Tres Neuronas

10 days and 500 pictures

2004-08-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

Travelling on the mexican southeast peninsula
After several years without a vacation trip I finally took one. I had nothing planned but going to Mérida, Yucatán and see where the winds could get me. Now, in restrospective, winds got me everywhere!

Day 1, Saturday
Flew from Monterrey to Merida with a stop in Mexico City. The now usual thing when boarding a plane: show your ID along with your boarding pass, take out any coins in your pockets, open your arms, lower your arms, take off your belt... I was hoping to get undressed but on the beach not at an airport!

I arrived at 4pm and my uncle José Luis and my friend Paty were waiting for me at the airport. After unpacking at my uncle's house I went out with Paty for a quick tour of a larger Merida than I remembered from 13 years ago. Later on, we picked up two female friends of Paty and went for some beer at a bar in Paseo de Montejo avenue.

That was most of it that day.

Day 2, Sunday
Beach day! There are several beaches near Merida but Paty told me we were going to Telchac but first I asked for a stop at the mayan ruins of Dzilbilchaltún which is on the way. Their two friends from last night went with us.

Dzibilchaltún is a nice place, they have a great museum and there is also a Cenote. I was of course carrying my photo equipment in my backpack, no tripod allowed as you need permission from the INAH and they told me it cost about $500 dollars per site, if you can get it.

Even though I was loaded, they couldn't follow my pace and finally Paty and their friends decided to wait under the shadow of a tree while I took pictures. Temperature was a nice 38ºC (100ºF) and very humid, so even your underwear gets sweaty! Don't forget your suntan lotion.

From Dzibilchaltún we stopped near Motul to see the flamingos but they were not many and far away due to a recent bad weather. My Nikkor 70-300mm AF ED couldn't make the closest flamingo bigger than a small pink spot. However, I did take a few pictures with the hope of making a digital zoom after scanning the film.

We finally reached Telchac and hungry as we were, headed immediately to a sea food restaurant that Paty recommended: simply delicious! Happy again, we went to our original destination: the beach! the nice caribean beach, fine white sand, crystalline water, an spectrum of colors that you have to see and admire. By the way, the Telchac area is know as "Little Cancún", so you get the idea.

By the end of the day, the sky got cloudy and started to rain, so I missed the sunset. We then returned to Mérida, tired but happy... with white sand in my feet.

Day 3, Monday

I decided to dedicate this day to know Mérida again after many years not being there. My uncle kindly gave me a large tour and we visited the downtow, museums, important buildings, old houses, parks. At night, after Paty went out of her office, she picked me out and we went to a shopping mall and then to have dinner at a regional food restaurant in Paseo de Montejo avenue. Sorry I can't translate the name of the plates but I can tell you that the Yucatán cousine is deliciuos and with a great variety; below the Tropic of Cancer food is great in Mexico.

Day 4, Tuesday

I planned this day last night with the help of my uncle. From Mérida we went first to the mayan ruins of Uxmal. Uxmal is a large mayan city and we spent almost 4 hours there. From Uxmal we followed the Puuc Route to the ruins of Kabah, Sayil, Ixpujil, and Labná. Then we reached the caves at Loltún. We took there a refreshing mexican beer and headed to follow the Convent route on the way back to Mérida and visited the towns of Mani, Chumayel, Tekit and Acanceh.

This day was a photographic feast! and my feet hurt...

Day 5, Wednesday

It was my uncle's birthday but one has to have priorities so when Paty told me she was going to Campeche for work, i decided to go and don't miss the opportunity. I must say it was a hard decision: lunch with my uncle or visiting the fortified city of Campeche in the Golf of Mexico... it took me about a milisecond!

Although Campeche was originally a Mayan province, what remains now are the fortifications made by the spaniards to defend the city against pirates. Campeche is a 2-hour drive from Mérida and due to its architecture, the city is now a Cultural Patrimony of Humanity supported by UNESCO.

While Paty was working I literally walked the city and in the afternoon visited the Fort of San Miguel. I missed the other two forts, San José El Alto and San Luis, as I had to meet Paty. As usual on these months, it rained heavily. After the rain ceased, we went to the Malecón (Boulevard) to see the sunset... another missing sunset as the sky was heavily clouded, but I did manage to take a few pictures. Nevertheless, a photo feast day again! We returned to Mérida that night.

Day 6, Thursday

Tired as I was, I couldn't miss visiting Chichén-Itzá. My uncle was still dead-tired from our tuesday trip and he lend me an old car to drive to Chichén-Itzá. You can take the toll road from Mérida to Chichén-Itzá (this road takes you to Cancún) but I decided to take the free road and see the towns on the way.

Of all the mayan ruins I had visited so far, Uxmal was of course crowded with tourists such as myself, but Chichén was like Mexico City on any given weekday! There was simply no way to take a picture without people in it. So be prepared to use people as a motif to your advantage, unless you were lucky enough to accompany the Nikonians Team to their recent Cancun Expedition, or travel outside vacation months. Or, do as I did: wait, wait and wait for that brief second without people to press the shutter.

I have visited Chichén many times in my life and still get impressed by these ruins. I spent the whole day at Chichén and on my way back to Mérida I wanted to visit the town of Izamal but missed the road... dumb.

Day 7, Friday

Guess what? Paty had to go to work to Cancún!!! By the way, Paty is a regional director for insurance products at Bancomer bank, so she has to travel very often around the southeast (the states of Yucatán, Campeche, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Chiapas).

Anyway, day started at 5.00am to be ready to take the bus at 6.00am. By bus it is a 4-hours ride from Mérida to Cancún. I left my luggage at the bank branch where Paty had to work and headed immediately to the beach!

I spent the whole day at the beach and in the afternoon went to meet Paty and then we went to visit some of the many plazas (shopping malls) that you can find now in Cancún, very different from the Cancún I knew with only a few hotels and virgin beaches.

A word of caution, if you ever go to Cancún and get drunk, don't ever try to take a piss by the lake side as cocodriles have killed a few tourists.

Cancún is of course the jewel of the crown but in my opinion it is a hard place to walk: people drive like in Mexico City and they have no respect for pedestrians.

Night fell and we had dinner and walked to see Cancún's night life. The ambient is great but I had other thougths in my mind: going to Cozumel!

So we headed to the bus terminal and bought tickets to Playa del Carmen. Buses leave every half hour and it is a 1-hour ride from Cancún to Playa. We arrived to Playa, checked-in at the hotel and walked by the Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue), a long street with shops, restaurants, etc.

Day 8, Saturday

We had breakfast by the beach and then bought tickets for the ferry to Cozumel; $80 pesos each, round-trip with departures every hour. The trip from Playa del Carmen to Cozumel is about 40 minutes and in fact you can see the island from Playa's beach (this may sound like a pleonasm as playa means beach in english).

Arriving at Cozumel I phoned my uncle Miguel and he picked us and then we went to his Diving Shop; Cozumel reefs are well-known worldwide for those who love diving. It was luch time so we went for some food. After that, Miguel lend us snorkels and took us to a beach and there we spent the rest of the day getting a suntan and snorkeling. I forgot to buy a disposable underwater camera, so I did not take any underwater pictures of fishes and reef.

Sunset finally came! But I have left my tripod at Playa's hotel... Anyway, I rested the camera on a beach chair and with some cloths I made a quick support; couldn't have the point of view I would have liked but I did get my sunset pictures!

We phoned my uncle Miguel and he picked us and took us to the Marina. It is somewhat small and hard to get a parking permit for your boat as it is completely full already.

We then took the ferry again at 10.00pm back to Playa del Carmen. Once there, we had dinner and walked again by the Quinta Avenida.

Day 9, Sunday

Sadly, we had to go back to Mérida but before checkin out at the hotel, we went to the beach again. We then took the bus to Cancún and from there to Mérida.

Day 10, Monday

Against my will, I packed my luggage and took the airplane from Mérida to Mexico City and from there back to Monterrey. I arrived at 8.30pm and I was expecting my brother Gabriel to pick me up at the airport but I didn't see him so I took a taxi home.

When I arrived home, my car wasn't there and my mother wasn't either: the neighbor told me she had left at 7.30pm with two other friends to pick me up at the airport... my home keys were with my car keys! And I waited outside... and waited and waited and they didn't arrive. At 11.00pm I forced the door to get into the house. At 12.00pm they finally phoned my borther Gabriel who told them I was at home since 9pm... they were still waiting for me at the airport!

Just a few minutes after that, it started to heavily rain. Monterrey is sorrounded by mountains but it is a semi-desertic area and when rain falls, the whole city becomes a river because politicians prefer to spend contributor's money on useless bridges than on building underground drainage.

Year after year people die due to heavy rain, homes get flooded, cars are carried away by the water current on the streets but, drainage is an infrastructure that can't be "seen" by the public and thus, it is worthless for re-election purposes.

As expected, it took my mother and her friends more than 3 hours to get from the airport back to home. Welcome back to Monterrey!

---
I will be posting pictures of this trip to the Mayan Trip album at my Nikonians Gallery. Check often as I still use film and have to scan one by one.

Industria de software en México. ¿Podremos competir?

2004-07-16T12:37:00.000-05:00

Es el tema de todos los días. Se nos pasó la ola de la agricultura, se nos pasó la ola de la industrialización y ahora se nos está pasando la tercera ola, la de la información y el conocimiento.

De forma tardía, 28 años tarde si contamos desde la salida al mercado de la computadora Apple I, la IBM-PC y el inicio de Microsoft, o 59 años si contamos desde la invención del transistor, queremos ahora, finalmente, montarnos en la ola de la industria de la información.

Bien, el problema de enfoque en mi opinión, es que todos los esfuerzos y todas las discusiones se centran en desarrollar una industria de outsourcing de software similar a la de la India. No se centran en crear productos capaces de solucionar problemas y de competir a nivel internacional. El enfoque no es el de la generación de conocimiento y tecnologías.

Queremos centrarnos, o quieren centrarnos los que están en la industria y gobierno, en un enfoque de maquiladores de software; como si no hubiésemos aprendido nada en nuestra experienca como maquiladores cuya única competitividad era la mano de obra barata y ahora, la industria maquiladora que existía en México se fué o se está lléndo a China por ser más baratos. ¿Y qué quedó para el país? Nada. No hubo transferencia de tecnologías, no hubo desarrollo de una industria nacional proveedora de servicios, maquinaria o herramientas para esta industria, salvo los relacionados con logística y transporte. Cuado las maquiladoras cierran, los ingenieros que tenían algo del conocimiento terminan trabajando en otras cosas porque no existe en México la demanda para sus habilidades.

Regresando al tema, cuando se discuten las posibilidades de México en la industria de software, invariablemente salta a relucir el ejemplo de la India y enseguida, el gesto pensativo toma poder del rostro y nos preguntamos: ¿y cómo podemos competir contra la India?

La respuesta, creo yo, es bastante simple: lo más seguro es que no podemos.

Y es que tal parece que la costumbre de hacer los números y echarle matemáticas a los problemas desapareció de México junto con los Mayas. Algunos datos que pueden ser de interés para el que deseé competir contra la industria de outsourcing de software en la India:

*Sueldos (promedio; 1920 horas en un año)
Programador (americano) en USA: $75,000 dlls/año ó $39 dlls/hora
Programador (immigrante) en USA, con el mismo nivel: $60,000 dlls/año ó $31 dlls/hora
Programmador en la India, con el mismo nivel: $7,000 dlls/año ó $3.64 dlls/hora
SÚPER programador con experiencia en la India: $12,000 dlls/año ó $6.25 dlls/hora

*Precios a los que venden la hora de programación las empresas indias:
$10 - $13 dlls/hora para desarrollos que requieren poco nivel de conocimiento como MS-Access, Visual Basic, Diseño de páginas Web, etc.
$15 - $20 dlls/hora para desarrollos con mayores requerimientos como Visual C++, SQL, Device Drivers, etc.

Existen en la India alrededor de 5,000 empresas de software y tecnologías de información, de las cuales el 60% tienen presencia doméstica y el restante 40% son multinacionales. En el 2002-2003 esta industria empleó 700,000 personas. Y hablan inglés.

Si mal no recuerdo el dato de la AETI, en Monterrey existen entre 30 y 50 empresas de software: en la segunda ciudad más industrializada de México con más de 3.5 millones de habitantes.

¿Cómo podemos competir contra la India? Pues de dos formas: una, que un ingeniero graduado del Tec con promedio superior a 9 y fluente en el idioma inglés esté dispuesto a trabajar por $700 dólares al mes, o dos, que las empresas mexicanas estén dispuestas a vender la hora de programación entre $10 a $20 dólares.

Suena imposible, ¿verdad? Pues lo es. Y más si les dices, como se acostumbra en la empresas Indias, que del 25% al 50% de su sueldo de $700 dlls/mes es variable y depende del desempeño de la empresa, del desempeño del equipo de trabajo y del desempeño de él, como individuo. En México ni los que están en ventas quieren trabajar por sueldo variable. No tenemos una cultura de riesgo.

Encima de eso, ¿cuántas empresas de software mexicanas se encuentran certificadas en CMM Nivel 5?, sólo Softek. En la India, la certificación es un requisito para poder competir. Y aún más, ¿cuántos ingenieros en software, de calidad, generan las universidades mexicanas?; en la India, más de 380 universidades y más de 900 colegios de ingeniería generan una oferta de 120,000 ingenieros cada año. Una sóla empresa, Infosys, contrata más de 2,600 programadores por año de una oferta de currículums de más de 250,000. Pero eso no es todo, cada persona contratada pasa por un entrenamiento de 14 semanas en el que ven sistemas operativos, sistemas de bases de datos, redes de datos (networking), relaciones con el cliente y habilidades de negociación.

Por supuesto, India tiene sus propios problemas: más de mil millones de habitantes, 25% de la población en pobreza extrema (igual que México, sólo que allá equivale a 250 millones de habitantes), 15 idiomas oficiales, 3 grupos étnicos principales, 7 religiones principales, sistema de Castas, más de 25 partidos políticos, y conflictos territoriales con Pakistán y China (y los 3 países en conflicto tienen armas nucleares).

Por si no fuese poco el intentar competir contra la India en outsourcing de software, los otros destinos principales son la Ex-Unión Soviética y China. ¿Cuáles son los factores predominantes en estos 3 países?: Un bajo nivel de vida, una alta educación y nivel de conocimientos, y una gran cantidad de población.

¿Qué tan bajo es el nivel de vida comparado con México? Bien, veamos el PIB per cápita (Est. 2003):
México: $9,000 dólares
India: $2,900 dólares
China: $5,000 dólares
Rusia: $8,900 dólares
Canadá: $29,700 dólares
Estados Unidos: $37,800 dólares

¿Porqué es importante comparar el nivel de vida o poder de compra? Porque eso es lo que va a dictar los sueldos que pagas a tus ingenieros (y a la población en general). Por dar un ejemplo, un corte de cabello te cuesta en la India $3 pesos y en México $45 pesos.

Se supone que México tiene la ventaja de la vecindad geográfica con los Estados Unidos, el principal mercado para el outsourcing de software, PERO, el otro vecino es Canadá. Un programador canadiense gana 20% menos que un programador estadounidense con el mismo nivel y la moneda canadiense es 30% más barata que el dólar americano, por lo que de entrada, para una empresa americana se traduce en un ahorro del 50% en costos. Y ambos países hablan el mismo idioma, tienen el mismo nivel de eduación y de tecnología y una cultura muy similar (excepto quizás por Québec, en lo que a cultura se refiere).

De acuerdo con las encuestas, cuando se le pregunta a las empresas americanas su destino más viable, fuera de la India, China o Rusia, para contratar servicios de outsourcing de software, su respuesta no es México sino Canadá. Hollywood ya lo hace.

Otro factor son las redes de contactos personales que disparan negocios: Vancouver en Canadá y Los Ángles en Estados Unidos, son pedacitos de Asia. México, por medio de los imigrantes legales e ilegales, ha retomado en Estados Unidos lo que antes era nuestro territorio pero no generamos negocios: sólo nos mandan dinero que va a consumo directo en nuestro país y no a inversiones de bienes de capital o servicios.

Considero que la pregunta no es si podemos competir, sino ¿cómo podemos competir? Quizás los ejemplos adecuados a seguir no son la India ni China, sino Irlanda, Korea del Sur y Singapur. Cuando tienes un problema puedes realizar tres tipos de decisiones: enfrentar el problema, ignorarlo, o cambiar la definición del problema.

Para competir en la industria de software ¡primero tenemos que crear y tener una! Y para eso se necesitan dos cosas: que el gobierno (federal, estatal y municipal) consuman software hecho en México y dos, que la industria privada, sobretodo los corporativos, lo haga también. Si no existe la demanda, mucho menos la oferta.

El software de fuente abierto es el gran secreto a voces y el camino para lograr desarrollar conocimiento, tecnologías y productos locales. Pero el gobierno y los corporativos tienen que estar dispuestos a pagarle el costo de la licencia, bajo condiciones de igualdad en funcionalidad y tecnología del producto, a una empresa mexicana y no a una extranjera.

Y las empresas de software mexicanas tienen que estar dispuestas a certificarse en métodos de calidad y desarrollo, a capacitar a sus empleados, a forzar o entrenarlos en el dominio del idioma inglés y a desarrollar PRODUCTOS y no "soluciones" de software que nunca terminan en su desarrollo o implementación.

Y el sistema educativo mexicano... bueno, el panorama es sombrío. Sólo falta echar un vistazo a los planes de estudios en universidades Indias y asiáticas. Apenas con una maestría, un doctorado o varios años de experiencia podría un ingeniero universitario mexicano tener el nivel de conocimiento que tiene su contraparte en otros lados. Y los que salen buenos se van a trabajar a Estados Unidos.

Y de los que se quedan, en lugar de haber aprendido ingeniería aprendieron a ser "emprendedores" y administradores, con una embarrada de ingeniería. Primero hay que saber hacer.

Este es mi blog y esta es mi opinión.

Nobody's Hero...

2004-05-11T16:35:00.000-05:00

As the years went by, we drifted apart
When I heard that he was gone
I felt a shadow cross my heart
But he's nobody's -- Hero

Nobody's Hero
Counterparts, 1993
RUSH

This past April, 2004, on Sunday, Francisco Badillo, a dear friend from my university years, passed away after a long strugle against cancer. He joins another friend from my master's degree, Carlos Landero, who passed away last year.

Francisco leaves a wife and three small children; Carlos was single. Francisco worked as a director in a telecomm company; Carlos was an entrepreneur. They were both good men; they were both different; they were both my friends. They are now both gone from this dimension we live in.

And even thought they're nobodie's heroes, their memory and friendship will remain with us.

How did I take this picture?

2004-05-07T17:13:00.000-05:00

It is rare to find the thought process behind a picture. Photographers usually list all the technical data behind it: lens aperture, shutter speed, metering mode, film brand (or digital) and ISO, camera brand, and other. But few tell you what went on in their minds when they took, or better said, created the photographs we see.

While doing my master's at now extinct Duxx, I was lucky to have professor Donald Schon (1930-1997) from MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning to teach a class entitled "Reflection in Action". One of his arguments was that, quote, "people have mental maps with regard to how to act in situations. This involves the way they plan, implement and review their actions." Still quoting, "When a practitioner makes sense of a situation he perceives to be unique, he sees it as something already present in his repertoire. To see this site as that one is not to subsume the first under a familiar category or rule. It is, rather, to see the unfamiliar, unique situation as both similar to and different from the familiar one, without at first being able to say similar or different with respect to what. The familiar situation functions as a precedent, or a metaphor, or... an exemplar for the unfamiliar one. (Schön 1983)"

With this very brief introduction to the reflective thought process studied by Schon, I shall proceed to describe my thought process behind this picture titled "16 years later".

If you are seeing the picture, and if you are a bit educated with regards to photography, you can derive the following analysis: it is a simple picture; photography is at the end, about simple messages: abstractions of the world and confinement into a small square or rectangle. And it is a powerful one because great tridimensionality has been achieved in a two-dimensional plane.

The picture is composed of three planes: my friend, and subject of the picture, in the first plane; a guy talking on the cell phone in the middle plane; and the corvengent lines (perspective) in the third plane.

What is important is, that this picture would have been completely different (weaker), had the guy in the middle plane not be included in it. Put your finger on your monitor and cover this guy talking on the phone and what you have is an empty corridor and tridimensionality is almost lost.

So, was I just lucky enough that when I raised the camera and took the picture the guy just happenned to be there and helped to achieve this image? The answer is: no.

Now, don't get me wrong: every photographer knows that luck plays an important role to achive great images. But also, every photographer knows that "luck favors the prepared mind".

Here is the story. Due to an unimportant to mention series of prior events, my friend was setting foot for the first time in 16 years on the 4th floor of Building #3 of our former university campus. It was in this floor were the Math Evaluation Center was in our student times: an automated math grading system experiment that further generations didn't have to suffer.

We were remembering those times when I saw a picture forming in my mind. However, in this previsualization, I knew I didn't wanted just a close-up picture of him. I wanted to show the environment where he was but the empty corridor told me I would have a dull picture.

And this is where luck entered the picture in the form of the guy talking on the cell phone. When I saw him coming, I immediately powered up my Coolpix 2200 but there was still something wrong: the guy was facing towards the direction of the camera! So, while the Coolpix powered on, I prayed to the Mayan Gods for this guy to turn his face away as I wanted him to become an element in the picture but not part of it.

And the Mayan Gods listened to my prayers and this guy suddenly stopped in his track and turned away... I quickly raised the camera, framed the composition, called my friend's attention to make him turn towards the camera and fired the shutter: I had the picture I wanted and that had been forming in my mind. The guy then walked in other direction and vanished.

Why is all this important? Because had the guy with the cell phone not showed up, I wouldn't have taken the picture; there is a huge difference in the mental process followed between snapping a picture (a candid) and creating an image or photograph. Moreover, while writing this post I started to review my other photos and the circumstances when taken and found out, to my surprise, that I follow this very same mental process and that there are more the pictures I don't take than the pictures I take (I've never liked to use the camera as a machine gun, anyway).

And that was the point made by Schon and the reflective practicioner concept: many of us don't know why we do what we do and thus, can't teach to others the art behind our trade and more important, can't improve our skills. "Don't ask success" is an english saying. Well, Schon not only taught to ask success but to instigate deeper to find out what made you successful.

Unless you are working in the studio, this whole picture-taking process happens in just a few seconds (or miliseconds). A great number of unconscious decisions are made before you press the shutter... or remove your finger from it. And I was strangely aware of this process when I took this picture and wanted to write it down: to tell not about the lens aperture or composition rules used but about the mental process followed.

This might not be a contest-winning picture but it is a picture I like: it is a picture in which I have capture my friend's expression, with great tridimensionality and that also shows dynamism. It is a picture that reflects somehow my street-photography style (If I have one). And it is a picture that also reflects why I like street-photo: it's like photojournalism but without the dead bodies.

--
eMac

La montaña más alta

2004-04-29T10:06:00.000-05:00

Es creencia popular que el monte Everest, en Nepal, es la montaña más alta del mundo con 8,850m sobre el nivel del mar y escalado por vez primera el 8 de junio de 1928 por Mallory e Irvine, dos escaladores británicos. Aunque la revista National Geographic atribuye el hecho a Hillary y Norgay en 1953, debido a que cuando Mallory e Irvine se encontraban cerca de la cima se cerraron las nubes y se perdió visibilidad y nunca más fueron vueltos a ver; por lo que no se sabe con certeza si alcanzaron o no la cima. El cuerpo de Mallory fue finalmente encontrado en 1999 y hay una expedición planeada en el 2004 para buscar el cuerpo de Irvine y encontrar la cámara que pudiese constatar con fotos si lograron alcanzar la cima.

Pues bien, la montaña más alta del mundo no es el monte Everest, sino el monte Chimborazo en la cordillera occidental de los Andes en Quito, Ecuador. Aún y cuando el monte Chimborazo, de hecho un volcán, tiene una elevación sobre el nivel del mar de 6,310m ó 2,540m menos que el monte Everest, el monte Chimborazo se encuentra a tan solo un grado al sur del Ecuador de la tierra. Debido a que la fuerza de rotación de la tierra hace que ésta se abulte en el ecuador, el monte Chimborazo es la montaña más alta del mundo medida desde el centro de la tierra.

El diámetro de la tierra medido de polo a polo es de 12,713Km y medido sobre el Ecuador es de 12,757Km, una diferencia de 44.27Km. Por lo que el Monte Chimborazo es más alto que el monte Everest por 2,100m, medido desde el centro de la tierra.

Sin embargo, es "costumbre" medir la altitud de las montañas tomando como base el nivel del mar; por lo que puedes dormir tranquilo(a). Pero de todos modos, el monte Chimborazo es la montaña más alta en la tierra :-)

Are we nothing but living-rocks being moved by the water flux of a river?

2004-04-27T18:00:00.000-05:00

Is there such thing as free-will? Is our life predetermined? Or, as somebody said, life is neither black nor white but gray. Are we condemned to search for a non existent explanation, for our place and meaning on earth, or is this searching for meaning the one which in turn gives meaning to our lives?

Let’s first take a look on what determinism means. Determinism is a philosophical doctrine that states that human action is not free but necessarily determined by motives, which are regarded as external forces acting upon the will. This means, everything that happens, including moral choices, is determined by a necessary chain of causes. In other words, the present state is the effect of the previous state and the cause of the following state. Fowler (1887) holds that “the will is the last desire in deliberation, and our desires are the necessary result of their various antecedents”.

Teleology, on the other hand, is a theory of morality that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved. This means, every event or action occurred in order to achieve a purpose. The problem arises when trying to decide what kind of end is desirable to achieve: it could be trough emphasizing the virtue or excellence in the agent or person as the end of all action (Eudaemonist theory); or trough an Utilitarian-type of definition that holds that the end consists in an experience or feeling produced by the action, i.e. “the greatest pleasure of the greatest number”.

In an eudaemonist theory, there is also a problem of defining what virtues should be emphasized: the Greek ideal of men as the rational animal, i.e. courage, temperament, justice and wisdom; or the theological virtues that distinguish the Christian ideal of man as a being created in the image of God, i.e. faith, hope, and love. According to some philosophers, another problem arises for eudaemonist theories in showing that leading a life of virtue will also be attended by happiness, by the winning of goods regarded as the chief end of action.

In our human rationale, when we search for the meaning of something we are looking for an explanation to our questions. An explanation, as defined by the dictionary, is the act of explaining; to explain is to smooth out, take out roughness from. But maybe the explanations that we find are used in a psychological rather than in a logical way. Many times we take for good an statement that satisfies our curiosity. But also many times the explanations found are superficially made, or our curiosity is not strong enough and we conclude and act in a wrong way.

Then, should we accept the scientific version that we are nothing but matter? In that sense we can be compared to rocks. Our presence in this planet can be explained under the axiom that matter is neither created nor destroyed but only transformed. We are the result of the interaction of some atoms, then we donate some other atoms and then we have atom-children. Then we die when our matter is again transformed into dust. Voracious bugs eat our atoms lying in the ground and then they die and their atoms fertilize the ground and interact with other atoms. Finally, a tree is born from this interaction and we eat its fruit. We can call this process “my life as an atom”.

Furthermore, the “initial atoms” have been interacting for millions of years and we are the result of an evolutionary chain. Our present shape and form as humans is the result of this evolution, as Darwin stated. Has this evolution come to an end? Is the only meaning of our presence to continue the evolution process commanded by the laws of nature? If we accept this view, do we understand in full our relation to nature?

We can all agree that it is almost impossible to predict the future behavior of an specific human being. By the same token, we can all agree that it is relatively easy to predict the behavior of a large number of human beings. Can we say that the free-will of an individual is lost in the aggregate? In other words, the exercise of free-will makes it almost impossible to predict the behavior of an individual but that very same free-will can be predicted when it is summed to that of others. Is then free-will canceled out?

On the other hand, we can accept the religious explanations. A higher being created us and all that which surround us. Is it easier for us to understand that which cannot be understood?

We cannot comprehend the immensity of universe. We all understand that nature is not the product of the human hand. And religion provides an explanation to our questions. It also provides order and meaning to our lives. But, is our life determined by the mandates of God? According to the Catholic religion, He gave us the gift of free-will. Why then, when we face true problems with a negative outcome we all say: God wanted it this way? Is this answer a mean for self-protecting from our own decisions? I believe it is so. However, I can also think that the past events that created this negative outcome where commanded by God in some degree.

Can we freely decide our future actions? Are our future actions determined by a causative chain of events? A cause can be a sufficient conditions for its effect, but it is impossible to determine all the conditions which make up a sufficient condition; we can go on until we exhaust all the attributes of the universe. If God created us, who created God? If God created the universe, where was He before that? In another universe in a different time-space plane? a different dimension?

But, if we agree that a decision is a choice out of a finite number of alternatives, then we can predict an event by taking into account the constraints on choices. The awareness of some degree of freedom of will is one of the primary basis of consciousness. The perception of being free to decide about some of our actions is an essential part of the perception of our own existence. Therefore, I believe our decisions are neither totally freely made nor totally pre-determined. Our freedom of choice is limited by the constraints imposed by a former chain of causative events.

When we make a decision, do we have a purpose? Do we actually give meaning to all our actions? A purpose is a mental process of introspection. Then, we could say that free-will can be explained in teleological terms. But even when our actions or decisions can be explained in teleological terms they can be not entirely verifiable. The decision made is subjective and it can be perceived by no one else but the individual who formulated it.

Therefore, we can say that when dealing with human conduct, we are dealing with the interpretation of mental processes which are known by introspection and not open to public observation. No one else can deeply understand my purpose in doing certain actions or decisions but myself only. We can then say that the meaning of our own life is also found by a process of introspection. If a religious explanation is enough to satisfy our curiosity, we will likely take that road. If a scientific explanation appeals in a stronger way to our mind, if it satisfies us, then we will accept it and live by its teachings.

I will not argue which point of view, religion or scientific, is better. The meaning of life is something personal. And even within religions and sciences, disagreement exist. Nobody can prove nor show who is right or wrong. I could tell you that human beings are nothing but a genetic experiment from an alien civilization. The normal answer to that statement would be: you are completely nuts! But for the sake of the argument, please consider it again. What if it were true? What would happen if we find that the rules by which we are now living are wrong? It has happened before, when the great thinkers have changed the rules of their time. One may argue that all they did was to better understand an already existent law of nature, misinterpreted by the ones before them.

Going back to our discussion on free-will. Am I free to do whatever I want? If we put the question in this form, the answer is apparent: No. You can not kill another human being just because you want to do so. Many other “don’ts” come to our mind immediately. I can conclude that our free-will is also dependent on our values. This values, in turn, depend mostly on our family and religious education.

Therefore, we like to believe that we have freedom of choice. That we can control our own lives. That we have decision power. I am an independent person, some say. But we do not realize that there are many subtle events acting upon our will. Constantly bombarding it. Furthermore, I believe that our will is modified by causative events, and the will, in turn, modifies the chain of these causative events.

Let’s think that I want to conquer the top of the Everest. But, the expedition requires lots of money. I am presently working as a garbage collector. As I need money to reach my goal, I quit my job and find a higher paid job in a petroleum sea-platform. Something goes wrong and there is an explosion in the platform. I am hurt. Not so bad, but badly enough to get prohibited by doctors to go to the top of the mountain. In this short story, my will modified the events (I decided to take a riskier job because I wanted to go to the mountain in the first place). But also my present state (being hurt) is the result of a causative chain of events. Therefore, my present state can be thought as deterministic. I am hurt because I was on the platform, and I was on the platform because I quitted my garbage-collector job. I quitted my job because I wanted to conquer the Everest. And I wanted to conquer the Everest because... And we can go back to the day I was born, and when my father met my mother, and so on and so forth.

Nevertheless, other big questions arise. Why do I want to do something? Is my will a response to a necessity? Or, is it the result of an intellectual activity? Does my intellect predominates over my necessities or is it the other way around? Is my will the outcome of my deeper passions?

To be honest, I am getting too complicated. And for the sake of my mental health I must conclude at this point. In sum, I believe that we are not totally free when making decisions. We are always constrained by deterministic events. Being aware that we have some degree of freedom on choices is the basis of being conscious. The challenge is to make wise decisions within this framework. To differentiate well between good and bad ends. Do we truly know what is good and what is bad? Just kidding! Good Bye.

--
Written in 1996, Eduardo Machuca

Mi piel

2004-04-26T17:25:00.000-05:00

Esta piel que me envuelve
no es mía.

Esta piel que me aprisiona,
con barrotes suaves y sudorosos,
algún día desaparecerá.

Esta piel, que no es mía,
pronto se desgarrará
y permitirá a mi espíritu salir.

Solía pensar que mi piel era mía.
Solía creer que mi piel era yo.

Más ahora, al mirarme en el espejo,
me doy cuenta.
Puedo ver por dentro de esta piel
y descubrirme.

Me doy cuenta
que no soy el color de esta piel,
que no soy las arrugas que enviste.
No soy yo las cicatrices que la adornan.

Esta piel creé hablar acerca de mí;
del camino recorrido por mi espíritu.
Esta piel le hace creer a los demás
que pueden calcular mi edad;
que pueden deducir mi forma de vida
o la talla de mi pantalón
o incluso mi profesión.

Más esta piel le miente a todos.
Incluso a mí,
pues esta piel no soy yo.

Esta piel que me limita
y me proteje.
Esta coraza
que debería ser permeable,
no me permite salir.

Esta piel que evita
que las caricias
lleguen a mí.

Solía pensar que mi piel era mía.
Solía creer que mi piel era yo.
Más sin embargo
esta piel,
cual máscara corporal,
esta piel no soy yo.

--
Eduardo Machuca

2004-04-26T10:28:00.000-05:00

You can now look at my photography gallery here.

Puedes visitar mi gallería de fotografías aquí.