The Attraction of Conservative Thoughts

In the past two decades in the Arab world, there was no much room for the progressivists to share their position on the public discourse. Layers of conservative thought took hold of the general atmosphere. From that position, even those who present today with "open-minded" thought were raised in a conservative family, or within a conservative society, that was guided by values that received consensus from society. These values have long been held dear by people and societal reward was bestowed upon those that would follow them.

For many youth today, yesterday's values are looked at as shackles that were nothing more than limitations on freedom in an unjustifiable way. Some mavericks found themselves fully rebelling against most values while others chose to make some adjustments on how to lead their lives in accordance with the basic values, yet allowing for some personal values to form themselves.

Nowadays, a new trend of "informed" conservatives are gaining ground mostly on the virtual atmosphere. Youth who are updated to scientific thought, who are aware of how the western world is living, and also are entertained by western culture, yet they do find their traditional values to be of better functionality than the foreign values of excessive freedom. Many being bilinguals (or even polyglots), they experience first-hand notions presented by the intellectual popular conservatives from the west. People like Dennis Prague, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro all start to feel so brilliant in what they put forward. These speakers usually frame their arguments from a moral perspective, which taps into the basis of Arabic mindset that for a very long time has felt that "yet we are not scientifically advanced, but we are better morally". This capacity of a clear moralistic communication renders itself attractive not only to Arabs, but also biconceptuals in the US (as George Lakoff explains).

This gives agency to the listener, making him feel effective and useful; it allows one to have a personal authority of weighing things as morally right or wrong and thus acting upon those "highly regarded" values.

Science and Skepticism

I find myself repeating the idea that a skeptical society is one that could advance science while a society that thrives on submission can hardly do it. Some exceptions may arise every now and then, but a society that deems questioning to be a sin can hardly lead to scientific discoveries, and if it does, it can never do it systematically. Science is advanced by questioning ideas then questioning results. It is built upon skepticism and no room for taking things for granted.

As I found myself rereading the chapter “Two-Way-Street” of the book “The Balance Within” by Esther Sternberg who is the Director of the Integrative Neural Immune program, it was reinforced within me how skepticism is what makes science flourish and advance. For academics to put forward their ideas, they need to face too much questioning and be ready to answer them using empirical science. Studies are often met with skepticism and that is not because the researcher is hated but because that is the right way to filter for good science. One has to clearly show how he reached to some form of conclusion without throwing out things in some blurry way.

As I was reading, I remembered that I once watched a conference in which Sternberg was part of the panel. The well-respected neuroscientist Jeffrey Shwartz (whom I highly respect though some people in the scientific community think that he is trying to push some pseudoscience by the name of neuroscience) was complaining that the scientific community is stagnant in accepting new ideas. He was saying that the scientific community is still fixed on a Newtonian way of thinking (and he had his reasons) but Sternberg replied back that it is for the benefit of science not to accept radical shifts without strong evidence. And as it is well known in science that the bigger the claim, the stronger and deeper the evidence should be. From Sternberg’s experience, it shows how highly she respects the scientific skepticism which is indeed very useful as it has been the very reason that science is usually found upon well-established studies.

(Paragraph with jargons) The chapter was talking about the researches that aimed to understand what caused the rise in ACTH and corticosterone in the blood following the introduction of some infectious matter, stressful material, or situation, and the role of IL-1 in all this. Which cells release IL-1 and which cells are affected by it? And also, is the increase of ACTH and corticosterone a result of the increased IL-1 release or there is something in between, maybe CRH? Do the pituitary cells need CRH to stimulate them or they can be stimulated directly by IL-1?

After all the researches and some conflicting results and so on, many things get to be disclosed in between, and all flourishes in a “skeptic” environment. Other researchers read certain studies and actively find flaws and try to point towards those flaws, then they manipulate (repeat and change certain factors) the research and show why the former studies were flawed, and they do that by coming with different results or similar results but by different causal pathways.

Then after all these results that were shown by experiments that took place either in vitro or in tissue cultures, the clinical researchers and physicians question everything by saying, can all this happen in humans or can all this happen in a natural environment? Is the causal pathway this much neat?  

Then comes the “catch-22” of modern science and that is in order to prove something through experiments, you have to manipulate the physiological system, as you just can’t observe it, and when you interrupt it or replace it, you have made it an artificial system as it is no longer natural, and by that it is very hard to fully project conclusions reached from an artificial system to a natural one.

With all this, the very powerful fabric that makes the scientific environment maintain its curiosity and advance its researches is the skepticism bound to it.

What after the war?

A life of constant insecurity is led by people living under the claws of war. Everything appears imminent but nothing is indeed. A life to be lived at the precipice. A baseless internal hope that things might be fixed the coming morning. A substantiated fear that things might get worse the coming day. Abrupt internal shifts of hope and despair causes internal agitation. Weariness becomes the constant. An ongoing plight, a seemingly endless distortion, a progressively deteriorating life, render one’s senses unable to sense. The inability manifests due to the difficulty of comprehending the situation. Our brains aim to find patterns that seem sensible, then lead our bodies according to those patterns, but when the brain fails to do so for some time, it might lose its pattern recognition capacity as everything around seems “chaotic”.

The beautiful morning cup of tea becomes a tasteless colored liquid that is sipped in a ritualistic way. The stroll to the market is a forced activity replete of internal humiliation, as the hopes of being capable of sustaining minimal rations to stay alive, dwindle day by day. Terrified faces all around. Hopelessness mirrored at every corner. The muscles that allow one to smile seem to have atrophied as they are present but unused. Children no longer ask where will they enjoy their weekend, but if they will live till the weekend. A teenager no longer thinks of revenging on his classmate who tackled him on the football game yesterday, but what will his father do to pay the rent of the house, as it seems they will be removed before he can have another physical education class. A junior student no longer wonders on the smile of the gentle guy who shared his pen, but she finds herself wondering when the miserable grimaces of her younger siblings shall fade. The sunset is no longer a divine beauty, but rather a path to a darkening sky sending a heartbreaking sign of another closed door, which might have led to the chest of hope.

The sweet outlines of normal daily routines are invaded. The background that gives life to actions is suspended. The very slight nuances that happen are no longer experienced. Internal apathy accumulates and suffocates. As an arrogant neuroscientist would say, “it seems that the receptors on the neurons that make one experience some form of pleasure have been ‘down-regulated’, and it seems that the neurons are insensitive, rendering the person ‘apathetic’”.

The impact is extensive. Just like a depressed person wonders how people might be experiencing pleasure, a person living between the canines of war may wonder what life without war is. The inability to see anything beyond it can takeover. The constant fear, and the intensifying despair “rewires” the brain. The intensity of the situation hijacked the mental apparatus fully, even though it has experienced some form of life before being hijacked. The capacity of looking back at pleasant memories could be lost. Darkness triumphs. A depressed person can ask himself if he was ever happy, so can a person who lives in an ongoing war ask himself if he ever slept peacefully.

One Notion on "Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 2)

Directly jumping into the notion that kept on firing in my brain, as I was getting closer to the end of the episode, which is will we reach a state in which there would be an intelligent software that would be able to “learn and adapt on the fly”, by monitoring our brain activity and work out how best “to frighten us” (or in other scenarios if applicable, how best to treat us or guide us).

This is the very pinnacle of AI overpowering humans; the ability of understanding what is going on in the human brain by monitoring the brain activity. The capacity of decrypting neuronal firings to their exact meanings shall make humans existentially naked.

But for now we should know first of all that neurons and neuroglia are the constituents of our brains, not images or audios. We can open a brain of a person and see the car he was dreaming of, or his first sexual encounter. The difficulty of the idea mentioned above is well known for whoever is into neuroscience. First of all our external behaviors arise from impulses that take place in our brains. Our memories arise when certain factors stimulate a certain neural pathway, and by that the perception of a path treaded upon earlier is experienced. By that we should understand the limitations of our current tools and realize that what we can weigh or assess are neural firings (creating a brain activity that could be tracked), opening and closing of ion channels that facilitate stimulatory or inhibitory mechanisms of neurons, and brain activity being studied under certain behaviors (certain regions being active or non-active). We can assess certain neurotransmitters fired that will further stimulate or inhibit. In between our neurons, there are no images or audios saved in a tangible way. It is firings that create so.

For a software to have the capacity of learning and adapting by monitoring our brain activity is something outrageously dumbfounding. How can certain neural impulses be understood by a machine that they meant a certain thing. Firings are within a range of similarity, but the subtle nuances lie on the subjectively created neural network in a certain individual. The probability of the machine “guessing” what was meant by a certain brain activity just seems confusing, and rather "impossible". 

The ability of looking at a certain brain region being active in correspondence to a certain behavior is present, but looking at the brain activity, then saying what has been thought or what is roaming in the brain is not yet there, and that as well seems to be so far-fetched. So far, AI is greatly advanced in quantitative knowledge. It has the capacity of analyzing a huge database, and bringing out wonderful predictive results and also giving amazing guides. As someone noted “after all, being advanced in quantitative analysis gives high qualitative results”. I have been telling friends that it would be better to put your blood results into a system and it works on it, then gives you the diagnosis and differential diagnosis instead of a well experienced GP. With all this advance, the capacity of interpreting firings as certain memories, and being able to create simulations based on what has been acquired from the firings “still” seems a rather astonishing, or even scary, thing. 

The Two Poles (Conservative minds and proponents of Freedom)

When one seeks some degree of mental freedom, and reaches a state of experiencing some mental freedom compared to the prior state, the realization that is reached is that among the most stagnating issues was being limited to certain notions and being indoctrinated some “absolutes” in the realm of beliefs.

Normally, one then treads from one pole heading to the other, and each step might be teaching something. Heading towards the camp of “freedom” especially in personal beliefs, one finds at times matters that do go against the essential concept of being free. When being shocked by certain limitations in thought in the new camp, one might deduce that both are trying to establish a certain perspective of life and reinforce it. That might be true, but is it? Surely, if one constantly disagrees with the established “maxims” put forward by the proponents of freedom, one might be belittled, condemned, face some verbal attacks, but rarely do they try to end your existence. After all they are human, with biological apparatuses to evaluate matters. They as well, at many times, evaluate matters from a subjective perspective and assign a criterion for evaluation, creating a path of categorizing people and notions as well, and claiming that their path is objective, yet they fail to realize that the criterion is perforated as it is formed by human subjective inclinations.

It seems to be an unattainable journey for humans to understand real tolerance or absolute tolerance because everything is open to interpretation since everything happens to be an interplay between what is out there and how we perceive it, whether be it a religious person or not. This makes it hard to understand how a person shall act just by merely knowing what beliefs they have, for a human act arises not in a direct causal way from belief to action. It is no wonder that we see religious people who can’t tolerate people of a similar religion but a differing sect, yet we also have religious people who are ready to connect at the deepest levels with non-believers or people of different religions. At the same time, we find non-believers who hypothetically call for “freedom” yet they form a narrow criterion of categorizing people who deserve tolerance, based upon their subjective evaluation, and by that creating animosities and polarizing the society. Some have established personal beliefs that religious people with certain beliefs are dangerous, not realizing that they are struck in a belief by believing that. For example, some find women who wear Hijab to be backwards and devoid of logic regardless of her social position or what she has to say. Such people have created a mental map that has associated backwardness to a piece of cloth, and they fail to realize that they don’t differ much from those who assigned piety and chastity to a piece of cloth covering the hair. Different associations leading to not so different superficial judgments.

The presence of differences around us has been emphasized by the boom of communication and technology, yet the idea hardly sinks in our psyches. Our biological wirings are hard to rewire. This state shall continue with us for long since it is our limbic brains that exert their powers upon our not so well developed prefrontal cortices.

You control Fate!

Last night, as he was back from the game, he made his way into his house, all the lights were off, and no one was awake. The smell of dinner has been part of the walls, and it made him feel the pressure in his hungry being. He didn't eat because most of the restaurants were closed. He searched for something to keep him alive to the next morning, and happily he got some in the fridge.
Lying in his bed, he tried to track what is going on in his mind, but it was so fast and ephemeral, and he thought that going for a pen and paper would help his mind focus on certain things and capture them, but his body was sore for that action. Struggling with his restless mind and his paining body, he realized that he was in complete confusion. But he could sleep...
Next morning, he entered the class and he could read that the teacher wrote on the board "Take Control of Your Fate!". He couldn't help but sneer as he was heading towards his chair. The teacher was enthusiastically talking about how things in life could unfold as long as you focus at what you want and work to achieve it. He remembered his cousin, who struggled two years to try to find a cure for his disease but ended up under soil before getting it. He wondered, did my cousin start his search late? Weren't two years enough? Or maybe he wasn't so focused to find a cure? But did he choose to get that disease?. Suddenly the teacher cut his mind from wandering and called his name. He stood hesitantly and nodded his head as to show readiness to answer what would be asked from him. "Could you come in front of the class and share how you could resonate with this statement"?

"Fate, this topic...it is hard... taking control of it... I-I-I w-wonder how can we take control of it?", he uttered that as he was looking at his classmates.
"Just say whatever comes in your mind; it shouldn't be like those insights presented by wise old man nor by those deeply religious sufis or buddhist monks", the teacher encouraged him to speak.

His face grew tense a bit and he always lacked the capacity of forming smooth introductions, but he just remembered a sentence, which he noted down,  from a book he read yesterday, and he thought that if he used that as the introduction even if it might seem off topic to some. He always relied on points to start a deeper conversation.

The anus and its incomprehensible, repulsive product represents not only physical determinism andboundness, but the fate as well of all that is physical: decay anddeath.

"This sentence I read yesterday resonates deeply and makes sense within myself as at some point in my life, probably 2 years ago, I developed a very focalized focus on every single twitch I experience and I was trying to track my stream of consciousness and catch it and even try to feel how my inner emotions alternate and what makes them alternate. I sank deep within myself in a very negative way, and this made me develop an absurd form of hypochondria, and I started to feel that some phobias were starting to lurk in. I was so focused on every matter that happens and try to know why it happens and how it happens and when it will happen again, and how will I live it, and how will I go on living with it. I was trying to capture what is not constant. I was trying to instill stagnancy upon a perpetually changing matter. It was very stressful and debilitating. I came to realize that what we call fate is what already happens to us but we can't talk about what hasn't been disclosed yet. We can actually know the fate of the physical, and that is death and decay, but fate of the intangible.. hmm

"Okay thanks for your contribution, you can..." the teacher tried to end his words but he continued with a heightened voice,

"Though at the meantime, I have detached from myself a bit as I am trying to make sense of the world beyond my limited creatureliness and try to realize that there is more and trying to understand that complexity is present and endeavoring to figure out every bit is in no way a sensible path to follow.
After this change, I still find myself struggling to attain certain things and whenever I feel that some form of hindrance is coming into my path, I feel deeply defeated and I start thinking how will I live with this? how will I reach what I want with this? how will I overcome this? how will I be able to go on with this? how will I be able to be me with this? and the ever deepening dig goes on.
Then here am I as well thinking about big choices in life and trying to figure out how I shall do all and how things shall unfold. The problem is that I have realized that figuring out everything is complex, yet I am not living like a person who has figured that out. I am living with the same stressful thoughts that make me feel that I must figure out every single bit in every matter and I think that I am the sole actor in my fate, BUT I AM NOT.
I am aware that superficial people may jump and say that you are in control of your fate fully but that is a bogus claim, and it is one that aligns with the lives of the very minority in the world. The majority of people are not those who are in control of their fate and lives, but the minority are. Moving to certain areas in the world, we find people who are not yet capable to express their thoughts. What is strikingly striking is that these same superficial people who call you to take control of your fate, tell you that sometimes one should not say what is in his mind, and that some things are indeed taboo. Such people fail to realize that their aims might have aligned with those who supported them, and that their aims are those that are in the normal middle when we look at a Gaussian distribution.

Life is chaotic and taking control of fate is assuming you fully understood how fate unfolds and that is utter nonsense to live with such a claim."

الذكاء الإصطناعي في كافتيريا في صنعاء!!!

بعض منا عندما يترك وطنه ويذهب لبلدة أخرى ، تلبس ثقافة أخرى وتسير على نهج أخر، يبدأ يشعر بنوع من التجديد الداخلي وخاصة إذا كان يعشق ثقافة هذة البلدة التي ذهب إليها. تكون عيناه مقبلتين على الحياة بصورة مبتهجة وتريان النور في كل حركة وفي كل صوت وتشعران أن الحياة مختلفة تماما عما تركته عيناه في وطنه. يذهب للمقهى ليشرب قهوته وأذنيه تحاولا أن تسمعا كلام من حوله حتى يلتقط نقاشاتهم الجانبية وأما في وطنه فكان عقله يدرك جيدا ما يتحدث به أصحابه. ينظر يمينا فيرى شبابا بكتبهم فيسمع اسم فيلسوف على لسان أحدهم فيندهش ويقول لنفسه أنه لم يرى هذا من قبل في وطنه ولا يظن أن يراه في الأساس

 يصور هؤلاء الشباب ويضعهم على الفيس بوك ويكتب "عندما ذهبت للمقهى, كان هؤلاء الشباب في مقتبل أعمارهم يتناقشون ما طرحه برتنارد راسل في كتابه مشكلات الفلسفة" ويكمل كاتبا "إذا صار لدينا مثل هؤلاء أظن أننا قد نتغير". المشكلة أنه ظن أنه علم كل ما في وطنه وعرف جيدا أن لا مجال لسماع مثل هذه النقاشات ، لا في المقاهي أو في اي مكان عام. فكان عندما يذهب لمثل هذه الأماكن لا يحاول أن يعرف حوارات الأخرين ولا هو مهتم أساسا لأنه يعلم ما يتكلمون فيه. فهو يعرف جيدا أنهم يتكلمون عن تخزينة البارحة وعن صورة التفاحة التي رسمت كلمة "الله" في داخلها

شابان في كافتيريا في صنعاء يطلبون ساندويتش فاصوليا ويتحدثان بحماس. ملامح الإنزعاج واضحة على أحدهم   من الضوضاء التي تصدره إحدى المايكروفونات في المسجد المجاور بعد صلاة المغرب. كانوا يتحدثون عن الذكاء الإصطناعي حيث ظهر أن أحدهم معجب براي كارزويل ونظريته

pattern recognition theory of mind (PRTM)

ولكن الأخر كان يظن أنه لا زال الذكاء الإصطناعي بعيدا عن ذكاء الإنسان وأن التداخل ما بين العقول الثلاثة (على تقسيمة  بول ماكلين) تبين أن عقل الإنسان معقد جدا وانا ما قاله راي كارزويل عن القشرة المخية الحديثة هو نوع من التقليل. أصر الأخر أن ما ينتجه الذكاء الإصطناعي لا زال بعيدا عن العقل الإنساني وبعد ذلك تكلموا عن فيلم اكس ماكينا. للأسف لم يوجد أي شخص غربي في الكافتيريا كي يصورهم وينشر في فيسبوكه "هؤلاء كانوا يتحدثون عن الذكاء الإصطناعي" ويكمل كاتبا "إذا صار لدينا مثل هؤلاء فطبعا سوف نحل المسائل التي نواجهها". نعم لم يوجد من يصورهم

السؤال هو، هل الشابين اليمنيين يعكسان الشعب اليمني؟ طبعا لا لأن الغالبية تبحث عن تخزينة (قات) وتحمل سلاحا وتريد أن تتحدث عن القبيلة وعن مكانتها في المجتمع وكيف كان الأجداد يأكلون الجمر والحديد ويشربون الصديد على أنه عصير مانجا. الذين يتحدثون عن الذكاء الإصطناعي هم أقلية الأقلية, هم الذين استطاعوا أن يفكوا أنفسهم من تمجيد الماضي والدخول في الحاضر. حتى هؤلاء الشابين اللذان يبدوا على أنهما أذكياء لا مكانة لهما في   عائلاتهم لأنهما غريبين والغريب ليس مرغوب في المجتمعات المؤدلجة ذات اللون الواحد. وفي المقابل هل ما نشره صاحبنا في الفيسبوك  هو يعكس مثلا باريس بشكل كامل؟ حتما لا. معروف أن الكثير في الغرب في ذلك العمر يريدون أن يمرحوا ويرتعوا ويملؤوا الملاهي الليلية والمراقص أو المجمعات التجارية أو ينغمسوا في الألعاب الإلكترونية. القليل هم الذين يتناقشون مفاهيم برتنارد راسل في المقاهي 

خلاصة الأمر, العلم أو الثقافة اليوم ليست محصورة لدولة دون أخرى ولكن تبقى كثير من الدول في المقدمة لأن ثقافة العلم متأصلة في بنياتهم الثقافية. الحالات الفردية التي نراها أيضا في المقاهي هي لا تعكس نمط الحياة في الدولة لأن الأشخاص يختلفون في المكان الواحد ، واستخدام عينة صغيرة على أنها تمثل دولة بأكملها نوع من الإجحاف. ليس كل يمني حامل للسلاح باحث عن التخزينة وكذلك ليس كل فرنسي مثقف يعيش في رفوف الكتب. المشكلة في كيفية الترويج للعلم قد يجعل الناس يشمئزون منها. هناك من يصور للناس أنك حتى تكون مثقفا يجب عليك أن تكون في ستارباكس وليس كافتيريا أبو عبده وهذا تصوير سطحي والمؤسف أنه يأتي من علماء في مجالات تخصصية فريدة