On the self (And the futility of definitions)

When reading anything that concerns defining ‘personal characteristics’ or ‘personality traits’ or ‘personal definitions’, a piece of me dies inside; who, what living entity would ever want to be some defined static system? Which by definition is NOT living.

In an earlier post, I described that ‘life’ is something we cannot define. This is due to the fact that life is change, and change is undefinable, thus random.
Before I go on, let me set some definitions (oh the irony).

Anything that is constant over time, can be defined; this is true because any snapshot of a definable object or entity will be the same tomorrow, or until the universe expires.

Anything that is not constant over time, cannot be defined; this is true because any snapshot of an undefinable object or entity will be different tomorrow, or the instant before the universe expires.

For example, If I made the statement, “I am a very conscientious person” and then a week later my family and its entirety dies, I wont be making that same statement. Likewise, true information is definable; light is energy, and this will be true until our universe expires, hence, its definable. Living systems are not definable.

We humans have taken 3.2 (or 3.4) billion years to evolve; from the first single celled organism to our multicellular present existence. And surely, at each step of our evolutionary history, there was no set definition for what the organism was, it just was. Organisms change over time via natural selection (or trial and error). Thus, a rhinoceros is not really some imagined platonic ideal of a rhinoceros, its just an organism that happens to survive well enough for its environment.

And back to our ‘personalities’ (of which there exists no such thing). Our brains evolved to accommodate the ever changing environment on earth, along with the rest of our bodies. No surviving organism has the ability to acquire a constant personality trait without sacrificing itself; for instance, if we travel back to our tribal ancestors, there is no time to remain a ‘vigilant planner’ or ‘kind’ or ‘conscientious’ when confronted with a lion, otherwise, that organism would have exited the gene pool. Our ‘personalities’ change and evolve with our changing environment or circumstances.

“So, what happens when we attempt to define things that are unstable over time?”

Unhappiness, confusion, noisy information, charlatanism, pretensions, modern education, Platonism, ideal forms, ‘prestigious things’ such as ivy league schools, boring books, boring lectures, and a boring life.

First things first. Us, as humans, because we are living (I hope), have no definable personality traits because it is certain they will change with the advent of some novel event (a lion, or a relatives death); otherwise, that human is not living, and is a rock. Humans are not predictable, (contrary to modern finance theory)a rock is.

And the minute we begin to define ourselves, we invite conflicting views to harm us, its very fragile (adverse to randomness). For example, John tells people he is intelligent and handsome, then John meets Mary; and Mary thinks john is average minded and ok-looking. Because John believes he is handsome and intelligent, Mary’s statement will negatively affect him, it will harm his self esteem. If John simply said nothing about himself, or rather, more robustly defined himself by what he is not, he could have avoided the harm he literally invited by defining himself. And at this moment, his definitions of himself may change, only to fall victim to the dissatisfying cycle of self-defining.

Lets apply this to, language. Verbal languages evolved over time, since the beginning of our ability to speak. The rules, and so called ‘correct’ way of speaking (taught in fragile modern education) will inevitably change in 10 years from now, as a new generation arises with a changing environment.

The Giraffe (organism) has evolved (changed over time) to accommodate to vegetation that grows tall.
Moreover; defining undefinable systems invites harm.

We cannot allow conservative linguist charlatans or ‘grammar Nazi's’ to impose some ‘order’ or definition of language; setting these definitions in language harms the evolution of it for future generations.

Some heuristics:

1. Life is not definable; defining it invites harm, don't define it.
2. Personalities are not definable; defining them invites harm, don't define it.
3. Governments are not definable; defining them invites harms, don't define them.
4. People are not definable; defining them invites harm, don't define them.
5. Any system that is undefinable will be harmed by definitions.
   Likewise:
   light is definable; defining light invites no harm.
   Energy is definable; defining energy invites no harm
   True information is definable; defining true information invites no harm.