T E N C Y N I C A L E S S A Y S — excerpts !(POPULAR WORLDVIEW)Chris MYRSKI, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2000— — — — — CONTENTSForeword About the Creation and the created About the woman and the man About the mankind About the intellect About the religion About the democracy About the violence About the justice About the population About the future Addendum: Constitution of Cynicland — — — — — PART THREEABOUT THE INTELLECTI. Definition Exact definition of the intellect is principally impossible, because this is all-comprising basic notion, about which is supposed that each one has some intuitive idea (in the same way as it is not defined what is this God, or matter, for example), so that we will rather remind in the beginning what is this idea. But let us turn your attention to the fact that the word "intellect" is used in different contexts, which are often contradictory, and in other cases are highly restrictive, because we are inclined to ascribe intellect only to the humans (and from here also to the God, in all religions), where different animals, as well as artificial systems, can also show intellectual behaviour in many situations. So that the best, what we can expect, is some heuristic definition, which must comprise the most significant, but without asserting that it is complete and uncontroversial, where more important for us will be not to miss some intellectual exhibition, than to exclude this, for which special intellect is not needed. In the second half of 20th century this question become particularly important because of the trials, some of them strikingly successful, for artificial modeling of human intellect. To many readers maybe is known the Turing criterion about this, when we have one intellectual system (computer, robot, or human), which is reduced to this, that a person converses through some informational channel (computer terminal) with somebody, without seeing or hearing him directly, so that he has no knowledge about him, and if after some reasonable amount of time he can not say for sure (or makes an error) whether he speaks with human or automaton, then he has before himself an artificial intelligence. Here the accent is, on one hand, on the subjectivity of assessment, and on the other hand, on the independence from the elementary basis (live cells or electronic elements). This is a right approach, but it says us nothing about the essence of intellect (more than this, that there is no other way for its defining). The intuitive idea, usually, is about such activity, which looks quite complicated, so that even not every human being can do it. Something similar states the etymology of the word, because "intellect" must come from Greek entelecheia (εντελεχεια), which was a term coined and used in ancient times by Aristotle as one of the names of energy and meaning: activity, operating and efficient energy, efficiency of given activity, or just something that may happen, opportunity for something. In other words, the intellect is something hidden ... So that the intellect, for most of the people, is still something new, in which necessity they are not convinced. And they are not convinced because it does not bring them special pleasure, like the sex, for example. Those, who get pleasure out of the very intellectual process are happy in their own way, because this helps them in many life situations, and also one more pleasure is not to be missed. Only when this becomes common practice (and if this happens), then we could be able to assert that the human is thinking animal, not only capable to think (because he is capable also to ... urinate, for example, but does not relate his name with that his "ability"). If, after all, this will not happen — well, then the experiment has proved to be unsuccessful. — — — — — ABOUT THE RELIGIONI. Support For The Masses Well-known is the sentence that the religion is opium for the people, only that the wide majority of public has prejudiced conception on the question, due to (justified with nothing) assuming that the opium is something bad, because from this must follow that the religion also can′t be something good, but the masses, as a rule, see nothing bad in the religion (or at least in their religion). Such judgement is logical but wrong, because the opium is not necessary to be something bad (for otherwise it would not have been applied in the contemporary, as also ancient, medicine), and in addition to this everything depends on the dose and the particular case (or ailment). The people seek the religion exactly in their difficult moments in life — by big misfortunes and death — and precisely then they need this psychical and moral opium, in order to carry easier the heavy burden of their individual life. Surely, the religion is welcome also in the happy moments in their life, like marriage ceremonies, births, beautiful religious festivals and carnivals, because the great joy and the great sorrow have similar confusing impact on their everyday life; but even if it is not always so (because there is nothing confusing in an Easter, or a Corban-Bairam, or some other church holiday), nobody is crazy to deprive himself of nice traditions, and even looks for them alone, because in the many centuries of their existence the various religions have had possibility to devise much successful scenarios for nationwide holidays. So that, if we get rid of the prejudice about the opium, we could even complete the above thought pleading that: the religion is exactly this opium, which the people need! If it wasn′t so the religions simply would not have existed for millenniums, because nobody can enforce over the man (at least not for a longer period) something what he does not want. If some priests do not understand the things in this way then this is just one more proof for their narrowness of thinking (something what is pretty typical for the cult officers, where the dogmatic thinking is norm of behaviour). The religion for the masses is what the fairy tales for the children are, regardless whether they are beautiful or scaring, because the common people do not differ much from the children in their naive conceptions and in their wish to escape somehow from the reality, that they wide away from always like. In this sense the religion is a kind of escapism, and nobody can take away from the people the possibility for such temporary "switching out", and has also no such rights. ... So that the religion is opium for the people, but until they do not show that they don′t need this opium, it will take a central place in the social life of the people. But judging by the omnivorousness and naivety, with which the masses devour the advertisements, that are offered to them, there are all reasons to suppose that they will always need religion. The religion is harmful when there collide severe two different religions and begin to fight war (because, for example, one group of people were breaking the egg from the sharp end and another one — from the blunt one), but otherwise some measure of delusion about life is vitally necessary for the people in order to be able to live it, and, in this sense, each religion does good work, because one will never reject the delusion, if he likes it. Until a given society is divided in contradictory structures with different interests (and this will always take place, because the humans are created different in their tastes, interests, and abilities, and exactly this variety is the most valuable thing in this world), till then it will need something uniting and binding together its members. Until one needs support and purpose in life he will need also some religion. But he will always have such need because he is not a God. — — — — — |
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