The Last Question - by Isaac Asimov

     The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five-dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:

     Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face -- miles and miles of face -- of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.

     Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough. So Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share in the glory that was Multivac's.

     For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth's poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.

     But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.

     The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.

     Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public functions, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.

     They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.

     "It's amazing when you think of it," said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. "All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever."

     Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. "Not forever," he said.

     "Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert."

     "That's not forever."

     "All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Ten billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?"

     Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. "Ten billion years isn't forever."

     "Well, it will last our time, won't it?"

     "So would the coal and uranium."

     "All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can't do that on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don't believe me.

     "I don't have to ask Multivac. I know that."

     "Then stop running down what Multivac's done for us," said Adell, blazing up, "It did all right."

     "Who says it didn't? What I say is that a sun won't last forever. That's all I'm saying. We're safe for ten billion years, but then what?" Lupow pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. "And don't say we'll switch to another sun."

     There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov's eyes slowly closed. They rested.

     Then Lupov's eyes snapped open. "You're thinking we'll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren't you?"

     "I'm not thinking."

     "Sure you are. You're weak on logic, that's the trouble with you. You're like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn't worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one."

     "I get it," said Adell. "Don't shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too."

     "Darn right they will," muttered Lupov. "It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it'll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won't last a hundred million years. The sun will last ten billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last two hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that's all."

     "I know all about entropy," said Adell, standing on his dignity.

     "The hell you do."

     "I know as much as you do."

     "Then you know everything's got to run down someday."

     "All right. Who says they won't?"

     "You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said 'forever.'

     It was Adell's turn to be contrary. "Maybe we can build things up again someday," he said.

     "Never."

     "Why not? Someday."

     "Never."

     "Ask Multivac."

     "You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can't be done."

     Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?

     Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?

     Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.

     Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

     "No bet," whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.

     By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten the incident.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright shining disk, the size of a marble, centered on the viewing-screen.

     "That's X-23," said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.

     The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of insideoutness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, "We've reached X-23 -- we've reached X-23 -- we've --"

     "Quiet, children." said Jerrodine sharply. "Are you sure, Jerrodd?"

     "What is there to be but sure?" asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.

     Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspatial jumps.

     Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship. Someone had once told Jerrodd that the "ac" at the end of "Microvac" stood for ''automatic computer" in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.

     Jerrodine's eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. "I can't help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth."

     "Why, for Pete's sake?" demanded Jerrodd. "We had nothing there. We'll have everything on X-23. You won't be alone. You won't be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great-grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded." Then, after a reflective pause, "I tell you, it's a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing."

     "I know, I know," said Jerrodine miserably.

     Jerrodette I said promptly, "Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world."

     "I think so, too," said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.

     It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father's youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors, had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.

     Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth's Planetarv AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.

     "So many stars, so many planets," sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. "I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now."

     "Not forever," said Jerrodd, with a smile. "It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.

     "What's entropy, daddy?" shrilled Jerrodette II.

     "Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?"

     "Can't you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?"

     "The stars are the power-units. dear. Once they're gone, there are no more power-units."

     Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. "Don't let them, daddy. Don't let the stars run down."

     "Now look what you've done," whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.

     "How was I to know it would frighten them?" Jerrodd whispered back,

     "Ask the Microvac," wailed Jerrodette I. "Ask him how to turn the stars on again."

     "Go ahead," said Jerrodine. "It will quiet them down." (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)

     Jerrodd shrugged. "Now, now, honeys. I'll ask Microvac. Don't worry, he'll tell us."

     He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, "Print the answer."

     Jerrodd cupped the strip or thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, "See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don't worry."

     Jerrodine said, "And now, children, it's time for bed. We'll be in our new home soon."

     Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

     He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, "Are we ridiculous, I wonder in being so concerned about the matter?"

     MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. "I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion."

     Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.

     "Still," said VJ-23X, "I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council."

     "I wouldn't consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We've got to stir them up."

     VJ-23X sighed. "Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More."

     "A hundred billion is not infinite and it's getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years --

     VJ-23X interrupted. "We can thank immortality for that."

     "Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problem of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions."

     "Yet you wouldn't want to abandon life, I suppose."

     "Not at all," snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, "Not yet. I'm by no means old enough. How old are you?"

     "Two hundred twenty-three. And you?"

     "I'm still under two hundred. --But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this GaIaxy is filled, we'll have filled another in ten years. Another ten years and we'll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we'll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known universe. Then what?"

     VJ-23X said, "As a side issue, there's a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next."

     "A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year."

     "Most of it's wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those."

     "Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in a geometric progression even faster than our population. We'll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point."

     "We'll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas."

     "Or out of dissipated heat?" asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.

     "There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC."

     VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.

     "I've half a mind to," he said. "It's something the human race will have to face someday."

     He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.

     MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of submesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.

     MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, "Can entropy ever be reversed?"

     VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, "Oh, say, I didn't really mean to have you ask that."

     "Why not?"

     "We both know entropy can't be reversed. You can't turn smoke and ash back into a tree."

     "Do you have trees on your world?" asked MQ-17J.

     The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

     VJ-23X said, "See!"

     The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     Zee Prime's mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity. --But a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.

     Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.

     Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.

     "I am Zee Prime," said Zee Prime. "And you?"

     "I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?"

     "We call it only the Galaxy. And you?"

     "We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?"

     "True. Since all Galaxies are the same."

     "Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different."

     Zee Prime said, "On which one?"

     "I cannot say. The Universal AC would know."

     "Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious."

     Zee Prime's perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrank and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the original Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.

     Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and he called out: "Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?"

     The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor led through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.

     Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.

     "But how can that be all of Universal AC?" Zee Prime had asked.

     "Most of it," had been the answer, "is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine."

     Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a Universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.

     The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime's wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime's mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.

     A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. "THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN."

     But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Lee Prime stifled his disappointment.

     Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, "And is one of these stars the original star of Man?"

     The Universal AC said, "MAN'S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS A WHITE DWARF"

     "Did the men upon it die?" asked Lee Prime, startled and without thinking.

     The Universal AC said, "A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TlME."

     "Yes, of course," said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.

     Dee Sub Wun said, "What is wrong?"

     "The stars are dying. The original star is dead."

     "They must all die. Why not?"

     "But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them."

     "It will take billions of years."

     "I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?"

     Dee Sub Wun said in amusement, "You're asking how entropy might be reversed in direction."

     And the Universal AC answered: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

     Zee Prime's thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a Galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime's own. It didn't matter.

     Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.

     Man said, "The Universe is dying."

     Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.

     New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars built, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.

     Man said, "Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years."

     "But even so," said Man, "eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase forever to the maximum."

     Man said, "Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC."

     The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and nature no longer had meaning in any terms that Man could comprehend.

     "Cosmic AC," said Man, "how may entropy be reversed?"

     The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

     Man said, "Collect additional data."

     The Cosmic AC said, 'I WILL DO S0. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TlMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.

     "Will there come a time," said Man, 'when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?"

     The Cosmic AC said, "NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES."

     Man said, "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

     The Cosmic AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

     "Will you keep working on it?" asked Man.

     The Cosmic AC said, "I WILL."

     Man said, "We shall wait."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.

     One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.

     Man's last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.

     Man said, "AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?"

     AC said, "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

     Man's last mind fused and only AC existed -- and that in hyperspace.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     Matter and energy had ended and with it space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer [technician] ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

     All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

     All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

     But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

     A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

     And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

     But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

     For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

     The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

     And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

     And there was light --

Theism and Existentialism

Probably one of the first attributes most people associate with existentialism is atheism. That makes sense when so many influential existentialists (Nietzsche and Sartre) were atheists. But the fact that a lot of people ignore, is that the father of existential thinking, Soren Kierkegaard, was an extremely devout protestant.

Kierkegaard's perspective on Christianity is very appealing to me, he uses compelling logic to expand on his frustrations with the church of his day, and common paradoxes of religions. For instance, he really disliked when people tried to prove "miracles" in the bible using facts and science. Just the attempt of explaining a miracle, to him is an attempt to make something extraordinary into something that could have happened naturally. I personally don't see why it matters whether or not a certain miracle actually occurred. The bible is a book that provides spiritual guidance, not historically accurate depiction of events. It isn't a history book. His main point is that faith is faith, and science is science, and attempting to combine the natural with the supernatural is just one way to weaken one's faith.

The main reason Kierkegaard is regarded as the father of existentialism however, has everything to do with how he practiced Christianity. The way he viewed Christians, and most importantly, how to be a Christian was the main reason he is considered an existentialist. Kierkegaard talked a lot about existence, not in the sense that things exist physically, but how the individual exists in a world that is inherently absurd.

To Kierkegaard, existence has everything to do with responsibility, making decisions and making commitments. To him existence has to involve taking a hold of one's life, making decisions and being passionate about life. He went as far as making a distinction between this existentialist way of living life and the herd mentality of the mobs. These are the people that don't make "decisions", that just go along with the flow of the crowd. He uses an analogy of a man that tries to mount an untamed stallion and tries to ride it despite the stallion's resistance. He compares this scenario with a scenario where a man just falls asleep in a wagon, and is taken places by the horse pulling the wagon. To him. this contrasts the active mode of existing to what most people do, which is to follow the crowd, and just go where life takes you. People that just always take the path of least resistance. To Kierkegaard, finding his truth was much like finding that stallion.

In more general existentialist terms, Kierkegaard's truth is what other philosophers would substitute for meaning. Sartre's atheism often negates religion, as he believes it to be something that consumes the human passion to an absurd cause. But much like kierkegaard, existentialism to me is a lot more general and subjective. I think my passions and my truths are all part of who I am as an individual. And if what I am includes a person with faith in a God, then I don't see how this minimizes my own personal journey to self discovery. Personally, it is actually a bit of a challenge, since as a scientist I often find myself following logic and evidence to reach conclusions, which is most certainly not the ideal mentality most religious people to develop their faith in a higher and sometimes paradoxical power.

Know thyself (pt. 1) - responsibility over emotions

I think I've been asking myself some fundamental questions about being for almost ten years. I'm not terribly sure what got me started, but I think it was part of the whole teen phase. Well, for me it was mostly at the end of that part of my life, when I was 18 years old, or close to it. That is when it all started, but I think that was an important set of questions that have yielded some answers, but created another larger set of questions. A lot of these questions have been sitting inside my head for many years, but they were there out of pure curiosity and the pursuit of further understanding myself.

Last year was a bit of a rough one for me, with a lot of changes happening in my life and a lot of things I had to deal with. I firmly believe that one's true identity isn't fully explored until he/she is forced to do that, which was certainly the case for me then. My personal struggles forced me to think about how I felt about my life, about my religion and about what I was about. That's when I started to learn more about an area of philosophy that has always fascinated me, existentialism. My two favorite existentialist philosophers are Sartre and Kierkegaard.

Just today I was reading about some of Sartre's views on emotions and responsibility. Most people, see emotions as types of reactions to conditions in the environment. They see it somewhat similarly to feelings (these words are even interchangeable sometimes), where something happens and that leads the person to feel a certain way. The way these words work in English it almost leads one to believe that, after all you FEEL an emotion.

Sartre, on the other hand, has a very different view on emotions. He says emotions are always about something. You don't just love, you love someone. You don't just hate, you hate someone, or something. So all emotion is intentional, because they are always about something (unless you are talking about some psychiatric situation, but this is philosophy not psychology). He uses examples to show how emotions are intentional responses to certain conditions. One particular example that comes from Aesop, a story about a fox and grapes, which gives origin to the common notion of "sour grapes". In short, the fox sees a set of delicious grapes, and craves them, but he can't reach them. This causes the fox to turn away and say, "they are probably sour anyway". Sartre calls that type of scenario as a "magical" transformation of the world. Which is a way to indicate that what changes about the grapes has nothing to do with the chemistry of the fruit, but everything to do with the attitude of the fox and how it see the grapes. This idea ties in with the concepts of phenomenology and ontology, which is seen throughout the works of Sartre and Heidegger. This is the idea that the way in which we experience things, and the way the world is, are firmly tied together. Often, what we do is this kind of magical transformation, where instead of actually doing something to change the world, we transform it in our minds. In this story, one can see that the fox refuses to see itself as a failure, instead the fox sees itself as wise fox, not willing to spend energy on a wasted project.

This idea of escaping from a difficulty, is the heart of Sartre's ideas. He says emotions are essentially a mode of escape behaviour. We have our emotions, not because they are "caused in us", but rather because they are a way to deal with the world in which we come to see ourselves as better off than we would otherwise. He says emotions act as choices, ways to transform our world and to make difficulties disappear.

Invisible hand or imaginary hand?

This is probably one of the funniest things I've heard this week. Watching Bill Maher, he asked Bill O' Riley why he thought the rich were worth roughly 27% of the wealth in the US, where in the beginning of the 80's they only owned about 9%. O'Riley's response was that this was an effect from our technological advancements.

But anyway, I have been learning and reading a bit of "Capitalism and Freedom", which is a book by Milton Friedman. Seemed like an interesting book and let me say first that I am a true supporter of capitalism and all it has done for humanity. Having said that, I have to say I believe there is a fundamental difference between capitalism and free market. In some ways I feel Friedman uses the word capitalism when he is really referring to free market. So that was a flag right away that I wouldn't really agree with a lot of his ideas.

Friedman claims that humanity's biggest achievements were a result of individual genius and not as a result of governmental directives. He uses examples such as Newton, Shakespeare, Bohr, Edison and Ford. While those are examples of what he is trying to argue, I would mention the involvements of governments in the development of more recent achievements such as the understanding of nuclear physics, space exploration and the internet as being some of the most important achievements of the 20th century, all only possible due to governmental support. I know most of these examples are recent, but I would argue the progress in politics and the improvement in the way nations are runned are also part of the reason for that. Putting all that aside, I would also like to bring up that the quality of life should be seen as important as well, and that technological progress should not be used as the sole way to measure human achievements.

"Free market, not government, ensures the protection of individual rights and standards of quality and delivers extraordinary prosperity to those who seek it." I don't even know where to start on this statement. I think I may instead just mention, Sweat shops and social alienation that are clear consequence of greedy corporations doing anything possible to increase profits. These two examples illustrate how free market is able to exploit social and economical disparities between countries, lacking ethics and taking away work that could actually benefit the people of their countries of origin by providing more reasonable wages at the cost of increased profits. This fits a concept I always fall back to, that nothing comes from nothing. Increased profits come from the exploitation of less fortunate people to benefit those who don't need it.

Friedman also believes free markets are the basis of personal and political liberty. Friedman goes as far as saying that a healthy private economy naturally provides a check on the power of the state. While I don't necessarily disagree with this statement, I believe a free market with too much power doesn't stop at providing checks on the power of the state but at some point they begin to influence the state into making decisions to benefit those with too much power. I don't think there is much arguing that powerful corporation in many sectors spend a lot of resources on lobbying to make sure the state doesn't anything too drastic that could negatively affect their business. That's part of what makes me believe it is imperative to have a strong economy based on capitalist ideals, but a sustainable economy that benefits the people and is monitored by the state. I believe it is just as important for the state to keep checks on the power of the corporations as it is for the corporations to keep check on the power of the state.

In Capitalism and Freedom, the author also talks about the great depression. He says that the view it as a failure of the markets is false, arguing the depression was largely a failure of government. His argument is that the failure of the government to increase money supply in the wake of bank collapses is what caused the depression. However, and this may be just me, it sounds a lot like Friedman is blaming the government for the great depression for not doing something and saying at the same time that governments shouldn't try to control the economy. I know I have the perspective of someone living in a recession after the great depression, where a lot of funds were injected into the economy from federal funds in order to minimize the impact of the recession and seeing its effects. As much as I think the money allocation for the most part was a half ass response to what was wrong and continues to be wrong, I can't deny the effects it had on the economy. A lesson was definitely learned from the great depression, and that lesson was not to let it work itself out. I think the only aspect of this topic I agree with Friedman is that the money spent as stimulus packages are mostly inefficiently allocated.

Lastly, Friedman talks a lot about governments controlling people to act against their immediate interest to promote a "supposedly general interest". As much as he does have good examples of bad regulations that originated from governments in the past, I would always argue that his examples are clearly the error of the people in charge at the time but not of the government as a whole. The same way markets are highly modulated by individuals in good and bad ways, the government is also subjected to "bad calls" from the people in power. People are bound to make mistakes, but the error of the few should not invalidate the value of the whole. In the same manner influential individuals have the ability to destroy their company, individuals can also destroy their own political parties and open the way for a change in power. As I said there were some good examples of what he calls unjustifiable government regulations, there are many I'd like to say I strongly disagree such as relation of banks, pensions, minimum wages and public housing. Friedman claims minimum wage implementation simply increased unemployment; he says public housing concentrated poverty in pockets and social security created dependence for people who might have otherwise contributed to the economy. I feel most of his examples are circumstantial and simply point out flaws in the implementation of good policies rather than weaken the value of the policies themselves.

Its interesting to read Friedman's ideas and note that his right winged views are still used in politics today. I think he does bring a lot of interesting ideas to the table and he points out a lot of flaws in social programs and government regulations. It is important however, to look at his views with the knowledge that he lived in a different time without a lot of the advancements we've had in the understanding of economics in the last 30-40 years. It is similar to reading the works of ancient Greeks in the natural sciences and admiring their ingenuity for their time.

So what is existentialism?

Unlike a lot of the titles of my older posts, I didn't just arbitrarily pick a title for this blog. In recent years I've been trying to explore a few complex questions and I really liked a lot of the ideas from thinkers often labeled under existentialists. Existentialism is a word you probably hear every now and then but might not know exactly what it means, so I'm going to probably post a few times about what existentialism means to me, and why I find it a very comforting way of looking at life.

Perhaps a good way to start is to explain what existentialism involves and what it doesn't include. Existentialism is a philosophical school of though that includes certain views on human free will, and often philosophers talk about people becoming better when struggling against their individual nature and fighting for life. Existentialists believe that decisions are often difficult and have consequences, so personal responsibility and discipline is important. It is viewed that society and other social constructs are arbitrary and a lot of things are not rational.

Above are some of concepts that existentialism involves. It does not however involve the value of wealth, pleasure or honor in life. Social values and structures can serve to control the individual. Existentialism does not preach the idea that people should accept things for what they are and that this is enough in life, it doesn't include the idea that people are basically good but tainted by external forces. It doesn't believe that science will make things better. You should also never say "but I wanted X and Y" or "it's not my fault".

Maybe I'm just being confusing, so here is one definition of what existentialism is:

"Existentialism is a 20th century philosophy that focuses in the analysis of human existence from many angles. It focuses on humans as individuals, each one spending a lifetime changing their essence. Existentialists are concerned with finding themselves and finding meanings in life through choices and personal responsibility. Personal choices are unique without the need for an objective form of truth."

I love most of the ideas involved in Existentialism, but I just wish to note that I don't agree with everything in it. I suppose a true existentialist wouldn't :). In particular, religion is often dismissed by existentialists, and a lot of these philosophers happen to be atheists. However, religion and existentialism to me are very much complementary to each other, so much so that the father of existentialism was the christian philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard. I also don't necessarily disregard of the general need for methods to control people, as these shouldn't be seen as constraints for personal development, but they are just part of the environment presented to the individual.