Rationalist’s Wager

Rationalist’s Wager

 

“What is politics if words have no meaning?”

Loughner asked that question of Giffords awhiles back. Her answer did not satisfy him. He visited her later, with a wordless answer of his own; a gun.

Let’s take that question seriously, though it came from a paranoid schizophrenic. (And sociopathic to boot; a fortunately rare trifecta.) If words have no meaning, then politics is a farce, reason an illusion, and mankind doomed to swift extinction. We humans need words as much as birds need wings and fish need gills. Where there is no language, the people perish.

Do words have meaning? Only if there is intelligent life on planet Earth. Is there intelligent life on planet Earth? We, ourselves, are in no position to answer that question yes or no, for we are not objective in the matter. We cannot prove our own intelligence, merely on our own say-so; so the intelligent thing for us to do is to doubt our own intelligence. (That’s called ‘philosophy’, which is Greek for the love of wisdom. But to love wisdom is not the same as possessing wisdom, as any Greek lover can tell you.)

Nor can we prove, just on our own word’s say-so, that those words mean anything; so the meaningful thing to do is to question the meaning, if any, of our words. That’s called critical analysis; a valuable skill, especially when contemplating political speech. Tyrants cannot stop at injustice; since reason refutes injustice, they must defy reason; and since reason derives from language, they must defile language. Speech is our species particular adaptation; it’s our one advantage over all the other beasts; but tyranny destroys language; and therefore it’s a disease of mankind.

Orwell noted that Big Brother needed newspeak and doublethink; he also noted that the Party presided over a period of continuous decline. These interconnect. From lies come madness and then death.

          We cannot ourselves prove that we are intelligent, or that our words mean anything. But since we ourselves embody DNA’s bet that words do have meaning, then we might as act as if that is the case. Since we’re the bet, we might as well go all in. If we fail, then maybe the ants will learn from our example. But if we succeed, then we get to be us.

A professional philosopher will note that this is a version of Pascal’s Wager, except applied to acting rationally rather than believing in God. Pascal wagered: if we believe in God but there is no God, then we lose nothing; but if we believe and there is a God then we win all. I wager: if we act by reason but the world is irrational, then we lose nothing; but if we act by reason and the world is rational, then we win all. Similar bets; but which god is God? Mankind has many gods; but we seem to have one rationality; therefore my bet seems to be more secure. One may doubt this seeming, of course; such uncertainty is also rational.

 

Against Miracles and Special Effects

Against Miracles and Special Effects

 

          Dear reader, please compare and contrast Bullwinkle and Jar Jar Binks. Both are animated cinema characters; both are tall, lumpy doofuses. But they differ in two ways: one is animated by the highest computer technology, but the other is crudely hand-drawn; and one character is loved by fandom, but the other is reviled. Which is which?

          Jar Jar Binks is the high-tech toon, a real joy to look at, but is despised by fans. Bullwinkle is the low-tech toon, visibly slap-dash, and beloved. But surely this is strange, at least from George Lucas’s point of view. Why does investment in animation technology yield negative returns on customer satisfaction? The fans love special effects; why hate Jar Jar Binks, who is nothing but?

          Because Jar Jar Binks was badly written. He, and his whole movie, had no point, no plot, no sense, and no respect for character, actor, or movie viewer. It is as if all the money spent on Special Effects had to be taken out of the Creative Writing budget; whereas with the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show, it is as if all the money saved on the animation was spent on the writing.

          Let us call this the Bullwinkle-Binks Effect; that there is a tradeoff, in the cinema, between special effects and creative writing. The better the glitz, the worse the words! This is not due to a literal transfer of funds between two departments – though that too happens – but more of an institutional problem.

          The trouble with special effects is that they cost a lot of money, which the investors want back. Therefore further risk, inevitable with creative writing, is unacceptable. The special effects must tell a conventional story. They cheapen the tale, in proportion to the money spent.

          Whereas creative writing is cheap, so it plus cheap animation can take bigger risks; and a story is remembered for what it risked. The worse the look, the better the story it can afford to tell.

          Special effects ruin movies because they break rules, distract audiences, stultify plotting and reward bad writing. Good writing needs no special effects; it is its own special effect. Movies needing special effects have moronic dialog, wooden acting, cardboard characters, stupid plot twists, boring action, senseless violence and repellent values; whereas a well-written tale can be told on a bare stage, and the people will remember it, and beg to hear it again.

          All of these artistic objections to special effects in cinema also apply to miracles in religion. Miracles ruin religious tales the same way that special effects ruin movies; by breaking rules, distracting audiences, and rewarding bad writing. This includes moronic dialog, wooden acting, cardboard characters, stupid plot twists, boring action, senseless violence and repellent values. This is because miracles strain the suspension of disbelief; and so the tale-teller cannot risk telling the truly incredible truths.  So the brighter the miracle, the duller the tale.

          Whereas a good story, well-told told straight from life, can melt a heart of stone.

          If you doubt me, then consider the tale of Jonah. What do the people remember about Jonah? The whale! A big flashy miracle, and that’s all that people remember!

          Who notices that Jonah is a satire of all the other prophets? The world’s worst prophet, he had to be forced, by sea monster if need be, to preach to Nineveh and save it. He wanted it doomed! And when the city is saved, he sees a giant gourd or something grow and wither, and he mourns it. OK, that’s weird. Was the gourd a mushroom cloud, blipping out of existence, thus saving the city to the regret of Jonah, world’s worst prophet? Or maybe it was the mushroom that Jonah took before seeing the mushroom?

          All of this was funny enough, and surely a tip-off to anyone with a clue. Then add to that the whale tale! (A submarine, perhaps?) The capper was the last line, delivered by the Lord:

          “And should I not care for Nineveh, that great city, with more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

          What boffs! Have some pity for 120,000 morons, and their cattle too! A great last line; but who remembers it? Almost nobody! And why? Because of that ridiculous fish tale!

          And that is how miracles ruin religion.

 

 

 

On the Origin of Knowledge

            On the Origin of Knowledge

 

            Where does design come from? Design is encapsulated knowledge, so rephrase the question. Where does knowledge come from? Or in other words: what is learning?

             Suppose that you know something. How did you learn it? I know of two general methods:

            1. A wise and kind teacher taught me.

            2. I taught myself, by trial and error and thought and luck.

            With method 1 I can rightly ask who taught my teacher. And with method 2 I can rightly complain of having a fool for a teacher. Of course most people mix these methods. They trust, but from time to time they verify.

             Translated into cosmic terms, method 1 corresponds to intelligent design, and method 2 translates into evolution. There are other translations: to monarchy, religion and command economics, for method 1, and democracy, science, and free markets, for method 2.

             There are two problems with method 1, the wise teacher. First of all, are you sure that the teacher is wise? For who taught the teacher? The second problem is that it has no way to correct errors, it can only accumulate them. After the teacher stops teaching, it’s all downhill, as the students and their students wander ever more astray from the original pure word. Therefore method 1 is inherently tragic.

             But method 2 - self-teaching - is inherently comic, for it is all about error-correction. The autodidact has a fool for a teacher, and knows it too; and that precisely is philosophy. The philosopher loves wisdom, but does not necessarily possess the beloved; so the tale is a farce.

            Loyal students are conformist; autodidacts are eccentric. Is the universe conformist or eccentric? I’m not sure; what am I to compare it to? Classical physics tended towards predictability, but quantum physics is eccentric. Biology rigidly conforms to chemical laws, but evolution is eccentric. Is the universe mixed?