Wes Hansen,

There are some questions people have asked for millennia, and tried to answer them. Just because we are more aware of our problems than of those with which people were confronted in the past, and because we are more advanced technologically, we tend sometimes to consider that their answers are not good enough for us, and that we are much smarter and we would not do the same mistakes they did. But people answered important questions over and over again from ancient times, and also made the same mistakes all over again. Technological progress just gives us more efficiency both in solving problems, and in making mistakes. I appreciate you took time to present some pieces of ancient wisdom, which always remain of actuality. The key to freedom is to search inside, but also to search outside, and try to understand those from other cultures and other times. We will see that, while the problems appear to be different because the historical and cultural contexts are different, at the root they are very similar. When we see this, we learn several things: to love those that are different, because they are not that different, to be more focused on important things, and not on fashionable problems whose importance is limited in time and space, to appreciate people from different places and epochs and learn from their wisdom, which they gathered with sacrifices and tried to pass to us, to make our lives easier. Thank you for the enlightening comments.

Best regards,

Cristi

Dear Cristi,

Beautiful work, I really enjoyed reading it. I will write more comments on your essay later. Best, Leo KoGuan

    Dear Leo,

    Thank you for the feedback. I look forward for your comments.

    Best regards,

    Cristi

    Dear Cristi,

    With great interest I read your essay. Deep set of ideas that make us think about the future path of Humanity. Beautiful conclusion with which I fully agree:

    «We have to learn to be free, and to allow others to be free, because this is the only way our children will be happy and free. Then, they will be able to focus on any problems the future may reserve them.»

    In support, I send you greetings musical...

    Thank FQXi that brings together people for "brainstorming" on very important topics of modern Humanity!

    I wish you good luck!

    All the Best,

    Vladimir

      Dear Vladimir,

      Thank you for the nice comments and for the refreshing music clip. I did not have the chance to read your essay yet, but I look forward, since it seems very interesting to me. I wish you good luck too!

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Hi, Cristi!

      Good to see you around, this year. I'll be sure to read your essay and come back here.

      Regards,

      Chidi

        Hi Chidi,

        Good to see you too. Look forward to discuss more about our essays.

        Best regards,

        Cristi

        Dear Author Cristinel Stoica

        An analysis and arguments very interesting for demand of freedom.

        10 points for freedom .

        Hải.CaoHoàng

          Dear Hải.CaoHoàng,

          Thank you for reading and commenting my essay.

          Best regards,

          Cristi

          Hi Cristinel,

          Very nice essay. I wish I had taken note of it earlier given how relevant it is to the themes of my own.

          http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2063

          I would ,however,take issue with two of your statements:

          "Often, ideologies trying to build an utopian world for mankind, failed really badly. When people didn't care about the ideals promoted by an ideology, they were considered enemies of the good intentions of that ideology, and were repressed. Ideologies fail because are based on idealization of man, a simplified model that is supposed to work, like a bed of Procrustes."

          "The origin of any ideology that pursues an utopian dream relies on some assumptions about what people need most. Since people are different, they may feel that they need different things. Ideologists of various utopias often see those not sharing their dreams as being evil.They are afraid that opposition and criticism are obstacles in their way to Utopia. This fear makes them try to be more and more in control, at any costs, so they end up building a

          dystopian, repressive world."

          In my own essay I try to break what I believe to be this artificial connection between ideology and Utopia. As just one example, I wouldn't accuse Nazism of an "idealization" of mankind, or rather, it wasn't the exhalation of mankind that was Nazisms' problem but that it demonized and treated like animals the bulk of humanity.

          Utopia is different than ideology in that it is often just an attempt to realize human ideals such as peace, equality or justice. Robert Owen was trying to reform the world not to reduce everyone to a cog in an ideological narrative of the end of history. A Utopian group like the Shakers were some of the world's first and most vocal abolitionists. Same goes on the issue of gender equality.

          Plato's much aligned Republic was actually a great improvement morally speaking on the violent world of the Greek polis.

          Utopia is just about ideals shared among human beings which is not a threat to diversity. We all want peace, justice, equality. If they can be accused of over-determining human social roles this is in part a consequence of designing society from scratch.

          In other words, we need to stop associating the desire for an ideal society with violence and dystopia otherwise we will have no star to guide and pull us as we lurch towards justice.

          Best of luck,

          Rick Searle

          Hi Cristinel,

          Very nice essay. I wish I had taken note of it earlier given how relevant it is to the themes of my own.

          http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2063

          I would ,however,take issue with two of your statements:

          "Often, ideologies trying to build an utopian world for mankind, failed really badly. When people didn't care about the ideals promoted by an ideology, they were considered enemies of the good intentions of that ideology, and were repressed. Ideologies fail because are based on idealization of man, a simplified model that is supposed to work, like a bed of Procrustes."

          "The origin of any ideology that pursues an utopian dream relies on some assumptions about what people need most. Since people are different, they may feel that they need different things. Ideologists of various utopias often see those not sharing their dreams as being evil.They are afraid that opposition and criticism are obstacles in their way to Utopia. This fear makes them try to be more and more in control, at any costs, so they end up building a

          dystopian, repressive world."

          In my own essay I try to break what I believe to be this artificial connection between ideology and Utopia. As just one example, I wouldn't accuse Nazism of an "idealization" of mankind, or rather, it wasn't the exhalation of mankind that was Nazisms' problem but that it demonized and treated like animals the bulk of humanity.

          Utopia is different than ideology in that it is often just an attempt to realize human ideals such as peace, equality or justice. Robert Owen was trying to reform the world not to reduce everyone to a cog in an ideological narrative of the end of history. A Utopian group like the Shakers were some of the world's first and most vocal abolitionists. Same goes on the issue of gender equality.

          Plato's much aligned Republic was actually a great improvement morally speaking on the violent world of the Greek polis.

          Utopia is just about ideals shared among human beings which is not a threat to diversity. We all want peace, justice, equality. If they can be accused of over-determining human social roles this is in part a consequence of designing society from scratch.

          In other words, we need to stop associating the desire for an ideal society with violence and dystopia otherwise we will have no star to guide and pull us as we lurch towards justice.

          Best of luck,

          Rick Searle

            Dear Rick,

            Thank you for the interest in my essay, and for defending so well the contrary of a viewpoint I raised. I think it is great that, if I forget to be balanced, the readers can help me with this.

            In the text you quoted, by "idealization of man" I meant "a simplified model that is supposed to work, like a bed of Procrustes". I hope this clarifies your issue.

            I haven't read yet your essay, but I see now from it and from your blog that you are interested so much precisely in utopia and dystopia, so definitely you are more at home with these topics than I am.

            I agree that utopian ideas have an important positive side. People need to trust their future, they need to try to improve the present, and this may require a belief or hope in a better state.

            This being said, my point is that it is in the human nature to try to explain the failure to reach an objective, especially a social one, by the fact that others don't care about it or even oppose it. I can see this in the discussions in politics, religion, human rights, global warming, etc. Would it be too strong the claim that at the root of any large scale act of repression or violence, there is the idea of the aggressors that the things ought to be in a certain ideal way, and the victims are to be blamed if the things are not like this or if they seem to endanger their ideal?

            Best regards,

            Cristi

            Cristi,

            "Would it be too strong the claim that at the root of any large scale act of repression or violence, there is the idea of the aggressors that the things ought to be in a certain ideal way, and the victims are to be blamed if the things are not like this or if they seem to endanger their ideal?"

            Very interesting question. I am not sure how to shake out how violence is used as the worst form of "tool" to create the future rather than being used as a means to reach some "ideal". The slave system of the 18th-19th century was extremely cruel and violent, but it had nothing to do with "ideals" just shaping the world to fit exploiter's interest by force. Again it was the dehumanization of the other that justified such violence. Ideal can't just mean some yet to be realized future state. Can it?

              Rick,

              You are right that "it was the dehumanization of the other that justified such violence".

              Dear Cristi,

              Let me say congratulations on your last outing. As for differentiating between the "I" and the robot I agree with you that:

              "Until we will have an explanation of what we are, let's just accept our existence as an axiom, and see where this takes us."

              So here is the core axiom/thesis I present:

              an "I" is an elementary quantum of action or (more generally) a natural unit, and vice versa. In classical or intuitive terms this would be what we mean by an "observer" or "reference frame" (in GR it's perhaps a "space-time", in the Standard Model of particle physics it is probably the "virtual exchange" between observables/particles).

              This goes to say that we are each our own "universal constant" (think, "invariance"; "conservation law"; "phase space").

              So at last, quantum gravity is a fractal landscape, some will say it is "foamy".

              I invite your esteemed critique.

              It is well said: "No ideology, no religion, no science or technology can help you be free, if you let others think for yourself. The antidote is critical thinking." - Stoica.

              Best Regard,

              Chidi Idika

                Dear Chidi Idika,

                Thank you for the interesting comments. You say "an 'I' is an elementary quantum of action or (more generally) a natural unit, and vice versa." Indeed, the question is whether the "I" is reducible to something else, or if it is irreducible, perhaps similar to the quantum of action.

                Best regards,

                Cristi