Philosophy of the Void

Living in an era of postmodern relativism, is it impossible to derive morals and values except through reference to arbitrary assumptions? In our era, people often pick up their values as children. Once one reaches maturity, these values become objects of deconstruction and questioning. Sometimes, the outcome is unquestioning faith. In this category, one could place devout believers in any religion, fanatics, and serial killers. For those who are too skeptical or complex to subscribe to a single belief system of this sort, an ambivalent equilibrium might be reached. In this state, one holds relativistic beliefs but acts in accordance with hunch or moral values carried over from youthful indoctrination. If this duality collapses, people seem to fall into an extreme ambivalence that could be described as a sort of state of nature. All of these categories are at once attractive and unsatisfactory. Ultimately, it seems to be a matter of choice.

I just came by an article that Stone Age settlements were found submerged off the coast of Great Britain. I’ve always wondered about the possibility that archaeological remnants from unknown early civilizations lie underwater. A cursory Google search turns up several recent discoveries of this sort, although the date of these sites remains in question. The accepted wisdom suggests that human civilization first arose in Mesopotamia and Egypt around 4,000-3,000 BC. The last ice age ended about 10,000 BC. The land bridges between Asia and the Americas and mainland Asia and Japan are well known – at the time, sea levels were significantly lower than the present day due to water trapped in glaciers. This also means, however, that most Ice Age coastal areas are now under water. The earliest civilizations generally originated near rivers close to the ocean. I think it’s therefore plausible that some rudimentary civilizations existed towards the end of the last Ice Age, only to be washed away or submerged as the ice caps melted. If so, the evidence would be very difficult to uncover. I can’t imagine this would be anything spectacular like Atlantis (if so we should already have found more evidence), but the possibility seems both plausible and intriguing. I think we should at least be open to the possibility that our knowledge of ancient history remains incomplete.

I think art is entirely subjective. That is to say, the difference between a masterpiece and a piece of junk is entirely due to historical coincidence rather than inherent value. Value is determined by contemporary consensus. Artists who stand at the pinnacle of this consensus can arbitrarily move standards of quality by claiming innovation. Consumers and lesser artists face a choice between accepting the consensus or having bad taste. In this sense, a great artist is either a conformer or unbelievably lucky for having had the right talents at the right moment.

Of course, art also has value beyond this element of mass consensus. This is at the level of individual taste. I think this is where one finds the most interesting art – the way people spin around on their chairs; a random gust of wind; the random patterns one finds on bathroom walls. To me, at least, these art works are often more fascinating than the things found in museums.

I just encountered an interesting case of path dependence while watching a popular TV show in Japan. Like many places in the world, people standing on escalators in Japan move to one side to let people pass. The funny thing is in Tokyo, people stand on the left and pass to the right, while in Osaka, people stand on the right and pass on the left. I think the pattern in Tokyo is intuitive, since people drive on the left side of the road in Japan and hence the passing lane is on the right. When walking around in Tokyo, it’s often useful to remember this, since unlike the US, people naturally move to their left when they’re about to bump into you.

Apparently, the pattern in Osaka was established in 1970 during the World Exposition, when Japan Railway employees encouraged people to stand on the right when on an escalator (this was an act of courtesy towards visiting foreigners such as those from the US who predominantly stand on the right). After this custom was established, it has remained in place to the present day, 30+ years after the end of the Exposition.

The TV program staff then went on a trip to identify the precise station between Tokyo and Osaka where the pattern reverses. Apparently, there is no gray area – the customs reverse abruptly after one station in between. This was all very fascinating and reinforced my belief that Japanese TV is both very bizarre and very cool.

In general, I believe human concepts do not apply to the divine. Like our hammers, engines, and superconductors, the concepts we utilize are tools developed in sync with our temporal world. In this world, objects can be counted. Recognizing and developing this insight has benefited human civilization. The same can be said of concepts like intention and existence.

Precisely because our thought systems have come to revolve around concepts like these, we often apply them directly to realms beyond our own. That is why humans can fight wars over issues like how many deities there are, what is intended by the divine, and whether or not God exists. Why are these questions any more relevant than whether or not God is pink? What could an ameba tell us about macroeconomics? I believe the difference between an atheist, agnostic, and believer is rather trivial.

PS: As I am abroad, updates will be sporadic for the next couple of weeks.

It is possible to have faith in some higher entity and be an agnostic at the same time. Fitzgerald once said, “The measure of a first class intelligence is its ability to hold contradicting ideas simultaneously without going mad.” The same is the case with faith and agnosticism. Since there are so many religions with frequently contradicting creeds, I think the best method of religious education is that of the agnostic sort. Teach children what we know, not what we believe. There is no conclusive evidence that God exists or does not exist. The same is true with the issue of creation. This is what should be taught to pure, untainted minds. The decision to subscribe to a particular faith or not should occur through free will rather than brainwashing. This way, if we are to go to hell for making the wrong decision, we will have nobody but ourselves to blame.

My advisor at Stanford, Professor Daniel Okimoto, once told me one of his colleagues at Princeton had conducted a study on the relationship between appearance and success. Apparently, the results showed that a subjective indicator of appearance (i.e. a rating of how “good looking” somebody was) correlated very well with annual income. Intuitively, I don’t find this terribly surprising, but I wonder what underlies this phenomenon if it’s true. After all, it’s a clich

I believe assumption lies at the heart of most human conflict. Any belief system can be deconstructed to basic assumptions or postulates. At this level, no criteria exist by which to judge the superiority of one assumption over another. Therefore, conflicts of this sort cannot be resolved rationally or logically. Paradigmatic conflict within academia often follows this pattern, as Thomas Kuhn points out in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions. When camps of academics analyze the same problem from different underlying assumptions, it is often impossible to declare a winner based on empirical evidence alone. The same can be said of conflicts between religions and cultures. Is the group more important than the individual? Should seniority and experience be valued more highly than innovation and creativity? What is desired by the divine? Whether passed down over the ages or concocted arbitrarily, the answers to such questions cannot be answered rationally, at least without reference to other assumptions.

How do assumptions propagate? There are many mechanisms – indoctrination, material or spiritual bribery, or the mere process of growing up in a particular society. However, the most crucial mechanism is probably peer pressure. Oftentimes, assumptions become “common sense,” and deviation comes to be considered uncool, awkward, or unethical. The most influential source of assumptions can be close people like friends or relatives, or people who command great respect. This makes sense, since there are probably advantages to coordination. I’ve always thought that truth lies in the absence of assumption. That, I suppose, is my assumption.

One of the jobs of national central banks is to engage in countercyclical monetary policy. In the US, this function is carried out by the Federal Reserve, chaired by Alan Greenspan. Basically, when the economy is stagnating like it is now, the Fed lowers interest rates to get things going, while if the economy is growing too rapidly, the opposite is done to cool things down.

I think one way for people to avoid emotional distress is to have a central bank for their emotions. Needless to say, when one is feeling down, it’s often helpful to cheer up a little bit and do something fun. On the other hand, when one is feeling excessively happy, or if things seem to be going too well, I think it’s equally necessary to do something to feel a little down – thinking about suffering or how things could go wrong, maybe. From my own experience, this seems to have an effect similar to monetary policy – overall stability and relatively mild swings in emotion.

Of course, unlike the national economy, stability is not necessarily the primary mission or goal in life. The excitement of a roller coaster ride might be something to strive for. In either case, I think deliberate control is both possible and desirable.

In the medium-term future, I think the modern metropolis will cease to exist. This is because of two factors. First, the ability of terrorists and antisocial beings to inflict large-scale destruction on urban areas is increasing asymmetrically compared to our ability to deter them. The balance between technologies enhancing and undermining order has shifted back and forth over the course of history. In the present, a terrorist attack employing weapons of mass destruction is already conceivable, even perhaps probable. In the future, the technological trajectory appears to favor destructive forces. Knowledge continues to diffuse and costs continue to decline. As the threshold for obtaining or producing nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons becomes lower, the probability of a catastrophic incident is bound to increase.

Second, information technology is making it increasingly feasible for most economic and social transactions to occur over large distances. Location and network effects remain relevant, but I suspect this will not be the case for very long.

These factors lead me to believe that future generations will increasingly opt out of cities. The demography of the future will most likely resemble something like that of the pre-industrial world. In historical terms, we probably live at the closing stages of the era of the metropolis.