A refutation of psycholgical egoism...

I came across this little theory a couple of nights ago in a conversation regarding altruism. It has been suggested that I am pathologically atruistic, in that I take altruism to extremes helping others to my own detriment. This is almost certainly true, but the argument was over whether I did this from "true" altrusim i.e. that I expected no reward for my actions, or from a form of egoism whether concious or unconcious whereby my actions were conditioned by my perception of a reward, whether that be immediate material reward in the form of gratitute, or an intangible but none the less real increase in my perceived status withion my group, or from some more nebulous concept of reward in an as yet undefined afterlife. I had to think about this for a while. I reasoned that if the underlying reason for my altruism was unconcious I would struggle to become aware of it, since I can not readily access my unconcious mind. Consequently this was a difficult argument to refute, other than to question the existance of the unconcious mind, and also the function should it exist in terms of controlling concious actions. It suggests that the unconcious mind doesn't simply control autonomic functions but is actively involved in the decision making process that the concious mind engages in. This presents a problem since any action could be triggered by an unconcious thought and given that the unconcious is by definition uncontrolled this would surely lead to significant issues for the courts. I'm pretty certain a defense of "my unconcious mind made me do it" simply wouldn't wash.

That leaves the issue of ulterior motives to be addressed. I have no problem with this as a concept, but I am not at all certain that it fully explains the complexity of an individuals situation. I am aware of myself as a product of a sequence of events over time that have shaped and moulded the way that I perceive my environment. I am also aware that my mind is unique, as is everyones, in terms of the neural pathways that have been created over time and how these pathways influence the way I "think" and "feel" but, and for me this is crucial, I am also aware that the decisions that I take are made from a combination of thoughts filtered through my particular mental pathways to reach a conclusion. I am in control of this process and make choices based on what is the "right" thing to do.

I don't do things because they are expected, or wanted, or needed, or from any sense of how my actions will benefit me, but simply as a function of my upbringing, pschological conditioning, personal ethics and so on. The list of filters is quite a long one, but at no point does a consideration of what benefit I may derive from the action enter the equation. Perhaps I am just not wired that way. By the same token, the consideration of what it may cost me doesn't feature as a consideration. Perhaps I am just odd, but I'm not sure that the idea of an exception proving the rules applies in logical arguement. Now of course we hit upon a snag in my own arguement. This is at best anecdotal evidence, or to put it another way, no evidence at all. I could be misinterpreting my own motives, I could be masking my true intentions from myself. I may yet be proved wrong and be a slave to my subconcious, but all I have is my own evidence and my own thoughts.

So is this just futile musing to no purpose? I would like to think not, for the simple reason that the process has made me think about why I do the things I do, why I take altruism to destructive extremes, why I am, at root a self destructive personality type, and it has also reminded me that I don't need to take the opinions and theories of experts too seriously, particularly in the softer sciences.....

The malady at the rotten core of society.....

Shakespeare once wrote "There is something rotten in the state of Denmark" and indeed we have historical records going back to Domesday in 1087AD that suggest that there has always been a feeling that society, and particularly the upper echelons of society are inherently dark and up to no good. The idea that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely has been around for quite a while and when we look back at 15th and 16th Century Italy we see corruption on a truly massive scale. It does make one wonder if there is something fundamentally twisted in the human psyche that prevents us as a species from working co-operatively as a society for anything longer than about a week.

In my own experience I have seen politicians exposed for endemic and widescale fraud, the supposedly independent and honest free press sullied by scandal, the Royal family rocked by allegations of nepotism and infidelity and even the police enmeshed in corruption at the most senior levels. This is no new turn of events however, fifty years ago you couldn't become a senior policeman without being a Freemason. You would be excluded from senior political positions based on the school you attended and the chances of breaking out of your families social status was next to nil. So, if we posit that this is something that is at the core of society, what exactly are we to do about it?

Firstly, let us consider that thinking in terms of a less complex, less pressured society as proposed for communities in developing countries and particularly hunter/gatherer societies is almost certainly a red herring. If we look to the African and South American tribes that anthropologists studied to suggest these ways of life as being fundanmentally better we see some of the most vicious infighting and abuse of status and power imaginable. Similarly if we look at the alternative political structures such as Commnuism we see systems that despite the best intentions of their proponents are invariable destroyed by self-serving individuals trying to utilise the system for their own betterment.

There can be little doubt that as a species we are a product of many generations of evolutionary development to create the creature that we now are, and trying to fight against those developments may be a battle that we can not win in the long term. It may even be a battle that, as a species we may be better off not winning in terms of our chances of survival, but on an individual day to day level, surely, it is a fight that we should make every single day......

The last American hero and anti-hero....

The man after whom this blog is named, Bill Hicks, is the subject of a documentary on BBC4 tonight in the UK, as a prelude and warm up for a screening of his "Revelations" show.  The man was my icon through my formative years, my creative idol, my passion, my inspiration, and yet I was always aware that his genius came at a tremendous cost, not simply in his untimely death, but in the problems that he faced in trying to deal with an addictive, self destructive, highly self-critical, personality. As a performer he was at the cutting edge of comedy constantly pushing audiences harder and harder, and challenging their perceptions. Through the tough times his performances were erratic and after he sobered up, his anger was often too much for many people, and certainly for a television audience, but his shows always asked questions that more people should ask.

It is rare that I recommend Bill Hicks to people that I know, because he is very much someone that you need to build up to over time. His style is aggressive and uncompromising, his stance on drink and drugs even after he gave both up was difficult for someone who has never experienced the difference between taking them recreationally, and taking them in an attempt to expand the mind in the frame of Timothy Leary. If you don't like punk, you won't like Hicks. If you don't like having to think to hard, you won't like Hicks. If you don't like questioning politics and freedom and generally held beliefs, you won't like Hicks. But if you are prepared to have everything you have ever believed challenged and broken down and torn apart then just maybe it would be worthwhile having a look and listen. Just maybe......

Why fighting against the blame culture is the most important fight....

It is often suggested that we live in a society where everything that happens is someone elses fault. Whatever misfortune befalls is it is never us who are to blame, but the system, or the government, or big business, or just the other guy. Many people are under the impression that this is a modern phenomenon, and certainly in the UK it is often the case that people blame America and the propensity to litigation that seems endemic. This again is an example of aportioning blame, and as with most of these cases, is almost certainly incorrect. Historically we have always found scapegoats, found people to blame, and generally it is people whio are "not us". Frequently the blame has escalated to the point of large scale war and destruction, but there is plenty of evidence that we have been blaming each other for a very long time.

One of the clearest examples is found in the witchraft trials that were carried uot throughout the middle ages. A village would be beset by illness, or a farmer would find livestock falliing ill and blame would be attached to someone within the community in the form of accusations of witchcraft. Often this was done to someone who was on the outskirts of the village, removed from the greater community, often with a disability of some sort. We seem to be conditioned to distrust difference, to be wary of the stranger, and to shift blame rather than take responsibility.

If we are to succeed as a species in ever increasing numbers and with ever more scarce resources we are going to be left with no choice but to become more accepting of each other and more understanding of our place in the greater global community. A part of that process will inevitably have to be an understanding that we are all responsible firstly for ourselves, secondly for our families and finally for our communities. We must take ownership of our lives and our actions and for the implications of everything that we say and do.....

From the ladys not for turning to spin city.....

Back in the heady days of the 1980's when bankers could do not wrong, greed was good, capitalism was the saviour of the planet and market foirces ruled we had a political leader who perfectly matched the times. Love her or loath her Mrs Tatcher, now Baroness Thatcher was a force to be reckoned with. Her famous speech regarding the pressure she was under to reverse her position on economic policy in which she gave the quote "You turn if you want to, the ladys not for turning" was one of many high points in her career, and there can be little doubt that she was an indomitable presence. However, whilst she may not have been for turning on her policies, she was also the first Prime Minister to openly employ media consultants and to court popularity through media engagement. From the start of her political career she was carefully groomed for high office, with voice coaching to make her oratory more acceptable, power dresssing to increase her visual presence, carefully scripted speeches and carefully manicured performances in interviews.

This position has, unfortunately in my opinion, set the tone for everyone who has come after her. The arch exponent of this new form of politics was of course Tony Blair, but even here we see a style of presentation that owes a significant debt to the work already begun with Baroness Thatcher. I have little doubt that the majority of those who seek political office do so with the best intentions at heart, and from a genuine desire to try to shape our nation for the better, but it seems that once they begin to move through the party ranks towards the front benches they are haried on all sides by advisors and mentors and coaches changing the way they stand, the way they dress, the way the speak, even the words they say.

It is not for nothing that one of the favourite comedy programmes of the majority of politicians used to be "Yes, Minister" which highlighted in a tremendously tongue in cheek way, the role of civil service mandarins in corrupting and modifying the stances of even quite senior politicians. I well remember enjoying quiet a long chat with a very senior member of the Labour opposition from the Thatcher era and being quite shocked and surprised to discover that even a character as strong and forthright and powerful as this statesman felt shackled by his own parties media consultants, who, to paraphrase his own words, had no mandate from the electorate, no political beliefs, and shared few of the moral and ethical standards espoused by the people that they were advising.

It seems a shame to me that the era of true political values seems to have disappeared. Perhaps it will return one day, when the cult of celebrity has passed, when Big Brother and X-Factor are no longer topping the viewer ratings, when newspapers aren't sold on the basis of who has the best gossip, when we finally understand that without real substance we are as nothing as a society, but cynic that I am, I am not sure if this is even possible.....

Understanding that perception is not reality.....

We are constantly bombarded by sensory input in our day to day lives and it can be quite overwhelming sometimes, but what is perhaps even more overwhelming is that what we realise we perceive from that sensory input is only a tiny fraction of what our senses are actually telling us. Our eyes for example can perceive a single photon of light. Our ears are capable of picking up an incredible range of frequencies, our sense of smell is so refined that it can detect a single molecule, and yet all of this data is instantly filtered by the brain in such a way that we are not even aware that we have perceived it. just take a look outside. The colours that you are seeing all around you are not the real colours as the eye is perceiving them, but our minds filter the input to make something manageable. It is quite incredible really.

But there is a point to all this. Our minds are strange and wonderful places and they act without concious control to keep us safe and to give us the information that is vital rather than simply overloading us. This can have a twist though, because if our perception of reality in the form of the physical world can be and is skewed by our minds, how much more likely is it that our perceptions of things which are not physical, i.e. thoughts, dreams, interpretations of other peoples intentions and so on are also being skewed in a similar way. To what extent, if at all can we rely on the information that our minds are giving us. Further, is it possible by training the mind, to achieve a state whereby we are more in control of the filters that our minds employ.

I have a friend who is a gamekeeper. She spends all day out in the fields observing, monitoring, tracking and stalking. Her eyesight is technically no better than mine (we have similar prescription glasses) but she is aware of far more going on around us than I am. She will see movement in her peripheral vision that I don't even notice and hear birdsong way before I do. She has trained herself over twenty years or so to be considerably more aware of her surrounds than I am, and logically this would suggest that she has managed to re-train the way her mind filters inputs. If this is possible, can we modify the less concrete perceptions in a similar way? If we can then it would lend far more credence to affirmation therapies as well as to things like NLP and CBT, but in order to do this do we need to better understand the way in which the mind works and how these filters are implemented and by what part of the brain?

I would suggest that we do, and that it will become ever more pressing as we become less and less attuned to our environment and more and more attuned to virtual reality......

Why living on the edge is a viable position.....

The concept of not accepting an easy life, of pushing boudaries constantly, of craving and seeking ever greater challenges and pushing ones physical and mental limits is one that can at first glance be quite appealing, at least in the short term. When it is considered as a permanent lifestyle choice it can however be quite daunting, and is almost certainly something of a selfish choice. I would image that it can be quite challenging to live with someone who is constantly taking risks, constantly looking for a sense of danger, but I can again see that short term it could be quite exciting. I watched quite an interesting programme not too long ago about a pair of base jumpers and their families. Base jumping is one of the most extreme sports there is with a massive casualty rate both of serious injury and death, and consequently the pressure placed by participants on their partners can be very high indeed.

Of course there are all sorts of ways of living on the edge, from risking life and limb in sporting endeavours to taking commercial risks in business, but they all have their consequences. I wonder if there is a correlation between personality type and the need to take risks. It would appear anecdotally that the ego has a part to play in the risk taking drive, as does a failure to lose the sense of invincibility that tends to be inherent in younger children. We are by nature an inquisitive species, and it is almost certainly a part of what has allowed us to evolve as we have to become the dominant species. It should be noted however that there is a need to find a balance between risk taking and security that will allow an individual to balance on the edge successfully and create a vibrant and fulfilled life.

It's a dream at least......