The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil

I just finished watching the movie The Box. I believe the meaning of the movie whas that this place is "The Box"; a test of sorts. I have often wondered why we were here, why I was here. I this place a test for our soul?

In the Bible's first book, Genesis, we are told that our ancestors began their lives in a Garden of Eden of sorts. That they were told not to eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After much reflexion concerning the meaning of this metaphor, I had concluded that this tree represented an option that was open to us in the perfect world called the Garden of Eden. The tree represented the option of being able to choose between good and evil. Upon eating fruit from this tree, one earned the possibility of choosing to do acts of evil as well as acts of good.

Thus, the Garden of Eden represented a world were none of its inhabitants had the [direct] option of doing good or evil. All choices one had the possibility of making were of a neutral nature. Neutral choices are difficult to conceive for it seems natural to assume that all choices yields effects that are either good or evil. However, if good is defined as actions that reduce-mitigate evil actions, then a world-garden that would have no evil actions to fight would only provide for neutral actions resulting from our willed choices.

Then there is the symbol of the Tree of Life, which was taken away from us, or the Garden, whence we decided to choose to gain the ability to choose to act in evil and-or good ways. I feel that this tree symbolizes eternal life, life without dependence on a physical non-eternal fragile body that grows and inevitably decays until it is nothing but dust. Thus, in our original world-garden, we depended on no such body. We were made of one eternal substance, a spiritual substance (non-physical).

But here we are, in this place, this box. Our bodies provide us with a chance to live out our lives as we see fit. Yet we are all subject to certain limitations-constraints for we depend on this body to move, think, sense, etc. It is both a useful tool and a prison-type box. We do not know why we are here. We know only what we choose to know, directly or indirectly. On a moment by moment basis, we are continuously faced with options from which we must choose. We are not completely aware of the good or evil effects of each option presented to us for our knowledge of such predictions is limited and very often uncertain-unconvincing. However, were are often faced with options which we believe-know are very likely to yield evil effects. In other words, we often choose options knowing their likeliness of yielding evil effects-actions relative to the other options presented to us. And we often fail to choose the most altruistic options, those that would likely yield good effects for others.

Of course, it would not necessarily be fair to be given but one-and-only-one chance-moment to make the right choice. This may be why we are provided with a life-long life to make mistakes (so-called sins) and learn from these. Lucky for us, we can learn from these for through the intelligence incarnated by our mind-brain we can [re]define ourself. Without this ability to learn from our mistakes, from the mistakes of others, from the world, and from ourselves, we could not learn The Way of the World.

Sometimes, I think that it is awesome to be provided with the ability to choose between good and evil for it makes me feel more free. Yet this is only an illusion. You see, I would like to be able to instantaneously program my mind so that I could only do good, never do evil. But this is not the case. Each moment, I am challenged with more evil options (as well as good ones): Will I lie? Will I steal? Will I lust? Will I envy? Will I..? Will I tell the truth, will I give? Will I love? Will I resist temptations? Each new moment of our existence, we are faced with these options. And we always choose to realize one of our options (implicitly, we choose to choose); each moment involves a choice. Each choice is persisted into our mind-brain. Each evil choice will thus make it harder to make a good choice of the same nature. But each moment, we have the possibility of redeeming ourselves.

Hence, if this box is a test, it would seem that it would involve a test of our righteousness-sinfulness. If we end up making our mind into something good, we pass. If we end up making our mind into something evil, we fail. But what happens to us if we pass? And if we fail? The answer is not so obvious to me. One could think that an evil life will yield a sentence in Hell, while a good life would yield a reward of Heaven. It seems obvious to me that this Heaven is of the same nature as this Garden of Eden we spoke of earlier.

But as for Hell, the answer seems more difficult. Would we really be sent to a place of eternal suffering without any chance of redemption? Or would we be given another life in this box? A another chance to take the test? It would seem more compassionate and merciful of the Examiner if we were given a great amount of chances for salvation. But some may argue that some people deserve to suffer for all the evil they have done to others. To this, I would say that this place is filled with suffering enough for it is filled with souls that choose to effect evil onto others.

The First Leap of Faith

The idea here is to try to understand a hypothetical God. To suppose that such a hypothetical God exists is the first leap of faith. Although for the moment, such an assumption is nothing more than a metaphysical hypothesis. It is not a scientific one due to its so-called non-falsifiability. Then comes the difficult part which requires lots of empathy, patience, reflexion, and will to understand. Bear with me.

If God exists, this God has created this world for us beings. Now, imagine that you are alone in a void. Imagine that you are not constrained by anything but yourself, and that you are essentially a soul that can will into effect any experience, and that you consciously experience these willed experiences. You are in a void with nothing other than your essential self. For the moment, the universe is only you. Being in a void with nothing but your will and your experience of it, you are not constrained by any rules for such things do not yet exists. Thus, you have all the power in the universe to will into existence (experience) anything that you can think of. You are God.

Having no brain or body for lack of physical laws, you might say that such an entity as yourself is not intelligent or complex enough to generate anything. This is a false assumption due to the principle of explosion, i.e. that anything is possible given a paradox. You see, you are a paradox. You both will your experience and experience your will. You are a cycle, a feedback loop of sorts. 

You who is God, where are you from? You are from the void. The void became you. The void is pure nothingness. In the void, their is no space, time, space-time, particles, energy, natural laws, waves, algorithms, humans, nothing. But the void itself is a paradox; it is bound to explode. You see, while it is natural to ask: "what could possibly come out of the void?" (and to answer: "nothing could"), it requires a little more wisdom to reply: "what couldn't?". Remember, their are no laws or rules constraining it to stay as such. 

- But Nick, your idea is so easily refuted by the fact that the void cannot logically be something in itself. 

- What do you mean by logic? A void is not constrained by such things. If it could be both something and nothing, what would stop it from being such a paradox? My friend, you assume that paradoxes are impossible. 

- Nick, you are playing with words! 

- My friend, of course I am, words need to be played with in order to transmit ideas that do not yet exist.

Such a void could easily generate a soul, or even better, morph into one. It is pure-unconstrained potentiality. Does it not seem a little reasonable that such a paradoxical void could explode into a feed back loop, a cycle, a paradox that could experience itself. But if one is experiencing one self, and one is essentially this experience, couldn't one experience oneself experiencing oneself experiencing oneself...and so on. Would it not be possible that this experience morph into something else? But if the experienced experience changes, isn't one experiencing one's own power to change one's experienced self? Or maybe one would experience a belief that one is experiencing one's self, such that one could come to change the experience so that one could experience one's power over the experienced experience? Whatever the case, once one learns to will the experience (modulate it) and experience the will, and if one is alone, one is God.

Now lets continue empathizing with our hypothetical God. Of course, all this is difficult to grasp or understand (and communicate). But this difficulty can be justified by the fact that you as a soul (your soul is not yours, it is you, but your mind-brain is yours) are supported by an intelligence and constrained by rules and laws. It requires much reflecting and, as always, open-mindedness. The next step is to suppose that one is essentially a soul, i.e. a will and an experience, and a mind-brain, i.e. a mechanistic algorithmic intelligence. 

The outside physical world that your body is touching is not what you are directly experiencing. How could you experience anything that is at a distance from your experience? Your experienced experience is not outside of you, it is you. The mind-brain is only an intelligent medium between the outside world and your experience. You are not experiencing this text, computer, book, paper, you are experiencing the experience that your mind-brain provides you with based on the peculiar patterns of activations of neurons in it. It is only processing and integrating the signals that were input into it from the outside world (and from your will). Your will is only your modulation of your experience. 

The inputs from the outside world are really the activation of sensor neurons by outside phenomena such as light particle-waves hitting your eye, or sound particle-waves hitting your ears, etc. Even your eyes and ears sense nothing more than signals that were modulated by the configuration of particles making up objects or of aggregates of particles that were moved into wave patterns. 

The mind-brain simply decodes, aggregates, integrates and interprets these signals into patterns of experience to be experienced by the soul that you, essentially, are. You not only experience your mind's interpretation of the outside, you also experience you-as-soul modulating your experience. Your mind learns from these willed modulations to optimize its support function. To the mind-brain, the soul is a supervisor, providing it with the judgments of value it needs to better serve you, the soul. The mind-brain provides momentum or habits to the soul that you are. By being somewhat affected by your past willed choices, you can become more constant such that you can define yourself (your mind-brain) into something that makes sense. 

The only difference between the hypothetical Soul and the hypothetical God is that the first is constrained within system of control, i.e. a mind-brain and its surrounding environment (the Universe), while the latter is not constrained by anything (yet). The next step is to suppose that our hypothetical God, alone in the Void that generated him, is the cause of the hypothetical Soul-Intelligence duality that I am. 

To ask how (in the scientific sense) is somewhat pointless since our hypothetical God has the ability to will anything experience. His-her only limit is her-himself. The true question is why? Why would this being generate such an experience as that is ours? Why all these natural laws? Why this system of control? Etc. To attempt to explain all this, to rationalize and justify it, that is the second leap of faith.

On Humility

As is common to all, I often find myself in a situation where I am taking criticism from another. This can be from my boss, from a friend, from a parent, from a coworker, or even from some of my employees and team supervisors. Criticism is a two edged sword. In small doses (i.e. not too often from the same person), and when communicated politely (i.e. without feeling attacked are defended against), it can be very beneficial...to the humble that is.

Humility is very rarely understood. It is often confused with modesty, which is opposed by vanity. Modesty is a possible manifestation of humility, but modest individuals are not always humble. If humility is an iceberg, modesty is its tip. You see, humility is within. This is what makes humility (among so many modes of the within) so difficult to understand and to share.

Simply put, humility is the will to self-doubt. Or more measurably-precisely, to acknowledge and the doubt one's preconceptions/convictions at least as often as one doubts those of others. To doubt others is relatively natural, nothing more than a useful habit. Useful in that we use it to validate or deny ourselves the veracity of another's actions. By means of this habit, we analyse others and learn from their example. To convince ourselves of the veracity of others, we can doubt them "to make sure". If they pass our doubt-test, we absorb their action into a positive belief, i.e. "that seems right to me". If they fail, we absorb what we observe into a negative belief, i.e. "He doesn't know what he is talking about".

Doubting one's own convictions or preconceptions is extremely difficult. I have met many people who have no idea how to do this. To these, it seems completely nonsensical. I can understand that someone who has never done this, and to whom the above is explained and to whom it is communicated (criticized) that "this is possible and even virtuously enviable, etc", will have extreme difficulty in having their ego accept that he or she has for their entire existence omitted to consider such an important deeply profoundly concept within ("Does not compute" lol). How could anyone be expected to accept such a grave omission? They would have to be humble, right? Got to love the classic paradoxe de l'oeuf et de la poule.

To be humble requires a tremendous amount of sustained will. It will never become a habit. The ego is too powerfully integrated into our existence. The ego is necessary, but like all pleasures, its dosage must be regulated by humility.

The next time you are criticized, observe your ego inevitably gain the upper hand on your humility. You can try to resist it, but you will realize that you have good reasons to protect your reputation, it's the natural thing to do. But before you fall asleep, in bed, think about in what your opponent was right. Empathize with him or her. Notice how much easier it is to do this after the fact. You could also wait until the next morning. Sleep and dreams have a habit of cleansing yesterday's emotions. Also take the time to reevaluate your own convictions. Its not wrong to have convictions, but it is important to be able to back them up with rational coherent belief systems of convictions.

This system of conviction is the object of your humility. To be humble is to spend much time reexamining each of its fundamental convictions. Compare them to their opposites. And do everything in your power to rationalize those opposing views; be humble enough to see the truth of that view. See the fallacies of your own. Be mutable and flexible. Be open to change. Be proud (but not too proud) of any changes you were able to make, examine their effects on the rest of your holistic belief system.

Love to progress. Love to be powerful enough to doubt the most fundamental elements of your self. Eventually, you will be able to use your will to balance out your ego during critical conversations. This doesn't mean you need to accept all criticism. At minimum, always keep in mind that you may just be in error. An oracle of Delphi said: "Socrates is the wisest man for he knows that he knows not".