Towards Better Democracy

The brain is a physical organ, the mind a concept. If we didn’t have a mind we would not be aware that we did not have one. The mind is a construct to name this phenomena of awareness that we all, as humans, to lesser or greater extents, have.

That the word mind is a metaphor is probably a misnomer since a metaphor refers to something else. The mind is selfreferential and therein lies its fragility.

The fragility of the mind lies in the fact that our awareness of it can diminish without our awareness that this is necessarily happening.

Our sense organs are connected to the brain but quite how they are connected to what we refer to as the mind is not understood and our understanding of what constitutes the mind less so.

And this may always be the case. The mind is within us and cannot be examined by others nor, on occasion, by ourselves.

The mind is a fragile thing. We may not be aware of its deterioration. To lose awareness is just that. A lack of recognition of the mind’s loss of awareness.

Senses have to be separated from a discussion of the mind. We can retain all our senses but those senses that function biologically may not be impaired at all despite a deterioration of the mind.

The difference between heath of the mind and sickness of the mind is at present not possible to determine. A highly competent psychiatrist with whom I had recently consulted stated,

“We don’t have a health model.”

That poses the question, do  you really have a sickness model?

The study of the mind has traditionally been the province of philosophers who, to say the least, are not concerned with the real world. And, whatever it is, the mind exists in the real world.

A very great expenditure is at present being made into the study of the brain. This is all well and good. Benefits are likely to accrue. An understanding of each of organ of the body has brought humankind untold benefits.

A constant preoccupation of this writer has been, and continues to be, the view that we as a species are sick. That there is something fundamentally wrong with us as a species. There are many indications of this too numerous to mention.

Few appear to hold this view far less ask questions and seek answers on whether we are indeed sick, and if so, in what way.

We appear to be the only species which has the power to take deliberately destructive acts.

At the heart of this is the awareness on the part of this writer that few of us are fully realized human beings. Why is this so. Why, when such a state is the natural one, is that state not more prevalent.

Some of us appear to have an awareness that we, any one individual, is not fully realized but find it insuperably difficult to address the problems that the awareness brings to mind.

Why is so difficult to become a full human being. Yet, those of us who know this state are unable to say why it is that they are and others not. And that if a journey was necessary to achieve this state quite how they went about it.

Would a book really explain. Is that person’s knowledge, discovery, overcoming the difficulties they encountered and how these might be universal. Usually they are not.

It would appear, therefore, that a whole different basis is required for a study of the mind that is of use to ordinary people. Particularly those who do not feel they are afflicted such they they require the services of the helping professions.

What that basis might be would benefit from further discussion.

Filed under: Culture

The title of this blog is not necessarily intuitive. Were this the case there would likely not be a need for it. World wide there would an awareness that democracy is not a static concept and that in practice there be continual improvement in its practice.

World War Two was fought largely on the basis of upholding democracy and safeguarding those states and nations which held, and still do, democracy dear to their way of life. One notable exception was the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Since that time many laws, on an international and nation level, have been passed which have greatly reinforced and expanded democracy as a practice.

That is true.

By far and away the largest practice is of representational government. Such a system is fundamentally unsound.

At the heart of this blog is the belief that every adult anywhere in the world of sound mind is responsible for themselves. To hand over power to others is to cease to be fully responsible for yourself. And to hand over power to anyone else is to expose oneself to demands that one in no sense whatsoever wishes. And are frequently detrimental to the individual. Not a few, but very large sectors of societies.

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Who would have thought that when computers came into our lives that they would so permeate into our societies, of whatever kind, and so deeply affect our lives. Not only have they, but they will continue to do so at an ever increasing rate. A sort of Moore’s Law of impact on society at large.

The world wide web could not exist without the computer. The computer too has spawned a myriad of devices with allow access to that web on a minute by minute basis. The effects of the changes this is having on all of our lives is barely comprehended and the changes threaten to exceed both the ability to realize the extent of them and our desire to limit or control those changes.

We have for the first time in our existence on this planet potentially created a force over which we have no power other than perhaps switching the damn off, which is neither likely nor possible. Unless we choose to exercise that power.

The answers to the questions as to what affect these forces may not be forthcoming since we are not asking the questions, the most fundamental of which is, do we want this or that change?

Our situation is akin the atomic bomb. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki it seemed relevant to ask, do we want to continue to use the atom bomb freely for whatever reason? We unleashed a terrible power that we have since sought to control and, in some quarters, diminish.

There seems no reason for having any at all. Beat them all into ploughshares.  All that it requires is willpower and desire to rid ourselves of them.

The explosion of the combination of computers and the world wide web unleashes a power greater than any atom bomb for the reason that the combination is universal. No corner of the globe is exempt from connection to it and its effects. While that power does not demolish cities and kill millions to say nothing of the effects of fallout, it threatens to fundamentally change our very nature. For us to function as sentient beings. The prospect looms large with, it would appear, no one willing or wishing to ask the question, do we really wish to be ruled by robots? Do we really wish to hand over the great majority of work presently done by humans to robots?

What then will we do? With no work or little work to do?

Has anyone begun to ask the question? Has anyone even thought to ask?

The soviets envisioned a society of plenty, of a superabundance, of the abolition of work. Is that our vision?

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A direct benefit of the power being referred is the series of substantial leaks that we have been witnessing over the last five or more years, arguably begun with the Wikileaks. There have, it is true, been leaks in the past, but what we now witness is both the extent and depths of those leaks. The latest, what are referred curiously to as the Panama Papers, is breathtaking in the scale of the leaks, 11 million documents, and the number of so called powerful people mentioned.

No such activity could conceivably take place without the huge data drives which hold this scale of information. That one person, potentially, can in the palm of their hand procure millions of documents would have been, up till very recently, inconceivable.

The benefit of such leaks to the expansion of democracy is incalculable. And unforeseeable. Those not held accountable for their acts, particularly harmful acts, was a blight wherever and whenever it existed. Denial was, and still is, the recourse of the wrongdoer. And for those in power, untouchable, beyond the reach of normal recourse.

Now, with overwhelming evidence to hand, such deniability becomes less and less possible.

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That we can reap only the benefits of the greater than atomic bomb power and dispense with its ill effects remains in question.

If the question is even being asked. If any of us even wish to ask.

Filed under: Culture