Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sadness, Holiness, and Piety Explained

Though I have blogged about the ideas in this post numerous times before, I haven't posted a good summary of them that could easily be linked to by way of justifying them or bragging on them, so here goes.

I believe that the main significance of sadness is that in males it restricts genetic crossover during spermatogenesis. Selection selects not only for gene qualities, but also for how well genes harmonize with each other. Accordingly, genes close together on a chromosome are more likely to have alleles which harmonize well together than one would expect merely from looking at overall allele frequencies; the disharmonious chromosome regions tend to die out. Genetic crossover has a large chance of destroying harmony and a small chance of creating harmony. Nevertheless, people have evolved to crossover their chromosomes because the occasional small advantage can compound generation after generation rather like interest on an investment does, to eventually create large gains. Thinking in terms of this simplistic compounding model, something that gives a 1% advantage each generation can after 100 generations turn into a 1.01^100 = (approximately) 270% advantage. But no compounding can ever cause a disadvantage to be any more than total; a –100% advantage is the worst case-scenario, corresponding to the chromosome region dying out. The important point to distill from this is that the disadvantages of crossover are short-term while the advantages are long term.

The genetic material of a male will mostly be separated from that of his mate after just a few generations. A male's mate can't significantly benefit from the long-term advantages which might accrue from his having heavily crossed-over his chromosomes during spermatogenesis, notwithstanding she can be harmed by the likely short-term disadvantages. Accordingly, it stands to reason that females are sexually pleased by males not crossing over their chromosomes, provided they have the capacity to sense whether such crossover is occurring or not.

Clearly genes will evolve more useful traits if selection is determined more by actual life skills determining mating and survival success than by luck doing so. It is entirely reasonable, therefore, that genes in males would try to make males sexier when they are unlucky than when they are lucky, provided that there is no overall harm to these genes in the long run by so doing. And mostly all that matters selfishly to genes so far as crossover is concerned is that on average over the generations the crossover rate is about right; no harm in regulating it from generation to generation according to circumstance. A male who feels himself unlucky becomes sad, and this sadness (I posit) discourages crossover in his developing sperm. Mostly females have the ability to see whether his sadness is authentic, and so females find him more sexy-like-a-Keats-poem as a result of his sadness, and as a result his ill luck less influences his reproductive success. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (by more sex, on average). Similarly, if a female has had bad luck, she will be sad. This should be a sign for her mate that she expects him to reward her by feeling her sadness—by making it his own—so that as a result her offspring will have an advantage. (In a female, eggs mostly develop while she is just a fetus, and so she probably has no control over how much genetic crossover occurs in the genetic material of such eggs.)

But a male could also restrict crossover just because he loves a female unusually much. In my opinion, this feeling is best described as being "holy" for her. (Amazingly, according to the dictionary, the word "holy" actually comes from the Germanic word for "whole", as makes sense if the significance of holiness is that it causes chromosomes to remain whole.) I will leave it to your own judgement of your experiences with people (and yourself) as to whether you agree holiness be related to sadness. I think it is, and that in fact the emotions are the same in their underlying biological effect.

Also, there is what I call piety. Ideally, males who feel themselves unusually morally inspired and beautiful would assist themselves by appealing to females by keeping their chromosomes whole, taking away from their genetic material in distant descendants, who from randomness aren't likely to be quite as special. What I think happens is that feeling special morally can cause a male to feel a "pious" emotion that restricts crossover, making him more sexually desirable to females. It is subtle, though, trying to imagine a process whereby males would evolve to care in this manner. That is where nature comes into play. Birds, squirrels, other animals and maybe even plants—they all probably just don't love otherwise very good humans as much if the humans aren't pious. And when nature wants to reward someone, it can give subtle hints about truths that can be useful to sensitive people—hints that people can benefit from which can probably, among other things, make genes evolve to encourage piety when nature expects it.

All this said, there can be something insane about gloom. Sometimes misfortune can make one feel screwed up, leading to insane emotions appropriate for people who have been defiled, but quite inappropriate for others. The way I see it, though, is that the main reason sadness has gotten such a bad rap is that lucky people, having been lucky, tend to have more power and influence than the unlucky. Powerful lucky males can selfishly benefit by disparaging sadness. They quite likely won't be disparaging their own emotions, while they may encourage their unlucky sexual competitors to feel emotions making them less sexy to females.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Financial meltdown

I am alarmed that the government's main response to our financial mess is to encourage more lending and to shore up what loans already exist. Trying to return to the situation we just came from is not a reasonable option. The correct method of dealing with this mess is to put more money, money not created by lending, into the hands of citizens, and gradually to restrict institutions from lending, by requiring higher reserves, so the underlying cause of the fiasco will not repeat itself. Easy credit is what started this mess. It is as though there is mass denial that there was any thing wrong with this easy credit system. The stimulus package as first proposed, just giving rebate checks to ordinary citizens, was a very reasonable if not very quantitatively signficant response. But since that time the responses by our government and the Fed have been quite idiotic, imo, just a kind of delaying the day of reckoning, the upshot being that the time of suffering and economic uncertainties will be prolonged and that everything will crash harder when it does crash. I predict a time of great suffering for Americans (and much of the rest of the world) as poverty spreads from the stupidity of our leaders in dealing with this economic crisis. Perhaps the suffering will be great enough that it eventually causes people to see that the easy-credit banking system has all along caused poverty and suffering by ensuring with mathematical certainty that the debt people have to banks will always be just a little less than the money deposited there. Perhaps it will mortify people into seeing the truth. But the Great Depression and the Savings and Loan crisis didn't teach people, apparently, so who knows?

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

A couple poems

Here are a couple poems I have written lately, after thinking lazily about the ideas in them for a few weeks or months (usually in the morning). Don't just assume that my having written the poems implies that they are about real people or thoughts I sort of wonder might be in girls' heads. I find that the most interesting poems are about sex, and writing poems like that you've just got to assume that the various girls imagined in the poem like you awful much or, I don't know, the poem would be about having sex with girls that don't like you much, which I ken is kind of too rape-like to make a good poem. So, not that I'm saying girls don't like me a great deal to the point many of them are perfectly willing to become totally captivated by me, but not that I'm saying that some do like me that much, either, since I am not above being fanciful when necessary.

I think I am getting better with age at deciding how much sexual explicitness to put in a poem without getting emotionally cowardly or bull-headed depending on my then attitude toward censors and whatever exists of the police state. Ironically, I feel that makes the general tone of the poems more safe, making them less something a prude or a censor might find offensive, yay, which makes me feel unusually at ease posting them, yay. I actually think most people will find these poems unobjectionable, especially if they look to the main meanings of them. The first poem starts out prose-like.

Beautiful girl

Something strange has bothered me for some time.
The most beautiful girl (judging by her pictures) I have seen,
I sometime wonder whether I love her best.
Intellectually I love her most, probably,
but emotionally, I just seem to feel more holy feelings for a few other girls.
I think I’m finally beginning to figure out what the situation is.
I knew there was an answer, now I’m beginning to see it.
Most lovely girls, even most girls who are very beautiful,
they try to look beautiful.
But this girl goes beyond that.
It’s as though instead she actually tries to be beautiful.
It’s as though when she arranges her appearance she thinks to herself,
“this is more beautiful than that, I’ll do this.”
This might seem a subtle difference, but it is quite significant, I’m inclined to think.

Most pretty girls are like,
“I will get more sexual pleasure from a possible lover if he thinks me beautiful,
so I will try very hard to make sure he finds me beautiful.”
Trying to look beautiful is just a subset of their main objective, trying to look so they might be worshipped
in the way that gives them the most pleasure.
Mostly, girls aren’t wise enough for it to be prudent for them to have sex from love rather than pleasure,
especially because what gives girls (real) sexual pleasure is extremely close to what is good.
But there might be a girl or girls so virtuous and good, they rightly would have sex more from love, because they are so wise, it isn’t really imprudent.
But the thing is, girls are very good at trying to be loved emotionally.
If a girl tries to be loved emotionally, well,
if she is worthy of it and very beautiful to begin with, she may well succeed better than a girl who isn’t trying that, I’m afraid, notwithstanding the girl who is trying to be beautiful may actually be more deserving of such love.
For instance, it is a beautiful thing for a girl to try to be sort of encouraging of a fanciful aspect in her lover.
One isn’t quite as accurate when one is fanciful and dreamy,
but one gets new ideas better;
they’re largely silly, but
time can refine out what is not quite right,
and the new ideas might some of them be great discoveries
beneficial to humanity and beyond.
It’s quite the magnanimous thing to do.
I say magnanimous, because I don’t really know whether it isn’t sacrificial at least in a limited sense.
A girl might make me so fanciful
I could do all kinds of funny things.
Maybe I’ll start flapping my arms like a fairy
so I can imagine myself flying away with her.
The thing is, though,
if I am next to her,
observing her beautiful person,
trying for a more pleasing, more sacred devotion,
and then
I’m flapping my arms like a fairy,
How am I supposed to be possessed of the holy pious sadness
which is also appropriate and which she would need for sexual pleasure?
Notwithstanding an understanding that such fancy is no occasion for impious laughter,
I might find it difficult,
when flapping my arms like a fairy,
to be entirely myself to the extent
that would be virtuous.
It would be quite difficult not to consider
I’m being very silly
and not to allow
common misconceptions about the connections between silliness and the jolly
to intrude certain misgivings that could cause in me a jollity
that just wouldn’t be holy,
no,
not very holy at all.

I guess I should be more precise about what I mean by a girl trying to be beautiful.
After all, the way I define beauty in persons, it is mostly something innate.
I think the way the word is used, basically beauty (in adjusting appearance) is what beauty does (in adjusting appearance); anyway, that’s what it means to me in that connection.

So what am I to do?
Oh no,
and how can I force a girl to be true to herself if she doesn’t have sex mainly for pleasure?
My powers, my abilities to adjust love according to my perception of how true she is being to herself will be largely useless.
Fortunately, I don’t think it matters much.
Remember, a consequence of a girl thinking for herself is that by so doing she will do sex better.
Especially will this be the case if she already has much understanding
(not for any profound reason, but just because using your own skill works better when that skill is significant)
and love
(love is very close to sex in females).
So I figure if I ever have a relationship with her,
she would be herself, anyway.
I just have to concentrate more on loving her better because it is the right thing to do,
because she is worthy of it.

Actually, though, there is another consideration.
There are girls I kind of look at and think,
Wow! all that girl cares about now is sexual pleasure,
Excellent.
And some of her friends look like they think that of her too
(and I suspect they might feel mostly similarly)
And she, and they, are beautiful.
But then I consider my feelings about it a little more, and no,
that’s not quite true she has no place for feeling love.
It’s like she sort of senses something in my brain she loves.
Whether she actually has been webspying or just can peer into my mind,
no matter,
she just wants to love the girl I find most beautiful,
the girl I have mystical fanciful feelings for.
She doesn’t love me, she loves herrrrrrrrrr.
And it’s like,
that could be useful, actually.
Sacred girl will try so hard to make me love silly girl more,
it will work.
A division of labor.
One girl trying to inspire me,
because it is beautiful,
another trying to make me love both,
no,
she wants me to love silly girl more than herself.
Even though else she has total contempt for what is called love,
as if
girls being supposed to be led first by that is what gets in the way
of her own sexual pleasure.

I enslave girls,
I will enslave her
to be what she already would recognize
is more herself
than
what she allows to live her life.
Imagine the comfort to her
of knowing what mainly she loves
loves me too
and yet is not my slave
at all
but my equal.
I wonder whether you can set her free,
and if so,
Should you?
Would you?
Will I ever love you more than her?
Do you expect me to?



Or After

Sometimes a girl will give herself up
to sexual pleasure
and sometimes
she won’t.

Sometimes a girl will think
“if I only don’t get emotionally
into
it—
the sex —
he can’t hurt me
too much.
I won’t be his slave
because then I can resist his charms.
I know how to please him,
I’ll love him so,
we’ll see who’s slave
and who’s not,
yeah.”

Funny it should give her such solace
Not to feel it.
I think she thinks she’ll get just as much pleasure
not being totally into it:
That being totally into it
And losing oneself
Just a phantom seasoning
be
Of no real consequence.
Lust willed less easy to judge than lust unwilled?
That’s true, especially when sunbathing,
but I am thinking of her pleasure here
in a more direct way than of what pleasure her lust will
give herself in bed.
It’s the pleasure herself that mostly scares her.
If she doesn’t seek it
when she’s getting fucked,
she’ll get the same amount,
at least if it’s real—
she thinks that,
but she’s all wet,
and wrong.

I will love her so well
in bed
she won’t be able to help
being into that.
She will not be able to resist
not trying to increase the pleasure
inside her.

But there’s something graceful
almost
about her reluctance.
She’s really too sacrosanct
for me to force her to grasp pleasure
if she were in bed with me.
She’ll become a slave
as she feels my forearm slightly brushing up against her back
because I’ll love her so well she won’t resist getting into
her own pleasure
while she’s having the sex.
She will become a slave because my love
will be too beautiful for her for it to be in her nature to resist wallowing in the pleasure from it.
My teeth and tongue will be mostly well-brushed,
I will be clean!
and she will remember I am the world’s leading anti-sodomy theorist
and most everything I do will remind her of my appreciation of her gracefulness.
Giving in might cause her enslavement
but enslavement won’t cause her giving in.

Girls need to be true to their own tendencies when having sex,
and if they ignore some of their emotions then,
that won’t happen
to the same degree.
They, I, everybody else—
We won’t get as much
if they don’t really allow themselves to consider,
while fucking,
what their own sexual pleasure is telling them
about how to get more,
because I am clean.
That’s right,
girls have brains,
and I don’t want them to not use any part
when I’m fucking them.

And yet,
there is something good-naturedly seductive
about a girl being as true to her fears as they are.
Girls like that,
who try to please
almost as best they know how
without emotionally seeking the pleasure themselves when actually having sex—
they are so innocently seductive.
They’ll wear such skimpy clothes
before taking them off
and are sexy
because it is what they want to be.
How nice the way I could imagine they’ll milk it,
all intellectual and rational-like, yet loving and gentle.
Yeah, a girl being that way,
not getting emotionally wrapped up instantaneously as they arrive
in the pleasures felt from a penis as it’s fucking her,
reduces fears
of loving too much.
Fear is emotional too,
and gets in the way of pleasure.
I will be so lovingly appreciative of
her kindnesses,
as she senses my forearm against her back,
she won’t be able to help not getting more into herself,
because getting more of it
will just seem so much more important than anything else right then
and later,
because it will have been so beautiful so far
because her fears of emotion
that I couldn’t make disappear
by informing
were respected
by herself
and by me,
it will become more beautiful
to her
(and thus more beautiful)
to no longer fear her pleasant, purely sexual emotions
and to instead let them inform
her sexual behavior
while she is actually getting fucked,
and not just before.