Ask the Author: Clemens Lode
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Clemens Lode
Ok, that's a long story! Here's how I explained it in Philosophy for Heroes: Knowledge:
In its infancy, this book was but a jumble of ideas with me as its companion. If I had to pinpoint its actual beginning, it would likely be 20 years ago, reading Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene. I devoured it during my time in school and, with its help, I began to grasp some of the connections in the world. We all craft for ourselves a model of the world, although at the time, human motivations were incomprehensible to me. That book provided me with my first model, with which I could at least begin to examine people’s behavior. My interest in mathematics and computers supplemented this, allowing me to actually simulate models.
During my final years at school, I developed a computer program to calculate optimal business processes and workflows using algorithms based on nature and depicted them graphically. For the first time, I felt that I was coming close to understanding the driving force that keeps the world together and explains its nature. Eventually, I began studying computer science in Karlsruhe, Germany, and took a number of advanced courses. I continued to develop my program and conducted research for several years in the field of artificial evolution, which ultimately led to my specialization in operations research. In this field, the big question is: How can we achieve the maximum result using limited resources? Here again, the focus was on nature and its inherent harmony: a chaotic system which, from the outside, appears to be in balance.
In terms of my career, I was at a crossroads. Should I pursue these abstract systems more deeply or should I focus on the university’s area of expertise, robotics? At that time, influenced by a certain prevalent “anti-technology” atmosphere, and some “doom-sayers” speaking pessimistically about the future of humanity, I decided against it and for the study of algorithms in nature. While I found robotics interesting, I could not see myself creating “beings” for others to control.
"The people who came to see Socrates usually thought that they knew what they were talking about, but after half an hour of his relentless questioning, they discovered that they knew nothing at all about such basic issues as justice or courage. They felt deeply perplexed, like bewildered children; the intellectual and moral foundations of their lives had been radically undermined, and they experienced a frightening, vertiginous doubt (aporia). For Socrates, that was the moment when a person became a philosopher, a “lover of wisdom,” because he had become aware that he longed for greater insight, knew he did not have it, but would henceforth seek it as ardently as a lover pursues his beloved. Thus dialogue led participants not to certainty but to a shocking realization of the profundity of human ignorance. However carefully, logically, and rationally Socrates and his friends analyzed it, something always eluded them. Yet many found that the initial shock of aporia led to ekstatsis because they had “stepped outside” their former selves."
—Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life [Armstrong, 2011, pp. 199–200]
The fear I had as an eight-year-old when the Gulf War began is still in my memory. But I did not consciously perceive world events as such and I did not feel connected to the world as a whole before the (second) Iraq War. Not because I was directly affected or had a political opinion about it, but because I was unable to comprehend its context and the reasons for it. This was not the first event in my life that caused me to think beyond my horizons, but it certainly marked the point at which I began to question my viewpoints and to see myself as part of a larger community. Maybe this “shock” (aporia) was what people felt when encountering and discussing with Socrates in ancient Greece the concept that life no longer revolved around the here and now, but instead, revolved around history, the future, and one’s own role in it.
In the following months and years, I began studying history, law, economics, and politics with renewed interest. I reflected on my historical self, i.e., the “mask” we are each made to wear by school, culture, history, and the media. I learned about crime and corruption; but despite all my research, unanswered questions remained. Is it only the greed and the lust for power that run the world? Are there a few secret powers turning the wheel of history? Which side can be trusted? I grappled with these questions during many sleepless nights. Certainly, there are company mergers, various interest groups, and organizations. There are the mafia and the international drug trade. There are corruption and political intrigue. But do these systems operate independently from human action, and are we powerless against them? Is it sufficient to identify them in order to defeat them? Is it enough to know the names of people in key positions? How could such an extensive or powerful network operate on the basis of violence?
Eventually, it was Ayn Rand who provided an answer in The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal . Politics is the product of the philosophy of a society. No matter what sort of evil intentions an individual might have, he cannot easily make others do his bidding. We each have free will. We have values and imagination. Only if these are corrupted, a human becomes a slave to a manipulator. ** Being manipulated by others, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, we might hire a motivational trainer that uses persuasion techniques to get us to eat healthily and exercise regularly, and to push us to our limits. Instead of arguing in the political realm, it is more fruitful to contemplate our values and discuss them with others.
From this starting point, I was able to distance myself from superficial political debates and actually name real causes. It became clear to me that many misunderstandings and conflicts of opinion have their origins at a far deeper level than it would appear. Apart from being influenced by peer pressure, no one is automatically part of a particular political party; only a complete series of opinions, including those involving very abstract themes, leads to these convictions. With my new insights into philosophy, I was able to see connections between different disciplines of thought. From hard logic and fundamental philosophy, to questions about cognition, to questions about one’s way of life, politics, and esthetics, I could finally consider the world in a unified vision. And I thought back to a book I read in my childhood—Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, which was very much like what Joseph Campbell described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: a hero’s journey, the development of a human being toward the realization of what is truly important to him. We are not always what we appear to be; we wear “masks” while we are on a search for our values, our true nature.
Having acquired this knowledge, not only did I begin to understand the world, but also to understand myself. I was finally able to access my true self. Now, the next step is to teach others. Because, like joy, knowledge only becomes truly valuable when shared with others. My driving force is seeing the unrealized potential in myself as well as in the people of the world. I feel that each of us can become a better person and that we are only missing the impulse and the knowledge to do so. With books like this one, I want to convey a small portion of this impulse and knowledge.
In its infancy, this book was but a jumble of ideas with me as its companion. If I had to pinpoint its actual beginning, it would likely be 20 years ago, reading Dawkins’ book The Selfish Gene. I devoured it during my time in school and, with its help, I began to grasp some of the connections in the world. We all craft for ourselves a model of the world, although at the time, human motivations were incomprehensible to me. That book provided me with my first model, with which I could at least begin to examine people’s behavior. My interest in mathematics and computers supplemented this, allowing me to actually simulate models.
During my final years at school, I developed a computer program to calculate optimal business processes and workflows using algorithms based on nature and depicted them graphically. For the first time, I felt that I was coming close to understanding the driving force that keeps the world together and explains its nature. Eventually, I began studying computer science in Karlsruhe, Germany, and took a number of advanced courses. I continued to develop my program and conducted research for several years in the field of artificial evolution, which ultimately led to my specialization in operations research. In this field, the big question is: How can we achieve the maximum result using limited resources? Here again, the focus was on nature and its inherent harmony: a chaotic system which, from the outside, appears to be in balance.
In terms of my career, I was at a crossroads. Should I pursue these abstract systems more deeply or should I focus on the university’s area of expertise, robotics? At that time, influenced by a certain prevalent “anti-technology” atmosphere, and some “doom-sayers” speaking pessimistically about the future of humanity, I decided against it and for the study of algorithms in nature. While I found robotics interesting, I could not see myself creating “beings” for others to control.
"The people who came to see Socrates usually thought that they knew what they were talking about, but after half an hour of his relentless questioning, they discovered that they knew nothing at all about such basic issues as justice or courage. They felt deeply perplexed, like bewildered children; the intellectual and moral foundations of their lives had been radically undermined, and they experienced a frightening, vertiginous doubt (aporia). For Socrates, that was the moment when a person became a philosopher, a “lover of wisdom,” because he had become aware that he longed for greater insight, knew he did not have it, but would henceforth seek it as ardently as a lover pursues his beloved. Thus dialogue led participants not to certainty but to a shocking realization of the profundity of human ignorance. However carefully, logically, and rationally Socrates and his friends analyzed it, something always eluded them. Yet many found that the initial shock of aporia led to ekstatsis because they had “stepped outside” their former selves."
—Karen Armstrong, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life [Armstrong, 2011, pp. 199–200]
The fear I had as an eight-year-old when the Gulf War began is still in my memory. But I did not consciously perceive world events as such and I did not feel connected to the world as a whole before the (second) Iraq War. Not because I was directly affected or had a political opinion about it, but because I was unable to comprehend its context and the reasons for it. This was not the first event in my life that caused me to think beyond my horizons, but it certainly marked the point at which I began to question my viewpoints and to see myself as part of a larger community. Maybe this “shock” (aporia) was what people felt when encountering and discussing with Socrates in ancient Greece the concept that life no longer revolved around the here and now, but instead, revolved around history, the future, and one’s own role in it.
In the following months and years, I began studying history, law, economics, and politics with renewed interest. I reflected on my historical self, i.e., the “mask” we are each made to wear by school, culture, history, and the media. I learned about crime and corruption; but despite all my research, unanswered questions remained. Is it only the greed and the lust for power that run the world? Are there a few secret powers turning the wheel of history? Which side can be trusted? I grappled with these questions during many sleepless nights. Certainly, there are company mergers, various interest groups, and organizations. There are the mafia and the international drug trade. There are corruption and political intrigue. But do these systems operate independently from human action, and are we powerless against them? Is it sufficient to identify them in order to defeat them? Is it enough to know the names of people in key positions? How could such an extensive or powerful network operate on the basis of violence?
Eventually, it was Ayn Rand who provided an answer in The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal . Politics is the product of the philosophy of a society. No matter what sort of evil intentions an individual might have, he cannot easily make others do his bidding. We each have free will. We have values and imagination. Only if these are corrupted, a human becomes a slave to a manipulator. ** Being manipulated by others, in itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. For example, we might hire a motivational trainer that uses persuasion techniques to get us to eat healthily and exercise regularly, and to push us to our limits. Instead of arguing in the political realm, it is more fruitful to contemplate our values and discuss them with others.
From this starting point, I was able to distance myself from superficial political debates and actually name real causes. It became clear to me that many misunderstandings and conflicts of opinion have their origins at a far deeper level than it would appear. Apart from being influenced by peer pressure, no one is automatically part of a particular political party; only a complete series of opinions, including those involving very abstract themes, leads to these convictions. With my new insights into philosophy, I was able to see connections between different disciplines of thought. From hard logic and fundamental philosophy, to questions about cognition, to questions about one’s way of life, politics, and esthetics, I could finally consider the world in a unified vision. And I thought back to a book I read in my childhood—Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, which was very much like what Joseph Campbell described in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: a hero’s journey, the development of a human being toward the realization of what is truly important to him. We are not always what we appear to be; we wear “masks” while we are on a search for our values, our true nature.
Having acquired this knowledge, not only did I begin to understand the world, but also to understand myself. I was finally able to access my true self. Now, the next step is to teach others. Because, like joy, knowledge only becomes truly valuable when shared with others. My driving force is seeing the unrealized potential in myself as well as in the people of the world. I feel that each of us can become a better person and that we are only missing the impulse and the knowledge to do so. With books like this one, I want to convey a small portion of this impulse and knowledge.
Clemens Lode
I never start with a blank paper and just write. I write little ideas on paper or in my phone, and I use online discussions as a way to motivate myself to write short paragraphs and get immediate feedback.
When actually *writing*, all I am doing is compiling and editing all my notes.
When actually *writing*, all I am doing is compiling and editing all my notes.
Clemens Lode
Philosophy for Heroes book 2 through 4, the German translation of Philosophy for Heroes 1, and a book on Agile software development! :)
Clemens Lode
Start small, but start with a complete project. Writing and marketing a whole book is totally different than writing a single article!
After you plan your project, divide it by four and try to finish it.
In any case, do one or two book projects to get accustomed to all the tools and learn the trade.
Also, work together with a second person who will review your ideas.
Don't start with your ideas---start with the reader and develop a story or a solution from there.
After you plan your project, divide it by four and try to finish it.
In any case, do one or two book projects to get accustomed to all the tools and learn the trade.
Also, work together with a second person who will review your ideas.
Don't start with your ideas---start with the reader and develop a story or a solution from there.
Clemens Lode
I take a break, and work on organizing my ideas (I use a planning software program, which helps).
It's OK to have writer's block!
The good thing about allowing a text to rest a bit is that it allows a new set of eyes to look at it---an older, wiser you.
It's OK to have writer's block!
The good thing about allowing a text to rest a bit is that it allows a new set of eyes to look at it---an older, wiser you.
Clemens Lode
There are no restrictions while writing.
Of course, you might have to fix issues as you edit your work; sure, people might not like everything you write. You might make real mistakes.
But ultimately, while writing, the process feels very free.
Of course, you might have to fix issues as you edit your work; sure, people might not like everything you write. You might make real mistakes.
But ultimately, while writing, the process feels very free.
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