Points on Points of View - In Memory of Stephen Hawking

Not all points of view are created equal. Many or most sound ideas come as the result of a search for truth. However, a great many logical pitfalls can occur. Additionally, deliberate deception can enter, and can be dressed up in claims of truth whose authors' intents are focused on manipulating you to believe, rather than specifically leading you to something genuine.

The genuine has some recognizable hallmarks. Almost everyone has been surprised by it. Very often human beings have to drop something of what they used to believe - the previous hypotheses they adopted to fit the data they were seeing - in order to see what is genuine, what is true.

Stephen Hawking saw and deeply understood physical concepts that, when taken as a whole, probably surprised him with what they suggested about the universe and the role of physical law in its existence. Dedicated to the pursuit of science, and possibly realizing his talent for advancing its ideas more fully than other human beings could, he stated and promoted from his particular sphere of knowledge what he suspected - with evidence - was necessary for a universe, or our universe, to exist.

When we look at that question - What is necessary for a universe, or our universe, to exist? - we can go back to my initial observation here, that all points of view are not created equal. There are motives behind the way such a question can be answered. There are informative purposes. There are also manipulative purposes. The uses to which human beings put both science and religion can show us a great many such purposes. And as science and information have shown themselves to be greatly useful to human endeavor, ambitious human beings have also shown, sometimes to their shame, that manipulation - even through words and ideas, even dressed in robes of righteousness - also greatly advances the endeavor and prosperity of some human beings.

Stephen Hawking looked at this, and chose to prefer what he saw as all that was necessary. He was able to advance his thinking, and, by extension, humankind's thinking, greatly.

I write this as a Christian, but also as someone observing religion, its worthy and unworthy uses, and its ability to be used as a powerful tool to manipulate the masses. False prophets exist, as does the ability to deceive even the elect. This is as apparent to the objective observer of physical, psychological, and behavioral principles as it is to anyone who sees sacred texts addressing these dangers.

Hawking also suggested, interestingly, that it would be frightening for an advanced civilization to find us, because our ignorance and danger, having manipulated each other as we have, might make us something to be wiped out, rather than preserved. His ideas here, like others he has expressed, don't seem quite as comforting or redemptive as those which enjoy more popularity.

But again, one needs to look at the reasons and motivations behind different points of view.

Notes on Power, Wealth, Influence, and Viral Ideas

These statements are separate ideas, as they spontaneously came to me. They are not organized as a single think piece, except inasmuch as one flowed as an idea from the one that preceded it, but the collection of these ideas may become an organized article of some form later.

Powerful and influential people, singly or in groups, often use techniques to create and spread popular ideas in order to establish or maintain their power and influence.

These ideas have features that, apart from their actual meaning or merit, cause their rapid spread to other human beings in ways similar to biological viruses: Their viral nature, or some rhetorical technique or sensory presentation used to express them, contributes largely to the speed and extent of their spread.

Those who maintain and promulgate these ideas, by whatever means, may do so with a deliberate intention of manipulating or deceiving other human beings.

Others may do so, and may attain wealth, power, and influence from these ideas' spread, without a deliberate or direct intention of manipulating or deceiving: They may believe their actions and intentions to be legitimate, even honest.

At the first, at least, the use of viral ideas and the skills in cultivating and spreading them may simply seem like practical and effective methods for securing some form of financial success or other form of power, wealth, and influence within human society.

The ability of viral ideas to spread separate from their actual worth or merit or morality can partially explain an ability of power, wealth, influence, and ambition to corrupt those by whom these qualities are most favored in life and society.

This corruption can occur, and can even become likely to occur, without ill intention on the part of the originator.

In fact, ideas with genuine or tangible value can also be spread using viral, and even manipulative or deceptive, methods.

By corruption I simply mean that there is something disingenuous or dishonest about the way in which a human being promotes or spreads an idea: his/her intention is hidden, or it is actually misrepresented.

Particularly, corruption can be destructive or detrimental in the guise of being constructive or beneficial.

By manipulation, I mean that someone uses factors in human psychology or sociology to gain leverage over a person's feelings, emotions, or value judgements, again in a way that is akin to misrepresentation.

Manipulation is more subtle than outright deception, and can be seen simply as influencing people, without the moral stigma of outright deception or lying.

Those who have power - social status, advantage over others, or other forms of strength or wealth, including financial - want to keep that power, to maintain their advantage over others, and to enjoy the fruits of such power

These fruits take the form of alleviation of their own pain or want, and prolongation of the pleasures such power, such advantage, such strength can bring.

Benefits of health obviously are desirable over the detriments of disease and deprivation.

Power and advantage over other human beings is, however naturally occurring, arguably more questionable and less obvious than the simple virtues of abundance, because here one seeks one's advantage over one's fellow human being.

"Power," "advantage," and "wealth" are, to some extent, ways to quantify how one human being may be considered better than another.

Wealth is a particularly powerful idea, because there is a strong consensus, among human beings and their organizations and corporate entities in most of civilized society now, on how much money each one has.

Relatively few people can spontaneously - that is, effortlessly - increase their own wealth, in terms of the raw monetary value they possess, and even fewer would even want to destroy such value once they attained it.

Human beings must persuade other human beings of the value of something they create or do, in order to gain monetary wealth from it.

Not as strongly, but similarly, gaining power, influence, and advantage requires persuasion of others.

Manipulation and deception are thus attractive techniques to use in accelerating such gain.

Methods of increasing skill at such techniques is valuable.

As such, methods of increasing such skill, and thus of increasing one's value in any of the ways previously described, are also valuable possessions.

Just as monetary wealth needs protection, so does the secondary wealth of the knowledge of means to increase wealth.

The protection of such wealth arises in parallel with the advantage of some human beings over others.

We talk in various ways about the haves and have-nots.

Rhetoric of all kinds, religious, political, commercial, and simple social conversation, can adopt conventions, techniques, and tendencies to produce and concentrate societal power where the skilled want it to be concentrated.

Thus, it is reasonable to say that some human beings are born with an advantage, and some born without.

The advantage is proximity to the means of acquiring power, wealth, and influence.