From Fish to Destroyer
Myths, Models and Games
We are curious creatures. The Vikid Truth was a particularly curious one. Consider the picture:
It’s a devotional piece of art curated by Chaya Tanjore. Vikid grew up with such pictures all around him.
These are the 10 Avatars of Lord Vishnu. That’s the 10 forms God takes as he descends from the Heavenly realms to come and live on Earth at critical periods in its history.
It’s a standard Hindu Mythology. How you choose to believe or not believe is completely up to you. This post is not an evangelical sermon.
What The Vikid Truth did notice though, as a young boy, was how similar it is to Darwinian Evolution and modern Anthropology.
The Lord first comes as a fish. Then proceeds through various stages, amphibian / reptile as he emerges from the waters. He then becomes the lower animals, evolving to a greater transition, a half man / half beast. He then ascends through the human evolutionary cycle, dwarf, warrior, king, farmer, sage and finally to destroyer.
According to the mythology we are currently at the destroyer stage. Looking around, it looks remarkably prescient.
Vikid always thought, “What are the chances that nomads, forest people, some of which, who chose to live solitarily in mountains, came up with these stories thousands of years ago, by pure luck?”
By any account these stories are as old as humanity itself.
Let’s consider another story.
One of a great flood. Whether it is Noah’s ark, Atlantis or another story you are familiar with, remarkably similar accounts have been found from tribes in the depths of the Amazon to the Steppes of Siberia and beyond.
Vikid was thinking about these things way before the appearance of Graham Hancock, Randal Carlson and their ilk on the global scene.
What’s important here is not that Vikid was thinking about them but that clearly all human civilizations have, for thousands of years, from when they were prehistoric. Before written systems, before ocean crossing boats and before the evidence was gathered in support of them.
As for the flood, the evidence is looking more and more solid that something catastrophic happened about 11,600 years ago.
As for Evolution (whatever the mechanism) the fossil record is clear. We may not have transitional species, Neo-Darwinism may have significant (even deathly) flaws, but the fact that creatures were “lower” in the distant past is not.
How did the ancients come to these conclusions?
There is much speculation but no one is sure…
Then there is the development of a modern class myths. They’re called a Models.
A model is a conceptual machine, built purely from ideas. These models could be given more rigor by a disciplined form of thinking called Mathematics.
It was found that these conceptual machines could be tested against the real world. This was the birth of a new class of myth, called Science. Some models had greater accuracy and/or generality. These became Canon.
However there was a parallel evolution which was capped off in the 20th Century and it was called “Game theory”.
A Game is nothing but a model but with the inclusion of intelligent agents that have goals (to win). The most popular goals being “Who gets all the Bugattis” and “How not to go to jail or die”.
Thus Life became a Game we Play.
The game, I am sure the Hindu Sages saw, ends in destruction.
Let me explain.
All games are governed by rules and players. We assume that the rules of nature (laws) do not change and can’t be compromised with. Your building will fall if not built according to the law. You lose the game.
On the other side, nature’s rules are not given to us in a book, they need to be discovered. Thus those with the latest discoveries also tend to win, as they have the best rules. So discovery became an important game. The best Discoverers, worshiped like the ancient Gods.
However the Games we humans play against ourselves do not suffer this limitation. Rules can be created and changed at will. The most prestigious places of creation being The Supreme Courts and Parliaments.
The problem here is not that the rules change. These changes maybe required as the environment and technologies advance.
Intelligent agents can adapt.
The problem is the Problem of Virtue.
As a civilization grows in size and complexity, the rules systems grow exponentially due to network effects. Due to this, it is not possible to codify or monitor every law.
(Though the Masters of the Universe may hence try with 5G and AI)
When you can’t monitor or even specify everything, you have to rely on Trust.
For Trust to be kept it requires Virtue.
However, this virtue is in direct contradiction with the goal, “To Win”.
(So who gets all the Bugattis?)
By breaking, subverting or deliberately creating rules that benefit some players (called corruption), the game can be tipped to a players’ favor.
Hence, world over, those who have no virtue are succeeding while those with virtue are being left behind.
(Bugattis go to the Talented but also to the Unscrupulous, usually they have both attributes)
This corruption always works to a point. It works as long as the volume of corruption is relatively small compared with the size of the entire system.
However, as the rules grow exponentially, so does the accompanying corruption, until that is, it takes over the game.
It becomes the rule, not the exception.
For example see:
A game with such rules, is no game at all. It’s chaos. Thus the system is thus destroyed. Destroyed from within. Destroyed by the Avatar himself.
We are the Avatar. We were once fish and all the points in between.
That’s how these ancient sages codified their insights.
(not so stupid now, eh?)
As per Hindu Tradition at least, this is a circular game, and like the ancient Egyptian Phoenix, will rise again from the ashes. An Eternal Cycle. Endless Games.
Contemporary Western Mythology in contrast is more linear. From the grave, you rise and enter either heaven or hell. A game played once, for high stakes and for which you will be judged at the Pearly Gates.
As per Scientific Mythology it’s “Shut up and Calculate”. Rules for their own sake, by their own sake. Nihilistic and Recursive. Intelligence is used only to figure out the rules, not how to use them. That responsibility is outsourced (to the Bugatti owners).
Ultimately you can choose to believe whatever Myth you want (or have been indoctrinated into) but you have to play the Game.
Choose wisely.
Nah, don’t do that.
Notice and Get Curious, like your forefathers…
And that’s,