nation” any more, or at least not paying attention to it. 

            But how the simple fundamental principles can be completely ignored is still beyond me.  For example, I remember several years ago I heard investment professionals were citing average gains of stock market since seventies as ways for predicting future investment returns, but the increase of the stock price in average is well above the increase of GDP, where did it come from?

            Both the real estate market and stock market share common characteristics, that the supply cannot easily and instantly respond to the demand.  When demand for a product increases, adjustment to increase the production can be relatively easily made, so there would not be significant increase in prices.  However, in the real estate market, and stock market, supplies cannot easily and instantly made to respond to demand (lands are limited, and building projects takes long time to complete, and it take longer time to build a company than to increase production.) 

            In the recent history of United States, there are several policy changes that increase the demands on real estate market and stock market significantly, primarily started during the Regan Administration, some extending during the Clinton Administration.   Starting with interest tax deduction for mortgage payments, which seemed to help ordinary people obtain home ownership, while the real effect is tax payer is subsiding the profit of mortgage companies. 

            If you go back to some time in 1970s, the cost of a home is a fraction of what it is cost today.  Comparing to the average wage levels of the relevant times, it is far more likely a person or family in the 70s can save up and buy a house without mortgage than it is today.  So, even with interests tax deduction, the average person or family spend a lot more on the house in the price of the house, and with payment including interests.  This would not be a problem for the individuals if the housing prices keep on rising at a pace that can justify their out of packet payment.  So, the model of this format is that there will always be incentive to generate an up market, and when it is down, it could drop down hard. 

            The up trend started in the stock market started when mutual funds emerged, along with tax reduction on capital gains.  Same as the housing market, additional demands could artificially generate an up market, which in turn will attract more demands, to the results that stock prices could be inflated significantly.  The inflated stock prices mean high P/E ratio, and along with tax policies (capital gain taxes vs. ordinary income), people are more into speculative investment, than investment for dividends. 

            I just heard the analogy of slow sheriff and fast villains for wall street and its regulators.  I think the same kind of problem exists for the policy makers as well.  Obviously there are people that know exactly what going to happen (at least in the ball park).  This is evident by the proposal to privatize social security in George w. Bush era.  Obviously there are people knew that in order to create the up market, there has to be new demands.  Fortunately even in the financial sector many just thought it went too far.  With the fresh memory of stock market crash, the public rejected the idea as well, while the derivative market with complicated operation escaped the attention, became the new source of the investment scheme.

            The impact of the stock market on business is that companies focus more on M&A (merger and acquisition) than R&D (research and development).  In order to justify high stock prices, the pressure for cost cutting is always high, and increasing market share through merger and acquisition is an easier solution for maintaining high stock prices.  As companies relied more on market share, there will be less incentive for R&D for existing companies and less new companies will emerge.  The vigorous cost cutting and relying on market share naturally lead to large scale outsourcing as the political and technological environment of countries such as China and India improved, and living standards in these countries are low. 

            There is also another side of the story.  Historically in United States, most of the private companies do not undertaking huge projects without government supports (tracing back at least to the boom of railways).  World War II and the subsequent Cold War boosted government spending on R&D related with military projects which can be accredited for many of the technology developments (aerospace, electronics, computers, internet, etc.)  But since the end of the Cold War and the change of the front end of technology development, government involvement on technology development has been reduced significantly. 

            The artificial booms driven by housing and stock market also have significant impacts on talent pools.  From employment perspective, financial sector has been doing significantly well, while science and technology sectors had been disappointing (lack of funding translated into lack of employment), the pay grade is relatively low, and chance of employment had often been a question.  This obviously drove many people into the field of finance rather than science and technology (as these fields could share the people with certain natural abilities).  The expansion on financial sector and retraction on science and technology clearly reflected on talent migration.

            This leads to another Regan era policy change.  The two World Wars weakened Europe and strength and established the leadership position of the United States.  From culture and social development stand point, being a safe harbor during the Wars and against Soviet regime helped United States to quickly accumulate talents.  United States as a country established by immigrants had always benefited from this inheritage and culture, but talent immigrated to United States in these eras was literally a wind fall for United States. 

            Starting from the Regan years, the immigration policy change focused more on job protection than on attracting talents.  Since then, along with lack of funding for R&D, many talents in science and technology area had gone elsewhere, notability many Chinese and Indian students received education in US, and went back to establish and create environment for science and technology development. 

            Another damage of Regan immigration policy is even broader.  The policy changes largely restricted immigrants’ ability to work legally.  The restrictions made it more difficult for foreign students graduated from US education system (many of them are in science and technology fields) to find work and stay in US, then start the trend of talent migrating back to their countries.  But there is another unintended effect.  Making it illegal for immigrants to work in this country actually created a market for lower paid workers that not only taking away the jobs from the legal workers, but also reduced the demands from the consumer markets.  Coupled with economic crisis in Mexico, there are many people that are willing to take much lower pay.   This basically made the minimum wage policy useless, which not only did not reduce immigrant workers, but actually increase them.

            What is more is that this created a under-class that could significantly effect social development of United States.  United States has always been an immigrant country.  It is call the “New World” because for a significant portion of the people in the country, it is a new world for them.  The arrival of new world brings new hope for the immigrants, and the infusion of various cultures created dynamic culture development in the United States.  However, when millions of people are not officially recognized, and even the second generation could have significant obstacles in obtaining higher education, it divided the society and hurt the dynamic culture development. 

            Many people had been surprised by the louder voices of angry and anti-government crowd.  I think it is nothing new, although with a new twist.  When people experience repeative failures when they are playing by the rules of the society, there will be frustration, disappointment, and anger.  These will grow into hostile, adverse attitudes towards the society.  When the economy was in better shape, this group of people is smaller, and some political operatives had successful use racial tense and bias to attribute this problem as solely the problems of individuals.  But as many people (who recently were in the middle class) are falling into this state, the anger became more visible.  The disappointment, frustration, anger, and even rage naturally will be pointed at the government and those in charge of the government (as their disappointments are attributed to various, vague places).  Obviously they do not like the change that happening to them.  But without much of the understanding on what led to these changes that put them to where they are, and still in firm belief in the social division based on racial tense and bias, these people could be destructive force, not force to foster positive changes. 

            The lesson we learned here is bipartisan solutions are not necessarily the best (or even good) solutions.  It is obvious many of the policy decisions that led to worsen the condition of United States are bipartisan solutions.  From the surface, they benefited the special interest groups while they also seemed to provide benefits for the public.  But it seems that the policy makers did not poke under the surface to ponder the actually long term effects.  It artificial bloom helped to establish President Regan as a popular President in recent history, but it generated many problems that it is so difficult to solve (as many of effects are irreversible or at least very difficult to reverse).   

            One alarming so called bipartisan solution is in newly proposed health care reform policy.  The Republican proposed a policy to establish a government fund for high risk group.  I cannot remember another so obvious hand out.  Why don’t we just gave the insurance companies money and forgot they ever exist if we need any treatments?  There are proposed policies to force more people (mostly healthy and young people) to buy private insurance, and Medicare already is taking care of most of the high risk people (older people), if the government is going to take care of the only other high risk group, then what is left for insurance company to do other than counting money?  

            It is very disappointing to see how the so called business interests hijack the health care reform.  We see a lot of examples where democracy was not at its best.  It is a good (although costly lesson) that blindly relying on the format of democracy structure does not necessarily produce good results, people need to be alert and diligent in order to avoid costly mistakes.   

 

            As a lighter post, I put together the current hot issues interpreted using the names of Oscar nominated films (in various categories):

The Economy               -           “The Hangover”

Jobs                             -           “Precious”

Healthcare Reform        -           “Up in the Air”

Financial Crisis             -           “Inglorious Bastards”

Partisanship                  -           “The Blind Side”

Global Warming           -           “An Education”

National Security          -           “The Hurt Locker”

Balancing Budget          -           “In the Loop”

*Please look for my other posts regarding the modern life about discussions related to issues in this post.

**Permission is needed to use contents of this blog.  All rights reserved.

            I am writing this post because Valentine’s day is approaching.  In general I am not very sensitive for particular date, and the meaning of it.  But it seems that many people’s states of minds are difference this time of the year, so it should a right time to talk about romance.

            It seems that in modern days, romance is not talked about so often.  People often talk about relationship, love, family, sex, etc. But the word “romance” is not used so often when people talk about real life.

            There are certain connection between love and romance.  But people tend to avoid this word because they find this word to be “cheesy” for real life.  It seems to be some thing related to fantasy, something you read in a novel, and when I think about this word, duet ballet dancing kept bopping up in my head.

            The reason is there is certain lightness related to the meaning of the word “romance”.  Romance usually is referred to something that is driven by emotion and passion, disregard or in spite of real life concerns. 

            In dealing with subject such as romance, there are limited sources.  There are many created works such as novels, music, films, etc.  But otherwise, one has to draw from own experience.  From my own experience, from the few relationships that I had, I can see the element of love one way or another, but only in one relationship I can see romance.  Although in this relationship, there are many problems (evidenced by the fact that it only existed in the remote past), there is something about this that will lighten my heart when I think about it, and make me feel that life is very much worth living.  So I concluded that romance is something good for me.  The question is how to identify it, and how to find it.

            From my own experience, and using references from creative works, it seems that romance has often associated with the element of surprise, or more accurately, it happens unexpectedly.  This might be why in ordinary dating process, the word romance rarely appears.

            To go more in to detail, romance occurred when people are both detached and deeply involved.   They are detached because they have no other reason to be with each other besides wanting to be with each other, they are deeply involved because they will always seek the present of another, and live the life as if the other is always present.

            In my earlier post, I talked about some people will play game with relationships.  Here I like to say that the rules and expectations of dating and relationship do make them feel like games sometimes.  To me, it seems that the rules and expectations could be obstacles for romance.

            People like to emphasis the difference between men and women (in heterosexual relationship), that in most times, there seems to be a difference of expectations between men and women in dating and relationships.   In general, men seem to be more concerned about getting into intimate relationship with women (short or long term), while women are more concerned about the outcome of the relationship.  In some extreme cases, some men would be allergic to the word “relationship” even if they are in fact in a relationship, and some women would refuse to get into a relationship without the outcome of marriage, or some would be stay in unhealthy relationships.

            None of these are good news for romance.  The origin of these problems are actually the same, that is the belief in “love at the first sight”, and/or emphasis on sexual attraction.  I think “love at the first sight” is a myth that has mislead many people.  Even if you look at love story in creative works, you will find many cases suggesting that it is unreliable.  A simple example is the story of Scarlet in “Gone with the Wind”, Scarlet was mislead by both her good impression of Ashley, and her bad impression of Rhett

            I don’t deny instant attraction, even sexual attraction exists, but the problem is people often use it as the only thing (or at least the most important thing) in evaluating relationships.  This problem starts with the fact that people often have instant attraction to someone when the appearance of someone fit into the standard of ideal.  From the story of Scarlet, we know that her ideal had almost nothing to do with who she was (so that she could not appreciate Rhett), and the projection of Ashley as her ideal reflected her lack of understanding of the ideal and Ashley.   As there is no meeting of the mind, Scarlet’s story is not a story of romance.

            The same mistake has been made by many people now.  As people start the relationships based on first impression, the relationships could be lack of solid foundation, so most relationship could not last.  As people have not realized what is the problem, they will all draw the conclusion that relationships often fail.  If men are not pressured for committed relationship or marriage, many will give little efforts on establishing relationship, more on getting into more (in hope of some thing better will come up).  As more women feel more pressure for committed relationship, some women would be reluctant to getting into relationships, while others would often try to hang on to broken relationships.   

            Depending on personality, different combination of factors could trigger instant attraction on different people.  But no matter what are the factors, the first impression could be misleading.  In the end, the emotional attachment one can have for the other really depends on how they feel about each other.  It is difficult to explain compatibility, and chemistry has often been associated with instant attraction.  I think what really matters is how people appreciate each other, and how much they care about each other. 

            This is why ordinary dating may start at the wrong end.  Once people start dating, there will be expectations (not to mentions many believe that certain rules need to be followed), and people will judge the other according to expectations.  First, people will often act not because they want to, but because they know that they are expected to do so.  Second, when people act not out of their own initiative, they will often end up count cards on who did what, so the relationship will become a game that scores are kept, so individual’s identity will be kept separate, not united. 

            There is another layer of complication.  Sometimes, one person could be good to other because he or she wants something in return, or there is a possibility of this motive.  To make a judgment about this possibility, the best way is look to inconsistence, and in the overall behavior of a person. 

            Men often prefer skip the courtship before starting relationship because courtship often means work for them.  Many might feel that they are rated for their acts, so the little that they can do the better.  To the extent many of them seems to establish their self esteem on how little efforts they made for women to be with them. 

            But unless they are not carrying on a serious relationship (it seems that most people do end up have some kinds of serious relationship with someone), then how they start could affect what is going to come.  Quickly jump into a relationship when both are not emotionally ready can only create one problem or another. 

            To be fair, the general rules of dating or relationship usually require men to take the lead.  As women often are more concerned about the outcome, they are naturally more concerned about how the men think.  If the emotional connection is not there, then they will obviously feel insecure, and demand or wish for more.   In the end, it is the problem of expectation. 

            The bottom line is people should not be with each other if they do not care for each other, and people should not make an important decision that will change their lives under pressure. The sensible solution is both men and women should be patient from the start to the end of relationship.  Good thing don’t come cheap.  In the term of relationship, it is at least partially measured by time and patient. 

            That is why I think people should take a second look on friendship.  The word “friendship” between men and women had been misused, mistreated, and sometimes treated with hostile attitude.  It has been used to cover up ambiguous sexual relationships, word for breaking up, and something as indicator of lack of romantic interests.  Actually many people questioned whether men and women can truly be friends, and the conclusion usually is no. 

            That is just too bad.  I believe for the health of the society, for the equality of women with men, and for the quality of romantic relationship between men and women, it is necessary for men and women to establish friendly more often.  Can we blame people for not being able to establish health relationship when men and women are so disconnected that friendship is either impractical, or forbidden?  In many areas, it is still a men’s world, if women cannot establish friendship with men, then women more often than not are shut out of many opportunities

            Friendship is also very important for romantic relationship.  I do think that traditional courtship where men had to make the most efforts should be things of the past.  The relationship between men and women should start with friendship (although friendship should be standing on its own, should not be just be in anticipation of intimate relationship).

            If men and women can often have genuine friendship with each other, there will be more understanding with each other, help each other broaden the knowledge and understanding of the world and life, and will be able to have better romantic relationship with each other because of the understanding and knowledge.  Actually, I think pure contact and efforts in themselves will have advantage.  People could be hostile or bias just because of lack of knowledge of each other.  This is basically due to the fear of unknown.  More contact will help break the myth. 

            I do believe in the end, both men and women usually want the same thing.  The reason that their expectations are different is often due to the different situations.  As men usually are not eager to get into a relationship, and women are often more eager to have a committed relationship, they are doing the work for the others. 

            No matter what, bad relationship hurt both no matter who ends it, and how it ends.  If both care for each other, for some reason they cannot be together, it would be easier for both to accept it and even remain friends (to support each other if they can) and it would hurt less.  Most people would treasure the chance of being with someone who they really want to be with, so more efforts to make it happen may be not too much to ask.    

*Please look for my other posts regarding the modern life, Men and Women, art and entertainment, about discussions related to issues in this post.

**Permission is needed to use contents of this blog.  All rights reserved.

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