In a universe of endless possibilities, it was only a matter of time until someone realized a perpetual motion machine.

I’m told all rules are made to be broken. The law prohibiting perpetual motion was a long time in falling.

Present thinking indicates that perpetual motion machines can be of several types. The traditional type of perpetual motion would be a machine where you get more energy out than you put in, the cold fusion devices that have garnered so much attention lately would be an example of this type. Another type would be a machine that once started would continue moving or providing power indefinitely without additional energy, similar in some ways to the superconducting magnets where current flows eternally around the coil because all resistance is gone in the wires.

But there is another law: there is no such thing as a free lunch.

But that is not to say that there cannot be perpetual motion. As is the case of all great discoveries, the discovery of a form of perpetual motion was just another happy accident that some observant soul shared with the rest of mankind, thinking only of the goodness of his achievement. And as is the customary perversity of the universe, the discovery bore no fruits in the sense of providing endless energy to power such necessities as a TV or a toaster oven. But a society built on control, a society firmly committed to utility took what advantage it perceived for its own immediate gain and missed much of the essence of this novel perpetual motion machine; no doubt in many ways to the great dismay of the gentle soul who brought this knowledge from the Gods to help mankind out of its misery and suffering.

So it goes.

The kernel of the discovery can be seen in Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned response. The observation that dogs could be trained to salivate (assumed to be a biological response not subject to control) just by ringing a bell proved to be the initial perceptual breakthrough.

Pavlov conditioned the dogs by ringing a bell followed by a bowl of food. Initially the dog salivates because of the food. Very soon the dog starts salivating when the bell rings knowing that food is forthcoming. The response is now conditioned. The next time the bell rings the dog will salivate even if no food comes. The dog will continue to salivate when the bell rings and no food appears, at least for a little while, but not indefinitely. Eventually the conditioning wears off, unless, and this proved to be the elegant yet devilish observation, unless there was additional reinforcement. But it didn’t need to be consistent reinforcement, in fact random or intermittent reinforcement proved to perpetuate the conditioning indefinitely. It was a way to get something for nothing, a crude demonstration of a form of perpetual motion.

You can well imagine the applications this discovery had. For, as all astute individuals immediately realized, men and dogs are much alike.

The businessmen, politicians and religious leaders of the world leapt into action, practicing this new science with the kind of abandon that comes from being drunk with dreams of absolute power over other men.

Little did they realize that they too were subject to the same inexorable laws that governed the universe of dogs and men. Soon the entire world was an endless series of repeating conditioned responses and no one had the slightest idea that anything out of the ordinary was going on.

But there is no such thing as a free lunch. Perpetual motion comes at a cost.

Once this form of perpetual motion has been instituted, it forms a kind of reinforcing structure for all law abiding citizens, providing all kinds of benefits and advantages. But in the end instead of enhancing and protecting the dutiful citizens, the institutions become oppressive and restrictive. What was once beautiful, useful and fun becomes a prison. And escaping from such prisons can be a very difficult and risky business. All the obvious escape routes are denied. That it is even a prison is denied. And those who break the law or threaten the institutions must be punished.

So escape is not so easy. Many times the tunnels to supposed freedom merely resurface within the walls of the prison. And that makes our task here most difficult. Because we are, in fact, now in prison and subject to this very process of conditioning that was observed by Pavlov and applied so zealously by so many enterprising souls. The issue then becomes how to escape without breaking the law or getting caught. So if we are to find our way out of this mess, I feel our first task is to understand the essence of this discovery, this conditioning process, this perpetual emotion.

Let us review the conditioning process again. But this time with a man in mind and see where it leads us. There is a man. He is in a bar. He takes a drink. An attractive woman walks by him. Naturally, he is attracted to her. He is aroused on some if not many levels of his being most of which he is conscious of only in the most superficial way. Remember man and dog are much alike. The man is now aroused. The woman is gone. So he takes another drink. Quite fortuitously another attractive lass meanders by. He is again aroused. He is thirsty. He takes another drink. Well you get the idea. Before you know it and before he knows it, he is conditioned. Then all it takes is one drink and even if there are no pretty women around he will be aroused. But it doesn’t end there, for he has now become a perpetual emotion machine.

You see, when he is aroused he has been conditioned to drink, so he takes a drink. And when he takes a drink he has been conditioned to be aroused. So he gets aroused. Drink. Arouse. Arouse. Drink. And on and on and on. He no longer even needs intermittent reinforcement from attractive women because each component of the conditioning constantly reinforces the other.

A vicious cycle, maybe.
Subtle, sometimes.
Real, most definitely.

However men are not really dogs, are they? And unlike Pavlov’s dogs, the man is totally responsible for his conditioning even though he may be an unwitting participant in his own experiment.

The loop is in fact very simple but the man cannot see it because he believes it must be very complicated. As he may fancy himself to be a modern man, attractive, intelligent, passionate, masculine, multi-faceted, but he is only slightly more complicated than a dog.

But for every problem there is a solution. Even though it contains other problems that suggest further solutions. For a solution is as inevitable as the problem and as inevitable as change itself.

Well, enough of that. I have a suggestion.

I suggest that when he sees the loop for what it really is (a conditioned response) and what it really means (absolutely nothing) then he can release himself from his perpetual emotion. It is an act of awareness. It is an act of perception. It is an act that requires no energy. It just happens. It is an act that occurs spontaneously. Caught in a state of confusion (which consumes allot of energy) then understanding. And no laws are broken. There is still perpetual emotion, but he is not stuck in it.

Then he can get on with his life. Except that everything around him, his friends, his associates, the society he lives in, mankind, humanity, the universe, is permeated with this conditioning. He sees that everything, that totality is, in fact, the ultimate perpetual emotion machine.

What will happen? He may fight, he may give in, he may give up, he may do a million other things. It all depends on his conditioning. Vicious isn’t it. Or maybe sublime.

For you see, in that one spontaneous moment of awareness he has apprehended his state (which is easy-most conditioning results in inappropriate behavior that becomes apparent eventually) and its absolute meaninglessness (which is hard since the conditioning makes it feel meaningful). But if he is lucky and experiences that insight, in that moment of surprise and understanding he is changed in some inexplicable way. And that moment of perception changes everything. Nothing is lost but something is gained.

And while he may no longer care for the energy of the perpetual emotion machine he has discovered something new- the perceptual motion machine.