Hearing Things

My hearing is perfect under test conditions - exceptionally good, even. Why, then can I not hear conversation when there is background noise? For as long as I can remember, I have been astounded that people speak to oneanother in the midst of noise without appearing to raise their voices at all. Some people will approach me and move their lips as though speaking to me. I can hear only little bits of the noise they make, yet they seem to expect me to understand them. Also astounding.

All that a google reveals is that it's a classic symptom of hearing loss, but I've been tested a few times over the years, always being sent away with a hale "I wish my hearing were nearly as good as yours, you don't have a problem." Which is not exactly cheering news when I still can't hear when I need to!

I've been driven to wonder whether the problem is not one of mechanics in the actual ear, but an issue somwhere up the line. Language processing? Filtering of sound? Anxiety associated with socialising in a chaotic environment?

For however many years, I've worked around this as best I can by either avoiding situations with high ambient sound levels or at least not attempting conversation under those circumstances. I've only recently realised how heavily I depend on lip-reading when conversing in a crowd. This is distressing me. I wonder how many years it's been that I have effectively 'ignored' the people whose faces I cannot readily gaze at for clues as to what they are saying? Will this deteriorate, or is the problem static - just unnoticed until I began hanging out in crowded halls again? Can I somehow fix my hearing or noise-filter/interpretation capability? Is there anything I can do to improve by ability to comprehend what's being said regardless?

As I write this, I am listening to quietly playing music (songs I wish to learn) and enjoying every tiny note... with my frustratingly inadequate perfect hearing.

Desighn

Okay, so the title is an honest to goodness typo I kept. Why? Becuase it illustrates, to a modest extent, the kind of mistakes that get made, in some instances genetically, that some are in some ways and under some circumstances appropriate or helpful. Or amusing.

Evolutionary theory makes sense to me. It makes sense intellectually and what's more, it feels right. Everything I've seen or known about living things can be explained by evolutionary theory, the way that everything I've experienced of landforms can be explained by geology.

I was walking with a friend the other day when I examined a deciduous tree that had not shed it's leaves thought they were brown and dry. I wanted to know whether the non-shedding of leaves would interfere with the budding of new growth - whether the tree was suffering some kind of unhelpful ailment or deformity. I found that the buds of new leaves were emerging unimpeded just adjacent to the dead leaves.

My friend commented that it was a good design, and I agreed, not realising that he was ironically alluding to the Intelligent Design issue. I imagined that he was imagining applying the same principle to an artificial product or project. I can see how instead of making a sweeping effort to remove all redundant items before inserting new ones, it could be easier and even advantageous to remove redundancies automatically as part of the piecemeal insertion of the new objects.

It occurred to me that the old leaves remaining on the branches might offer some form of protection to the new shoots. Or perhaps there was some advantage to them not covering the ground at the foot of the tree during winter proper. Or maybe the leaves would fall in very early spring when the new leaves spouted, and would provide a more effective weed-mat through the growing season than leaves shed earlier?

I see advantage in loking at the organic construction solutions brought about by adaptations of millennia and applying them to design problems we are faced with. In doing so, I think of the solutions as designs not of an intelligent and conscious nature, but the result of evolution. Fortunate accident compounded by fortunate accident to the power of the beginning of the current thread of life 'til now. If that makes any sense.

I reserve the right to use the term 'design' in the way outlined above to describe natural forms, though I acknowledge no designer. I suppose I should eschew confusion by finding an alternative word, but as yet I'm still boggling at the fact that it's an issue at all.

(I wrote 'assue' instead of 'issue' in that last sentence. Perhaps I should keep that one too?? ;-))

Balancing interval and intensity to optimise novelty.

PFH wrote, in his blog post "Hunger and Satiety":

"
.....
Similarly in music. The statement of the tonic, or of a melodic theme, whets the appetite for its repetition. Music ends when the tonic is stated with sufficient force that we are satiated, and when all themes have been sufficiently repeated.
......"
PFH; Logarithmic

I suggest:

The first time, the stimulus is random.

The second time, it's noteworthy as potentially predictable. We form a theory of pattern and begin to test by observing and waiting for repetition.

The third time, it's confirmation of a pattern - recognition.

The fourth time, it's re-enforcement.

The fifth time, it's a given. Fourth or fifth recurrence is when variations may be introduced to avoid boredom.

The more familiar a musical phrase or story character is, the more predictable and less fraught with possibility they are. Complications must beset the lead characters, or variants of the musical phrase must be introduced to sustain tension and interest. Some characters or musical elements are essentially constant. They serve as medium through or a framework on which we experience more novel occurrences. New flavour varieties for familiar products are classic examples of variant introduction.

As individuals, and as a culture, we deliberately set up rare and novel experiences that we can use to give ourselves pleasure at viable intervals. (Note that pleasures we have ready access to are limited in the duration and frequency with which we can enjoy them. Variety is necessary not only for maintaining intellectual interest but because of our essential physical limitations.) Someone whose intention it is to contrive a situation in which recurrence of recognisable stimuli is optimised to sustain interest will have to use a balance of interval against intensity.

I hold that recognition is pleasurable partly because recognition is a survival advantage.
Recognition Rewarded (old post of mine)

People who can easily achieve and sustain intense pleasure a long period are less likely to strive. Decreased striving is a survival and cultural disadvantage, so it behhoves us to quickly tire of easy pleasure and strive for more intense or novel sensations.

So it's a survival advantage to be a little bit kinky.;-)

Rationality sounds like a song...

I woke up today thinking that to be rational, we have to focus on being, rather than wanting. Being encompasses everything that make up how we are. We can construct ourselves along the lines we like. Society starts this process for us, but as we get more autonomy, we are expected and allowed to take a more responsible role in that construction.

When we are mindful of that, and in control of our impulses, our perception of our state of being dictates how we behave. We don't steal because... we don't steal. Our perception of ourself does not include theft as a behaviour we enact. We see any impulse to steal to be contrary to our nature, and may go so far as to feel that something is wildly wrong with us for having wrong impulses, even if they were nowhere near being acted on.

If we purely let our wants dicatate our behaviour, we become the result of indulging those wants. That result is likely to be far from the aspiration we have about who we aspire to be. To be who we aspire to be, we have to behave as that person would behave. Divining the ideal behaviour of someone we have not yet become is certainly tricky at times, even without emotional interference.

But I feel that the bumpersticker question is less "What would Jesus do?" and more "What would the me I want to be do?"

Then it starts to sound like a song.

Clever, that.

Who votes Liberal in Oz? People with mortgages on thir homes, perhaps?

Hello First Home Buyer's Grant!

Clever, that.

I believe that since the introduction of the First Home Buyer's Grant, the home mortgage paying demographic has gotten younger, and the Liberal voting demographic with it. Yes, the Labor state governments have also made grants to first home buyers, which only fed the home buying frenzy, but not to do so would leave the glory to the Libs.

Now labour laws have been weakened. Hey, aren't people with mortgages more likley to swallow their pride and forgo workplace rights to keep their jobs?

I do hope that there is a fulsome backlash in the offing. It's not that I hope for bad ecenomic times, just that I hope that when it comes, that there is still room for correction in any direction other than right wing extremism.

I believe that political direction is a bit like sailing, and we have been tacking right for so long now that we are nowhere near the channel any more. Left needs a turn at the helm to re-establish ideas of compassion and equality. Weird public infrastructure things like hospitals, schools and public transport are suffering frighteningly under the current government.

I hope that the voting public can see that they have the power to steer the country between the conflicting ideas of the left and the right, and allow enough underkeel clearance for us all.

Untruth as kindness and kindness is it's own punishment.

I've learned a bit about honesty in the last year: What is true is not always what is appropriate. Truth, as pure a concept as it is, has the potential to hurt people. When someone's beliefs differ from your own, and it would cause them distress if they hear of your belief, then it is often simpler and kinder not to be honest. Lies of omission can be a humane choice. But they are not Truth. Does that make them wrong? I think that the lie, and the guilt of the dishonest is the lesser evil if the truth would needlessly hurt someone. If the untruthful person is of such sensitive and considerate nature that they decide to withold truth to spare another person needless pain, I feel that the sense of guilt over the lie is ample punishment.

On a wader scale, any individual espousing their version of Truth as an absolute is taking a very hard line. It does not take into account that as nobody is in posession of definitive Truth, everyone has a right to their own beliefs regarding what is true. If you have to co-exist with someone who takes that kind of hard line on any subject, it is prudent to avoid conflict. And if avoiding conflict means being outwardly vague about your own beliefs, it's a compromise that people have to come to terms with case by case, whilst trying not to lose track of what they really do believe, and why.

What I believe about why I believe.

The capacity to sustain unsubstantiated hope is how we overcome our capacity to perceive futility.

I believe in evolution. I believe that the more cleverly organisms are designed to survive and reproduce, the more their genetic strain will dominate. I believe that this has been the case for a very long time. I believe that there have been surges, lulls and crashes as evolutionary developments get out of synch and balance is lost.

I believe that intelligence is a survival advantage. I believe that a ceiling to that advantage comes when a life-form's ability to analyse it's circumstances collides with it's capacity for despair. When a life form without the ability to sustain unsubstantiated hope realises that it is in hopeless circumstances, it cannot see a point in striving or suffering further, so gives up. I believe that people will tend to be outraged by and reject this idea, because we have evolved to believe that life is not futile. I believe that belief in a higher purpose is the antidote to despair.

I believe that humans have developed a unique work-around for the reality we live in. It offers no tangible higher meaning. It offers no proof of the divine. No firm evidence of an afterlife or spiritual realm. Again, people will object and reject what I believe to be true on this front, because we have evolved to believe that there is more. Individuals are not born with spiritual beliefs, but with a need for them.

People develop and cultivate their personal faith as a defence against the randomness of the world, and the futility of existence. Families spread successful belief structures generationally. Religious groups tweak and refine and consolidate it. Cultures categorise and define it.

Belief systems, like organisms, evolve. They survive on their merits on a number of fronts. Believeability. Non-disprovability. Promotion of social cohesion. Justification of xenophobia. Auto-propogation. Stability balanced with flexibility. It's a balancing act like other evolutionary frameworks.

Religion, politics, hedonism, wealth, power, popularity, art, charity, beauty, music, fitness, fashion, sport, knowledge - any field about which people can muster an evangelical zeal can serve as a hook from which to hang higher meaning. It's not that that is a bad thing - it in many cases a very good thing from an individual or wider humanitarian standpoint. Problems really only arise when fanatacism kicks in. And fanatacism and disfunctional levels of delusion are extreme manifestations of the need to believe.

Our focus on our chosen belief has us striving for specific objectives and following established protocols - all useful in achieving goals. On the other hand, our focus can be a huge "Look Elvis!" distracting us from issues that our time and resources might be better spent dealing with, from a practical perspective.

Our capacity for unsubstantiated hope is useful, but hazardous. It has allowed us to rise up into a higher form of intelligence and to build what we know as civilisation. It is also allowing us to war with each other on a mind-blowing scale, and to cause increasing environmental harm. Even if our attention is drawn to larger issues, factionalism between belief systems turns our focus from the problems to self-defeating in-fighting over whose version of a belief is right.

I have gone so far as to wonder whether our capacity unsubstantiated hope is best used as a stop-gap measure to sustain us from the point where we hit the intelligence ceiling and where we can see ourselves well enough to identify and correct the insanity. Would we want to remove such an essential part of our human-ness? Would we sacrifice it for the sake of pure rationality? If we did would we still be strictly human?

Reason v Emotion

There seems to be a discompassionate mind-set in existence that holds that people have 100% control over their actions under all circumstances. I do not believe that to be true. We are a seething soup of chemicals, optimised in primitive times for our genetic survival. The ramifications of extreme states in our brain chemistry can be catastrophic.

It is flawed thinking to expect people to be able to control their actions under all circumstances. Perfectly good and amply intelligent adults are frequently overcome by fear, anger, despair or passion and do unconscionable things.

These are not bad people.

They are simply succumbing to instinctive responses far more powerful, far more entrenched than mere reason. Rationality, after all, is but a pup, evolutionarily speaking. Should we be surprised that under extreme duress, people's reason is overwhelmed by their emotions?

The law provides for a plea of temporary insanity under such circumstances.

Emotionally, I feel that I should have more control. Rationally, I know that that is wishful thinking, grasping for the illusion of order.

It behooves humans to believe that we control our destiny, and at the core of that is control of our own selves, for without that, how can we be safe from things outside ourselves?

The hard-line perspective on responsibility for one's actions under all circumstances is brittle. It goes along with ritualistic behaviours - if I do these things that are right, then everything in my life will be right. Therein lies the illusion of control. If someone else suffers misfortune, it is felt that there is a causal link rather than randomness. We humans don't cope well with the idea of random misfortune, as that would mean that we are vulnerable to it. Causal links - the belief that the victim of misfortune somehow brought it on themselves, protects us from recognising our vulnerability.

If such a believer breaks and does something against their moral code, they have serious trouble processing their bad act. They either deny it or try to justify it, for aside from the agony of guilt, if they face that they have lost control, they are forced to recognise their vulnerability to randomness, and that is frightening. Fear and uncertainty are disheartening, and, like futility, not a survival advantage.

The idea that we can, even must, divorce ourselves from our primal instincts and be entirely rational in order to be truly human is at odds with itself. The dominant culture that is responsible for 'civillising' much of the globe is rooted in beliefs that include this belief that absolute control is a mark of a good person, and that those who don't exhibit it are bad or weak.

This belief in intrinsic superiority has been a useful tool for justifying horriffic actions by the powerful and privelaged against people they believe to be inferior by virtue of being inclined to succumb to instinctive responses instead of nobler ones. Everyone wants to believe that they, under the same circumstances as an offender, would have behaved better. How arrogant is that? To judge something that cannot be known?

For the most part, I believe that education and situation are dominant factors in determining who will break and why, not any inherent good/bad, weak/strong factor.

When we move toward a more educated, wealthy and compassionate society, I believe that the old style hard liners are seen as unnecessarily harsh and unyielding.

On a personal level, I know that the experience that is 'me' is subject to change due to a variety of causes. I am not in control of every reaction or response I have. I try to do right. I try not to harm. Really, I do all I can, and it mostly works okay. Sometimes, I am impaired and still manage to get through without causing chaos. Sometimes I am not so lucky.

I believe that a large part of wisdom is to know your own flaws and limitations, and act accordingly. Of course, when we are in the grips of an intense emotional state, we are less able to regognise and apply wisdom, however our objective self might want to do so. It's a bind, we are in. All of us. Any who deny that fact underline that point with their very hubris.

Personally, I know myself to be imperfect. Of course, I could be wrong...