Café Philos: an internet café

It bugs me that many people just don't get science. In my weaker moments, when I want the world to be radically other than it is, I want everyone to understand science. Not just to know scientific fact, but to understand scientific reasoning. But what bugs me more -- much more -- than the simple fact not everyone understands science is the horrible fact some people will consider you stupid if you don't understand science.

Thirty or so years ago when I was in college, I tutored logic for the Philosophy Department. It was while tutoring students in logic that I began to suspect there was more to "intelligence" than I had been taught.

At that time, thirty years ago, Howard Gardner had not yet invented the theory of multiple intelligences, and no one else was seriously entertaining the notion that intelligence might have more than one axis. The IQ test ruled the day: intelligence, everyone thought, could be summed up as a single thing.

Yet, when tutoring logic, I discovered people who were amazingly bright in some ways, but who just could not for the life of them grasp logic. It perplexed me no end. Until I actually sat down to work with such people, I had always assumed anyone who was bright was bright in everything. And anyone who was dull was dull in everything. But now I was confronted with people who needed exceptional help just to pass an introductory course in logic, but who excelled in other ways -- I could not deny they were in those ways bright people.

The question never went away. Over the following years, I was always alert to noticing how people could be bright in some ways and not so bright in others. Eventually, I came to think, "There are many different kinds of human intelligence", and I tried to categorize the different kinds based on my own experience of people. Then one day, after several years thinking I was alone in my heresy, it occurred to me others too might be thinking along the same lines as I was. So, I Googled several search terms until I hit the key one, "multiple intelligences". Up popped Howard Gardner's work, and I became as excited as a boy who has just discovered his first real friend.

Today, there is a movement among people to label themselves "Brights". The people who like to do that largely seem frustrated with the fact not everyone gets science as well as they do. I find the movement unsettling. "Bright" is not a term that should be reserved only for people who get science. There are at least eight distinct kinds of intelligence, according to Gardner, and so there are at least eight distinct ways to be bright. Moreover, even if one is not especially bright in any of those eight ways, perhaps one has a mix of intelligences that allows one to see certain things more surefooted than other people see those things.

Of course, the temptation to see our own kinds of intelligence as superior to any other kind is not limited to people who like to call themselves "Brights". It's done all the time -- even by people who are not "Brights". For instance: Many people who have a great deal of interpersonal intelligence tend to see others who lack such "people smarts" as inferior to them. And many people who are exceptional athletes.... I could go on, but every example is at heart the same: Many people think their own brand of intelligence makes them decisively superior to everyone else. That, my friends, is not too smart.

It is also arrogant. I do not mean to mean to imply any moral condemnation of arrogance here. I mean only to be descriptive -- not prescriptive. The essence of arrogance is a lack of realism or proper perspective about how our own talents, abilities and skills compare to the talents, abilities and skills of others. To be arrogant, you must be to some extent deluded.

Life presents us with many challenges and not one of us is equally adept at meeting each and everyone of those challenges. Humans have the great advantage, though, of being able to communicate exceptionally well with each other (when compared to other species). In practice, that means we can seek advice on how to handle challenges that play to our weaknesses, rather than our strengths. Suppose I don't understand politics as well as you do. If that's the case, then it would be wise of me to ask for your advice about politics when I have need to -- so long as you yourself are honest in giving advice. In that way, I combine your strengths with mine.

On the other hand, if I am arrogant, I believe that your knowledge of politics is inferior to my own because -- at least in part because -- I have no real grasp of my own limits. Most likely, I see myself as intelligent in every way that really matters. Why then should I seek out anyone else? Why should I look for opinions that are fundamentally different from my own? In my delusion of across the board superiority, I merely consider any fundamental difference in opinion to be the proof you are wrong and I am right. Worse, I probably don't even understand your point of view.

When we are too arrogant to consider any views but our own, we cease to take advantage of one of our species greatest strengths -- the ability to draw on the strengths of others to meet the many challenges of life that play to our own weaknesses. That strength is nowhere more highly developed than in humans. It's almost inhuman not to use it.

Last night and this morning, I have been engaged in arguing about premarital sex with a friend on an internet forum. My friend is: (1) idealistic, (2) idealistic, and (3) idealistic. Apart from those three things, she's idealistic. But it's not entirely her doing, for she has been raised to be idealistic.

She's a bright, articulate, and humanely decent young person who has had the misfortune of having been sheltered from many of the realities of life by her parents.

Her parents even went so far as to home school her -- both in order to give her a superior education in some things and an indoctrination in other things. For instance: They did not think it was advantageous to her to know too much about the theory of evolution, other than why they considered it wrong. So now she's well educated about certain things and poorly educated about others.

I suspect her parents did a very good job indoctrinating her on the subject of sex and relationships. Added to that, she has never had a boyfriend. That is, she has had insufficient experience to contradict her ideals. She believes in Prince Charming. She really does! He is as real to her as the theory of evolution is wrong and she is holding out for him in more ways than one. Most obviously, she is holding out for him sexually. She wants to be a virgin on her wedding day. But more subtly, she is holding out for him emotionally. She does not want to date anyone who she thinks is not the Prince.

It has never really occurred to her that everything has a learning curve, and even love is no exception to that. In a vital way, we must learn how to love. And we can only learn so much about love from words, just as we can only learn so much about playing tennis from listening to words. At some point, if we are going to love well, then we must practice loving, just as we must practice tennis to play tennis well.

Ideally, in tennis, you hit the ball over the net, return each volley, and all goes well. But unless you have actually practiced doing that -- and practiced it and practiced it and practiced it -- you will be unable to do it well.

Of course, she would say she only wants to practice love with one special person, her Prince Charming. I think that's fine, if that's the way she wants to do it. I am not actually opposed to anyone holding out for their prince or princess. But I do object that she doesn't truly realize there will be a learning curve when she finally meets the Prince.

How do you keep your ideals when life smashes them down? In some cases, you simply don't. During the Korean War, the Americans attempted at first to conquer North Korea. Then the Chinese entered the war and the Americans had to change their goal or ideal from the conquest of North Korea to the defense of South Korea. They managed to accomplish this second goal or ideal, but had they not in time changed from the attack of the North to the defense of the South, they would have lost both goals, rather than just one. To accomplish anything in life you must sometimes be flexible about your ideals. And, somehow, I don't think my friend is flexible about her sexual and relationship ideals. She may very well end up loosing everything.

I wrestle with what to think about idealism. That's to say, I don't feel I understand it. And I don't feel I understand it because, for the most part, all I see are its follies and excesses. If you really understand something, then you tend to have a balanced view of it. But I do not have a balanced view of idealism: I see it's weaknesses, but not its strengths. So there is a large part of me that hopes she will find exactly what she wants in life. Even though I doubt that will be the likely outcome of her stubborn idealism.

When I think of dating, I think of courtship. Every few years, one or another of the big magazines is sure to run a cover story asking, "Is Courtship Dead?". The magazine will claim that's a serious question and to prove it's a serious question, they will point to some recent poll in which 67% of the respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 adamantly declare courtship means nothing to them. It's something their grandparents might have done in their day, but today's hip 18 - 24 year old has no use for it, etc. etc. etc.

You might recall from your studies of social history that "radical thinkers" in every generation within the last 150 years have declared courtship dead. Courtship is always being declared dead by people. Yet, every generation courts. Why is that?

"Why is that?" would have been a hard question to answer accurately back in the good old days. In this case, the good old days are the 1970's when everyone in academia seemed to believe that humans were born with a "blank slate". That is, the predominant paradigm in nearly every field back then was that humans were born with no innate behaviors -- nor even any predispositions to behaviors -- and that all significant human behavior could be explained as learned behavior.

On the other hand, today, it's very well known that humans are genetically predisposed to some behaviors. Contra the old 1970's paradigm, not everything humans do is entirely learned (although learning does play a role in most everything). Most likely, courtship has never died out -- despite all its obituaries -- primarily because we humans are genetically predisposed to court.

More specifically, it seems courtships follow a certain general pattern, and that pattern is what we're genetically predisposed to follow. For instance, a graduate student in anthropology discovered that women are more likely than men to initiate successful courtships -- at least in bars. One of his methods was to attend campus town bars where he could record the exchanges between mostly undergraduate men and women. He found that women initiate courtships nonverbally, with their eyes. In other words, they offer "come on looks" to men who interest them. The grad student noticed that courtships initiated by women were more successful than those initiated by men. Success in this case was measured by whether the people engaged in the courtship left the bar in each other's company. What the graduate student discovered was part of the general pattern of human courtship.

A while back, I read of two psychologists who had concluded that dysfunctional courtships -- courtships that do not follow, or that slight, the general pattern of human courting -- almost invariably result in dysfunctional relationships and marriages. If that's true, the importance of courtship in humans is clear.

I have a strong hunch, but based only on anecdotal evidence, that when dysfunctional courtships result in sex, one, the other, or both partners is very apt to feel exploited, abused and even humiliated by the sex. From what I've seen, it seems courtships prepare us emotionally and psychologically for sexual intimacy. Without a good courtship, we are not prepared for that level of intimacy, and our feelings afterwards often show it.

So far as I know, there is nothing in our genes that prescribe we must be married to have a healthy sex life. But if the anthropologists, biologists and psychologists are right, then our genes might indeed prescribe we must have a healthy courtship to have a healthy sex life.

Last, I think courses taught in the public schools on human sexuality should include a section on courtship. If dysfunctional courtships lead to dysfunctional relationships and marriages, it might be wise to teach kids what the value of courting is and something about how to go about it.

If you had to choose between writing something thought provoking and writing something profound, which would you choose?

I'm tempted to say that anything which is profound is thought provoking. But saying that breaks the rule because we have been asked to pretend the two can be separated and do not overlap.

Well, then, I know when I was much younger I would have chosen to write something profound. Among other things, it can be good mental discipline to try to write something that's profound. You end up questioning every one of your assumptions in an effort to dig deeper and deeper into the subject. You become like a child who asks, "Why?", "But why?", in response to every answer you come up with.

All that digging might not make you an entirely profound person -- you can still be someone with surprisingly shallow feelings, tastes and inclinations -- but it certainly helps to make whatever you write profound. I know that's true, because I married my first wife solely for her looks the very same year I was routinely getting compliments back from my professors along the lines of, "This is among the most profound papers -- published or unpublished -- I have ever read on the Bhagavad Gita. I realize in the cosmic scheme of things that does not matter. But in a warm, earthly way, I just wanted you to know."

That professor was right, of course. In the cosmic scheme of things, the reward -- in this case, the pride -- we might take in writing something profound does not matter, except perhaps in so far as that reward or pride becomes a burden and a hindrance. Instead, what we do, we should do true to ourselves. And what is true to ourselves can change.

Sometime in my 40's -- most likely in my late 40's -- I began feeling a need to give back to my community something in gratitude for all the good things my community had given me.

Such a feeling is sometimes confused for selflessness, but it is not selfless. I fully wanted to use my own unique talents and skills -- that is, to use my self -- to give back to my community. Nor had I any desire to give back to my community in a way that was not true to myself. I suppose that around the same time in my life, my answer changed to the question, "If you had to choose between writing something that was thought provoking, and writing something that was profound, which would you choose?"

Today, I would choose thought provoking. But I think for you to understand why, you must recall the silly rule we began with: Namely, that we should pretend a writing cannot be both profound and thought provoking at the same time, and that therefore we must choose one or the other. If you go by that rule, then it's reasonable to ask, "Which is better for people?" The way I see it, it's better for people to read something that provokes them to think, than it is for them to read something that is merely profound.

For one thing, it is more fun to think about something than it is to deeply understand something. Thinking is like traveling: The joy lies in the unexpected discovery. While understanding something is like staying home. The happiness is more akin to comfort than joy. Only homebodies would give up thinking about new things for deeply knowing something.

For another thing, thinking keeps the mind fresh and alert. It's good exercise for the brain and prevents its deterioration. But I've seen even quite profound people deteriorate rapidly in their mental capabilities when they stopped seeing things in new and interesting ways.

Last, when thinking becomes a habit, the politicians, preachers, pundits, and advertisers are much less able to manipulate us to suit their own agendas. So, there too, you are giving something back to your community when you provoke people to think.

There you have it. My answer to the absolutely most pressing question of our time. When I was younger, I would have easily chosen "profound". That was being true to myself yesterday. But today, things have changed -- I've changed. And I feel I could best be true to myself by writing something thought provoking.

Yet, how would you answer the question?

"If you had to choose between either writing something thought provoking or writing something profound, which would you choose?"

The only things that seem to progress are science, technology, and wealth. On the whole, humans don't get smarter, they don't get wiser, they don't get kinder, and they don't get more compassionate than they've ever been. But neither do they get worse than they've ever been. So, while science, technology, and wealth progress, human nature remains the same from one generation to the next.

Among other things, the apparent fact human nature remains more or less constant seems to argue for the notion that something -- most likely our genes -- limits and stabilizes our range of behaviors.

One of the things I find so distasteful about some religions is they teach regret, guilt and penance as the proper ways to atone for a mistake. Yet, it seems to me, the way to make good on a mistake is to learn from it.

If you’re always apologizing to God for what you’ve done, you’re quite often too busy apologizing to figure out just how you could have done any better. At least that’s how it seems to me. Moreover, if you goal is forgiveness, where in your scheme of things have you ranked learning?

You just know that each time Ted Haggard went to a male prostitute he asked for and received forgiveness from his lord. But that's not the miracle. The real miracle is he never learned anything.