A well known saying runs thus: Knowledge is power. Whoever has the most knowledge has the ability to exert power over those with less knowledge. In war, the military with greater intelligence can deploy its forces most effectively. A marketing firm can predict what customers will want and tailor their message to manipulate them. A government can keep state secrets where it is in their interests to do so.
This all seems rather straight-forward and obvious. Accumulating knowledge allows an individual or institution to stand on a vantage point and control others. However there is one flaw in the maxim that knowledge is power. And that is the deeply philosophical question of 'what is knowledge?'
Knowledge is not just a fact about the universe. For instance, there are not a hundred trees in that small wood. With language we create the concept of a small wood and categorize the trees as belonging to it. But those trees are just there - they do not add up to a hundred unless you count them first so. You will only make them do so if there is a reason for you to do so. Once you have that reason, the hundred trees in the small wood become knowledge.
Knowledge consists of justified facts about something useful to human interests. On a large scale, what is useful to interests is ultimately determined by power; the most powerful of all being the ones who influence the narrative we all live in. For that is all human reality is, a narrative we grow accustomed to. It is a fiction, and if you dig deeply enough you will discover that nobody really knows anything - other than their story.
An obvious example of this is the creation of false Gods throughout history. A power group in days of yore developed this idea of God and made him the ultimate source of all knowledge. Thereafter, all ideas of what were or not were not true knowledge were compared to this God.
What is knowledge, what information is ultimately useful to us, is determined by the power paradigm of the age. It is not the case that human beings looked out into the world, gained knowledge, and then managed to impose their power on others. Power defined what useful knowledge was, and then they wrestled for control of it. This is not just to say, whatever the King says is true is true. Knowledge still has to be justified with evidence. Only, what knowledge we actually seek, and to what end we use our knowledge, is determined by the power structure we live within. This does not mean it is in the control of a secret cabal of human rulers, only that the chaotic juggernauts of power in the human world; what we call States, determines the ends of our accumulated knowledge.
It is only because of the endless power struggle gripping every human era that we are left with the sorry maxim: power is knowledge. In the post-power age to come, knowledge will become power, and knowledge will reign supreme.
Selim Talat
Do physiological abnormalities plus a state of suffering equal illness?
Ten poor men are trapped in individual metal cages. The cages barely allow these men to walk two paces. They defecate in a pot right next to them. They eat right next to the pot in which they defecate. They sleep curled in a ball. These ten cages are inside a vicinity, that could also be described as a cage. There is no natural light, but the prison is illumined pale white 24 hours a day by electricity. They are monitored and kept alive by a group of detached scientists, who appear simultaneously in homogeneous, ankle-length white coats and deflecting round glasses. Serco security guards pass food through the bars of the cage with elongated sticks and the scientists proceed to scrawl furiously on their clipboards.
Most of the prisoners have adjusted well to their new environment. They sleep eight hours a day. They perform their work task, knitting jumpers, for twelve hours a day. They receive an allowance so that they may stay in this vicinity which provides shelter, is relatively warm, and gives them two meals a day. They are allowed to leave the cage and 'commute' (walk) inside the vicinity for one hour a day. They have three hours of free time where they may choose to speak to their neighbours, watch the screen of silent images of faces across the vicinity, or read a selection of books provided. The well adjusted prisoners follow these rules.
Prisoner 1 however has been documented by the scientists to have an irregular sleep pattern, runs instead of walks, shouts frequently instead of talking, and refuses to knit. Often, he is tasered, and his knitting needles removed from him, as he attempts to conceal them and use them as a weapon against the security staff during his commute.
Prisoner 6 on the other hand sleeps profusely, often drifting off during his task, does not engage with the other prisoners, and often stares at the screen, even when it is off. On the commute he will regularly standstill, and only walk a few paces before leaning against a wall. Generally, he is despondent. Prisoner 9 is quite the antagonist. He is very talkative, night and day, and is constantly trying to persuade the other prisoners to rebel against, what he calls, 'psychtators'. This is a neologism Prisoner 9 created to describe the scientists as psychiatric dictators. Prisoner 9 has developed an elaborate theory of how the scientists are poisoning their food to make them docile so that they are forced to do slave labour. However, most of the other prisoners ignore Prisoner 9 from fear of removal of their eating privileges.
The scientists come to a consensus that Prisoner 1, 6 and 9, are ill. Prisoner 1 has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Prisoner 6 is depressed, and Prisoner 9 suffers with acute paranoia. Upon day 1236, all ten prisoners in turn are taken to a back room, where they are given a muscle relaxant, rendering them with severe muscle weakness, and place them lying on a table to undergo a FMRI scan of their brains.
Deficits in neural activity within fronto-striatal and fronto-parietal circuits are found in Prisoner 1, compared to the other prisoners, excluding Prisoner 6 and Prisoner 9. Prisoner 6 was found to have, overall reduced activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC), diminished discrimination between emotional and neutral items in the amygdala, caudate, and hippocampus, and enhanced responses to negative versus positive stimuli in the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and right dorsolateral PFC. Finally, Prisoner 9 showed prefrontal deficit for “without-arousal” responses, compared to the other controls. The psychtators have now gathered evidence of the differential physiological underpinnings in order to qualify their claims that these prisoners are ill, and need to be medicated with neuro/mind altering drugs with 100 different possible side effects.
Now, what I hope the reader is now thinking is, that despite the differential neurological underpinnings, surely these people are not ill! That these people are merely responding to a harsh environment. It is quite plausible that Prisoner 9 is bang on the money, and they are poisoning them for cheap labour, and if I were in a cage all day I might feel a bit depressed like Prisoner 6, or go wild like Prisoner 1. Do the other prisoners following orders even have minds to differentiate from? Are they not mere knitting sheep?
The so-called 'ill' prisoners do not need mind altering drugs. Rather, what they need is a prisoner revolution. To break from those metaphysical and iron bars, smash the psyhtatorship and free themselves from a life of slavery.
But the other prisoners, I'm afraid, don't see it that way and fall for this codswallop about weird brains. They continue their life of servitude for scraps of food. In time, the other prisoners are chemically manipulated to produce the desired behavioural outcomes to achieve maximum efficiency and maximum profit. This profit is made by selling 'designer' jumpers to the other prisoners. But these other prisoners don't have iron bars. Their metaphysical bars are so well established, that they can leave their iron cages, and roam the streets. They are the self-disciplined prisoners, who whip themselves, and consume jumpers and other prisoner produce, turning the turnstyles of the psychtatorship and enriching the psychtators!
Are you ill? Maybe you are indeed!
Ellese Elliott
Most of the prisoners have adjusted well to their new environment. They sleep eight hours a day. They perform their work task, knitting jumpers, for twelve hours a day. They receive an allowance so that they may stay in this vicinity which provides shelter, is relatively warm, and gives them two meals a day. They are allowed to leave the cage and 'commute' (walk) inside the vicinity for one hour a day. They have three hours of free time where they may choose to speak to their neighbours, watch the screen of silent images of faces across the vicinity, or read a selection of books provided. The well adjusted prisoners follow these rules.
Prisoner 1 however has been documented by the scientists to have an irregular sleep pattern, runs instead of walks, shouts frequently instead of talking, and refuses to knit. Often, he is tasered, and his knitting needles removed from him, as he attempts to conceal them and use them as a weapon against the security staff during his commute.
Prisoner 6 on the other hand sleeps profusely, often drifting off during his task, does not engage with the other prisoners, and often stares at the screen, even when it is off. On the commute he will regularly standstill, and only walk a few paces before leaning against a wall. Generally, he is despondent. Prisoner 9 is quite the antagonist. He is very talkative, night and day, and is constantly trying to persuade the other prisoners to rebel against, what he calls, 'psychtators'. This is a neologism Prisoner 9 created to describe the scientists as psychiatric dictators. Prisoner 9 has developed an elaborate theory of how the scientists are poisoning their food to make them docile so that they are forced to do slave labour. However, most of the other prisoners ignore Prisoner 9 from fear of removal of their eating privileges.
The scientists come to a consensus that Prisoner 1, 6 and 9, are ill. Prisoner 1 has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Prisoner 6 is depressed, and Prisoner 9 suffers with acute paranoia. Upon day 1236, all ten prisoners in turn are taken to a back room, where they are given a muscle relaxant, rendering them with severe muscle weakness, and place them lying on a table to undergo a FMRI scan of their brains.
Deficits in neural activity within fronto-striatal and fronto-parietal circuits are found in Prisoner 1, compared to the other prisoners, excluding Prisoner 6 and Prisoner 9. Prisoner 6 was found to have, overall reduced activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC), diminished discrimination between emotional and neutral items in the amygdala, caudate, and hippocampus, and enhanced responses to negative versus positive stimuli in the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and right dorsolateral PFC. Finally, Prisoner 9 showed prefrontal deficit for “without-arousal” responses, compared to the other controls. The psychtators have now gathered evidence of the differential physiological underpinnings in order to qualify their claims that these prisoners are ill, and need to be medicated with neuro/mind altering drugs with 100 different possible side effects.
Now, what I hope the reader is now thinking is, that despite the differential neurological underpinnings, surely these people are not ill! That these people are merely responding to a harsh environment. It is quite plausible that Prisoner 9 is bang on the money, and they are poisoning them for cheap labour, and if I were in a cage all day I might feel a bit depressed like Prisoner 6, or go wild like Prisoner 1. Do the other prisoners following orders even have minds to differentiate from? Are they not mere knitting sheep?
The so-called 'ill' prisoners do not need mind altering drugs. Rather, what they need is a prisoner revolution. To break from those metaphysical and iron bars, smash the psyhtatorship and free themselves from a life of slavery.
But the other prisoners, I'm afraid, don't see it that way and fall for this codswallop about weird brains. They continue their life of servitude for scraps of food. In time, the other prisoners are chemically manipulated to produce the desired behavioural outcomes to achieve maximum efficiency and maximum profit. This profit is made by selling 'designer' jumpers to the other prisoners. But these other prisoners don't have iron bars. Their metaphysical bars are so well established, that they can leave their iron cages, and roam the streets. They are the self-disciplined prisoners, who whip themselves, and consume jumpers and other prisoner produce, turning the turnstyles of the psychtatorship and enriching the psychtators!
Are you ill? Maybe you are indeed!
Ellese Elliott
The Stuff of Legends...and single-peg reasoning
The time has come in this season of merriment to look at the meaning of the various messages of religion, and once again we shall look at the 'Stuff of Legends'. And last year I asked... where was the Garden of Eden? "Probably nowhere, since it was home not only to the sources of the Tigris, Euphrates and Araxes – the latter on the eastern borders of Turkey and Iran – but also was home to the source of the Blue Nile, or at least a river in Ethiopia. But maybe such things were possible in the time before the Flood!"
My answer was Lake Oremiyeh. And the second river, Gihon, would not be the Blue Nile, but the variously named Uizhun or Serid Rud, just south of Lake Oremiyeh. As far as I was concerned, this is quite a neat solution for a biblical puzzle: Lake Oremiyeh is in fact a self-contained Lake, and has no outlets to the sea. Consequently, like the Dead Sea, it is a salt lake. It is nevertheless fertile, but clearly such a self-contained system cannot be over-exploited. This led to a very plausible about the Fall being the result of over-exploitation of the apple: THE BIG APPLE?
but almost immediately I became sceptical: why? Well, in the midst of such details about the four rivers, why no mention of the lake itself?
Now in this article I shall not attempt to solve this problem, but I shall turn to another legend, that of Noah's Ark. When linguists start studying new languages, they come across an abundances of fables and folk-lore. And often one can verify that certain events actually happened... not just the Flood legend in Asia, but in times past Tasmania was linked to mainland Australia. But sometimes there is a mystery, and often there are stories that are clearly 'wrong', perhaps supernatural and/or perhaps inconsistent. How can a garden span both the Tigris and the Blue Nile? Here we have either inconsistency or the supernatural or both.
This is where single-peg reasoning comes in. You are trying to erect a tent on difficult terrain. All you can do is start with the least problematic place to hammer in, and then wriggle the other ones around.
I am going to start with a very sensible and pragmatic 'peg': the waters did not rise above the level of the mountain-tops, but instead water came down the mountains after a mini-ice-age, or ground-water burst out from mountains with earth-quakes in NE Turkey and Armenia. This has to be relevant when for example we ask about the Ark's shape or 'itinerary'. There are two theories for each: onr the rectangular gopher ark favoured in the Bible, the other a basket-ware circular vehicle - from Mesopotamian fables.
So where did it land? If water rushed down the mountains, then my preferred theory would be favoured: the Ark was placed near Erzurum on the watershed between the Euphrates and the Araxes, which runs into the Caspian Sea, partly bordering Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The ark, I believe of reasonably robust basketware, would have sailed down the Araxes and landed at Nahchevan, actually meaning Noah's landing-place, where floods would have receded. I think weather conditions were appropriate for around 3900BC, the end of the Ubaid Culture. And I think there were immigrations similar to those described post-Noah.
But the alternative has Noah landing the Ark on Mount Cudi (pron. Judy) near where the Tigris flows out of SE Turkey. This would accord with the 'rising-up' account. And there appears to be a more-or-less rectangular edifice up this mountain, dated ca. 2900BC, perhaps closer to another min-ice-age event.
My belief is that both arks were used, ca. 1000 years apart, separated by the Uruk Culture when the Sumerians appeared. The basket-ware boats were I believe built for river-trade, and subsequent to the 3900 flood the commercial value of the larger boats would have been realised and led to their use up many major rivers from the Danube to the Oxus (Amu Darya).
A thousand years later the gopher-type rectangular boats would have evolved, and so too would the 'rising-up' legend. So when climate took a turn for the worse, they put craft up the mountains, and the waters did not rise but fell, immersing boats before they could float away. This I believe is the fate of the Mount Cudi craft.
Thus my example of single-peg reasoning: it might home in very quickly on a solution, or it may lead to an interesting range of alternative hypotheses. In other words wriggling the other pegs round.
My answer was Lake Oremiyeh. And the second river, Gihon, would not be the Blue Nile, but the variously named Uizhun or Serid Rud, just south of Lake Oremiyeh. As far as I was concerned, this is quite a neat solution for a biblical puzzle: Lake Oremiyeh is in fact a self-contained Lake, and has no outlets to the sea. Consequently, like the Dead Sea, it is a salt lake. It is nevertheless fertile, but clearly such a self-contained system cannot be over-exploited. This led to a very plausible about the Fall being the result of over-exploitation of the apple: THE BIG APPLE?
but almost immediately I became sceptical: why? Well, in the midst of such details about the four rivers, why no mention of the lake itself?
Now in this article I shall not attempt to solve this problem, but I shall turn to another legend, that of Noah's Ark. When linguists start studying new languages, they come across an abundances of fables and folk-lore. And often one can verify that certain events actually happened... not just the Flood legend in Asia, but in times past Tasmania was linked to mainland Australia. But sometimes there is a mystery, and often there are stories that are clearly 'wrong', perhaps supernatural and/or perhaps inconsistent. How can a garden span both the Tigris and the Blue Nile? Here we have either inconsistency or the supernatural or both.
This is where single-peg reasoning comes in. You are trying to erect a tent on difficult terrain. All you can do is start with the least problematic place to hammer in, and then wriggle the other ones around.
I am going to start with a very sensible and pragmatic 'peg': the waters did not rise above the level of the mountain-tops, but instead water came down the mountains after a mini-ice-age, or ground-water burst out from mountains with earth-quakes in NE Turkey and Armenia. This has to be relevant when for example we ask about the Ark's shape or 'itinerary'. There are two theories for each: onr the rectangular gopher ark favoured in the Bible, the other a basket-ware circular vehicle - from Mesopotamian fables.
So where did it land? If water rushed down the mountains, then my preferred theory would be favoured: the Ark was placed near Erzurum on the watershed between the Euphrates and the Araxes, which runs into the Caspian Sea, partly bordering Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The ark, I believe of reasonably robust basketware, would have sailed down the Araxes and landed at Nahchevan, actually meaning Noah's landing-place, where floods would have receded. I think weather conditions were appropriate for around 3900BC, the end of the Ubaid Culture. And I think there were immigrations similar to those described post-Noah.
But the alternative has Noah landing the Ark on Mount Cudi (pron. Judy) near where the Tigris flows out of SE Turkey. This would accord with the 'rising-up' account. And there appears to be a more-or-less rectangular edifice up this mountain, dated ca. 2900BC, perhaps closer to another min-ice-age event.
My belief is that both arks were used, ca. 1000 years apart, separated by the Uruk Culture when the Sumerians appeared. The basket-ware boats were I believe built for river-trade, and subsequent to the 3900 flood the commercial value of the larger boats would have been realised and led to their use up many major rivers from the Danube to the Oxus (Amu Darya).
A thousand years later the gopher-type rectangular boats would have evolved, and so too would the 'rising-up' legend. So when climate took a turn for the worse, they put craft up the mountains, and the waters did not rise but fell, immersing boats before they could float away. This I believe is the fate of the Mount Cudi craft.
Thus my example of single-peg reasoning: it might home in very quickly on a solution, or it may lead to an interesting range of alternative hypotheses. In other words wriggling the other pegs round.
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