The Enlightening Story of Don Quixote de la Mancha

“Facts are the enemy of truth.”--Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha

Facts are the enemy of Don Quixote's "truth", aka his illusions. Yet he faced the Truth when vanquished by the Knight of the White Moon, who some could well symbolically equate with reality.  So, saddened to see his fantasies exposed as most people initially are who see their comfortable myths, legends and false self-images overturned, he dies before he can learn to move on. In the long run, he would have been happier after the shock wore off, as most people are--as I have been. I believe that deep down we are all, even the mentally unstable, never completely able to fool ourselves no matter how deep within ourselves we bury reality.  Mental illness is, basically, dissociation from reality, which is what Don Quixote is doing when he declared facts to be the enemy of “truth”.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn't have fantasies, fiction, flights of fancy or to declare something to be beautiful; we just have to remember that’s what they are—our subjective Truth, which isn’t at the mercy of facts. 

When someone abuses the Truth, it diminishes the possibility of meaningful communication, which is why we need to study and refine what we mean by Truth--and what we don't mean by it. Our biggest foible is taking charisma for Truth, and the repugnant for error.  The first target of the anarchist and the tyrant is the dictionary.  It’s the easiest way they can justify their moral double standard with the ignorant and careless.

BTW, the quote comes from the play, Man of La Mancha and is found in Cervantes work, though I think it's a fair interpolation, since it condenses the nut of Don Quixote's issue.

There’s another quote from the play that is profound, but in a way that I don’t think the modern playwright intended:

I have lived nearly fifty years, and I have seen life as it is. Pain, misery, hunger ... cruelty beyond belief. I have heard the singing from taverns and the moans from bundles of filth on the streets. I have been a soldier and seen my comrades fall in battle ... or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I have held them in my arms at the final moment. These were men who saw life as it is, yet they died despairing. No glory, no gallant last words ... only their eyes filled with confusion, whimpering the question, "Why?"  I do not think they asked why they were dying, but why they had lived.

If we are correct here, then we know the answer to that question.

Moral Gray Areas

The following is a slightly modified definition of morality:  "Honoring the equal rights of all sentient adults to life, liberty, property and self-defense, to be free from violation through force or fraud".  And as has already been said here, all else is subjective and can be labeled as virtue--which is fair game for social pressure, but morality is the ONLY thing that should be legislated.  This in no way changes the fact that subjective morality for adults does not exist.

However, there are a gray transition areas which, while limited, can be shown to need carefully considered legislation as well, all having to do with when rights are acquired.    Specifically, I'm referring to cases such as the differing degrees of humane treatment given to animals, when does an embryo acquire the right to life, and when do children/adolescents or the mentally handicapped come to possess their rights to liberty, property and self defense. All of these gray areas deal with the degree of consciousness, intelligence, self-awareness or potential sentience possessed by a given subject; and they're gray because there is rarely a specific time, or stage of evolution between point A when they don't have a particular right, to point B when they do.  For example, children acquire the right to liberty gradually, yet we use a specific age when they're suddenly no longer considered a minor and have full legal rights as adults.  The point is to recognize that picking a specific, arbitrary point for legal purposes can obviously have negative consequences.  How can we allow for extenuating circumstances yet maintain equal protection under the law?   Should, say, an arbitrary first trimester limit on abortion be lengthened if, for instance, the fetus has developmental problems?  When does the right to life of a fetus override the right to liberty of the mother?  For animals, is humane treatment for a dog the sames as for a chicken, or a lizard or cockroach?  It isn't immoral to put (lock up) a child in playpen, restrict an adolescent from selling his TV, drinking alcohol, or making them do chores, and you don't give a child a gun to handle bullies, etc., but when do they acquire those liberties?

When we look at the extremes, 1 day old vs. 9 mo. old fetus, dog vs. cockroach, we have little trouble making judgements.  This isn't an argument against arbitrary limits, but the transition can be very problematic for deciding what's moral, and how we should deal with these issues legally.  Sometimes we just don't have the information we need to make an informed judgement, and the first step is to recognize that.  Some fundamentalists believe that the right to life begins at conception, but that's strictly a matter of arbitrary faith.  Should a 13 year-old girl who is one day pregnant as the result of being raped by her father be forced to carry the  baby to term?  Others believe we can abort a healthy baby even when it's in the process of being born, but that's just as much a matter of blind faith, and that example should actually be considered murder.

These gray areas are gray because we don't have definitive answers for them, and the point is we need to recognize them for what they are and deal with them calmly as much as we can in our laws.  All we know for sure is if a crime can have no victims, it isn't a crime. All certain immorality stems from an adult sentient establishing a moral double standard for himself or his family, group, race, religion or country.

The Problems with Paul: His Roman Citizenship

As has been mentioned before, this site is very much anti-Paul.  The surviving version of Christianity, which was originally a Jewish sect led by Jesus' brother James, should rightly be called Paulism. Much has been discovered about his influence in the last 50, and especially the last 15, years. The most enlightening sources on the subject are The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity, by Hyam Maccoby; Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity, by James D. Tabor; and James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, by Robert Eisenman, which is a summary and update of his earlier exhaustive work, James the Brother of Jesus, published 14 years earlier.

As implied in the title, this post focuses on one aspect of the many problems with Paul. While this is no way an apologetic for Judaism or early Jewish Christianity, it's theology being revelatory as well, the self-serving nature of Paul's overhaul of the movement founded by John the Baptizer, Jesus and James, sets Paulism apart as the biggest yet still subterranean sham in history. Could a simple tent-maker from Tarsus have had the obvious pull he displays, even in the wholly unlikely circumstance that a tent-maker became a Pharisee who studied under the storied sage, Gamaliel as Paul's acolyte, the author of Luke, has Paul claiming in Acts (22:3). Would a Pharisee be a thug enforcer, persecuting the Jewish Christians (likely responsible for the death of Stephen and possibly James) who had been defended by Gamaliel (Acts 5:34-39), at the bidding of the Roman appointed high priest? No, but a Herodian with Roman citizenship would certainly fit.

It has been my previous position that Paul was not a Roman citizen by birth as he claimed, but likely purchased it from funds skimmed from what he'd collected to bring to Jerusalem. The main reason to believe it was Acts (22:25), which has Paul revealing his Roman citizenship in order to avoid a flogging. Yet on previous occasions he claims he was whipped five times, beaten with rods three times (a Roman punishment), stoned once but never sought refuge in his citizenship (II Cor 11:24-25). Incredibly, on another occasion (Acts 16: 22/37-38), he was beaten by Roman authorities, yet doesn't reveal his citizenship until afterwards!

All this smacks heavily of fabrication, and poorly done at that, which means it is more likely that Paul was indeed born a Roman citizen. But Jews with Roman citizenship were almost unheard of, making the part about the authorities' surprise at his citizenship genuine. However, there was one group of quasi-Jews who did have Roman citizenship which had be awarded to "the offspring of Antipater and his son Herod for conspicuous service to Rome", namely, assisting in the Roman conquest of Palestine. Eisenman, using several sources in his book (above), especially the historian who was Paul's contemporary, Josephus, shows that Paul almost certainly was such a Herodian (p. 189-193).

But Acts, probably written no earlier than 80 CE and possibly even into the second century, was bent on emphasizing Paul's Roman citizenship as a selling point to it's gentile audience; while Paul himself, working with gentiles and Jews in Asia Minor in the 40s & 50s would have been reluctant to proclaim that citizenship himself, wanting to exploit his Jewish connection while knowing, before the fall of Jerusalem, the prevelance of hatred by Jews for the Roman occupation of Palestine. In fact, he never mentions his Roman citizenship in any of his own writings.

In Paul's own words (Rom. 16:10-11), he sends greetings to the house of Aristobulus (King of Lesser Armenia and son of Herod of Calacis), and to "Herodion, my kinsman". Salome, the one who danced for the head of John the Baptist, was the wife of Aristobulus and was Herodion's mother.

The Redistribution of Beauty

Thought Experiment:

I look around and wonder, if there is any reasonable argument for the redistribution of wealth in the pursuit of some sort of ideal fairness in this life, what happens in an ideal world or in the afterlife if there is one. Take physical attractiveness for instance. Would we all look the same or at least possess the same degree of attractiveness? Or would we possess a spiritual attractiveness we developed in life? Would physical health be replaced with varying degrees of spiritual health? And what about athletic/physical prowess, creativity or especially, intelligence? Would all those be spread out and evenly redistributed, or would there still need to be ugliness to accentuate the beautiful? Would there be the wild desert to accentuate the lush, groomed Eden? The hunchback to set off the Adonis.

I guess I'm asking a couple of somewhat separate questions: 1) What is fair, how is it determined and by who? 2) How do we judge spiritual qualities etc., when our hormones are screaming "reproduce"?

When Do We Acquire Our Four Natural Rights?

 Yes, four rights.  The moral code given in these posts in the past referred to "Honoring the equal rights of all to their life, liberty and property, to be free from violation through force or fraud".  It was brought to my attention lately that self-defense was an exception to the universality of the code, to which I replied that it was part of the code, which is true, it just hadn't been included as it should be.  So:

Morality is honoring the equal rights of all to their life, liberty, property and self-defense, to be free from violation  through force or fraud.

Self-defense is a right which should be included with the other three--life, liberty and property. I'm surprised Locke, Jefferson and Paine didn't include it way back then, or that it took so long here. When someone breaks the absolute moral code by violating the rights of another, he nullifies any protection of his rights.

It is that simple, but that doesn't mean there aren't any special cases (exceptions?) that put the code to the test on that given issue. There is one such issue like that which I can think of and that's abortion, because it deals with the rights of two individuals and when it is that we acquire our rights. That extends to the question of when children, after they're born, acquire their rights. Certainly a child doesn't have the right to liberty and property at birth. And when does an embryo acquire the right to life?

The issue of rights acquisition is problematic and doesn't have universally pat answers, but these questions still don't apply to the overarching and vast universality of the rights of adults. I think we can see why we can't veer off into this every time the subject of rights comes up. It's a relatively small portion of rights issues, and, except for abortion, we're in overwhelming agreement. If we weren't we'd be having people claiming that children have the right to go play in traffic, or that we're immorally locking babies up when we put them in a playpen.

The Innate Superiority of Full Sentients

All animal life (essentially) subsists on plant life or other animals that do. What makes animal life superior? The absence of pain in plants or lack of some form of consciousness? But animals subsist, at least, by taking the lives of plants, the right to life being the ultimate right of any living thing that is said to have rights. The only distinguishing characteristic of many forms of lower animal life from plants is the ability to move around. Does that make them morally superior?

Morality is what we're talking about here. When does it become immoral to take the life of another living thing? Is it anything but a grey area?

As we move up the food chain, intelligence increases, particularly with mammals, some displaying primitive forms of self-awareness in higher primates, cetaceans, elephants, maybe dogs, and cats--well, dogs anyway--and maybe even some birds. Many cultures bestow informal rights on these higher animals to better treatment, especially to those most valued in this category, our children, who do not achieve full self-awareness for several years.

So what is full self-awareness, and does it give those who have it, or the potential for it, superior rights over the rest? Even animals who have learned a language, such as Koko the gorilla, and who recognize themselves in mirrors, struggle with the concept of "I", "me", "mine", "them" and "theirs". And while they may grieve the death of a "loved" one, we are apparently the only ones that understand the universality and inevitability of mortality--and that's what makes us fully aware. That and self-awareness itself enable us to understand what it means to kill another, giving birth to innate morality.

I think some take that too far and attempt to give equal rights to (some/all?) animals. Does our superior self-awareness make us immoral if we eat other animals, but not the many predators in the animal kingdom lower down on the food/intelligence/self-awareness chain that do? Why?

Is Freedom Worth It?

The question comes up from time to time, is freedom really worth it?  Why is it so important?  The easiest answer is to point to genocide, slavery or any of a near infinite number of examples of man being inhumane to man.  The worst such examples are when an elite group has the power of government/military to impose it's will, sometimes via the law, on another group.  Freedom is when a man or a nation is limited from exercising such power over others.  Freedom is also following our desires in how we make our livelihoods, who we marry, or hitting the open roads or hiking trails.  Freedom has also been defined here as the ability for someone to be as dumb as they want--on their own dime.

Freedom can have its costs, in humiliation, money, time and even our lives; but those from countries where there is a despotic government never question the value of freedom, only the lack of its defense.  But some in modern western society tend to take it for granted, allowing government every greater power, often in exchange for government provided security--thinking for some reason that their government would never abuse its power.  That is government's basic purpose after all, providing security via the police, military and court system; and while most people are familiar with the concept of the corrupting influence of power, we tend not to recognize the problem in our own back yard.  We corrupt our government by bestowing too much power on it, and ourselves by shirking our responsibilities to remain informed and to always champion liberty.

Benjamin Franklin has been famously paraphrased many times from this original quote in Poor Richard's Almanac in 1738, "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."  Here is another slight variation of the many paraphrases:  Only liberty guarantees whatever security we have, and if you trade too much of it away, you will loose both.  How much is too much?  When the only way to get it back is revolution--a point which is seldom recognized until it is passed.

A Reasoned Attitude Toward God--In Movies

There are precious few movies, reasonably well made and in English anyway, which fit the category. There are many, particularly older titles which deal with religious faith, but such faith is inevitably blind since faith is held up as its own justification.  There are only 6 titles given here.  It isn't surprising that there are so few, and one of those is musical.  As science progresses, presenting us with natural answers and evidence to questions that had previously been deemed to be the realm of religious faith, we tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater when we reject God along with religion.  We rush to judgement, so if God doesn't intervene, He/It must not exist.  But science has yet to come up with the first bit of evidence that addresses the origin of the universe, pro- or no God.  The least favorite thing for us as a species to do is to admit that we're clueless.

A model or theory that answers this conundrum has been given in previous posts here, but this is only one tiny voice squeaking in the ethereal wilderness  So if there are movies which have a wider appeal while promoting reason and reasonable questions in this area of inquiry, we may draw benefit from their messages, and we may support those messages by bringing them up in our social interactions.

Inherit the Wind (1960)--The first and in many ways the most courageous, it's thinly fictional look at the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925 brought teaching religion and suppressing science in the classroom to the forefront again.  A classic with some outstanding performances.

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)--Another classic, this first major rock opera (based on the 1971 Broadway production, which itself followed the music album in 1970) uses an outstanding Webber-Rice score telling the story of the Passion of Jesus, based on the gospels but without  the supernatural elements.  The lyrics of the title song at the end ask the questions we've been asking, often in hiding, ever since. 

The Devil's Advocate (1997)--It's important to remember that most of the film is a dream sequence, with the Devil being, for the protagonist (as he is for us all), a symbol for temptation.  As he declares at the end, "Vanity is definitely my favorite sin", but on introspection we realize that it's the justification for all sin.

 Doubt (2008)--The specific problems that are a consequence of the abuse of power of an authoritarian church, lead the parochial school principle/nun to question the divine source of that authority.  Those questions, given her commitment to that divine authority, lead to her soul crushing doubt.


Creation (2009)--Well made but little known independent film about the events surrounding Darwin's publication of On the Origin of the Species.  He struggles with it due to his wife, Emma, being very religious and insists that she agree to its publication (profound speculation?).  The death of their sweet, favorite daughter, due possibly to their being close cousins, points to natural selection, while there's no explanation for God's non-intervention in any case.

The Tree of Life (2011)-- The opening quote sets the stage, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 38:4,7".  In other words, it isn't your concern, which is the only answer any revealed religion can give to man's continual question, Why?  (See post by that title below.)

God or no God

The Truth, through reason, speaks for itself. But we are social animals and subject to the influence that individuals we respect bring to an argument—often to the exclusion of reason. I see no indication that we are moving away from such cults of celebrity, but, when in Rome…. The following are some examples of well known atheists and skeptics who do more than pay lip service to reason. The argument that God is a possible explanation for the universe is often dismissed if its presenter is an unknown without credentials. So, in keeping with the goal of promoting Truth through reason, I submit the comments from a few who possess such credentials and respect, and therefore credence.

One thing that becomes obvious is that many of those who are called atheists, even some who call themselves atheists, are often just anti-religion and those religions’ gods. Man’s invention of our many gods, argues only against their invention or “revelation”. It doesn’t carry over as evidence against the possible existence of God, or that a deist God was/is arrived at due to similar self-serving motivations. If God exists, It is not our salvation (only we can be that), rather, It would be our explanation.


Richard Dawkins (atheist) debate with John Lennox www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UIbd0eLxw begin @ 4:30
"We could take a deist god, sort of god of the physicists. A god of somebody like Paul Davies who devised the laws of physics, god the mathematician, god who put together the cosmos in the first place and then sat back and watched everything happen and that would be…the deist god would be one…I think one would be…one could make a reasonable respectable case for that. Not a case that I would accept, but I think it’s a serious discussion that we could have."
@ 37:45
"You could possibly persuade me that there was some kind of creative force in the universe, there was some kind of physical mathematical genius who created everything…the expanding universe, devised quantum theory, relativity, and all that. You can possibly persuade me of that."

Lawrence Krauss (scientific skeptic) debate with William L. Craig youtube.com/watch?v=Fs_pgaSrxP8 begin @ 3:15…Uploaded 03/30/11
“I actually think deism, the possible existence of a divine intelligence is not an implausible postulate. And I won’t argue against it. It could be, I mean the Universe is an amazing place."....
...."So I think the possible existence of a divine intelligence is perfectly plausible and addresses some of the perplexing issues associated with the beginning of the Universe."

Victor Stenger (atheist) in Huffpost Blog. 06/30/11
“In short, the world looks just like it should look if there is no God with these attributes. True that this does not rule out other gods, such a deist god that does not act in the universe. But we can rule out the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God to a high degree of probability.”

Stephen Hawking (atheist?-skeptic) A Brief History of Time (1988)pp. 8-9
“An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!". (note: an expanding universe was initially considered a blow to atheism since it indicated a beginning as opposed to the Steady State model. But that, ultimately, is unable to sidestep the issue of a beginning anyway.)

Carl Sagan (scientific skeptic) God and Carl Sagan: Is the Cosmos Big Enough for Both of Them? Edward Wakin (May 1981)
“To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed.”

Albert Einstein (agnostic) Einstein: The Life and Times. Clark, Ronald W. (1971) p.425
“I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."….
…."In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views."

Isaac Asimov (atheist) interviewed by Paul Kurtz on “Science and the Bible”, in Free Inquiry, Spring 1982
“I believe there's enough evidence for us to think that a big bang took place. But there is no evidence whatsoever to suppose that a superhuman being said, "Let it be." However, neither is there any evidence against it.”

Charles Darwin (supposed atheist) Letter to John Fordyce, 7 May 1879
"I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God. – I think that generally ... an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind."

Anthropomorphizing God

In many discussions about God, those who consider it possible that God exists are accused of anthropomorphizing nature, even if those proponents don't claim any human attributes for God except conscious will.  In fact, attributing any supernatural powers and/or the ability to create the universe would be non-anthropomorphic, and even reasonable, if those supernatural powers weren't exercised in this universe where, so far, there exists no evidence for it.  The only possible evidence is the universe.

On the other hand, when I say that God mustn't intervene without destroying our free will, many who make the first argument also argue that if God exists, how can It not help people in danger or trouble?  But wouldn't thinking that God should intervene be to anthropomorphize It?

This is not to argue for or against the existence of God, only against the supposed necessity that belief anthropomorphizes It.

I have reluctantly resorted to using the impersonal (but capitalized) pronoun, It, when referring to God.  Using a gender pronoun leaves one open to the argument of anthropomorphizing God.  And as just stated, the only human quality we can attribute to God, if It exists, is conscious will.  That says nothing pro or con about whether God cares about us.  But, since a God with supernatural powers could ostensibly create anything instantaneously, except sentient creatures with free will, that would imply divine interest and caring.

Abandoning the use of any pronouns for God altogether, becomes tedious and distracting.

Defining the supernatural:  One possibility is that the supernatural is a total lack of natural law or even a physical universe or cosmos, in which our universe could be suspended as a mere bubble.  Another possibility is that our universe is just an extrusion, if you will, of our four dimensions within a broader (infinite?) cosmos composed of many more, even an infinite number of dimensions, which could be governed by natural law as well.  The supernatural could then exist even if there were no God.

Is This a Test?

I passed these two guys recently who were stopped at a red light. They were flailing their arms to some tune I couldn't hear, obviously enjoying that particular moment in their lives. It started a chain of thought; what about the billions of people who don't have all the resources we have for enjoying life in the wealthier countries? What about those who are capable of achieving fulfillment in life wherever they are? And what about those with greater talent, intellectual ability, courage, appreciation for living or a propensity to be good or evil? If there is a God and this is It's test, we obviously aren't all given the same starting point.

Would all the rewards be equalized out to make it fair somehow? Or (I'm not suggesting rank), is there a natural recognition of those who made the greater or lesser use of their time here? Would we judge others as we would ourselves, in the light of undeniable Truth, recognizing the need for oblivion for some, and to feed on the brighter light of others?

Doesn't the greater obstacle or the greater the achievement from one's starting place deserve more respect? Would the rich child who grows up in the freedom of Singapore or the wealth of the US who saved the world, be more or less worthy than a street urchin in Zimbabwe who risked his life to save another's? Is fairness even an objective. Think of an audience enjoying the talents of the performers they see on stage or screen, only now all types of talents and accomplishments would be appreciated in the same way.

For the moral subjectivists, should this recognition be a goal in this life, is that possible, or should we go further and attempt to give equal respect to everyone no matter what they do? Should we make Hitler equal to Gandhi, for instance? If not, how do we differentiate?

As you can see, this post is more questions than answers.

Intelligence

Intelligence

“People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.”—H. Jackson Browne 

Success can be defined as looking back on your life so far, and saying I did the right thing.  I'm proud of who I was (not of who I intended to be or what others believed I was).  Put another way, we could have no greater fulfillment than to say to ourselves, honestly, "Well done".

We berate people who acquire wealth (unless we are one of them), but if it was acquired and used with honor (which we tend to assume was not the case), they have a lot to be proud of in providing for their families as well as jobs and prosperity for others.  Money, fame and especially power all require great character to avoid their misuse, but they are far from being the only forms of success.  If, say, two people independently make a significant discovery, but only one achieves public acclaim and monetary rewards, is the other not also successful if the only issue was the luck of timing?   If a person in Japan had been able to warn us of the attack on Pearl Harbor, thus saving many lives but lost his own life anonymously in the process, would he not have been a success, or even a hero—even if the warning had been ignored?  Are husbands and wives not successful who raise responsible children in a supporting atmosphere?  There is only one quality required for success—character.  And if character is maintained, success is automatic.  We can't be a person who missed the acclaim and then drop out. We can't say, I'll bum my way through life then make sure I go out in a blaze of glory. We can't abrogate the responsibility for raising our children to a pill.   People with character do the right thing all the time, when no one is watching, and when everyone is watching.  The judge we all stand before on judgement day is Truth, stripped of our illusions and in its unavoidable light, we are unable to lie to anyone, including ourselves, and forced to be our own judges.

Man's superior tool for achieving success is his intellect. Much has been made of some types of intelligence, while others are downplayed.  Is society not missing out if we don’t try to develop them all?  What follows in this section are some basic types of intelligence, observed and noted by your humble author as food for thought.  They are certainly not to be considered definitive.  Call it a semi-educated shot-in-the-dark.  One thing is certain, intelligence should be a matter of more serious study without the obstacle of cultural bias.

The moron, the multitalented genius and the idiot-savant form a triad inside of which we can all be found. Studying intelligence is a matter of importance.  If we recognize and learn more about the vagaries of intelligence, instead of reducing everyone down to a basic IQ number that emphasizes some attributes and de-emphasizes others, we will enable people to more fully recognize their capabilities and level of success.   They will then become more productive members of society and more fulfilled as individuals with a better sense of their self-worth.  In the meantime, until we do learn more, we mustn’t sell ourselves short.  Many view themselves as being of lower innate intelligence, when in actuality what they may have is a deficiency in the surmountable attributes of knowledge and confidence.

We’re all familiar with those who can learn to play a musical instrument by ear, instinctively operate a computer, thread a football through a defense to a tertiary receiver, or solve a mathematical problem with ease.  They are naturals at what they do.  We may not all have such superior natural skills, but we do all have the potential to be better than most at something.

The decision to include the following list was a difficult one and there is no claim to any expertise in intelligence, but it may spark an interest in the many avenues for fulfillment that there are.  The point is that we must learn who we really are beyond our illusions and what we’re good at by looking first at what we enjoy doing which so often leads to a subject that is a combination of both.  If this section helps some to consider an unexplored aspect of themselves, that’s all that’s intended here.

What is offered below is a speculative list of possible types of intelligence that may help some recognize an ability that they had previously considered superfluous, but now worth developing if for no other reason than to develop their self-confidence.  It should be understood that this list, or an eventual more refined one, is only the first of many steps to come as we move forward from the straight-jacket of our very limited IQ measurement or other commonly recognized characteristics of intelligence.

Of the types of intelligence listed here, it should be pointed out that knowledge itself is not one of them as that is one of the things to which we apply our intelligence.  Also, it is doubtful that math, verbal or artistic ability are discrete types of intelligence, but are more likely just combinations of the other forms.

Active Memory—Amount and detail of raw knowledge retained and retrievable on demand (Rote memory).

Passive Memory—Amount and detail of raw knowledge retained and retrievable with prompting such as with multiple choice questions (forms a considerably larger amount of information storage than active memory for most people.)

Cognitive Speed—varies for each individual depending on the application such as information retrieval or motor reaction time.

Multitasking/thinking under pressure—self explanatory.

Muscular coordination—Athletic ability and physical aspects of speech.

Hand eye coordination—playing a musical instrument, working with tools/machines.  Related to muscular coordination, but less dependent on strength and endurance and more on finesse.

Social Receptivity—Ability to receive and interpret social signals. One who can read body language and between the lines.          

        Factual Receptivity—Ability to comprehend facts and ideas.

Social Projection—Ability to project social signals and impart emotions to others such as with leadership, charisma or intimidation.

Factual Projection/problem solving—Ability to communicate facts and ideas or apply them.

(The previous four are very interrelated and are the most easily subjected to suppression or distortion by the emotions, especially factual receptivity.  Gamesmanship, leadership, “followership“ and intimidation are skills resulting from the combination of these abilities.)

Symbol recognition—interpretation of words and other symbols or symbolic ideas.

Linear Logic—If a=b and b=c concluding that a=c; looking forward several steps in a chess game.

Intuitive Intelligence—The ability to make a "leap of logic", or better stated, to make an intuitive leap; e.g. decoding anagrams, finding a relationship between two or more seemingly unrelated facts.  Many times it occurs after studying a problem, the answer suddenly appears as an epiphany or in a dream.  It is the most ephemeral form of intelligence and hardest to define with probably many sub-facets; one of which would be characterized as imagination or the ability to create original ideas.

Sense of humor—ability to originate, communicate or understand something that is humorous or amusing.

Sense of irony—ability to originate, communicate or understand something that deliberately contrasts apparently opposite meanings for humorous or satirical effect.

Artistic intelligence—abilities encompassing the inception and/or interpretation of any of the arts. It is the expression/understanding of artistic, original creativity.

Spatial awareness—(e.g. Is my right front tire going to further flatten that road kill up ahead.)

Focus—the workhorse of intelligence which is important to all the other types.  It comes in the form of concentration and persistence, which is harder to measure since it may need evaluation over periods of time as long as a lifetime.  Someone low on cognitive speed but high on focus would probably be seen as smart but slow or a late bloomer.

   

The incorporation of reason into one’s understanding of the world is sometimes avoided because it appears to require an intimidating amount of effort and intelligence.  Living requires effort, but avoiding reason can be more wearing than abiding by it due to the nagging realization that we aren’t being honest with ourselves leading to the effort spent maintaining the wall of emotion and tangle of lies fending off reason.

Further, like a little exercise for the body benefits our physical as well as our mental stamina, so too the appropriate use of both reason and emotion actually becomes soothing with use instead of their being an irritant.  As for applying intelligence, the only things required is an understanding of the nature of Truth and determining one’s particular intellectual abilities which we all have in some areas—and all of which are almost certainly not possessed by anyone.

Abortion

No issue is more contentious or morally complex than abortion because it deals with the rights of two individuals and when we achieve our moral right to life, liberty and property. As with almost any issue, moral or otherwise, when trying to think through where we stand on it, the place to start is the extremes.

Aborting a healthy fetus in the process of being born can only be considered murder.  On the other hand, forcing a 13 year old girl who is 1 hour pregnant as a result of being raped by her father to carry the baby to  term, is nothing short of a moral travesty.  Yet we insist on reducing abortion down to Pro-Life and Pro-Choice labels.  The fact is we don't have the necessary information to make an informed moral choice in many cases.  We can draw an artificial limit, say the first trimester, but that won't cover all situations in determining by whose or what authority we make these decisions--God, the Law, or a family and their doctor.

Any claim to divine authority is specious given that there is nothing in the Bible about it, and all we have are those putting words in God's mouth that the human right to life starts at conception.  Some even claim that divine determination is violated by contraception.   On the face of it, for those appealing to revealed religion for their authority, abortion is being used as an instrument of power and control.

At the other end, the same could be said about statists who would use the law to give complete authority to the mother with no rights whatever for the baby until it is born, which is no less an artificial limit, or less "holy", than conception.

The fact is we already limit human rights according to age, and few would argue with it.  We limit a child's right to liberty and property until they reach some arbitrary age of majority at which point they legally acquire the rights they didn't have a few moments before.  Some would say the right to life is different, but tell that to the billions throughout history who lived under horrible oppression, and others who risked or lost their lives in an effort to achieve that liberty.  The question this raises is, why isn't there some theological, or secular, explanation for the arbitrary acquisition of our rights to liberty and property?  The Bible says that you must not commit murder and that you must not steal.  But then it also gives tacit approval to slavery and human sacrifice.

The Golden Rule is the only moral guidance we have, or need, except for the moral complexities of dealing with our children--born and unborn.

This complex issue pushes to the limit the principle that the only thing that should be legislated is morality.  It would seem, at this point, that all we can legislate would be in the realm of the previously mentioned extremes, and each of those come to a point where that legislation would be arbitrary and thus without moral authority.  We must acknowledge the complexity of this issue and come, somehow, to realize that this must be done on a case by case basis, with the mother making the decision in this area where the law cannot reach, with the advice of her family, her doctor, her society and her faith.

In this "no-man's land" or grey area (between the extremes which can be legislated), the woman must have the final authority, not because it's her body, but because it's her child.  And since it is still ultimately a moral issue, the freedom of religion is the final legal authority for her moral authority.  The current legal problem here in the US where a retail store chain (Hobby Lobby) is being forced at the cost of over a million dollars a day to provide health care funds for abortions against the religious beliefs of a private company and any number of its employees, is an egregious example of the violation of the necessary separation of church and state; not to mention the First Amendment to our Constitution.

Religion vs. Philosophy

Why is religion, and philosophy for that matter, important?

Originally, somewhere back in civilization’s deep, dark past, religion was the equivalent of science. Grog, in his cave, tried to make sense of the natural world around him; a nature that appeared to be a benefactor and source of fear at the same time. Truth and knowledge were sought. But it wasn’t long before some were able to use that fear and confusion as a source of control if it was manipulated properly.

Later still, someone developed the carrot and stick idea and added rewards from the gods in this life as well as the next, for proper behavior. The original morality consisted of a simple form of the Golden Rule, but it was necessary to include honoring and providing for the gods as part of that favored behavior; and as time passed many more extraneous rules were added to the code of behavior, which eventually ascended to greater importance than proper behavior towards each other. Then finally someone consolidated all the rules from all those gods into rules from just One God, and that mixture of mono/polytheism is where we stood at the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment and the ascendancy of science and the scientific method.

While science has been very successful at acquiring knowledge, the issues of morality (a code of conduct for how we treat each other), virtue (a code for our personal behavior), and of fulfillment and purpose in this life (and perhaps the next), appeared to be beyond the reach of the scientific method. So religion, with all its baggage, maintained its position of spiritual authority—albeit a reduced one.

Enter philosophy, the attempt to use reason to combine knowledge and the metaphysical. But the latter wasn’t subject to reason since there was no knowledge available (other than pure hearsay) with which we could deal. Thus two usually unstated assumptions were made: Human life is of ultimate value, and a laissez faire divine being created the universe. If neither of those was the case there was no possibility for good order or hope for an ultimate purpose.

Today, we stand on the verge of the realization that morality is the only thing that should be the subject of civilization’s legal code—we should never legislation personal virtue. Organized religion continues to fight this principle as if its life depends on it, which it does. It won’t submit to the ascendancy of philosophy for the same reason that governments resist submission to political and economic reason…..the ability to use power to favor an individual or an elite class structure.

Though we have made great strides in science and technology, it appears that we are no closer to conquering evil with good because we still depend far too much on emotion to make our decisions. Progress will not be made until we learn to employ our emotions as the engine to pursue our goals, with reason at the wheel.