Consciousness, life, and meaning…

Posted on December 28, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

I recently discovered several books, and then many Youtube videos, by Federico Faggin. Federico’s life story is fascinating, and touches on so many interesting topics that are colliding in our culture today.

The short story is that Federico, an Italian-American physicist, engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur, designed the first commercial microprocessor for Intel. He went on to start and build several successful companies, including the company that created the technology behind the touchpad technology that led to our current smartphones and tablets. His business accomplishments are interesting and substantial. If he had done nothing else, his life would have been considered a great success. But, that was only the beginning of the story. He had what I suppose could be called a midlife crisis, a point he reached in his life where even though he had accomplished everything in life that we tend to think of as success; business and financial success, a family, friends, respect, awards and reputation, he still found himself deeply unsatisfied and unhappy.

Because of his work with computers and microprocessors, he was studying the problem of artificial intelligence and neural networks, trying nearly 40 years ago to solve the same problems that are all the rage right now with all of the AI hype. As part of this process, he was also studying human consciousness and trying to figure our how computers could ever replicate human consciousness. One night, after getting out of bed for a glass of water, he experienced an episode of what could probably be best described as “cosmic consciousness.” There are many videos of him describing the experience, so you can listen to him describe it directly, but basically he describes it as feeling energy pouring out of his physical body and a sense of love, joy, and peace that were a thousand times more powerful than anything he had ever felt before. It seems obvious to me that he is describing what mystics from every religion, for centuries, have described using all kinds of different terms, including, “awakening,” “enlightenment,” “nirvana,” “samadhi,” and “the kingdom of heaven within.”

That isn’t really the fascinating part. Thousands of people have described these experiences before. Lots of people using psychedelics have described these experiences as well.

The fascinating part is that here is someone who was completely materialistic in his world-view, a physicist, a man of science, with a deep understanding of how computers and technology works, who was also studying neuroscience and biology so that he could further study the hard problems of human consciousness and artificial intelligence, in other words someone who had a very unique compliment of knowledge and life experiences, having an experience that can only be described in spiritual terms. His description of the event, and how he instantly recognized the implications of the experience is remarkable and fascinating. The conclusions that it led him to are remarkable as well.

Why do I find his story fascinating? There are thousands of other people describing similar experiences. But this is an area where it is extremely difficult to sort out the nonsense and the liars from the people who are telling the truth. Anyone can claim to have had this type of experience and then give you all kinds of explanations and implications from their experience. These explanations range from fundamentalist religious reasons, to atheistic chemical reasons, and every kind of woo-woo. new-age, nonsensical reason in between.

What I find fascinating about his story is that he is probably the one individual in a billion that had the actual scientific knowledge and experience, plus the credibility, to offer a unique perspective on what actually happened to him…and the implications for science and religion. I’ve always been deeply fascinated by the clash between science and religion. I find the arguments by both sides against the “opposing” side childish and ignorant. It seems perfectly clear to me that science and religion can not be in conflict with each other if they are truly understood.

Federico explains in scientific terms, the differences between classical physics and quantum physics, and compares them to the differences between deterministic, materialistic, processes, and human consciousness and free-will. He talks about how we are not separate from the world around us, even though this is accepted by our senses as obvious. I find it amazing that cutting edge, quantum physicists, are now describing the physical world using language that is virtually indistinguishable from language being used by the scriptures of multiple religions from thousands of years ago, including Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity.

He comes to the conclusion that consciousness and free will must be foundational, and that they must exist independent of our bodies, before there is life itself, that from the beginning of the universe those properties must exist. He laughs at the idea that a human cell could assemble itself from purely natural processes…but he also believes that we are evolving towards higher levels of consciousness and knowing. This idea seems contradictory to people who are hung up on both sides of the science/religion debate. However, it seems perfectly obvious to the mystics who have been trying to express these ideas for thousands of years. Many of them paid the ultimate price for their theories. Luckily for us, human beings seem to have advanced past the stage where they want to torture and murder people who disagree with their “religious” views.

What does it all mean? I suppose everyone can decide for themselves. Anyway, here is one lecture by Federico that I found particularly interesting…

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Jay Abraham and ideas…

Posted on November 17, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

One of the things that I’ve been thoroughly convinced of is the power of ideas. In virtually every area of life, from business and economics, to science and religion, from personal and professional relationships, to personal hobbies and interests, the power of one good idea can be game-changing.

In the area of politics, Ron Paul has often quoted Victor Hugo in saying “Nothing else in the world…not all the armies…is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” I believe this is very true in all kinds of profound ways. Again, in a political sense, a similar idea was expressed by Samuel Adams: “It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Leonard Read’s entire life was dedicated to spreading the ideas of the freedom philosophy. Every breakthrough in human progress, material and spiritual, was the result of ideas. This is a huge area of study that I can’t even begin to address in this post, because it is so broad and all-encapsulating. For example, we have no idea how ideas even arise in consciousness. Where do ideas come from and why are some people’s ideas so much better than other people’s? Is creating ideas similar to developing muscles; in the sense that the more you exercise your creative mind, the better your ideas become? That is all way beyond what I’m looking to address in this post, but I just throw some of these things out there to reinforce the point, and that is that ideas are the most powerful force in the world. Maybe love is more powerful in some ways, but ideas are definitely near the very pinnacle of what advances human progress.

A quick google search reveals what I’m talking about. Here is an example of some of the most profound ideas that come up in a quick search:

  • Aristotle’s logic
  • Newton’s laws of motion
  • Darwin’s theory of natural selection
  • The printing press and the spread of the written word
  • The development of the zero concept in mathematics
  • The internet as a way of sharing information

As a side note; I find it interesting that often times new ideas completely destroy our old ideas and in a sense, ideas seem to evolve. The strongest ideas weed out the weakest ideas, and they compound on each other. The strongest ideas reproduce and evolve into even better ideas. You put two ideas together and they often reproduce and create a new idea that is better than the sum of the two original ideas. I could go on and on, but I think you begin to understand the profundity of ideas.

Bad ideas are another fascinating subject. The amount of damage that can be done by a bad idea like Marxism can be amazingly destructive.

With all that being said, I just wanted to share a person whose ideas on the very simple topic of business and entrepreneurship are really profound. I stumbled onto Jay Abraham years ago, and when I first watched some of his videos and read some of his books I wasn’t terribly impressed. He seemed a little snake-oil salesman like, and it all seemed a little too slick and superficial.

But for some reason, some of his ideas on how to do marketing and grow sales stuck to me, and at some point I began to realize how powerful some of his ideas really were. Personally, I went through the phase in life many years ago where I read all the well-known self-help books. While there are certainly ideas that can be helpful in self-help books, most of them are very superficial and just end up repeating the same old tired ideas over and over again. So now, the very idea of reading another self-help book makes me grimace. However, amidst all the dross there are a few diamonds. And Jay Abraham definitely has some diamonds in his ideas.

Every business is different, and what will work for one business may not necessarily work for another. But I’m confident that if you’re an entrepreneur trying to grow a small business, you will find ideas in Jay’s work that will radically change your business results. You just need to wade through all the ideas to find the several good ones that will work for you.

For example, one of his simple but profound ideas that has worked for me personally: find another business or businesses that sell items that are similar to, but not directly competing with your product or service, and share your respective customer bases with each other. This is incredibly powerful, costs nothing, and yet, I find that very few businesses are doing this. My experience in business and other areas of life has been that when facing a problem, you can either throw money or ideas at the problem to try and solve it. Ideas are infinitely more economical…and often yield better results.

Here is a link to a free pdf with 880 pages of case studies by Jay Abraham. There is a lot of information you’ll need to wade through to pick out the few ideas that could work for you…but it’s worth it. There is another saying that goes something like this: “there are million dollar ideas everywhere in ten dollar used books.”

Here is a fairly recent interview that will give you some exposure to some of his ideas. I don’t know anything about his personal life or story, and I know he can come across as a little slick and gimmicky, but I can tell from personal experience that many of his ideas really do work. So check it out and see what you think…

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Merton on fear…

Posted on October 25, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

“Fear is perhaps the greatest enemy of candor. How many men fear to follow their conscience because they would rather conform to the opinion of other men than to the truth they know in their hearts? How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?”

-Thomas Merton, from No Man is an Island

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The “new” gold standard…

Posted on September 16, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

Judy Shelton was nominated by Donald Trump for the Federal Reserve in 2019. Her nomination stalled with a 47-50 vote in the Senate in November of 2020 and her nomination was eventually withdrawn by Joe Biden in February 2021. More than 100 economists signed a letter opposing her confirmation saying her views were “extreme and ill-considered.”

Watching this interview of her with Keith McCullough is fascinating. I’m not a big fan of Keith’s, but this was a good interview. Obviously, as an Austrian myself, I’ve heard and am familiar with all of the arguments for the importance of gold and sound money. But hearing it from someone like Judy, a person who came very close to becoming a member of the establishment and the Federal Reserve, is quite interesting. This is a person who is or was personal friends with Alan Greenspan, Paul Volker, and many in the financial “establishment” and the Federal Reserve.

She makes so many interesting points in the interview.

The 261 million ounces of gold that the Fed carries on the balance sheet at $42 per ounce for a total of $11,000,000,000 has an actual market value of around 650,000,000,000. This is a point that Dan Oliver has repeatedly spoken about. He talks about the idea that at some point the gold on the Fed’s balance sheet will need to balance the debt that is on the same balance sheet. If the debt held on the Fed’s balance sheet today is approximately $7,100,000,000,000, then dividing that amount by the 261,000,000 ounces of gold would yield a current price of approximately $27,000 per ounce.

Judy doesn’t talk about this in the interview, but Dan Oliver mentions this constantly. During the massive bull market in gold during the 70’s and into 1980, gold topped out at approximately $800 per ounce. At that point, the gold held by the Fed matched the liabilities of the Fed. This was the free market putting the dollar back on a gold standard, albeit for a very brief period of time. I am confident that this will happen again in the future. The implications for the price of gold are obvious.

But getting back to the Judy Shelton interview:

Judy talks about the immorality of having a 2% inflation target by the Fed. This can’t be emphasized enough. The government and large asset owners are “skimming” in her words, but I think “stealing” would be even more accurate, that money every year from the poor and middle class that do not own assets. They’re also stealing it globally from anyone who owns dollars around the globe. As Keith points out, the whole game by the financially literate is to “own” inflation. But this can only be done by people who understand the system well enough to profit off of it. Those people are a tiny percentage of the overall population. This leads to tremendous friction and resentment in society. This resentment is what eventually ends up destroying civilizations and leading to revolutionary ideas like socialism, communism, Nazism, and all kinds of other disastrous ideas. Civilization itself is at stake in this battle of ideas.

She also talks about how the Fed is paying banks interest on their reserves held at the Fed. This is something that the Fed started doing recently and deserves a post of it’s own explaining how and why this is happening. Suffice it to say that if the average person understood how this works, they would be justifiably outraged. It is deeply immoral and outrageous, but that will need to wait for another time. Judy calls it an “ill-conceived” program. I couldn’t agree more.

The fascinating part is how this discussion is not with someone who is simply an outsider, but rather, by someone who has direct connections to the ruling elite in banking. Lots of people have said the same thing. Austrians talk about these topics all the time. The difference is that Judy is tied into the inner circle, and is one of the extremely rare people who actually has conversations with these morally compromised people in the corrupt institution known as the Federal Reserve.

Judy says that she sees this as a “moral issue.” She says that she views money as a moral contract between citizens and the government and that she thinks it is incumbent on the government to provide a meaningful unit of account and a dependable store of value. I couldn’t agree more.

Our entire government is completely corrupt and immoral, and until we get back to sound money, nothing is going to change. I’ve been pounding the table on this issue for several decades now, and I’m more convinced than ever that it is the truth. All of politics is essentially just bread and circuses, a distraction, from the real issue of sound money. The reason, of course, is that sound money is the only thing that can restrict the size of government. In the age-old, grand struggle of history, between freedom and coercion, sound money is THE key to victory. Of course a well-educated, moral population is key as well. But, the two go hand in hand, and I have virtually no hope of us achieving a well-educated, moral population without a sound money.

Judy talks about how hugely disruptive our current monetary system is to trade around the world. She says that not only is it not a good system, but that it is essentially an “anti-system”. It “rewards people with financial assets, creates a false sense of wealth and is uniquely vulnerable to reality kicking in and having some type of melt-down.”

All of Trump’s talk about tariffs is simply another disastrous idea layered on top of, and caused by, an incredibly destructive monetary system. These tariffs will lead to even more pain and instability for innocent people caught up in an incredibly destructive monetary policy. Tariffs lead to currency manipulation and trade wars, and trade wars lead to capital controls and shooting wars. We’ve known this for hundreds of years. Our ignorance is simply maddening. We never learn from history. This is about as basic as it gets when it comes to history. But Americans want their bread and circuses. They think that federal elections can change this. Sadly, I think they’re deeply mistaken. The only thing that can change this is a return to morality and sound money. It’s a learning problem, not an election or a teaching problem.

Lastly, Judy talks about an intriguing idea. This idea is tying federal debt to some sort of gold-backed bond, where the bond is redeemable in dollars or gold. She also talks about how these sorts of bonds could be replicated by the free-market and could even be tied into crypto somehow. I think all of this will eventually happen, not because the authorities will want to do it, but rather, just because the system we’re using now will create so much chaos that there will be no other choice in the end. The market will eventually end the Fed. Gold, with some modern technological innovation, will be restored as money again. The only question is how much pain we need to go thru before we get there.

It seems obvious that three things will all exist in the future; gold, government debt, and technology. It seems very logical to assume that these three will coexist and be combined in the future. Some sort of government bond, backed by gold, trading as a stablecoin, seems extremely likely to me. Studying history can be extremely frustrating. Seeing the same mistakes repeated over and over can be maddening, but, at the same time, history can also be exhilarating.

The flip side of seeing mankind make one imbecilic mistake after another, is the incredible resilience and creativity of humanity. The ideas and innovations that come about, often because of the pain and suffering created by bad ideas, are truly amazing. Optimism is the only reasonable attitude to have in the end. I think it is warranted given that we have thousands of years of human history behind us, all of it leading to this present moment where, despite all of our problems, we live better than any human beings have lived in history. There will be lots of pain along the way, but the future will be amazing!

I’m looking forward to reading Judy’s book “Good as Gold.” In the meantime, here is her interview:

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Libertarian brainstorming…

Posted on September 14, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

The ideas of liberty are relatively new, and it’s easy to just assume that they always existed. But we forget that many of the libetarian ideas that we simply take for granted were just conceived in the relatively recent past. Ideas, like so many other things in life, evolve over time. It’s virtually impossible to define when, where, and who came up with key ideas in the freedom philosophy.

I thought this video was interesting, because it provides a brief glimpse into how some of these ideas develop. There’s nothing particularly glamourous about it, but it’s fascinating to me to hear stories by people who were around some of the people who developed these ideas. In this interview they casually mention how people like Mises impacted Andrew Galambos, how people like Bob Lefevre came up with certain ideas, and so forth and so on.

It’s amusing how they talk about how after lectures on the freedom philosophy, they would discuss and argue about ideas in the parking lot while their wives couldn’t figure out why on earth they weren’t home yet. I can directly relate to that, albeit without the wife part.

In this discussion, they talk about the concept of how the insurance industry could provide essentially all of the functions of government, including police protection and even national security protection for the individual. The fascinating part is how this came about simply from them having discussions about how it is not logically consistent to insist that the free market provides better results…except in the most important areas of life like personal safety. It would be like arguing that the free market is better at providing all material aspects of life except groceries and clothing, when in fact, of course, the more important something is, the more important it is to keep government and coercion out of it.

Something else that has always fascinated me, is how virtually all of the progress in any given area is created by a relatively small group of people, often knowing each other personally and in the same geographic area. This should not be surprising, since ideas evolve, and in order to evolve faster, they must compete with other similar ideas for supremacy. Silicon Valley is just one obvious example of this. There is a reason most of the really successful software companies came from there. There are hundreds of other examples. The Austrian school itself is another obvious example. And the modern day libertarian movement can be directly traced back to the Austrian school. From Menger to Mises to Hayek, to Leonard Read, to Ron Paul, etc., etc., with many other individuals along the way, these ideas evolved and grew increasingly refined.

It is my firm belief that these ideas will continue to evolve and will lead one day to a world without government coercion. I don’t see any other way for mankind to survive another thousand years without this happening. Maybe mankind won’t survive another thousand years, but I see no reason why it couldn’t. After all, we have thousands of years of recorded history of material, and somewhat more controversially, ethical and moral improvements. Why should we believe that this will end anytime soon? This is one of many reasons that I find the topic of human freedom so fascinating and exhilarating. What topic could be more interesting than how human beings have become what they are, and where they’re heading? It makes every other topic seem mundane in comparison.

Andrew Galambos is another interesting character, and his thoughts on this are fascinating. But that’s another post for another day. In the meantime, here’s the video:

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The biggest contribution…

Posted on August 17, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

“The best and only place to start is with yourself. This is the only person that you can really control in the end. And by believing in freedom yourself, you might have made the biggest contribution to civilization you could possibly make.”

-Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.

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Origins of life…

Posted on August 11, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

As someone who has studied economics for over two decades, it is very obvious that “mainstream” economics is riddled with errors. Anyone who has seriously studied the topic knows that the Keynesian Economics being taught in the best universities in the world today are filled with many fundamental errors regarding the science of economics. Why is this happening? How many other sciences being taught in universities are just as flawed?

While I know very little about medical science, the Covid 19 debacle revealed massive problems with the medical establishment. Even a layperson like myself knew virtually immediately that the official narrative on Covid was nonsense and that many of the things being propagated by the medical profession were lies. Why were we lied to?

It begs the question of how many other topics are just as compromised. How could the layperson possibly know, without thousands of hours of reading and research, how many other fundamental aspects of life are being presented in ways that are completely false?

Another area that I find really interesting, but I only have some very rudimental knowledge in the topic, is biology. It is a completely fascinating topic. How could anyone not be interested in the very science that purports to explain where we came from and how our bodies work? This is the key intersection where religion and science collide. There are many other intersections, but this must surely be the most obvious one.

With that in mind, is it possible that mainstream biology is completely wrong? And if so, why? Is there a branch of biology out there that explains the science and has been intentionally memory-holed just like Austrian Economics was in the study of economics? I don’t know, but any intellectually honest thinking person surely can’t help but wonder. Many books that I’ve read from decades ago regarding biology seem to have more accurate hypotheses than the current crop.

With all that in mind, I found this interview to be fascinating…

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Teilhard de Chardin quote…

Posted on July 8, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

“The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.”

-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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The God debate…

Posted on June 12, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

I’m always interested in hearing all sides of controversial topics. As topics go, it doesn’t get much more controversial than this. I find it truly amazing that in the 21st century you can have such diverse views on something as fundamental as the existence of God. This debate has raged on for thousands of years. There are obviously intelligent people on both sides of the debate, often sitting in the same room to discuss it, and it’s like they’re talking right past each other. I’m always slightly amused at how people on both sides of this debate can get so triggered by someone from the other side.

My experience has been that these debates are rarely held in good faith, but rather, each side tries to avoid the weakness in their own arguments while trying to trap the other side into a position that will
“prove” them wrong. Often these debates devolve into intellectually dishonest pursuits of victory rather than truth.

Richard Dawkins is a well known athiest, perhaps the most well-known of them all. He’s been part of the four horsemen of athiesm for quite some time. Ayaan Hirsi has an incredible background. Somali-born, and raised as a Muslim, she renounced the faith and became a central figure in the New Atheism movement. She later became friends with Richard Dawkins.

Recently Ayaan converted to Christianity. Obviously Dawkins was dismayed at the news of her conversion. I believe the following is the first time they’ve met in public to discuss her conversion. While listening to the discussion, I was reminded again why Jordan Peterson hit such a nerve and became so popular with his discussion of religion. He straddles the line where the two of them fundamentally clash and tries to reconcile scientific truth with spiritual truth. This is no small task.

Dawkins argues that it is preposterous that an educated person could believe the central beliefs of Christianity; the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles, the savagery of the Old Testament. Hirsi answers his criticisms by describing the meaninglessness and nihilism of a world view where there is no Creator. Dawkins says that the most important thing is truth, whether we like it or not. Hirsi responds by saying some truths may be beyond reason and can only be understood on a higher level.

It’s a fascinating discussion, or at least it was to me. I’ve long believed that material progress is optimized in societies where freedom of speech and religion, and the competition of ideas is not only tolerated, but encouraged and celebrated. It seems obvious to me that the same principle should apply to spiritual and religious progress. Only weak people with weak minds and weak ideas are afraid of considering and discussing ideas that they disagree with. People with confidence in their ideas and interested in the truth are never afraid of intellectually honest debate. The parable of the wheat and the tares somehow seems applicable here. Trying to uproot bad ideas by force or by somehow vilifying people who are honestly pursuing truth, even if they are mistaken seems like it would be more destructive than allowing God or nature to sort them out in the fullness of time as their fruits become obvious. After all, how could one know what is wheat and what are tares without becoming intimately familiar with both.

Typically Dawkins ridicules his opponents, but in this case his friendship with Hirsi causes him to reason with her which makes for a much more interesting discussion.

Anyway, here is their discussion:

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The Mighty US Dollar…

Posted on May 13, 2024 by It's a Learning Problem

Brent Johnson has become well known for his dollar milkshake theory. He does a weekly video called Milkshakes, Markets, Madness that is a commentary on markets and especially the US dollar. I’ve been following him for a number of years and I think he presents a good counterargument to all of the dollar doomers that claim the dollar will be collapsing any day now.

Peter Schiff is one of these dollar doomers, and there are lots of others as well. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Peter and I think he does a great job of explaining economics to the layman with a lot of his arguments. Plus the fact that he despises bitcoin probably doesn’t exactly endear him any less to me. But the fact of the matter is, he’s been pitifully wrong on his timing in calling for the demise of the dollar. I think he’ll be right in the end, but in the meantime, if you followed his investment advice for the past 10-15 years you will really have underperformed the market.

Brent is essentially the anti-Peter Schiff. Not in that he doesn’t agree on the long term demise of the dollar, but rather that he simply believes the dollar is in a much better position than any other global fiat currency. As such, he believes the dollar will essentially be the last one to fall. I think he makes some really good points with his arguments and I think that as an investor, one really needs to be open-minded and willing to hear lots of different arguments in order to make good decisions. Listening to Brent and Peter on a weekly or monthly basis will provide you with lots of opposing viewpoints…and some entertainment along the way.

Anyway, I thought this week’s episode by Brent was particularly interesting and he did a really good job of pointing out some of the reasons that the US dollar is, despite all it’s weaknesses, still in the driver’s seat globally. With the incompetency and insanity of US policies constantly front and center in our news flow, it’s easy to forget just how huge the advantages are that are built into the global financial system for the dollar. Given these huge advantages, it’s easy to underestimate how long this game can last, no matter how incompetent our political leaders are.

Brent does a good job of pointing this out, and making the point that it doesn’t matter how unfair and immoral the system may be…it’s the system that we’re part of whether we like it or not. As such, it’s probably a good idea to understand the system as best as you can if you want to survive the next 5-10 years with your finances intact.

Check it out…

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