My Toy Village

I have come across a lot of concepts in the course of long adventure of life. Some made sense, some were funny, some were false and some were just wild. I used to think that I could put out of my mind all those that did not like but now I realise that I was only hiding them from my awareness. So many ideas that I had rejected or forgotten have popped up at the most unexpected moments that now I think that every concept that enters my brain leaves its image somewhere in there. I have travelled a lot, discussed with people of many cultures and have read extensively all kinds of material including science fiction so I must have stored all kinds of concepts in my brain most of them out of reach of my awareness.

Like everyone else, I am subjected every day to a bombardment of concepts trying to attract my attention in order to influence my perception of reality and my behaviour in some way or other. Most of them automatically get shelved in the dark recesses of my mind or used to reinforce concepts currently on the stage of my awareness. That means that the concepts that I do not reject offhand get sorted into pre extant structures without any effort on my part. Only rarely does a new concept really excites me enough to provoke a conscious reflection about its meaning and its impact on my current thought structures.

These conceptual constructions, that I have accumulated through the years, make up the "toy village" that represents my perception of the universe. Concepts are like building blocks and my toy village is like a Lego construction set. The blocks are all of different shapes but their protuberances have to fit into the holes on the neighbouring blocks like in a jigsaw puzzle. The rules of mathematics and logic dictate how the various blocks, or concepts, should fit together, a bit like grammatical rules indicate how to use words to make meaningful sentences.

When I find an interesting new concept, I try to fit it into one of the buildings of my toy village. When I can't find a good fit, I have to either redesign one of the buildings to make room for it or put it aside with others that don't fit. If I get lazy, the pile of interesting blocks for which I have not bothered to find a proper place gets so big that I feel confused. Therefore, I generally try to settle contradictions as they occur because I know from experience that my confusion and discomfort will only get worse if I don't take the time to sort things out.

I colour my blocks to remind me how valid I think the concepts they represent are. There are no black or white blocks in my Lego set because I don't think my mind has access to absolute truths or untruths. My blocs could all be shades of grey but I colour them in four tones of blue because I prefer that colour.

I use a dark blue colour on those blocs that represent perceptions of the outside reality that are the most widely accepted by the scientific community today. These concepts have resisted all attempts to prove them false so far. I don't think that this set of observed facts and explanatory theories corresponds exactly to the real world. It is however the best approximation about which a concensus has been reached between a majority of reliable experts who base knowledge on verifiable exprimentation and rigorous logical demonstrations. I don't take these concepts to be absolute truths but I think it is highly probable that they are correct. Those dark blue blocks give weight and substance to the buildings in my village. I would like that all the blocs in my village be dark blue but unfortunately only a part of what I know rates such a high degree of certainty. In pratice, I have to operate every day in a very uncertain world so I have to use a lot of other blocs of lighter colours.

The medium blue blocks represent concepts that appear probable but that are still speculative for they have not been verified nor proven. Many of these blocks come from my subconscious machinery for which I have the greatest respect. My subconscious is a hard worker. It's like a silent partner who never takes a break from the job of making sense out of the torrent of information that pours in through my five senses. When I have a hard time understanding something, I ask him to look into the problem when I go to sleep at night and he often has an acceptable answer to show me in the morning. He is really awesome but he is unfortunately very gullible: he will work hard on any data I give him without first checking their validity, just like a computer. That's why I can't trust him completely and I have to evaluate his conclusions carefully. I suspect that he sometimes uses some of the concepts that I have shelved and forgotten about. You know, "thrash in, thrash out".

The pale blue concepts are those that I consider possible but unlikely to represent correctly the real world. Most of them come from newspapers or from people who are not very careful about what they say. I try to avoid using them. I recognise, however, that there are a few in some of my constructions where "possible but unlikely" concepts have been used temporarily pending something better.

Washed out, very pale blue is reserved for concepts or hypotheses that I consider possible but highly improbable. Memes bearing these unlikely concepts circulate freely from mind to mind in spite of the obvious lack of the slightest proof. Meme replication does not require validation, ready acceptance by their prospective hosts is enough. All forms of prejudice that flatter their host at the expense of other people are very good replicators. Rational thinking and careful judgement is often abandonned in times of conflict when it is tempting to demonise the opponent to justify the harm we intend to deal him. Seductive aspirations and pleasing fantasies also circulate freely because they replace hard reality by hope.

Wishful thinking is highly contagious. Credulous individuals are often completely infected by washed out pale blue memes which they readily accept because they have not learned to to distinguish between the virtual universe they have assembled in their mind and the real outside world. Their virtual worlds can contain anything from unicorns and purple flying cows to spirits, dead ancestors and gods.

I also have a pile of spare concepts that don't fit in any of my constructions. Most of those blocs are pale blue or washed out very pale blue. There are only very few of the darker blocks in that pile because I make a real effort to find an adequate place for all of the valid concepts that can be integrated into my model of the universe.

It is only a village and not a city because I know only a small part of all that is known by mankind. My subconscious partner knows a lot more than I do. My village has a science street, a philosophy street, a psychology street, an arts street, a relationships street and many other streets laid out around a central plaza and the city hall (that represents what I think I know about myself). It even has a religion street but there are only pale traces of past constructions left on it now.

Some of my concept blocks are also colour coded with green polka dots over the basic blue hues to highlight those few that I consider essential to my self-esteem, well-being and survival, irrespectively of their probability of being true. For example, I like to think that people are basically good. That block gets only a medium blue rating but I add green polka dots on it and use it whenever I can because I have found that people are more often good to me if I expect them to be good than if I expect the contrary. I also like to think that I can learn to do anything that man has learned to do. That rates only a pale blue (possible but unlikely), with green polka dots, but cherishing that concept has enabled me to do a lot of things I would never have dared to try otherwise.

Some of my concept-blocs are colour coded with red polka dots to remind me that I consider them harmful or dangerous and that it would be better to keep them in storage instead of using them even if they have a high probability rating. Thinking that I could get away with a perfect crime would be in that category.

My toy village is really a lot of fun and I play with it all the time. When others show me their universes I see them as distinct neighbouring toy villages and it does not matter weather they look like mine or not. I have been shown an enormous variety, from the modest wooden villages to big cities with multi storied buildings. They also reflect the different priorities of their architects in the various fields of knowledge. Generally, the villages I have had the opportunity to visit are mostly dark blue like my own. Most of the constructions they contain represent verifiable knowledge about which a broad consensus has been established. There are also many signs of recent restoration and we can see thet concepts are being updated more and more frequently now that we are entering into the information age. The only constructions that are clearly different reflect flights of creative fancy in the various fields of art, customs and culture or in the area of unverifiable beliefs, religions, ideologies and "isms".

Religions

I have visited a great number of villages other than my own in the course of my lifetime through meeting people or reading their books. That's where most, if not all, of my Lego blocks come from for I don't really think that I have invented any new concepts myself. As mentioned above, I try to integrate into my own village all the dark blue blocks (highly probable), that I find while visiting other villages. I also pick up a lot of medium blue (probable but unverified), pale blue (possible but unlikely), and very pale blue (highly improbable), blocks. Most of the last three end up in my scrap yard of unused blocs.

I often come across concepts about the various immaterial beings that man has imagined to explain all kinds of phenomena he did not understand, from thunder to the origin of the universe. No such ethereal beings have ever been seen and there is no hard evidence of their existence, but they are very popular for I encounter concepts about them in most of the villages I visit. There is a huge variety of them from the tree, river and mountain spirits, to the souls of dead people, to good angels and bad demons, to the gods of Greek, Nordic and Hindu mythologies and finally, to the various interpretations of a unique God, creator of the universe. There are also an astonishing variety of conflicting theories about the origins and purpose of mankind. I have no doubt that each of these contradictory scenarios has been useful to somebody, somewhere, sometime but they cannot all be true.

None of these concepts have been verified experimentally, so I cannot use the dark blue colour of reliable high probability on any of them. Many of them, like the gods of thunder, wind, rain and fertility, have been explained away by science. Others, like the souls of dead people, good angels and bad demons, lack the credibility that the slightest shred of tangible evidence could have conferred on them, so I have no hesitation giving them the very pale blue colour that indicates how highly improbable I think they are.

The concept of a creator of the universe is not that easy to deal with. Whole libraries of books have been written on the definitions of such a creator and on proofs of his existence. I find that the numerous definitions that have been promoted, and often fought over, regarding this immaterial being, can be sorted into two categories.

The most popular theories deal with anthropomorphic creator gods that interfere constantly in the universe and in men's lives and that behave according to a variety of temperaments, from loving and paternalistic to awesome and vengeful. Their existence could be possible, but this type of creator appears suspect to me for their alleged interventions seem to have always supported the power of the shamans, priests or gurus that have promoted them. Moreover, these gods appear to take sides in human conflicts and to give their side the permission to carry out all kinds of atrocities that humans would not dare do to other humans without divine authorisation. A lot of people believe absolutely in such gods but I cannot bring myself to think that the existence of such petty and cruel beings is very probable, so I colour those concepts with a washed out very pale blue. Moreover, I add red polka dots because I think that I could become bad and very dangerous if I thought that I were always absolutely right and that had God on my side.

The other variety of creator gods are not modelled on man's image and they don't interfere. They either remain aloof of their creation or cannot be distinguished from it. Their only function seems to be to put an end to the chain of the contingent explanations that man has imagined about the origin of the universe. The concept of a remote and inactive creator is not tainted by the interest of eventual promoters. Maybe that's precisely why there does not seem to be any promoters of such a distant creator.

Personally I guess I could find a place for the concept of an aloof creator in my toy village as a "possible but unlikely" pale blue bloc, but I would have to stick some red polka dots on it to alert me to the danger of upgrading that evaluation to the level of a belief. Indeed, I have observed how people can become self-righteous and contemptuous of their peers when they think they know God and I would not like that to happen to me. All things considered, I think it is better for me to leave that concept with the unused spare parts and live with unanswered questions about the origin of the universe. Maybe a Creator exists but I have no way of verifying that theory.

As I look over the landscape, the most striking difference I can observe is in the colour of the villages that dot the countryside. Some of them are dark blue like mine but many have whole streets and even districts made up of very pale blue blocks! If some people like their village that way, why not! It does not bother me for I don't live there.