A Poem: The Illusion of History.

One is not unhappy if their natural history of creation is untold
To open the past is to forget the present
Three days was all it took to undo history
For life is the book unwritten
Five years the same as five millennia

The Mystery of the Universe: The Relation of Subject and Object

"Throughout nature, as presented to the senses, everything depends on the relation which things bear to each other, but especially on the relation to which man, the most important of these, bears to the rest. Hence the world divides itself into two parts, and the human being as subject, stands opposed to the object. Thus the practical man exhausts himself in the accumulation of facts, the thinker in speculation; each being called upon to sustain a conflict which admits of no peace and no decision."
-Johann von Goethe Theory of Colors

The great mystery of the world is why reality is divided into knower and the known, where both are in a relationship but the knower knows itself more than the known. From this we can proceed no further.


Arithmetic comes to us via the perception of time, of a succession between moments. The inner experience of time is the most basic cognition, which is a one dimensional succession of experiences. The beating of our heart, the expansion of our lungs, the most vital involuntary bodily processes are the origin of our a priori sense of time. From time comes our knowledge of arithmetic, the rules governing numbers which succeed one another in an ordered fashion. Arithmetic follows the rules of discrete succession, whereas music, which seems to be the most immediate form of art, follows rules of relative succession, to our aesthetic senses.

The pleasing sound of our familiar parent's voices, and the sound of their beating hearts when they hold us, being so immediate could make music like arithmetic and time so primary. Our sense of sound is more developed than our sense of sight when born.

Geometry is known to us via spatial perception of several dimensions together. Outer experience of space requires several dimensions, experiences occurring in different successions. Memory brings this plurality of experience together. Beginning with the contraction and relaxation of muscles the effects of past experiences exist with current more intense sensations. Contraction is potential energy and relaxation is kinetic energy. The effects of the build up and release of energy remain in the body for some time and can lead to mechanical change, muscle memory. The notion of spatial extension comes from the possibility of continual experience, inferred from past experience (time). The notion of infinite space is the possibility of taking one step further. The knowledge of geometry comes from spatial perception, giving mutual relationships for different successions between points. Geometry is the static application of rules to successive dimensions. Physics, the most ancient of which seems to be astronomy, is the study of objects in motion in spatial dimensions.

Causality is a synthesis of both space and time, which is systematized into science, the body of knowledge. A preceded B in time in this space, and B succeeds A in this space at a different time, so A caused B.

That the a priori is an actual part of the world of experience, though a very selective part, is demonstrated by the fact that there are non-Euclidean geometries which does not assume space is flat and only three dimensional. The shortest distance between two points in curved space is a geodesic! A curve, not a straight line. Kant died before these discoveries, first made by the Russian Lobachevsky in the 19th century. In this geometry Euclid's synthetic fifth postulate, that between a line and a point not on the line there is one parallel line which does not intersect, is not a priori. The two parallel lines intersect in curved space.



The more we explore the interconnection between the a priori and the world, the more we see it as an an aspect of the world of perceptual experience. Phenomena is a part of the world just as objects, noumena, are. The a priori is part of the world of experience itself, it follows the same rules as objects.

Eclipse of Reason by Max Horkheimer

I decided to read Horkheimer because of his interest in Arthur Schopenhauer, a philosopher usually not dear to those in the Marxist tradition given his intense personal hatred of Hegel and the association with Nietzsche and the Nazis. His metaphysical pessimism seems to go against the gospel of the inevitable triumph of the workers and the possibility of an end to human misery in the communist society.

But Horkheimer and other western Marxists, especially in the Frankfurt School which he was a founder of, were willing to explore the boundaries of Marxist theory. They were puzzled as to why the working class didn't revolt after World War I. Why didn't the Bolshevik Revolution spread to Western Europe and succeed?

Marxism was considered a scientific theory in the level of Darwin's by its followers, with the triumph of socialism an inevitable result of the laws of nature. Marx thought the Western European nations like British and France were where capitalism had developed to a point where the working class was large enough and self-conscious in urban society to challenge the bourgeoisie. Lenin and others who thought a undeveloped nation like Russia could establish socialism, the revolution would eventually succeed on an international level. Otherwise Russia would be isolated on all sides by hostile powers.

What instead happened was fascism. It could be argued that the ideological wave inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution was fascism, which swept over Europe from the 1920s until after World War II. In an economically advanced and educated Germany came a fanatical regime which in the course of twelve years tried its best to transform the entire world order.

This forced in the west a reexamination of the fundamentals of Marxist theory, from its philosophical foundations. The question of Eclipse of Reason is how in the post-enlightenment west could people be so blind to their interests under capitalism and rationalize the irrational brutality of fascism?

Horkheimer argues that what the Nazis did, barbaric as it was, was nonetheless guided by rationality. The regime used brutal technological efficiency to control and exterminate millions of people.

Approaching the book one must understand that common discourse aside, there are different kinds of rationality, which is the only way to understand how the Nazis could be called rational. Horkheimer argues that this kind of rationality has pervaded western thinking, as not only a German or class phenomenon.

Horkheimer present three kinds of reason: objective, subjective, and instrumental.

Objective reason deals with ends, determining actions by how reasonable their purpose is. Objective reason sees facts as leading to ethical ends, is determining ought. This is the reason used by Plato and Aristotle. Objective reason is connected with religion which has ethical and explanatory dimensions. Philosophy emerges which critiques religion, hoping to replace superstition and prejudice with reason. Horkheimer identified German idealism within this tradition, as against those who accuse the tradition of inspiring relativism.

Subjective reason determines the rationality of ends by the means available. Something is rational if it gets me what I want, even if what I want is immoral or against my actual interests. This kind of reason emerges in the modern era with Machiavelli and Hobbes and is linked towards the hard sciences, which are true without regard to human purposes and morality. Subjective reason separates is and ought, fact and value. The only "universal" value of subjective reason is self-preservation. Subjective reason coincides with the rise of capitalism and individualism, with the breakdown of traditional modes of being.

Instrumental reason is a formalization of subjective reason which dispenses with ends altogether, instead adopting the criterion of usefulness of meaningfulness. If ends cannot be defined from means, they are useless and meaningless. Pragmatism and positivism are representatives of instrumental reason, wanting to emulate the sciences in the experimental method (pragmatism), logical rigor (positivism) and in eliminating metaphysics. Instrumental reason's goal is the unification of reason, the elimination of ordinary folk language, and value free knowledge. This is the product of late capitalism when the individual is subsumed to new technological social organization. As opposed to subjective reason, not all aims are equal. The very notion of the subject and introspection is not formalizable and so useless and meaningless. This kind of reason eliminates the individual for the furtherance of the social system.

Horkheimer prefers objective reason out of the three because it doesn't just seek domination of nature, but also understanding. There is some kind of moral grounding for our actions, a healthy criticism of our ends, and resistance to certainty. Subjective and instrumental reason in contrast see reality foreign and even dangerous in so far as they are out of our control. Sir Francis Bacon's dictum "knowledge is power" is the essence of instrumental reason. Knowledge also becomes a tool of social domination, as human nature becomes demystified and unified with the rest of nature as an object to be controlled.

Fascism is rational in the instrumental sense. Their ideologies of the race and nation are vague and mythological, but the means towards these ends become ends in themselves. Humans, seeking collective fulfillment in the nation, a race, or leader, become objects of domination. Their needs become something in of themselves, reaching toward nothing more than gratification, by means of control. Fascism imposed order on capitalism which was facing serious challenges by suppressing dissidents in the population, defending the social order at all costs, subordinating reason to will.

Horkheimer explores the psychology behind fascism through mimicry. We aim to control nature by becoming like it. We find freedom through blind brute force. Unfortunately nature is out of control and will destroy us if we do not act in our interests.

Unfortunately for conservatives we can't just go back to older forms of objective reason like Thomism. A critical point of Horkheimer is that ideas are rooted in culture and society. Subjective and instrumental reason rise with the capitalist society. Thomism was made to reconcile Christian doctrine with Aristotle, one of the few authorities available on science. In today's world of quantum physics, Thomism is of no help. Today's secularized and individualized world has little need for scrutiny of arcane Christian dogma.

The best chapter of the book is The Rise and Decline of the Individual. Here he defines individuality in historical consciousness, not just spatial temporal and sensual existence. The development of the self is determined by external factors, which we must gain knowledge of to be free and not have our identity be determined from without. The western individual Horkheimer says comes from Greek tragedy. "The tragic hero originates in the conflict between the tribe and its members, a conflict in which the individual is always defeated." The individual is defined by its conflict with external forces and circumstances to eliminate that division is to eliminate the individual. Resistance to irrationality is the core of true individuality. Formalized reason eliminates irrationality by control of nature, and in the process comes to eliminate the individual.

The resistance to instrumental reason can only come from a philosophy devoted to criticism from outside the inner rationality of the system, using philosophical dialectics. Horkheimer however rejects the higher synthesis that Marx and Hegel's dialectic offered, the end point of human social development which resolves the fundamental contradiction between the individual and society. There is no teleology to history as consciousness is developed under historical conditions for certain needs. There isn't an end point for philosophy; what philosophers and intellectuals should do is to highlight those who struggled against formalization and push history forward. History and the positive data of science is a record domination to be criticized. Ideology is always aimed at some kind of control, an overcoming of difference by denying to consciousness certain aspects of reality. This totally undermines objective reason and the German idealist tradition he looks favorably on and creates a new kind of reasoning: critical theory.

Critical theory treats ideas as inherently social and therefore political. There is no distinction between fact or value and in keeping with Marx the dominant ideas of society are impositions of the ruling class. In the hands of critical theory however the ruling base of society is cultural as well as economic. Race and gender as well as class are sources of oppression and so reason ignoring such realities accepts the status quo. There isn't as in classical Marxism an objective reason for inequality, which makes critical theory purely negative and disdainful of science. In essence, what has become known as political correctness.

To forward Marxism, one has to relentlessly criticize western culture which gave rise to capitalism but also to objective reason which Horkheimer and the Frankfurt school undermined. This for me seriously undermines Horkheimer's own critique of instrumental reason, which now seems like a demand for science to be in service of political correctness, as defined by the Marxists.

This is the first time I read Horkheimer or any of the Frankfurt School directly, and I can already see how pessimistic their worldview is. Which is where I suspect where Horkheimer's interest in Schopenhauer came from. The rest of the school were heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud and inherited Schopenhauer's pessimism that way.

Unfortunately in the hands of Marxists, such pessimism turns into defeatism and the regressive ideology of political correctness aka cultural Marxism which the Frankfurt school helped found. If one does not believe in such a thing as a human nature or transcendent moral truth, the world becomes completely intolerable, science politicized, and any weakness is to be obsessed over and any greatness condemned. Marxists should have been pessimistic since World War I seeing how their ideas failed over the 20th century, but should have realized the fault is socialism itself and not western civilization.

Despite the awfulness of the ideas Horkheimer's work helped found, the book is not bad. Given the unintellectual nature of the cultural Marxists today, this book is of interest for conservatives to find out where western thought went wrong, for the fascists and the Marxists.

Supervenience Phenomenalism

Supervenience phenomenalism; all facts about the universe are actual or possible sense experience. Two worlds which are the same in sensory facts are the same in physical facts. There are not two universes in which physical facts are the same and sense facts are not the same.

Phenomenalism is the philosophy that facts about physical objects are dependent upon or are entirely explainable in facts about actual and possible sensory experiences. Supervenience is a relationship where no two things can differ in their fundamental properties without also differing in their different respective properties. The biological supervenes on the physical and the chemical in that changes in the physical and chemical mean a change in the biological, but not the other way around. This doesn't mean all things like social groups can be reduced to fundamental particles, as there are multiple and higher levels of properties. But sense data is the most fundamental kind of thing there is which everything else depends on. The mental and the physical supervene on sense experience. A change in sense data means a change in the physical and the mental

Phenomenalism is committed to a third type of thing in the universe, sense data, which can be distinguished from mental and physical phenomena by their 1) subjective content and 2) being externally caused. Sense data is mind independent and physical in the causal sense, but not physical and mental in its subjective nature, existing independently of physical objects said to cause them. Sense data is always known to a mind, but mind doesn't constitute them; they constitute mind and anything that is thought about. Sense data is the fundamental basis for both mental and physical properties.

Critics can use a similar argument used against Platonic forms. That is that sense data is redundant, as it only explains the mental and the physical by being self existing. But applying Occam's razor and eliminating sense data would not make the explanation of mind better than the physicalist position. Mind would remain hard to explain given contemporary physicalist approaches such as eliminativism, identity physicalism, behaviorism, and functionalism.

There are reasons to assent to the belief in sense data as the single ontological substance. The most relevant reason to philosophy of mind is that it answers the hard problem of consciousness, accounting for qualia. As a neutral monist philosophy, the relation of body and mind is answered. Phenomenalism is also completely compatible with the conclusions of science, which are revisable in the face of experience. It is my opinion that phenomenalism provides us all the benefits of physicalism while giving a satisfying account for subjective experience and the relationship of mind and body.

The major objection to phenomenalism is an objection to translational phenomenalism, now considered untenable. According to translational phenomenalism, claims about physical objects share the same meaning as a claim about actual or possible sense experience. There is not a physical fact that cannot be translated into a sensory experience fact. The claim that there exists a table so that the claim there is a table in this room is true can be translated as if one were to extend their hand in front of them, they would feel the hard surface of what we call a table. There exists a tactile sensation of the skin so that there is a table in the room is true.

The problem with this kind of argument is that no purely sensory claim is necessary for any given claim that a physical object exists. If the sensation can be realized in different ways, by illusion or hallucination, then the sense experience said to correspond to a physical claim is not necessary. If I try to convince someone who is blind there is a Lego brick in front of them, I could say that if you keep walking, you will feel pain in your foot (assume they're barefoot). But the blind individual could feel pain if there were other things there, or even be in pain if there wasn't anything on the floor (perhaps by my suggestion).

This criticism is widely considered to have defeated phenomenalism. Physicalism however was able to survive similar objections decades ago by adopting supervenience. Identity physicalism was criticized on the similar grounds of multiple realizability, that a mental experience can be caused by different physical events. It is practically impossible to demonstrate a physical event for each mental event. Functionalism was proposed to remedy this; mind is a causal relationship between material things. Mind is defined by what it does, as Steven Pinker puts it, "the mind is what the brain does." Functionalism is an epistemology; the related ontology is supervenience. Supervenience is a one way dependency on one state of objects on another. Mind only exists if matter exists, but matter exists if mind doesn't exist. Mind is then a level of material functioning which depends on more fundamental material function, at the biochemical level.

Causal relations however are not necessary relations. We establish the relation between activity of the brain and thought by inference, not by fact. The mind is associated with what the brain does. Per Hume, there is no necessary connection among different things. No amount of experience can demonstrate that one thing always follows another, if they are different. Bringing in Leibniz's law, the Identity of Indiscernibles, what can be said about mind cannot all be said about the physical body. Here I invoke such properties from three arguments; disembodied existence, divisibility, and introspection. 

Disembodied Existence:
1. My mind can exist separate from anything physical.
2. No physical part of me can exist separate from anything physical.
3. Therefore, by Leibniz's Law, my mind isn't a physical part of me.

Divisibility
1. My physical parts are divisible.
2. My mind is not divisible.
3. So my mind is distinct from any of my physical parts (by Leibniz's Law).

Introspection
1. I can come to know about my mind (mental states) by introspection.
2. I cannot come to know about my brain (or any physical states) by introspection.
3. Therefore, my mind and my physical parts are distinct (by Leibniz's Law).

There is no necessary relationship between different things. If the mental and the physical are different in kind, then their relation is inferential, and more reliant on induction. If two things are different, we have no idea in the mind of their connection for if there is something there, it belong either to one of them or to something else. Only by a number of different experiences, more than one at least, can we infer a causal relationship. But this then depends on induction which does not operate on necessity, as we can imagine that there is no causal relationship at all without being in contradiction.

Since mental properties differ from physical properties, if we want to assert some causal or ontological relation, we must assent to the existence of a third class of objects which is not predicated of anything else, as it is capable of explaining the properties of mind and body.

Physical objects are a class of sense experience. Subjective experiences, the mental, is known to us more intimately via introspection and can be considered a lower class of ontological functioning which can exist without corresponding physical objects, isn't conceivable in spatial temporal extension, and is of more direct knowledge.

An epistemological alternative to phenomenalism is indirect realism. Indirect realism, representational realism or causal realism stands between strict physicalism which is realist about the existence of mind-independent physical objects and phenomenalism which acknowledges properties which are subjective and together with physical properties make up the world. Indirect realists agree that qualia exists and our perception of objects does not always correspond with their true nature, but think that qualia is caused or is explainable by the interaction of external objects on mind. The position is compatible with non-reductionist versions of physicalism as physicalism is ontological and indirect realism is epistemological.

Indirect realism faces a similar problem as physicalism does ontologically. How does one infer the existence of a whole class of objects when one only has access to perceptual experience? This is a vertical inference rather than a horizontal inference. Phenomenalism makes horizontal inferences about objects and their relations; from one sense experience to another sense experience.

The causal realist account since Descartes is that since we can infer our own existence, why can't we infer the existence of other entities like we did with ourselves? Incidentally this is also at the foundation of idealism, though with only minds of others and God as objective. I think and there are thoughts, so must I exist to have them? But all we actually have are thoughts, many of which are not causally ascribable to the self. Thoughts can exist whether or not we think them. And there is no particular thought which the self can be located. Like can only come from like, idea from idea. So it is not necessary to explain the effects we have, ideas, by anything greater than ideas.

The nature of objects is known by abstraction, which is really separating certain qualities of something which are able to exist on their own. We can imagine a horse which has lost a leg to still be a horse for example. But our prior notion of a horse is itself a collection of properties, which at a certain point enough satisfy our notion of what a horse is. Even if we were born with an idea of a horse, it would still be an idea in the mind which would not guarantee the objective existence of such a creature, much as we are able to imagine unicorns or the god Cthulhu. We are always abstracting with what we already know, to try to discern a common relationship with similar phenomena.

Indirect realists assume a distinction between properties which actually belong to an object and those which are only perceptual and caused by objects; primary and secondary qualities. Spatial qualities are supposed to be primary qualities, and the phenomena of color and sound are secondary. The real distinction however is that primary qualities are a priori features of the mind, prior to individual experience, which are imposed on objects of perception by the nature of individual consciousness. There is an intellectual nature to perception, besides its intuitive, non-reflective nature. We can only intellectually comprehend reality in certain ways. For we conceive of reality as having three dimensions but the math of physics tells us that there could be many other spatial dimensions. We can infer those dimensions insofar as they are instrumental towards understanding the universe, affecting what we do perceive. There is no reason to assume the a priori way we understand things apply to the universe itself. All we have of the universe is sense experience, particularly in astronomy where most of the data is from wavelengths of the light spectrum. We shouldn't hold some our intellectual notions above what the data tells us.

Supervenience phenomenalism doesn't have the difficulty of inferring a class of objects different and independent of what we experience. The real problem of knowledge is that we try to reason more than is necessary. Supervenience phenomenalism passes two critical tests: Occam's razor and compatibility with science. It is more simple but not too simple when it comes to explaining the mental and the physical, and avoids reifying scientific concepts into comfortable anthropomorphisms.

A potentially disappointing consequence of supervenience phenomenalism is that much of what people consider mind or non physical can actually be explained physically since all of what physicalism says still holds. The only thing not explainable by the physical are subjective mental images, not any sorts of composite objective entities. The soul, God, the afterlife, ghosts only exist as subjective sense data or physical facts. If neither of those, then there is nothing in of themselves which can be said to be true or false. Mind and body are not truly distinct things, but different aspects abstracted from the sort of thing.

Verificationism

Verification independent statements cannot be known to be either true or false.

There is no matter of fact as to P or not-P (which is the law of the excluded middle).

Only the law of non-contradiction holds for truth and falsity, not the law of bivalence. Not everything before us can be known to be strictly true or false in terms of propositions, only that something can't be both true and false. Something can have indeterminate meaning to us if it is not a matter of fact, verifiable by experience.

The law of the excluded middle is a tautology without regard to matters of fact. It always holds to be true no matter the truth of the terms. The alternative of not-A to A can mean anything. Both claims A or not-A cannot be both false; this doesn't make them true either.

Tautologies don't refer to anything that actually exists. That A is A (identity) and not-B (non-contradiction) is true, but that A is either A or not A doesn't mean anything in terms of true or false propositions. Much like when someone says they'll either do it or they don't. That doesn't mean anything even though it's not contradictory.

Non-contradiction does not prove that something exists as a matter of fact. Whatever exists as a matter of fact cannot be denied, but as to something which cannot be verified, the only way to prove this something a priori is if its opposite implies a contradiction. If something implies a contradiction, then it is inconceivable. But everything factual can be conceived not to exist. Therefore nothing can be proved to exist as a matter of fact prior to experience.

"… there is an evident absurdity in pretending to demonstrate a matter of fact, or to prove it by arguments a priori. Nothing is demonstrable, unless the contrary is a contradiction. Nothing, that is directly conceivable, implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive as existent, we can also conceive as non-existent. There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a contradiction. Consequently there is no Being whose contradiction is demonstrable." David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

This makes necessary truths, which are always true, not meaningful to anything outside of the concept. The laws of nature, for example Newton's second law force equals mass times acceleration F=ma, are true according to the phenomena they describe. As exceptions appear, such as the impossibility of accelerating matter faster than the speed of light, the law remains true for what it describes, but more and more isn't able to give us any new knowledge or answer questions. Thus a completely necessary truth is tautologous, insofar as it is devoid of synthetic claims, describing its own terms and not anything else. They hold for any possible combination of facts.

"When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason." Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie

In some cases we may not be able to prove P nor prove not-P. To say that it must be one or the other doesn't tell us anything.

The truths of conjunction and disjunction are not denied. Conjunctive propositions are only true if both terms are true. The truth or falsity of one does not determine the truth or falsity of the other. If A is true then B can be false, making the statement false. Only if A and B are both true is the statement true.

Disjunctive propositions can be false, if both terms are false. If either A is true or B is true, then the proposition is true. A or B is true if we can prove A or B. But we cannot prove A or not A is true because we may not be able to prove A or prove not-A. If it isn't possible to prove a statement, then it isn't true or false.

Being independent of verification does not necessarily make something not true or meaningful. What is verified can be true independent of the act of verification, but can only be known to exist if verified.

This opens us up to mysticism suggested at the end of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, comaparable to Freud's Oceanic Feeling and Schopenhauer's platonic forms
.
6.44 Not how the world is, is the mystical,but that it is.
6.45 The contemplation of the world sub species aeterni is its contemplation as a limited whole.
The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling.

The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris

I had a great time reading this book. Despite coming out almost fifty years ago when I found it, much of what it says is still thought provoking and relevant. The book owes a lot to psychoanalysis which was more dominant at the time. Which is good since Morris uses it to good effect to tie together physiological and behavioral facts into a general theory of human nature.

What is that theory of human nature? Well, that we are the way we are because our ancestors were forced to become a predatory species/hunting-ape and couldn't stay in and around trees picking fruits. Millions of years ago in Africa the forests started to disappear, and the apes could either cling onto whatever was left, or leave the "garden of Eden" and enter into competition with the predators on the ground. Ape populations have dwindled since, and we have emerged the apex predator. To get to that point we had to overcome the other predators, but with inferior equipment so to speak; no fangs or claws. So we made use of two things carried over to a certain degree from our ape past; intelligence and social communication. "His whole body, his way of life, was geared to a forest existence, and then suddenly he was jettisoned into a world where he could survive only if he began to live like a brainy, weapon toting wolf."

Our social lives are to this day built on a sort of tension between social communication and intellect (from ape life) and obedience and violence from our predatory existence. Vestiges of our ape life are our greater reliance on sight at the expense of smell and a more various taste palate. Our predator life involves traveling greater distances to find game, rather than remaining close to the trees, having a home base to protect and return to, and having regular meals rather than momentary snacking. Being a predatory ape means developing ways to facilitate male cooperation, to hunt together with dangerous weapons, and to guarantee a share of the kills and a female for the effort. Monogamy and private property likely arise from a need to secure the loyalty of males to females and children while they hunted and prevent conflict among the males. This isn't all bad, as the predator life means some degree of male solidarity. We can't have a single alpha male who gets exclusive access to women and food. The ability to cooperate and use weapon technology means the lesser males can gang up and resist, limit, or kill the alpha male. Thus some satisfactory distribution of females and resources becomes necessary for social order, and this is likely where marriage and property and even government developed from.

Morris channels Sigmund Freud and argues that religion emerges from the guilt of (symbolically) killing the alpha ape. Even with all his faults, an all powerful male does instill some sort of order and security which is socially useful. You knew where you stood, and the alpha ape in a way encouraged exogamous mating, preventing incest by kicking the sons out of the harem. So religion projects the seemingly omnipotent alpha ape onto the cosmos, extending its influence to our personal lives without actually being here.

There are several downsides that ape life has: lack of cooperation (among males), a pecking order with one individual on top, and less incentive to control nature. Ape and monkey society is more about competition and dominance, and dependent on nature providing food for the picking. Depending on the environment means not traveling too far and remaining close, thus reducing the need for defense of home as well as needing to know what others are up to as they aren't far. If we just forage for food, there isn't a need to cooperate. It's "finders keepers", and so dominance becomes more important. The alpha male gets the first pick, and so long as everybody abides conflict can be avoided, with little need to work together other than staying out of the big guy's way. 

Despite all these downsides, we are still closest to the apes. We haven't evolved to be complete predators, just enough behaviors to utilize our intelligence and social cooperation to survive and thrive. And we only evolved that way because the environment made us, forced us out east of Eden. It seems that much of our aesthetics, tastes, curiosity, and enjoyment of life are owed to our more ape aspects. A pure predator kind of society would resemble the Spartans I think. What we do in leisure however reflects both aspects of our nature, in varying degrees. The popularity of sports and online first person shooter video games reflects the more predatory side. More relaxing and solitary activities like cooking or painting reflect the ape side.

As for the title, the naked ape, the reason why we don't have a full coat of fur is to aid us in hunting; cooling us down by chasing animals. Other predators can make fast dashes after prey, but our bipedal stature and the occupation of our hands makes this difficult. "By losing the heavy coat of hair and by increasing the number of sweat glands all over the body surface, considerable cooling could be achieved- not for minute by minute living, but for the supreme moments of the chase." Our subcutaneous fat and ability to fashion clothes help keep us warm without fur. With the help of neoteny, the retaining of youthful traits into adulthood, all this explains our appearance as the naked ape. Younger chimps have flatter faces, a long slender neck, smaller teeth, absence of heavy brow ridges, non-rotating big toe, and more hair on the head than the rest of the body. Our extended childhood also allows us to develop our powerful brains. A desire to explore and learn new things are also associated with youth, and so we are the young ape as well as the naked ape. Though of course neoteny is selective, as we aren't attracted to infant genitals, infantile emotions, or infantile strength.

The book is full of interesting speculations about behavior, always trying to link us to our animal nature. The message of the book is that we are still operating with an animal mindset no matter how developed we are. Even the most complex behaviors like pacing back and forth and the conduct of war harken back to our more modest origins.

Knowledge & Freedom

Happiness itself, in the positive sense, is never long lasting. Human happiness is qualitatively different than that of other sentient beings. It is not enough to feel pleasure; we form expectations about the future and analyze the past to guide future actions.

The physical world is one of perpetual change; of perpetual desire for what cannot be gratified for more than a moment, for one always lives in the moment and not in the past or future. When we try to connect these unique moments, contradiction abounds to continually frustrate attempts to synthesize a single picture of the world.

We always live outside of ourselves, the physical self. The capacity of thought is merely to imagine a different world like ours, which could be if things were or will be different. Memories of the past and expectations about the future allow us to compare ourselves with a better imaginary world, or haunt us with the memory or expectation of loss. We are victims of the success of human knowledge.

The lack of foreknowledge of the future forms prejudices in the mind, expectations which are based off of what has worked before in uncertain situations. Unfortunately, most people do not change their minds when the facts change before having to learn a hard lesson. There is a tendency to stick to ideas in the face of contradictory information because we have invested ourselves into them. This is due to a desire for consistency, a freedom from worry. The bias towards certain attitudes always faces the threat of conflicting with what happens or could happen in the future. This persistence in the face of conflicting information is really motivated by our own egoistic ends, but we take them to be indicative of the truth, universal. Whereas in reality we have to make such prejudices universal, by eliminating or explaining away contradictions.

Knowledge leads ultimately to the realization that we will die, for the best we can predict about the future comes from what has always happened in the past. We live in space and time, a certain space and a certain time, and yet imagine alternatives that are possible within this checker board. Namely that our existence and that of everything we perceive is contingent. Existence will continue without us as it has for billions of what we call years.

Freedom (not in the physical sense of absence of impediment) is merely the lack of certainty between our actions and the environment. If there was complete freedom, knowledge would be impossible.

What is not determined is not knowable. In a completely undetermined universe, there would no expectations at all for there would be permanent basis to build such expectations. No regularity to establish connections between what are fundamentally different things.

This is the freedom that people talk about when invoking free will, that the actions of the will are without necessity. But this concept is mistaken. The will is merely the power to affect changes in our sensations, the establishment of this power is only possible if there is a necessary connection between will and the environment. If not, there is no way to ever know if will is the efficient cause of anything.

It could be the case that we do what we do and just happen to want what we do, but not actually do what we want. Free will advocates want not only the will to act without necessity, but that the will also has the power to determine what happens in the world it inhabits. A childhood narcissism, a feeling of absolute power over the external world. If we had this power, we would cease to be individuals, as to be something is to be opposed to something else. Fate and tragedy belong to individual existence.

Freedom of thought without action is meaningless. This is too much to ask for. We can never know with necessity what causes what, and there is no reason to believe that we as pure ego are the cause of all our actions. We are spectators, trapped in a world of objects.

There you have it; knowledge and freedom are sources of unhappiness. But they are bound up to the life of the individual. If we celebrate the individual, then we should remain respectful of the suffering involved; and embrace it as a means of self-overcoming.