Café Philos: an internet café

Formal philosophy is just as much a matter of unlearning the mistakes of the past as it is a matter of creating new mistakes for future generations to unlearn.

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

- John Locke

Many people -- perhaps even most people -- hold the naive belief that normal, everyday consciousness mirrors reality. That's an especially dangerous assumption which can, and does, cause all sorts of emotional and logical problems. For one thing, when we assume our thoughts mirror reality, we become much more inclined to narrow-mindedness. For another thing, we are much more prone to becoming attached to our thoughts and to believing our thoughts are just as important as the things they "mirror". Both of those mistakes are quite common, and they can both be traced back to the naive assumption that normal, everyday consciousness mirrors reality.

Instead of saying that normal, everyday consciousness mirrors reality, it would be far more accurate to say that it maps reality. That is, the relationship of consciousness to reality is basically the same as the relationship of a map to its terrain.

The differences between a map and a mirror are many and subtle. Yet, if you spend enough time comparing and contrasting those two metaphors, you will gain for yourself the practical insights of an introductory college course in epistemology -- and all without ever having to learn how to spell "epistemology"! Deals like that don't grow on trees.

From time to time, I will post articles here on the many and various implications of the notion that consciousness is to reality as a map is to its terrain. But in this article, I only wish to discuss one of those implications: A mirror reflects reality, but a map merely symbolizes it.

To illustrate, suppose I take out an indispensable map I recently bought which shows the locations of all the erotic dance clubs in Colorado. Looking at the map, I first notice that it does not reflect Colorado and its dance clubs like a mirror would, but instead it symbolizes Colorado and its dance clubs. For instance, the location of each dance club is symbolized by two tiny figures -- the first of a dancer, and the second of an enthusiastic patron trying to take the dancer's g-string off with his teeth. The two tiny figures do not reflect or mirror what the dance clubs look like, but they do symbolize the dance clubs.

Again looking at the map, the second thing I notice is that the map's usefulness to me in no way depends on its mirroring reality. I am able to use the map to find the dance clubs despite the fact the symbol for the dance clubs in no way reflects or mirrors the actual clubs.

Consciousness is remarkably similar to a map.

In my room is a floor lamp with a rich green shaft. According to the naive view that consciousness mirrors reality, when I look at that shaft, I am seeing "what's really there". But is that so? Physics, for one, tells me differently. When I look at that shaft, I am not seeing "what's really there", but am instead seeing photons of certain wavelengths that have bounced off the shaft. Moreover, the shaft, which appears solid to me, really is not. Instead, it is made up of atoms that are themselves mostly empty space. Yet, the notion that I am conscious of "what's really there" gets even more problematic when we turn from physics to psychology. For then I learn that as my brain processes the information coming to me from the lamp shaft, it repeatedly steps down and deletes information, so that, in the end, the information I have to think about is less than one hundredth the information that entered my eye when I looked at the shaft. In short, what I might naively think is "really there" is actually more like a symbol of what's really there. The lamp shaft I see is not the lamp shaft that exists, but rather a construct of my brain -- a symbol of what exists.

Yet, even though I can only be conscious of a symbol of what exists, that symbol is useful to me. What I see when I look at that lamp shaft is just as useful to me as what I see when I look my indispensable map of Colorado's erotic dance clubs. In both cases I can use the symbol to negotiate and cope with reality.

Both physics and psychology reveal that all consciousness is symbolic. Therefore, when discussing consciousness, it is more appropriate to think of its relationship to reality as like a map to its terrain, than it is to think of its relationship to reality as like a mirror to what the mirror reflects.

I have no reason to believe in the ontological existence of God, but I have every reason to believe in the experience of "God" -- or whatever one wants to call a certain kind of mystical experience.

That's not quite so profound a statement as one might sometimes think. As any sophomore who has taken a course in philosophy knows, it is quite problematic to prove the ontological existence of anything, let alone deity. I can no more prove the ontological existence of God than I can prove the ontological existence of my friend Eryn. Yet, my experiences of "Eryn" exist regardless of whether Eryn herself ontologically exists. In the same way, experiences of "God" do happen to folks regardless of whether God ontologically exists or not.

That might raise an interesting question: If we cannot know whether God ontologically exists, then of what value are any experiences of "God"?

One way to answer that question is to stick with the parallel: If I cannot know whether Eryn ontologically exists, of what value are my experiences of Eryn? A short answer to that is my experiences of "Eryn" are valued by me regardless of whether I have any philosophical doubts that such an utterly fascinating person as Eryn could exist or not. The same can be said about any experiences of "God" I might have: The ontological existence of God simply has no impact on whether or not I value the experience of "God".

Yet, I can look at that same question -- what is the value of experiencing "God" in a wholly different light. That is, the experience of "God" seems transformative in ways that normal experience is not. In future posts, I might get into the ways in which experiencing "God" can transform us psychologically and spiritually. But here it is only important to note that the experience of "God" can be valued as a transformative experience even if no God ontologically exists. In a sense, that's really saying no more than I can enjoy the experience of talking with "Eryn" even if no Eryn ontologically exists.

So far as I myself am concerned, God only matters insofar as the experience of "God" matters.

An impressive body of social and political thought assumes that humans are fundamentally rugged individualists who once lived alone, each man or woman to himself or herself. At some point, they discovered they could accomplish more by working together than by working alone and, consequently, they created a social compact. Communities were then born.

What if none of that is true?

What if, as the scientists tell us, humans have always been social animals? What if there never was a social compact?

If humans have always been social animals our cherished belief that we live in groups for purely rational reasons can be questioned. Are our reasons for living in groups really that rational? Do we have "reasons" at all? Wouldn't it be more precise to speak of our instincts for living in groups? Or, of our nature for living in groups?

Social and political theory can no longer escape the fact we are a social animal by positing an imaginary age when we lived isolated and alone. Today it must be reconciled to what we know of our biology, among many other sciences. But that is by no means an easy thing to do. The question of what is human nature has many answers. At the very least, each relevant science has it's own models of human nature. Moreover, those models have moved well beyond simply stating that we are a social animal. Nowadays, scientists are modeling how, in what ways, and to what extent we are a social animal. And not just a social animal.

I recall coming across an article sometime ago in which the Vice-President was described as having a "Hobbesian" political philosophy. In an age of jets, the Vice-President flies a biplane. Perhaps that explains some of his many failings.

A young man recently asked me, "In a universe with no observers, would anything exist?"

I've been wondering now whether that's an epistomological question or a metaphysical one. At any rate, such questions have a way of revealing what we think truth is.

As everyone knows, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and a handful of other atheists have recently published books taking religion to task for its crimes against reason and humanity. And one of the ways some (but not all) religionists have responded to those books is to call the authors "whiners".

As you know: Besides being tacky, it's also a classic fallacy of logic to dismiss someone's arguments by attacking the author of the arguments. Yet, such is the habit of many people these days, and I sometimes think the popularity of logical fallacies must have something to do with the fact so many people listen to bimbo talk show hosts. Presumably, a goodly number of those people learn what logic is all about from listening while the bimbos routinely commit genocide against sound logic and reason. That at least is what I think some days.

On other days, I think the reason so many people employ logical fallacies must have something to do with how poorly community is felt and understood these days.

A sense of community is very likely one of the keys to moral behavior. It seems intuitive that if one thinks he or she is only in it for themselves, they are more likely than someone else to use what intelligence they have to fool others. But if you realize the truth we are all in this together, and that what happens to your neighbor in some way happens to you, then perhaps you are more likely to use your intelligence to help your neighbor understand things than you are to use your intelligence to make a fool of him or her. At least, that's what I think some days.

On still other days, I realize people have routinely massacred logic and reason since time immemorial and that nothing much ever changes about that. The person who 2000 years ago put into Jesus's mouth the words, "Whoever is not for me is against me", was just as much a bimbo as any talk show host of today. "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

So, I have at least three speculative views to dance between on the issue of why so many people resort to fallacies of logic. I suspect those three are my favorites because each in some way amuses me. Enough about me, though. Why do you think people resort to logical fallacies?

Nietzsche was possibly the first philosopher to recognize "the death of God" opened the door to something beyond a one-size-fits-all morality.

Christianity had insisted for a couple thousand years that the same morality which applied to peasants applied to kings. The first Western thinkers to reject Christianity failed to reject the Christian notion there was but one legitimate morality for everyone. Nietzsche, however, was adamant that if you gave up the Christian deity, you were left with no basis for asserting the Christian claim everyone should be governed by the same moral code. Rather than look to God for a single morality, Nietzsche looked to human nature and found moral diversity.

In a sense, we have not gone beyond Nietzsche even today, for we in the West are still struggling with this strange notion that humans might naturally be as morally diverse a species as they are diverse in every other way.

One of the ways the pseudo-science of eugenics differs from the honest evolutionary sciences is that eugenics claims there is an ideal human standard, an ideal type of human.

Anyone who has made a serious study of human nature knows that claim has little or no evidence to support it, and a weight of evidence against it. Yet, the notion there is an ideal human type persists not only in the pseudo-science of eugenics, but more broadly in our culture.

Hitler really didn't need the pseudo-science of eugenics to tell him there was an ideal human type ("Aryans"). In one form or another, the notion of an ideal human type permeated his culture, and he could have picked it up from nearly anywhere even had eugenics itself not been around for him to draw from. Yet, just as in Hitler's time, the notion, in one form or another, permeates our culture even today.

Perhaps the most obvious example of that notion at work today is in the fashion and entertainment industries -- industries that are notorious for promulgating a single standard of physical beauty. Yet, the realm of physical beauty isn't the only place in our culture where we can find the peculiar notion there is an ideal human type. Simply look at how often someone asserts a single, ideal morality for all humans! Or, an ideal religion. Or, even an ideal spirituality.

The sciences, on the other hand, tell us that we are a diverse species without an ideal type. Just as we show natural diversity in the sizes and shapes of our noses, or in our eye and hair colors, we also show natural diversity in a myriad more hidden ways. For instance: In the number of the various types of neurochemical receptors in our brains.

Perhaps it is time to look long and hard at the peculiar notion there is -- or ought to be -- an ideal human type. Perhaps, rather than look for a single standard of beauty, or advocate for a single economics, or propose a single spirituality -- perhaps, we should take a lesson from our own nature, for we are a naturally diverse species, and ask instead how to manage diversity.

This morning, I'm a bit confused after reading a letter to the editor published in The National Post (of Canada).

The author of the letter is Don D. Wallar, and he holds a Masters in Neurochemistry. Mr. Wallar wants to argue against naturalism, which is the philosophical position that only nature exists. That is, nothing supernatural exists. And Mr. Wallar specifically wants to argue against the notion, "there is no mind or soul independent of the brain; all thought and behaviour is purely the result of neurochemical synapses in the brain."

Now, when I'm on a first date, I often make a point of telling my new friend that I'm much more fascinated by epistemological naturalism than I am interested in ontological naturalism. The point, of course, is to impress her with how many big words I know. It seems to work, because my dates are so impressed by my droning on about the various naturalisms that they never go with me on second dates. And that's how I avoid the horrible troubles associated with extended romances.

Consequently, I really perked up this morning when I sighted Mr. Wallar's letter, for I immediately grasped that it might provide me with juice for initiating an engaging conversation at one of those tender moments after the dinner, and after the movie, when I'm back at my date's apartment and she's just dimmed the lights.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wallar's letter left me more confused than intellectually armed.

That's because Mr. Wallar argues in his letter that naturalism is untenable because it leads to our denying the existence of free will. He says:

There are serious scientific and philosophical reasons why physical [i.e. ontological] naturalism cannot be tenable. One philosophical argument is based on the idea of free will.

Human beings are known to exhibit what is known as libertarian freedom, that is, they can literally choose between bona fide options... A or B.

If all thought and behaviour are indeed only the result of the biochemistry of the brain, then free will cannot exist, and all we have left is pure determinism.

Furthermore, any concept of moral obligation and responsibility is also nonsensical if determinism is true. But we do not live this way because we do not believe this way. [stuff in brackets mine]

Here's something my old philosophy professor taught me shortly before he taught me how to practice safe sex by engaging my dates in philosophical conversations at strategic moments in order to deter them from pursuing their base romantic desires: "One cannot legitimately argue that something is false merely on the grounds that if, it were true, one wouldn't like the consequences of it's being true."

Applied here, that means Mr. Wallar cannot legitimately argue that ontological naturalism is false simply because there can be no free will if it's true. Yet, it seems to me this morning that is precisely what Mr. Wallar is doing in his letter. He's urging us to reject ontological naturalism on the sole grounds that, if we accept it, we have to discard any dear notion we might have that our wills are free. And that's confusing me.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding his point, but is that the best grounds he wants to offer us for rejecting ontological naturalism? "It can't be true because we don't like what it implies"?

But there's another possibility. Having said all that, I think it's possible that Mr. Wallar is actually arguing:

1) Ontological naturalism implies no free will.

2) But we have libertarian freedom of choice (i.e. we can choose between options).

3) Libertarian freedom of choice is the same as free will.

4) If we have free will, then ontological naturalism is false.

5) We have free will.

6) Therefore ontological naturalism is false. False! FALSE!

That's a different argument than the first one. Yet, if that's what he's arguing, then the trouble is premise #3 is wrong. Contra the premise, libertarian freedom of choice does not actually imply free will.

You can see that when you think of how a computer works. A computer can be programed to choose between options. That is, a computer has libertarian freedom of choice, which is the ability to choose between options. But a computer certainly does not have free will. Hence, there is no precise equivalence of free will and libertarian choice.

Of course, if premise #3 is wrong, then the conclusion that ontological naturalism is false does not follow from Mr. Wallar's argument. Instead, we have to go back to square one, and find other grounds on which to argue either for or against ontological naturalism.

I'm still confused though. I really don't know which argument he's making in his letter. If I had to bet, I'd lay money on the second one, because that's the stronger argument. But it seems to me it could just as easily be the first argument that he's really making. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I need to quit reading arguments against naturalism so early in the morning.

At any rate, what do you think of Mr. Wallar's argument? Do you buy into it? Do you reject it? Would you like to go on a first date?

Formal philosophy is a bit like chess: It's been around a long time, it has a set of established rules by which you play (e.g. with few exceptions, "moves" are to be firmly grounded in logic and reason), it takes a long time and a lot of practice to master, there are standard "openings" (e.g. The Ontological Argument for the Existence of Deity), and a minor change in reasoning can have logical implications that create a "whole new game". But, by far, the most important of these characteristics is that each premise (or conclusion) must be firmly established in logic and reason.

That's the case with formal philosophy, but it's not the case with street philosophy. In street philosophy, it's perfectly OK to base your conclusions on how you feel about something, on guesses, on hunches, on evidence available only to you, on faith, and so forth.

In my experience, a formal philosophical conversation is often about as lively as a chess match. Lots of long pauses for weighty consideration between "moves". Street philosophy, on the other hand, is much more lively.

The other day, Newsweek referred to "Is God real?" as "life's biggest question". The occasion was a polite debate between contemporary thinker Sam Harris and megachurch pastor Rick Warren, which I've reviewed here. Perhaps I shouldn't be concerned with what Newsweek deems life's biggest question is, but it struck me that it might be fun to explore the notion a bit.

Why would any of us think the existence of deity was life's biggest or most important question?

I suspect the likely answer is we have been told the question involves whether we will at some point go to heaven or hell. If given that choice, many of us would naturally prefer to be in hell with our friends than be in heaven with the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson, but the catch is that heaven is eternal bliss while hell is eternal torture.

So, perhaps it boils down to this: The existence of deity is thought to be life's biggest or most important question because it involves death's biggest reward or punishment.

Yet, does even that loose-loose choice between eternal bliss with the likes of the Religious Right versus eternal torture in the company of our honest friends genuinely make, "Is God real", "life's biggest question"?

As everyone knows, it's all very speculative whether deity exists, whether deity has created a heaven and hell, whether deity assigns souls to one or the other, or whether there's anything we ourselves can do about where we go upon death. There is no conclusive evidence for any of that, as demonstrated by 2300 years of mostly rigorous philosophical inquiry into the matter. And that should leave us wondering whether there aren't bigger and better questions than "Is God real".

For instance: We could ask whether it matters at all if deity exists or not? What difference would the existence of deity make, and how would it make that difference? For even if deity existed, it seems we would still be ignorant of the fact that deity existed, still ignorant of any demands deity made on us, and still ignorant of any way the existence of deity played a role in our lives.

Sure, someone could say, "if deity exists, then heaven and hell exist, then eternal reward and punishment exist, and so forth", but -- once again -- that would all remain speculation.

The question of whether it matters at all whether deity exists or not seems to me a more primal question than the question, "Is God real". Yet, I wouldn't even call that question "life's biggest". For I think such questions as, "How are we to live?", and "What is the Good Life?", are far more important than even, "Does it matter if deity exists?".

Over at Sea Blue Green, Patty has left an awesome post on the value of words in describing "the unknowable".

Over on Religious Forums is a very intelligent young man from Saudi Arabia who goes by the username, "The Truth".

Not so long ago, The Truth started a discussion thread in which he asked whether all morality was ultimately derived from religion. From the responses the thread's been getting, it seems some people do in fact believe morality is derived from religion. But is that always true? And, if morality is not always derived from religion, then where exactly does it come from?

Not everyone asks those questions. But it might be a good idea if more of us did, especially in America, where the Religious Right for decades has been hammering folks with the peculiar notion that, unless they tightly cling to conservative Judeo-Christian values, they will set themselves -- and perhaps the entire nation -- adrift in a decadent sea of moral relativism.

In a very limited way, I actually find myself agreeing with the Religious Right. Surely, pure moral relativism is a foundation too weak to build much on. By "moral relativism", I mean the notion that anything goes; anything is alright so long as you or someone else thinks it's alright. That's really moral anarchy, and both I and the Religious Right agree that it would suck for society to widely adopt it.

About everything else, we disagree. Usually, the Religious Right would have us believe we have only two choices: Biblical morality or moral relativism. Yet, that's false.

In the first place, humans have invented many moral codes over the years. The Biblical moral code is only one of many codes that humans have invented, and certainly not the best of them. Therefore, we are not limited in our choice of moralities to just two inane choices: Biblical morality or moral relativism. Instead, we have many options, a whole treasury of options.

In the second place, there is surprising new evidence that at least some moral principles are hardwired into our very nature. That is, we need look no further than human nature to find a basis for some of our morals.

Writing in The New York Times, the Harvard psychologist, Daniel Gilbert makes the point rather eloquently:

Research suggests that we are hard-wired with a strong and intuitive moral impulse — an urge to help others that is every bit as basic as the selfish urges that get all the press. Infants as young as 18 months will spontaneously comfort those who appear distressed and help those who are having difficulty retrieving or balancing objects. Chimpanzees will do the same, though not so reliably, which has led scientists to speculate about the precise point in our evolutionary history at which we became the “hypercooperative” species that out-nices the rest.

Gilbert's remarks remind me of primatologist Alison Jolly's observation in her book, Lucy's Legacy, that humans are almost the most cooperative species known to science. Only the social insects, and a couple species of lower mammals, in some ways out do us.

Yet, our natural moral foundation seems to go far beyond a built in propensity for hypercooperation. Joshua Greene, another Harvard professor, has discovered that in some circumstances, most people will agree on what is right and what is wrong.

Greene studies how people respond to a set of imaginary dilemmas. For instance, in one dilemma:

...you are standing by a railroad track when you notice that a trolley, with no one aboard, is heading for a group of five people. They will all be killed if it continues on its current track. The only thing you can do to prevent these five deaths is to throw a switch that will divert the trolley on to a side track, where it will kill only one person.

What do you do?

"When asked what you should do in these circumstances, most people say you should divert the trolley on to the side track, thus saving a net four lives. [italics mine]" That is, there is a majority consensus among people that a right course of action exists. So far as I know, nothing in the Bible suggests that saving a net four lives by sacrificing one life is the moral thing to do -- yet in those specific circumstances, that's what most people think is moral.

In fact, Greene's colleague, Marc Hauser, has discovered that people of different societies and cultures will largely respond the same way to the same set of circumstances. What an American likely thinks is right in certain circumstances is precisely what a Chinese person likely thinks is right in the same circumstances.

All of the above suggests that at least some morality is derived directly from human nature, and not necessarily from either religion or God. Shocking?

It really should be shocking. Almost all of us have been saturated with the view that religion and God are the foundations of morality. After hearing all that propaganda, the news that science is discovering a basis for morality in human nature should at least cause us wonder.

I predict it will be quite a while before it is widely known and accepted in the West that morality is -- at least to some extent -- derived not from holy scripture, but from human nature. In the meantime, many religious leaders will still promote the notion that their religions have a monopoly on morality.

For the last five days, some folks have been hotly debating the nature and merits of "spirituality" over at PZ Meyers' blog, Pharyngula.

Meyers started the fist fight when he posted an entry titled, "Spirituality"? Another Word For Lies and Empty Noise. The ruckus has now reached 230 comment posts and still counting.

I gather from what I read of the debate that almost as many definitions of "spirituality"are in play as there are people debating the merits and nature of "spirituality". Everyone seems to have their own pet definition for the word, and is sticking with it. Consequently, the participants are in most cases talking pass each other.

Despite that, it's a good debate with a lot of sharp insights on both sides.

Most common words have more than one meaning and "spirituality" is no exception. Depending on who you are talking with, the word can be used to mean anything from a belief in ghosts and spirits --- to an emotional high --- and beyond that to a sense, feeling, or perception of connectedness to all things.

It is folly to insist that any one usage is somehow more correct than all the others, but we should be clear about what meaning we ourselves are using for the word.

Recently, Sam Harris has offered a new definition of the word in his book, The End of Faith. Harris uses to word to refer to anything having to do with the sort of awareness that comes about after a sudden end to subject/object perception occurs while the continuum of experience yet remains.

Whether one would personally use Harris' definition of "spirituality" or not, the man should get a medal for being the first in the long history of the word to give it a more or less operational meaning. Yet, Harris goes even further: He wants to put the study of spirituality (along with mysticism --- another confusing word) on a scientific footing.

Perhaps only an American can believe humans will someday fly, travel to the moon, or study spirituality scientifically. But that latter thing is exactly what Harris hopes to do.

More power to him. If Harris succeeds, then some fist fights over the nature and merits of spirituality might become a thing of the past.

More over, this is the 21st Century, and many people who have had spiritual experiences of the sort Harris describes feel it is high time for biologists like PZ Meyers (along with many other scientists and non-scientists alike) to recognize there is more to human nature than is dreamt of in their philosophies.

Can Harris succeed in placing the study of spirituality and mysticism on a scientific footing? What do you think?

"In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations."

Einstein and Infeld, The Evolution Of Physics


When I first heard such ideas as an undergraduate, I could not make sense of them. A long time and a lot of work passed before I had a more or less clear understanding of what folks like Einstein and Infeld were talking about.

The basic idea is still a strange one: Reality is inaccessible to us. In the language of Einstein and Infeld, we cannot open the closed watch to peer inside. The best we can do is make models of what we think is inside the watch. All of these models will be wrong, but some of them might be more useful than the others. What we call "truth" is no more --- and no less --- than the most useful model we have of any particular reality. Yet, we cannot be certain that the reality even exists, let alone that we have correctly described it in our model.

It is here that many artists and scientists are in fundamental agreement. Neither the astute artist, not the astute scientist thinks even for a second that he or she has created the only possible interpretation of reality. Both recognize they have created only one of what might be many possible interpretations of the reality. Neither thinks of truth as an absolute. Both think of truth as conditional.

That irks a lot of people.

The astute artist and scientist are playing the game of "What Is Reality" on the pro-level, but a lot of people play that same game more or less on the level of a bright high school freshman. Until an artist, scientist, or someone else comes along to inform them that reality is inaccessible, they are not even dimly aware of the fact. Can you blame them for being uncomfortable with such a strange idea? I certainly don't. I remember too well the hard work it took me to grasp somewhat clearly that strange idea.

My Darling Anne,

This morning, I woke up thinking about an experiment done in some grad schools to illustrate to students an astonishing fact about human perception.

I don't know how many people besides myself have woken up thinking about that particular experiment, but I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one, because the experiment overturns many common ideas we might have about our relationship to each other and to truth.

The experiment itself is simple enough. A large jar full of marbles is placed on a table in clear view of all the students. Each student is then asked to write on a slip of paper his or her guess about how many marbles are in the jar. The slips of paper are collected and each student's guess is recorded. Then the guesses are averaged for the class as a whole. The results of this simple experiment imply something astonishing about human nature.

Here's what happens -- always happens. The average for the class is always closer to the number of marbles in the jar than any individual guess of any student in the class. Typically, the closest anyone by themselves comes to accurately guessing the number of marbles is within 5% percent of the truth. But the closest the class as a whole comes to guessing the actual number is almost always within 3% of the truth. When you're dealing with a large number of marbles, that's a significant difference. Especially because only a very few students are within 5% of the total and most are off by as much as 30%. In short, the group guess is always significantly closer to the truth than the guess of each individual.

To see why those results should astonish us, let's step back a bit.

The society we live in prizes individualism. One of our many myths about individualism is that the strong individual is self-sufficient. And while we normally think of self-sufficiency as economic and emotional self-sufficiency, we also to some extent think that strong individuals are self-sufficient when it comes to seeing the truth of things. Put differently, we are quite comfortable with the notion that truth is routinely discovered by strong and talented individuals: The scientist working alone in his or her laboratory, the sage meditating alone on his or her mountain top, the philosopher alone in his ivy tower, the artist alone in his studio. All of this is part of our common mythology.

Yet, the experiment overturns that mythology -- at least it does so as truth. In the experiment, the group is always closer to the truth than any individual, no matter how smart, strong and resourceful that individual is.

Humans are a social species. It's obvious that we are adapted to live in groups, to cooperate with each other, and so forth. The experiment -- along with many other lines of evidence -- suggests that we are also adapted to best reach the truth through a group effort. I plan to write more on this at a later time, especially if I continue to dream about that particular experiment.

What do you think Anne? Should I continue to wake up thinking about that experiment and its implications, or am I so off the mark here that I would be better off with visions of dancing girls running through my morning thoughts?

Paul

[Certain] questions require illusions because they have no discernible answers.

Brendan McBride, Off the Beaten Path



Brendan is referring to at least some "meaning of life" questions, such as "what is death and where will it take me?" Many professional philosophers regard such questions as empty or meaningless since there is no sound method or procedure for answering them. That does not, however, stop us from asking them. In his article, Uncomfortable Questions, Brendan develops at length an hypothesis as to why we nevertheless seem compelled to ask such questions, despite their lack of meaning.