AS TIME GOES BY
RICK OGDEN Asks Jacob Ghitis About Changing Times
(For the complete version, goto http://www.onelist.com/community/ghitis)
Jacob, imagine that you are living 200 years ago and that you are quite wealthy.
You have a large house with servants. You have all the luxuries that are
available at that time. Think deeply about the lifestyle that you would
lead. After setting aside sixteen hours for sleep and running your financial
affairs, think about what you would be doing with your other eight hours of
life.
Consider the culture of the times and what your probable values and morals
would be given the kind of upbringing you would have had at the time. Think
about how your personality of today would have to be retrofitted to "cut it"
back in those days. Imagine what the "core you" or the "DNA potential of
you" would have manifested back then. See if you can imagine what it is
about your "seed" that would have flourished and what parts of you would
never have had a chance to manifest.
Ask yourself,
1.- What do I have now fully flowering that would have been squelched or would have withered then?
*1).- I would not have become a philosopher of science, which gives me great pleasure. It was the Internet that allowed me to develop my until then unfathomed mental ability in that direction. Too, there would have been little science to philosophize about. I would have become interested in those areas, though.
However, look at the impact of circumstances:
I had not been interested in Medicine, preferring to be a fighter pilot. I became a MD because I saw sense in my father's advice. I wanted to be a psychoanalyst, and ended being a hematologist. By chance I went into research, which provided me with world renown.
I was not interested in history or philosophy until 50 years old. At 60 I felt the urge to know what philosophy is truly about, and the prevailing philosophy of the 20th century.
With the Internet, looking for a site on philosophy, I ended up becoming after three months the manager of four forums of a renowned American University's web site. The webmaster just forced me to do that by telling me that I was doing fine, and not reappearing. I just happened to be surprised at myself, and thus my philosophy (D-SP) was parthenogenetically conceived.
I would have been in the 18th century a devoted reader of Voltaire had him invited to intellectual meetings, and he would have asked me for a loan, not to be returned.
2.- What freedoms do I have now that would have been "out of the question"
then?
*2).- Here in Israel, I wrote six years ago a sharp letter to the incumbent President for some stupid words he had mouthed to a decent fellow trying to better his life conditions in the USA. Now it has been shown that the President exploited unbecoming easy ways for bettering his life conditions here. He is plain stupid, as I had known by superficial personal observation and listening.
Some months ago I interupted an important meeting of the head of the Northern Police District. After he identified himself following my question, I handed him a complaint letter, adding in handwriting that he and his Mafia behave like idiots. After that, I sent him several faxes calling him a criminal leader of a pig's den, and demanding his resignation. Since he remained silent, I complained to the ombudsman against him, for not having lodged complaints against me.
In the interim some corruption in the Jerusalem Police came to light.
Now I have complained to an over-ombudsman because I did not receive from the ombudsman an answer to my complaint, and will have to go on to a super-over ombudsman.
Also, the President of the Haifa's Court of Justice wrote me a letter informing me that he had annulled a complaint against me. I wrote back asking him who gave him the authority to do me favors that I have not asked for.
All this (and much more...) could not have been done 200 years ago in Israel, because Israel did not exist then.
Turning to more appealing front, anti-conceptive pills were not allowed two centuries ago, while nowadays even cardinals take care to have them popped up when needed. And thanks to AIDS, the use of condoms is even recommended on TV, while then there was no TV nor even AIDS.
3.- How am I a product of my times now? What cannot grow now--the good and the bad--which my times prevent?
*3).- I came to realize that uninformed moral teachings make neurotics of us. In psychoanalytic lore I'd say that we are prone to become "societal neurotics."
Freud and Jung too, allowed me --and many others-- to free the self from the shackles of uneducated teachings. I was able in these "my times" to become an informed being, not neurotically hurting others, and myself and even helping others and myself. Specific case histories are posted in D-SP pages.
The Internet allows me to interact with like minds, serving to nourish my cognitive neurons and to rekindle the affective ones.
The widespread use of DOA and the crime and corruption it abets is the result of governmental ignorance. It is impossible to force people to give up habits springing from genetic and experiential determinants.
Present time affects negatively the ecological balance. This is an unavoidable warp from evolution's creation of Homo sapiens. Besides, H. sapiens has created a barrier to further human evolution. Let me now explain how human evolution and ecological balance will be eventually restored.
It is problematic for most people to understand how evolution changes species. In a nutshell:
Go back in time and start with an existing population of Homo habilis, and another one of chimpanzees. Suddenly, there is a very significant benefic mutation in one embryo of each of these two species. Those newborns are the beginners of a new species. They will copulate successfully, and after several new generations the new species will start supplanting the obsolete one, while continuing to create even more successful individuals, due to minor added mutations. Besides, some of these new specimens will evolve their innate capacities, like inventing writing and the like. The result, after several thousands of years: H. sapiens.
Simultaneously, the bettered chimpanzee will also supplant part of the previous species, which will not be dramatically significant in its abilities.
Let us now concentrate on this H. sapiens: he is so intelligent, that he succeeds in decreasing mortality, and the population increases vastly. At the same time, incest is prohibited.
Mutations, like Aristotle, Plato Sophocles, Pericles, Galileo, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Newton, Einstein, and various others, cannot multiply freely, and their mutated benefic genes become diluted in the vast sea of billions of H. sapiens' specimens.
Does this mean that H. sapiens is the uncontested vertex of evolution? And that earth is condemned to progressive and fatal ecosystem disruption? Such a pessimistic prediction fails in the wake of a more realistic one, to wit:
A near earth asteroid (NEA) will become a meteorite destroying a vast segment of Earth's population. Incest will return for the same reason that motivated Lot's daughters. With a decreased human population, it will take only several thousands of years for benefic mutations to spread and supplant H. sapiens with the next species, called Homo emeritus. CHAOS will be give way to a new ORDER of ecological balance. And then...
4.- Would I have a stronger adherence to my religious values, if any?
*4).- Religious values are of no consequence. Even not beliefs or feelings. All these are individual appurtenances.
The Mosaic Law said it all: It is a question of BEHAVIOR.
And Hillel, the Jewish sage, simplified those commandments by stating:
"Do not do unto others what you would not like to be done unto you."
Present-day Judaism and derived religions just harp on Hillel's words.
Hillel's Golden Rule is not negative, because when one does a good deed at the right moment, he is actually stating,
"I do this because I do not wish others not to do this deed to me in case of need."
That's why cynics consider altruism as a sublimation of egotism. One could cheer, "Vive la sublimation!"
Two centuries ago I would not have been as wise as I am now, when actually I do not "adhere to religious values."
5.- Could I have gone on witch-hunts, put someone in prison for being in debt, or watch a flogging in the town square? What is the difference between watching a flogging in the town square and watching a Hollywood movie, which convincingly shows a flogging in the town square?
*5).- Not I. Unflinchingly, I can watch floggings in movies, knowing that they are make-believe scenes. Bull fighting I eschew, for I suffer with the bulls. I only enjoy films showing the toreador being impaled.
6.- Can I overcome my era, culture, tribal beliefs, and "modern addictions to technology" that keep me "in my place"?
*6).- I am in "my place" by virtue of knowingly having chosen it. I use for my benefit the modern technology. When I write on my computer, scattered ideas in my neurons coalesce to fill their right place in the puzzle of new concepts. "My place" is constantly enlarging with creative writings. I decipher "tribal beliefs" such as Jacob's Ladder dream and the Ten Plagues of Egypt, the sparing of the Jewish first-born --man and animal-- included.
I can not change my era, but I have made my mark in its culture, as far as it is influenced by science. I'm presently striving to find the scarce minds able to understand my Dynamic-Scientific Philosophy, a revolutionary contribution to culture in the 21st century. I reject undeserved modesty.
7.- What drummers' beats have me hypnotized? Given food, water and shelter, could I spend a year in a log cabin without anything else but "me"? What would I be like after such a time of solitude?
*7).- I have a rich experience in hypnosis, and have learned from it. My mind cannot concentrate on monotonous sounds.
In a log cabin with no writing means I would have to find a way of attaining a hypnotic state allowing me to keep my mind active in a virtual world.
8.- How can I develop a sense of wonder for all that modern times offer me when I consider that even a fabulously wealthy person back then could not even make a phone call, have fresh fruit in winter, surf the Web, or know the wonders of duct tape? How do I see today with the eyes of a person brought forward in time? Can I appreciate the fantastic world I truly live in today?
*8).- I remember the first radio receiver and refrigerator my parents purchased. I still live that wonder.
9.- What does it signify that I get jaded so easily? Why is everything "so
last week" so quickly to me? What is the value of having a nervous system
that is such a "newness junky"? How can I make it serve my self
development?
*9).- I wrote recently an essay on MATTER, MASS, and ENERGY. In it, I explain the meaning of inertia. When I conversed with my kabbalah-oriented religious daughter in Jerusalem, she told me that she helps women who consult her, by pushing them out of their spiritual inertia, consisting in believing that God should solve their problems.
Cabalists to me, are people who can not put in mathematical terms physical realities that they are able to, intuit.
10.- How is my human body an environment that supports or hinders my "perfect self" from flowering? If I were an angel what lessons and growth would I never have a chance to experience?
*10).- A "perfect self" adapts to the limitations of the body. An angel does not need to nor can grow. This day is the same as yesterday.
11.- Can I and, if so, should I transcend everything? Can I act wholly from
within--completely uninfluenced by my environment?
*11).- Transcendence is an ambiguous word. A mystical state of transcendence or complete immersion in oneself is the result of a short-lived disconnection of the autonomic nervous centers in the hypothalamus. It is perfectly feasible that even respiration and heartbeat are interrupted for a short while. Otherwise, it is a state of autohypnosis or a like phenomenon.
12.- What can I do to water my deepest roots?
*12).- D-SP does not judge, nor does it offer counsel or consolation. Detachedly, it aims at explaining the world.
