It Could Be Different

I think the main ideas which run through everything I've thought are these:

1. The importance of History
2. The ability to choose
3. The possibility of rationality

I believe those things are connected, but not by any direct, mechanical logic. Perhaps it is better to say that they are intertwined, that they form a network. In explaining my views, I have to hope everything hangs together, at least for a while. Like knitted wool, the whole fabric seems to be of a piece until the ends are found. There are always ends, and they are always loose. When the ends are pulled, the whole thing unwinds. This is not just what happens to me; it happens to everyone. What all of us think is not a seamless web, but only a temporary cover over an endless booming, buzzing confusion.

History

History is a contradiction, both because of what physics and biology say of our Universe, and because of what we make of it.

According to Quantum Mechanics, at bottom the stuff of our Universe is random and probably does not exist at all. Yet, according to Relativity, on top our Universe is very ordered by gravity, an artifact of space-time which most certainly is.

According to evolutionary theory, biology has no direction, it just bumps along. It's not certain how biological things began, but it is certain that they did begin. It is unpredictable what will happen to living things, yet their local activities are very predictable.

Thus, we have two different kinds of theories about our Universe and our lives. One kind of theory expresses order and certainty. The other kind expresses disorder and indecision. My reconciliation of this opposition is in the concept of chaos. In the long run and the large view, there is only randomness. There is neither beginning nor end for the occupants of this Universe. But none of that prevents local order. The easiest way to think about this seeming contradiction is as coin tosses. In the long run, the proverbial "fair" coin turns up heads or tails just half the time. In the short run, there are patterns such as head-tail-head-tail, etc. Sooner or later, any pattern you choose will show up. So, historical predictions can be made, and for a while they will work.

I make a distinction between History and history. "History" is a subject which contains recorded human history. "history" or "Universal History" is a subject which contains all of what is known since the beginning of time until now. Thus, History is a subset of Universal History. Neither History nor history contain what is not known, although what is known might change from time to time. I view the unknown as an inexhaustible reservoir from which the known can be drawn. History in all its forms is about knowing; i.e., without observers there is no history. In other words, there is no "objective" history or historical existence. Since history only exists in thoughtful minds, its status is entirely epistemological, not ontological. We hope that history is a description of what is, thus giving us some insight into the "nature of being" (ontology), but that hope depends upon the truth of our thoughts and connection of our experience to what is. Rather than getting into an endless metaphysical tangle, my simplifying assumption is that we can talk about history as if it is about extant things; all the while knowing that assumption is only a plausible assumption, nothing more. We accept this way of thinking in doing mathematics, so why not physics and chemistry? And, if all those subjects are thought games of intelligent creatures, why not history as well?

I believe my view of History is justified, because we can identify connections between events. For example, there is the widely held theory about World War I causing World War II. That theory is causal because it proposes a forcing relationship between antecedent and consequent events. So, the punitive Treaty of Versailles engendered German resistance to its terms, which led to Hitler and another war. In constructing the usual pattern - a path - which takes us from World War I to World War II, we recount certain events and allege one event somehow made another event occur. This is a legitimate speculation, possibly even a testable hypothesis, on the short run order of coin tosses. For us, the short run order is the meaning of History, which is a collection of patterns we use to identify other segments of it. The main difficulty with this sort of thinking is what happens when History comes to an end, as it did in the Renaissance. For those who understand History as a thoroughly programmed participant in Medieval culture, the Modern era is probably inscrutable. Historical eras have their own temporary "internal logic."

Based on the foregoing, it should be clear that different versions of History are possible, none of which can be finally dismissed. Thus, there is Nazi History, Jewish History, Communist History and Capitalist History. Those Histories might include some descriptions on common, or might agree on a calendar for noting time. But, how they put events together, what comes first and what comes next, and what is the connecting principle, is very often totally different and irreconcilable. For instance, while I generally account for American History in the standard manner usually attributed to liberals, I cannot wholly dismiss the Libertarian construction that FDR prolonged the Great Depression. It is possible to see Roosevelt's Administrations in the light of other Conservative beliefs about History, which is to confer minimal plausibility on the Libertarian's History. But, plausibility is not the same thing as probability or truth; it is only a suggestion of an hypothesis to be tested. (I reject that Libertarian hypothesis about FDR, after entertaining it, because I believe it is contradicted by the record. But, my rejection is based on a different sorting of events and different social values, not on some absolute insight or knowledge.)

I think one of the strongest arguments for freedom of speech and inquiry is exactly the unknowability of History. Those who claim to know what History is all about, how it proceeds and what are its ends, almost always are authoritarians, infallible Philosopher Kings, who would only allow approved expressions. (This tendency is obvious in the American Religious Right.)

Choice

Implicit in the foregoing discussion is the ability to choose among alternatives. Choice is only possible when there are several accounts and the decision maker is aware of more than one of them. I think it is obvious that the lack of alternatives, when there is only one path, precludes choice. Turned around, the availability of alternatives makes choice possible.

To say that there are alternatives is just to say that there are different views of History. If the putative decision maker hasn't any idea of History, say as we imagine plants are, then there are no choices. Plants and other organisms lacking a concept of History are just there, immobilized in the face of whatever befalls them. This lack extends to creatures which only engage in programmed behavior; i.e., they behave in a deterministic fashion. While the word "determined" is full of pitfalls and controversies, it is not impossible to construct a class of "do this, get that" behavior. If we observe that whenever such-and-so happens ("this"), at a later time an organism performs a certain act ("that"), and we never see any other behavior, I think it highly probable that organism makes no choice of its own. It appears controlled by external events, even if there is a remote possibility the facts are otherwise. By this standard, organisms that make variable choices may be said to have some concept of History.

It may be argued that it is all a matter of degree. After all, perhaps the appearance of varied responses to a given situation is a matter of fine tuning. Maybe there is something the respondent sees in the situation which cues a certain response. In this last case, we are failing to observe the cues which determine the behavior. Thus, until the quark theory was developed, the mechanics of atomic nuclei was a hodge-podge of rules. Quarks and, later, their connectors, gluons, made sense of atomic behavior. The same principle can be turned around, to argue that our supposed voluntary choice is an illusion: we think we make voluntary choices because we fail to observe the mechanisms which guide us to a certain choice.

I can accept that argument under a certain interpretation. As a materialist, it seems extremely probable to me that everything we feel, think and do as ourselves involves our brains. We are animals under the central control of the neural system. So, a voluntary choice is something that happens in our brains, not some 'ghost in the machine.' (Ryle) In that sense, there is a deterministic explanation of human behavior, as well as the behavior of other similar creatures. But, the old argument over determinism v. free will is irrelevant, because sufficiently "advanced" brains have broken free from purely material constraints on operations. For example, intelligent brains can put together the pieces of perceptions in different ways to evoke different experiences. In other words, by analogy to our now-ubiquitous computers, just as silicon chips can run many programs, so can our biological brains. One of the greatest of the revolutionary discoveries of the Twentieth Century is that hardware is not determined as was previously thought. This insight is at the core of the famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the Turing Machine. What we have demonstrated in fact, especially during the last fifty years, is that we do not live in a Newtonian World, or the sort of world the Victorians conceived. Anyone who watches TV or uses a computer does so in abrogation of that Newtonian clockwork. The fact that what was inconceivable a century ago is now commonplace should give pause before casting any theory of History into oblivion.

Our brains can put things together in multiple, different ways and rehearse them separately, as if each of them were true. The core ability in this feat may be nothing more complicated than the laws of permutations and combinations: trying all the possibilities. We are often amazed by our own "insights" into situations, but that is probably because what is going on in the brain is hidden from us. Would we be as astounded if, somehow, our brains could crawl outside us and lay out the choices like an infant's colored blocks; first sliding this one hither, and that one thither, until they made some sort of pattern? And, what are patterns, except those regularities our brains are prepared to see? We don't hear white noise, or see Rorschach splotches, as patterns, but quickly identify zig-zag lines and alternating rows of color as such. So, our choices are limited to what we consider sensible. Most people are deathly afraid of jumping out of an airplane, even after some ground training in using parachutes. It takes some guided experience to accept new patterns.

The source of the components which are sorted and connected into patterns is simply multiple and different sensory inputs. We experience the world through sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, as well as many secondary sensors (temperature, pressure, balance, etc). All of those different inputs are integrated by different levels of the nervous system to become interactions with the world. Thus, we are more or less automatically repelled by being burned or injured. We try to maintain  our balance when struck. We are lured toward cooking that smells good, and repelled by rotting fish (ammonia) and skunks (sulfur). We recognize the voices and images of friends and foes, and respond accordingly. All of these things are different perspectives on the world of our living. At an elementary level, it is these perspectives that suggest different interactions with what is happening. If we were like some bacteria, limited to chemotaxis, how much fewer would be our choices!

We live in a world of complex choices for the simple reason that we are equipped to have experience in many ways. The evolutionary explanation for having all that equipment is straightforward enough: the ones that have it manage to live longer and have more offspring. Eyes, for example, are very primitive and extremely advantageous. Fish fry and amphibians are born mostly eyes. Looking at embryos of various animals, it is quickly apparent that the head is almost always the most important apparatus. It contains the pharynx and mechanisms for eating (jaws, teeth, etc). I holds the eyes, ears, nose and, sometimes, other sensory organs. The notion that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny gives us a window into what characteristics had evolutionary significance. In any event, we had heads and neurons very early on. One way of interpreting evolution is the gradual dominance of the neural system over the rest of the body. In the latest arrivals, such as humans, the neural system controls just about everything. That is a far cry from our earliest ancestors which only had a nerve or two that coordinated muscular movement.

The point of this story is that making choices is neither strange nor unusual; rather, it is a direct outgrowth of evolutionary development. However multiple sensory systems came to be, they were useless without management and co-ordination. Thus, each sensory input had to be accompanied by neural control systems in order to have evolutionary advantage. Over millions of years, brains learned how to reconcile multiple inputs into patterns, stories about what is going on out there. Brains became able to remember the stories and what they chose to do in this or that situation. (Those that didn't know what to do about the hissing and thudding of a nearby T-Rex aren't here to tell the story, possibly excepting moles.) Eventually, many animals become capable of teaching the young the stories, mostly by example. The ability to learn from tutoring involves imagination, the rehearsal of experience by neural stimulation. The development of imagination was the critical step in the final ascendancy of the neural system, because it disconnects the neural system from being a slave of the sensory inputs. Imagination turns the entire neural structure on its head: now the neural center commands the periphery. It is imagination, the simulation of events, that allows us to bring forward many patterns for examination without commitment to action.

Voluntary choice can be seen as just that deferral, not some specific, separate act. Our brains eventually select one of the patterns and an associated story as the scenario to enact. If the brain was hard-wired to carry out whatever it imagined, each of the patterns and stories would have to be played out in the process of finding the correct one. If a mouse invents a strategy to escape a hunting cat, that mouse might not have any descendants if it had to act out all of its prior strategies before getting to its latest. So, it should be an evolutionary advantage to think through what one is going to do without having to do anything. This advantage requires the neural system to operate independently and to be able to conjure up various inputs. The neural system implicitly "knows" that what is in its imagination is not what is happening. That distinction is the beginning of consciousness, or self-awareness.

In this context, "story" or "strategy" are what we also call "cause and effect." We need not assume more about causes and effects than what our brains put into associative memory. While many modern philosophers have tried to connect cause and effect to Newtonian or other clockworks, to inject some sort of necessity into the physical world, I think that is a useless and unnecessary effort. On my view, cause and effect is something our brains concoct. The reason for this particular kind of story, an ordering of this then that, is simply that it assisted survival. The stories could be drastically wrong, yet still have assisted survival. There are lots of shades of colored glasses. As long as whichever shade strikes one's fancy allows one to see the oncoming traffic, it makes no difference which is worn. This point is obvious to residents of California, but less flamboyant tourists from other parts of the world feel anything other than black or gray sunglasses is quirky or arrogant. The tourists have loaded variously colored glasses with a lot of excess baggage, whereas in California seeing the world differently can be an advantage, especially in Hollywood, Berkeley and San Francisco. Do rose colored glasses bring on success or failure? Maybe, maybe not. But, if they do not obstruct survival, why not give them a try? (This last analysis also shows that success stories involve risk.)

Rationality

I started out life differently, but, now, unlike the Enlightenment philosophes, I no longer believe there are any such things as Reason or Rationality, certainly not with a capital-R. That does not mean there are no reasons for things, or that being reasonable is without merit. After Gödel and all the other discoveries of the last century, it is just that we have to be more careful about our reasoning.

It cannot be assumed there is a single mode of "rationality;" rather there are many. Just as we have to pick our patterns and stories when making choices, we have to be explicit about our logical premises and methods when making arguments. It will not do to assume much, as the story of the demise of Euclidean geometry in theoretical physics informs us. Is the Universe flat, Riemannian or Lobachevskian? According to Einstein's Relativity, Riemann's geometry applies, but if a critical parameter (omega) is adjusted, our Universe looks hyperbolic. The difference is three stories: of a Universe that always was and always will be, of a Universe that began in a Big Bang and ends in a Big Crunch, or of a Universe created in a Big Bang that expands forever. Right now, we know the Universe is not Euclidean, even if it seems that way locally, but we do not know how it ends. In the same way, we have to specify what sort of logic we will use to reason about some subject. We cannot assume that "everyone knows" ...

I feel the reduction of reasoning to relative terms as a major blow, because it undermines any sense of 'rightness' or 'truth' one might have about our beliefs. In a world rendered relative, everything floats. In political and moral terms, it gets very hard to denounce the Nazis, Stalinists and other scourges such as the Taliban. On the the other hand, those who are the scourges typically feel assured of the absolute rightness of their cause. They feel justified in their wickedness.

What makes matters worse is that, in a Darwinian world, nice guys finish last all too often. If the wicked live long enough to raise another generation of the wicked, it would seem our woes will be endless. But, this is not quite so. There are, after all, some limits to behavior. It turns out that, in order to raise another generation of wicked people, the parents have to engage in warmth and love which creates family loyalties. Stalin, for example, had a warm spot for his daughter, Svetlana, even if he treated his women cruelly. These little preferences grow into cracks in the regime, and thence to a flood of corruption, as happened under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. An argument can be made that wickedness, and even being unreasonable, is self-defeating. Even if the wicked are winners today, they will be losers tomorrow.

The only difficulty I have with the foregoing argument is that, sometimes, the wicked really do win and take down everyone else with them. That was certainly Adolph Hitler's mentality: if he could not have his Germany, there would be no Germany left. Stalin implemented a similar policy in defense against the German invasion: scorched earth. The MAD nuclear weapons policy is based on an all or none attitude. Now we are confronted with Islamic suicide bombers who believe in all or nothing. Major conflicts with those who hold such fanatical beliefs are very risky, for they force contenders into the same position. The only way to stop suicidal maniacs is to kill them, or be killed in the process. That was the grizzly situation at the end of World War II, when the Japanese resorted to Kamikazes and demanded soldiers follow the Code of Bushido. Now that is also the position of those in the United States government who demand soldiers in Iraq to win before they return home. (That is an obtuse way of saying 'win or die.')

So, is there any hope of preserving rationality, of being reasonable, in such a world?

I think if people are gentle with each other, it is possible to resolve most of our conflicts. When we are sufficiently modest that we state our assumptions and methods, as happens in most academic work, reconciliation of differences, or at least a mutually agreed stand-off, is the usual outcome. For example, I am not, and never have been, a Platonist, but I can understand the arguments Platonists make in favor of their precepts. I don't have to care about Platonists who apply their philosophy, unless that application causes someone harm. It never comes to blows unless a True Believer of whatever stripe will not cease and desist when it does cause someone harm. Doing harm is one test that delimits moral behavior. That test need not be based on any theoretical structure: it is obvious enough when harm is done because the victims scream.

I think the exercise of choice always comes down to 'don't go with the flow.' It might be peculiar, but to be reasonable or rational is not to be natural. This is in opposition to all those who, like Rousseau, believe in noble savages. It also opposes those who claim we are born good or bad, as I think we are born neither. If we are anything at all, it is what we make of ourselves, the result of our choices. (I will have to take a second look at Nietzsche and maybe the Existentialists, despite their obnoxious tendencies, because they are the only ones saying similar things.)

'Going with the flow' is to submit oneself to the Darwinian existence. In economic terms, that is implemented in modern Capitalism. In political terms, that is expressed in the sort of fake democracy we have in the United States. In social terms, it is the worship of celebrities, the rich and famous. 'Going along to get along' doesn't require any thought: one just does what comes naturally. The desire to be part of a group, to conform, is deeply rooted, starting with sucking on a teat. The feeling of closeness, of cuddling, gives a sense of security essential to our survival in infancy. Since the onset of sexual desire starts before we are weaned from our parental families - this appears to have been so even in ancient times - there is a constant pressure to socialize and associate. For most people, but more so for men and than women, late maturity or old age is the first time in life they are left alone. Being left alone is a precondition of individual development. This description of social arrangements is supported by the common observation that those having distinctive personalities have a hard time fitting into the usual arrangements; e.g., movie stars and marriage. I think it is only those who distinguish themselves and thereby lose their group connection (emotional support) who have the opportunity to make decisions that change things.

The established order has tremendous inertia. That inertia is the benefit most members of society gain by doing things as they were 'brought up' (trained, programmed) to do. It does not matter that greater benefits might be available from different arrangements: that comparison is never made by those who fit in. One of the miracles of human history is that there has been any "progress" at all. I think that most of the progress has been related to technology, the use of tools. There never was any intention for H. sapiens to become farmers instead of hunter-gatherers. It just happened, probably when someone noticed the persistence of wheat, rice or barley in certain areas which allowed making camp nearby during several seasons. The familiar haunt gradually turned into permanent settlement, not on account of any plan, but because of circumstances (Aristotle's accidents). Permanent settlements have different social requirements than nomadic camps. For example, waste disposal becomes a problem; those who do not solve it, die. Despite the inertia of more than fifty millennia, human societies suddenly evolved considerably during the last ten millennia. Most of that change did not require a particular thought or decision, but resulted from the technical requirements of the situation. Farming societies are organized differently than hunter-gatherer societies, and both are different from urbanized or suburbanized societies, none of which resulted from a thought-out plan.

We have progressed naturally from the discovery or invention of a few things to classifying those things, and then wondering how those things work. There is a natural development from stone adzes to steel knives and swords. Most of what made our modern world did not require many breakthroughs, sudden changes or planning. However it got started, the modern era has more than its fair share of innovation; i.e., the number of new ideas and inventions is increasing. Even if the per-capita rate of invention has not increased, just the quantity of new ideas has had dramatic effects. I think human societies in Europe reached a take-off point about 500 years ago which allowed a transformation from ancient forms into something else. This transformation is now taking place in most of the world, and is not yet complete. Very little of what's happening requires conscious deliberation or decision. Most people need only go with the flow for the changes to continue. Societies have inertia, which means they resist change, but it also means they keep on changing once moved: 'bodies in motion continue in motion.'

The foregoing is an argument that very little of what we are is actually the result of any voluntary choice, so it is not the work of rationality. Most of the transformative ideas underlying modern societies were invented by very few people. Confucius still dominates Chinese social arrangements and values. Attempts such as the Cultural Revolution failed to dislodge the very conservative, familial orientation of most Chinese. Similarly, the Berkeley revolution attempted in the 1960s (in which I approvingly participated) failed to achieve most of its aims. American society snapped back to its frontier-style rugged individualism and nuclear families. Change does occur, but most it is the secondary consequences of a single idea. Television is the direct result of Einstein's 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect, and has had more far-reaching effects on society than the consequences of Einstein's other 1905 paper on Special Relativity, such as the atomic bomb.

The vast majority of people are conformists, not innovators, so, to the extent that their lives change, it is not of their own doing. When there are large populations of conformists, individual variations on social themes are rapidly suppressed. Thus, innovators have to be isolated from society, and their ideas planted in small communities, if their inventions are to survive and have any effect.

Coming back, then, to the problem of reason and rationality, are these something we will find in the larger society? The answer of my old age is clearly not. I have no doubt that human inventions have changed societies dramatically, especially in modern times. Based on my conception of what human life should be like, I do not doubt that many, but certainly not all, people are far better off today than were their ancestors. Those improvements in living conditions are the indirect result of rationality. Every direct attempt to create a Utopian society based on reason has failed. So I come to the conclusion that most people won't choose a better lifestyle, even if it is obviously better, but they might fall into it.

Thus, I think rationality is largely confined to a subset of society, usually academia in our world. Those who know how to reason are the forces that drive cultural (social) evolution, just as environmental changes drive Darwinian evolution. Just as S. J. Gould proposed, most of the time things in the biological realm go along as they always have been. Then, somehow, something happens which shifts the ecological relationships. Then there is a sifting out of winners and losers, survivors and the exterminated. It is new ideas - usually the result of reasoning - that precipitate changes in human cultures, but the outcomes do not necessarily reflect the precipitating factors. The outcomes depend on pre-existing conditions and how local societies integrate what is new. Thus, the idea of a sharp blade becomes a kitchen knife in one place, and a killing sword in another. This sort of differential development is going on before our eyes as Information Technology spreads into every society, no matter how remote.

So, even if some people are ruled by reason, if there is a glimmer of rationality here and there, it is not at all certain that cultural and social development will be guided by it. In the evolution of animals, the neural system eventually took over the body and became its controller. The same sort of thing is happening at the cultural level with H. sapiens, but the rule of reason, if it ever happens, is still far off.