Tuesday, June 10, 2008

 

The Czechs 1.0

THE CZECH XENOPHOBIA AND THE CZECH “SUPERIORITY

Really shocking this morning; I have found two blogs delivering facts why some nations are a bit different than the other nations. Typically I speak of Czechs here.

In this blog the notion of hierarchy and dominance is described. The author states that in human society this happened at the break of agriculture. I really doubt that this was the origin of the hierarchy. I believe that the real origin of hierarchy goes as back as to herd animals and even to bacteria or cells. But for sure the invention of agriculture brought about strengthening of the notion of hierarchy. By the way I do not like the word dominance in this context as it seems to me that the word dominance covers the substantial principle instead of revealing it.

The author writes:

One example of neurohistory for Smail is explaining the human dominance hierarchies that arose after the agricultural revolution allowed small groups of elite individuals to rule over large groups of subordinates. Dominant individuals must employ whatever devices they can to induce submissive dispositions in their subordinates. In matriarchal baboon societies, high-ranking females harass subordinate females in ways that create high levels of stress. Similarly, we might expect that in human dominance hierarchies, high-ranking individuals would intimidate their subordinates in ways that would generate stress hormones that make them feel submissive.

In the next blog the hatred against the unknown is discussed. This also is highly valid for the Czech nation, of course with some rare exceptions. The xenophobic notion paired with the exaggerated feel of one’s own importance, creates really strange behavior, mostly displayed by Czechs and maybe some other nations that I do not know too,

In this blog this quotation explains the substance of xenophobia.

Xenophobia… has its roots in the failure to accept “otherness” mixed with misguided notions about the superiority of self. That fragile self is constantly threatened by the potential power of the other whether numerical, social, political or economic.

In plain words this says that some people or groups of people, nations, are so aware of their superiority, i.e. their higher position among other people or among other groups of people, but this feeling of superiority is based on nothing real, it is only a feel that is gained on purpose in order to get rid of the feeling of inferiority.

In turn the feeling of inferiority can be gained by constant comparisons with somebody who is better than me. In the case of Czechs this is the comparison with Germans, Jews, and especially Ashkenazy Jews. All these groups of people are perceived by Czechs as higher positioned than themselves and it hurt the Czechs. Therefore they developed a system of denial of these facts and started to think of themselves as of superior to all.

If then, they are confronted with somebody who is really “above” them they start to have xenophobic behavior. Czech xenophobic behavior is extremely close to racism when they link the other person or group of people to some other nation, like Germans.

There are important points in the Czech history, as well as in the history of Slavonic tribes. Some 2000 years ago these Slavonic tribes where considered as good slaves in the Roman Empire. If this lasted for some time then, based on neurology, epigenetics and some other sciences one might conclude that this might have been the start of the Czech xenophobia and the feel of inferiority.

In the newer history this feel of inferiority has been strengthened by two world wars, any many other wars that took place on the lands occupied by Czechs. They were always exploited by somebody. The last exploitations of Czechs were carried out by Nazi Germany and by Soviet Russia, both being extremely totalitarian systems.

It may take centuries for Czechs to get rid of this feeling, or it is also possible that they will never get rid of this feeling, as it is already firmly written down in their epigenome as their cultural and historical information.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

 

FUZZY LOGIC II

Fuzzy logic of human language and evolution

Fuzzy logic is now a big deal in mathematics, in engineering, but I perceive fuzzy logic as typically human system of logic. It might be even possible that fuzzy logic is innate to all biological organisms not only to humans.

Let’s start with the fuzzy logic in the human language and human logic. Usually, you do not say to somebody sitting next to you on a couch: “Move 15 inches closer to me.” What we usually say instead is. “Move a bit closer to me.” But the same sentence can be used with totally different contexts. First, you just want to make place for the third person coming to take place on that couch. In the second case it is a sentence that a female can say to a male when desiring sexual relationship and body contact, whereas in the first case the body contact is not permitted.

When comparing these two cases we can see that there is seemingly no fixed point that would perfectly explain that the word “bit” means, as it means in both cases something else. But there is a common point; it is the fact that the speaker knows that the other person knows in what situation the sentence is said. In the first case, both persons already sitting on the couch see the third person coming and wanting to take place. Both of these people can see the person, they can see how is the place meant for sitting on the couch divided and how it must be changed so that the third person can take place there too. In the second case both the female and the male know in what situation they are and that the moment of physical contact is approaching, they also now there is nobody around and that they both would like to have sex.

So fuzzy logic is actually logic based on the fact that the other person or persons know in what situation they are and what exactly the imprecise sentence means. Fuzzy logic is the logic based on relation to the situation, to the status quo, and also based on the prediction of what is going to happen and what must be done that it this predicted future is permitted or prohibited by one’s own behavior.

Using the two examples described before, if the male would not like to have sex with the female, then he would not move as close as to touch her and have body contact with her, but only a “bit” so that he does not touch her and he would not permit the body contact. In the “couch” case if I do not want to permit that the third person comes and takes place on the couch as well, I just move too little so that there is still not place enough for the third person to take place.

In opposite cases the male moves as close as possible so that their both bodies come to direct contact and one person on the couch moves so much aside, so that there is enough space for the third person to take place.

Especially in the “couch” case, the person that moves can decide to move in two direction, either the person moves away from the person already sitting there, so that the third person can take place between them two, or, this person can move closer to the person that is already sitting there, so that the third person must sit at the other end of the couch. This is then already psychology, as the person that moves can decide whether the third person will sit in the middle or at the edge. Sitting at the edge can mean being “expelled” from talking as the first two will speak to each other and the third person sits away from the discussion place. If the person to move permits the third person to sit in the middle that it can be explained as not wanting to sit next to the first person, or it can mean high esteem for the third person as sitting in the middle gives this person both options open with whom the person wants to talk, or if the third person wants to talk with both persons sitting there already before.

Most probably this fuzzy logic is also the basis of evolution; it only permits for some changes based on the already “known” or presently existing situation. A cell being exposed to some informational input from its environment “knows” its present state and also “knows” how many times this signal has appeared before and acts accordingly in a fuzzy type of logical action. It permits only for “a bit” of a change. Actually, the evolutionary development of eye presented by Dawkins shows exactly this step by step fuzzy revolutionary development.

In human language there are incredibly many “fuzzy” actions or reactions and they are always based on the fact that the other person or persons is or are familiar with the situation to which the fuzzy remark is linked to.

Just imagine winter and you are heating and the other person says:”It is too warm for me.” It is perfectly fuzzy statement as it does not says by how many grades it is too warm. So you cannot know exactly by how many grades you should decrease the temperature. You must try or you already know the person and you know what the usual temperature is the person likes, e.g. your wife.

There are many other examples where we go “fuzzy”. For example, when we start to learn basketball, there is no way of your trainer telling you that you should throw the ball under some exact angle and use specific force of 2.5Nm, even when he did, most probably you would not understand.

When driving a car you never compute the formulas of speeding up when passing a truck or formulas of decelerating when you try to slow down, we do it in the fuzzy way, constantly comparing to the other stuff in the given situation. When accelerating you may decide to press the gas pedal more if you “feel” that the speeding up is to slow for safe passing. On the other hand you may “feel” that the slower speed is still to high as you cannot read all the names of the streets in an unknown town.

Fuzzy logic is the logic of constant comparing and constant adjusting to the situation that has changed based upon one’s own action or the action of somebody else: like new person coming and wanting to take place on the couch.

When speaking about something that changes the situation like no electricity suddenly or some accident on the road or some rock avalanche we have the problem of determining whether the author of this action is another human, animal or a thing. A supernova explosion is definitely not caused by human beings, but snow avalanche can be. The increase in the activity of sun is also definitely not caused by humans. So we can have really different authors of a changed situation: humans, animals, and non-living entities.
It really doe not matter at all who is the other of the change in situation that we perceive but we always react in a fuzzy way as that is the way the whole evolution has happened.
Even some jobs are based on fuzzy actions; anytime you have something repaired where the flaw in the system is not obvious the repair person must try.

This system of trying is normal in computer repairs, car repairs, but the car industry seeks to get rid of this uncertainness and places many sensors into the car system and it is then possible to “ask” the car :”What is wrong with you?” using some computer capable of reading the signals of the sensors in the car.
One might think of many other systems that function as fuzzy systems, but humans and their means of communication, the language is the best one. Just think of notes like: I’ll be back soon.”, “Wait a moment.”, “Go little bit more to the right.” and many other examples.

I believe that that what we call fuzzy logic is actually the normal logic based on the one’s own situation or upon the fact that we know that the other person knows that we know etc. I also strongly believe that this way of thinking is basic for all organisms, to start with a simple cell, and most probably some changes in DNA might be fuzzy logic driven. The reason for this might be the fact that the nature uses the system that has approved. That means we are using system that has been approved through millions of years. And if it so then, of course, the fuzzy logic must be seen also in other systems not only in humans. I believe animals also use fuzzy logic, as well as cells.

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