Some time ago I wrote about how over-rated the "happiness software" industry is, and how human happiness is not that much different from animal happiness, because both are primarily hardware. Readers didn't buy it.
Very well then. How do they explain the little poodle in the photo? Has he just downloaded an upgrade to some trendy happiness-software? Could the operating system between those fuzzy ears even handle sophisticated software? Or maybe he has just read a special doggie version of Norman Vincent Peale or the latest and greatest self-help guru?
A man will be happy under pretty much the same conditions that a dog will be: the dog-pack's wild romp is similar enough to a human tribe's hunting trip. The best proof of this is to watch a rampaging horde of bicyclists, all feeding off each others energy.
Consider my bicycling club's recurring game of "king of the mountain." In the Yuma area there is only one real hill, the mountain pass penetrated by Interstate 8, about 10 miles east of town. The last time we bicycled over it, three of us had quite a contest to surmount the pass first. There is something mind-expanding about being focused on one physiological and athletic task.
But that's just the thing: is it purely physiological? Why -- I didn't say 'how' -- do bodily cells of brain tissue send electrical signals to some other cells, these being of muscular tissue? What does it really mean to be partly physiological and partly psychological? Playing king of the mountain on bicycle rides is an example of a boundary between human hardware and software. This boundary is confusing and hard to explain.
Many boundaries are not as sharp as they appear at first glance. A more careful look usually reveals a smeared-out zone. Sharp and absolute discontinuities are more typical of mathematics class than they are of the real world. So what exactly is going on between my "will" and my muscles when I'm playing King of the Mountain?
Philosophers have been trying to sort out Mind-versus-Body (or Spirit/Material) for millenia. As an individual I don't particularly care to get involved with these Big Questions. It's not because they aren't important, of course. It's just that I am not likely to reach a conclusion over these Big Questions -- not today anyway.
What an individual can do is experience, directly and intensely, situations that epitomize these Bigger Questions. And then feel profoundly satisfied! Perhaps it's because abstractions can be so unsatisfying; they can seem like mere verbiage. Perhaps it's a desire to see a condensed embodiment of a long-winded issue.
But let's get back to the boundary zone and why it matters. The boundary zone is an uncharted land for a world that no longer offers frontiers of the old-fashioned kind: the "westering" kind, the kind on the dark and dangerous periphery of the Known. Without geographically-outer frontiers to explore for adventure, we must look for interior frontiers, and murky and confusing boundary zones are one example of that.
The classicist, Gilbert Murray, in his Five Stages of Greek Religion, said:
Very well then. How do they explain the little poodle in the photo? Has he just downloaded an upgrade to some trendy happiness-software? Could the operating system between those fuzzy ears even handle sophisticated software? Or maybe he has just read a special doggie version of Norman Vincent Peale or the latest and greatest self-help guru?
A man will be happy under pretty much the same conditions that a dog will be: the dog-pack's wild romp is similar enough to a human tribe's hunting trip. The best proof of this is to watch a rampaging horde of bicyclists, all feeding off each others energy.
Consider my bicycling club's recurring game of "king of the mountain." In the Yuma area there is only one real hill, the mountain pass penetrated by Interstate 8, about 10 miles east of town. The last time we bicycled over it, three of us had quite a contest to surmount the pass first. There is something mind-expanding about being focused on one physiological and athletic task.
But that's just the thing: is it purely physiological? Why -- I didn't say 'how' -- do bodily cells of brain tissue send electrical signals to some other cells, these being of muscular tissue? What does it really mean to be partly physiological and partly psychological? Playing king of the mountain on bicycle rides is an example of a boundary between human hardware and software. This boundary is confusing and hard to explain.
Many boundaries are not as sharp as they appear at first glance. A more careful look usually reveals a smeared-out zone. Sharp and absolute discontinuities are more typical of mathematics class than they are of the real world. So what exactly is going on between my "will" and my muscles when I'm playing King of the Mountain?
Philosophers have been trying to sort out Mind-versus-Body (or Spirit/Material) for millenia. As an individual I don't particularly care to get involved with these Big Questions. It's not because they aren't important, of course. It's just that I am not likely to reach a conclusion over these Big Questions -- not today anyway.
What an individual can do is experience, directly and intensely, situations that epitomize these Bigger Questions. And then feel profoundly satisfied! Perhaps it's because abstractions can be so unsatisfying; they can seem like mere verbiage. Perhaps it's a desire to see a condensed embodiment of a long-winded issue.
But let's get back to the boundary zone and why it matters. The boundary zone is an uncharted land for a world that no longer offers frontiers of the old-fashioned kind: the "westering" kind, the kind on the dark and dangerous periphery of the Known. Without geographically-outer frontiers to explore for adventure, we must look for interior frontiers, and murky and confusing boundary zones are one example of that.
The classicist, Gilbert Murray, in his Five Stages of Greek Religion, said:
The Uncharted surrounds us on every side and we must needs have some relation to it...
As far as knowledge and conscious reason will go, we should follow resolutely their austere guidance. When they cease, as cease they must, we must use as best we can those fainter powers of apprehension and surmise and sensitiveness...
Comments
I know what you are talking about when you say "the boundary zone." I don't think it's two separate worlds, the physical and the psychological but I do agree that living and talking about what one knows in the physical world is more concrete and easier to communicate. It is truly what happens in great fiction. The interweaving of each character and setting is a parallel for a psychological world which is hard to describe and communicate directly.
The description of your cycling experience reminded me of the emotional high of a religious revival. A sort of catharsis and I think it is wise to remain in the physical world with such matters and resist the urge to extrapolate.
I think I know what you mean by "It is truly what happens in great fiction." Without concrete situations or dilemmas, the characters of a novel would be trapped in pedantic philosophical arguments that never lead to a conclusion; or they would be self-absorbed and endlessly picking at their own little (psychological) scabs.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against eating meat though I personally will not eat it because I will not support the slaughterhouses.
The following is taken from Expedia. If you don't know who Temple Gratin is, it is worth researching her.
My query is this: What conclusions would you draw about the emotional life, the richness of experience, that must exist in animals that are capable of experiencing such stress? We humans are terrific at experiencing stress, a result of many intuitions, instincts, memories......We think we have stress because of cold, hard facts. Perhaps not. Perhaps it is more basic than that, something we share with other mammals (and perhaps it extends farther than that though I hesitate to extend this farther.)
From Wikipedia:
In the latter part of the 20th century, the layout and design of most U.S. slaughterhouses was influenced by the work of Dr. Temple Grandin.[4] She suggested that reducing the stress of animals being led to slaughter may help slaughterhouse operators improve efficiency and profit.[5] In particular she applied an understanding of animal psychology to design pens and corrals which funnel a herd of animals arriving at a slaughterhouse into a single file ready for slaughter. Her corrals employ long sweeping curves[6][7][8] so that each animal is prevented from seeing what lies ahead and just concentrates on the hind quarters of the animal in front of it. This design – along with the design elements of solid sides, solid crowd gate, and reduced noise at the end point – work together to encourage animals forward in the chute and to not reverse direction.[9]
As of 2011 Grandin claimed to have designed over 54% of the slaughterhouses in the United States as well as many others around the world.