Do you want to be right or happy ?

Sitting around with a group of people discussing the challenges of communication in relationships when one person offered an insight that I really liked:

"You can be right or you can be happy."

Can't you be both? 

One person suggested: "If I'm right, then I am happy."

"Ah, but if you think you are right, reason surely tells you that you may be mistaken. Right ? So your happiness is not assured."

Turns out that Voltaire has wrestled with this question in a thought-story which is produced in its entirety below.

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Story of a Good Brahmin / Histoire d'un Bon Bramin 
Voltaire / Francois

trans. H.I. Woolf, https://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/Voltaire-Story_of_a_Good_Brahmin.htm  

Version originale
https://lettres.ac-versailles.fr/spip.php?article154

On my travels I met an old Brahmin, a very wise man, of marked intellect and great learning.  Furthermore, he was rich and consequently, all the wiser, because, lacking nothing, he needed to deceive nobody.  His household was very well managed by three handsome women who set themselves out to please him.  When he was not amusing himself with his women, he passed the time in philosophizing.  

Near his house, which was beautifully decorated and had charming gardens attached, there lived a narrow-minded old Indian woman:  she was a simpleton, and rather poor.

Said the Brahmin to me one day:  "I wish I had never been born!"  On my asking why, he answered:  "I have been studying forty years, and that is forty years wasted.  I teach others and myself [I] am ignorant of everything.  Such a state of affairs fills my soul with so much humiliation and disgust that my life is intolerable.  I was born in Time, I live in Time, and yet I do not know what Time is.  I am at a point between two eternities, as our wise men say, and I have no conception of eternity.  I am composed of matter:  I think, but I have never been able to learn what produces my thought.  I do not know whether or not my understanding is a simple faculty inside me, such as those of walking and digesting, and whether or not I think with my head as I grip with my hands.  Not only is the cause of my thought unknown to me:  the cause of my actions is equally a mystery.  I do not know why I exist, and yet every day people ask me questions on all these points.  I have to reply, and as I have nothing really worth saying I talk a great deal, and am ashamed of myself afterward for having talked."

"It is worse still when I am asked if Brahma was born of Vishnu or if they are both eternal.  God is my witness that I have not the remotest idea, and my ignorance shows itself in my replies.  "Ah, Holy One," people say to me, "tell us why evil pervades the earth."  I am in as great a difficulty as those who ask me this question.  Sometimes I tell them that everything is as well as can be, but those who have been ruined and broken in the wars do not believe a word of it -- and no more do I.  I retire to my home stricken at my own curiosity and ignorance.  I read our ancient books, and they double my darkness.  I talk to my companions:  some answer me that we must enjoy life and make game of mankind; others think they know a lot and lose themselves in a maze of wild ideas.  Everything increases my anguish.  I am ready sometimes to despair when I think that after all my seeking I do not know whence I came, whither I go, what I am nor what I shall become."

The same day I saw the old woman who lived near him.  I asked her if she had ever been troubled by the thought that she was ignorant of the nature of her soul.  She did not even understand my question.  Never in all her life had she reflected for one single moment on one single point of all those which tormented the Brahmin.  She believed with all her heart in the metamorphoses of Vishnu and, provided she could obtain a little Ganges water wherewith to wash herself, thought herself the happiest of women.

Struck with this mean creature's happiness, I returned to my wretched philosopher.  "Are you not ashamed," said I, "to be unhappy when at your very door there lives an old automaton who thinks about nothing, and yet lives contentedly?"

"You are right," he replied.  "I have told myself a hundred times that I should be happy if I were as brainless as my neighbor, and yet I do not desire such happiness."

My Brahmin's answer impressed me more than all the rest.  I set to examining myself, and I saw that in truth I would not care to be happy at the price of being a simpleton.

I put the matter before some philosophers, and they were of my opinion.  "Nevertheless," said I, "there is a tremendous contradiction in this mode of thought, for, after all, the problem is -- how to be happy?  What does it matter whether one has brains or not?  Further, those who are contented with their lot are certain of their contentment, whereas those who reason are not certain that they reason correctly.  It is quite clear, therefore," I continued, "that we must choose not to have common sense, however little common sense may contribute to our discomfort."  Everyone agreed with me, but I found nobody, notwithstanding, who was willing to accept the bargain of becoming a simpleton in order to become contented.  From which I conclude that if we consider the question of happiness we must consider still more the question of reason.

But on reflection it seems that to prefer reason to [happiness] is to be very senseless.  How can this contradiction be explained?  Like all the other contradictions.  It is a matter for much talk.

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It is indeed a matter for much talk.

It seems unlikely that reason can lead us to happiness.

But happiness is elusive as Douglas Adams explored in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
"And are you?"
"No. That's where it all falls down, of course."
"Pity", said Arthur. "It sounded like rather a good lifestyle otherwise.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy 

So, happiness is blind to reason. And maybe I should be too?

That is, happiness is a good lifestyle -- the trick is to find it. 

Reason can't tell me how to find happiness, but reason will tell me when I have found happiness. 

And if I have happiness, I can still reason. I may be right, I may be wrong; in effect, reason will leave me uncertain -- as it always does. But I'm happy.

Maybe it is this that underlies the curious (and for me, confounding) statement from the famously contented philosopher David Hume:  

"Reason is, and always ought to be, the slave of the passions."

And maybe it is this that underlies Albert Camus' views expressed as a 19 year old: 

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life." 

So maybe the solution is: lead with happiness, let reason follow - or not.

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OTHER LINKS

https://www.dailyabsurdist.com/blog/2019/1/16/wise-fools

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reason-passion-secret-happy-life-harriet-green 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/do-you-want-to-be-happy-or-right_b_57d9bdd5e4b053b1ccf28e19

A bird by any other name would sound as tweet

Morning dark evanescent 

rising sun incandescent,

silence... still... iridescent

Muted morning is broken

burbling bird names are spoken

        

First, feathers flap and fluster

cacophonous clattering cluster

And while beaks have a thirst

a warbling call comes first

By din of a racket, the forest is rent

by singing and chattering bird ‘ta-lent’

Birds themselves proudly proclaim

by loudly shrieking out their own name

Tweeting pee-wee and pi-wit and feebee

Cheeping perky and chirpy like coffee

Trilling sweetly and tuney like toffee

Ain’t it quite queer

in lands far and near

that we name birds by ear:

such as these listed here...

raucous kookaburra,

crazy cuckoo,

wailing kulbardi,

french-speaking vingt-huit,

kurrawong song

the Kiwi’s kiwi

and parroting kea

Yet no bird will you hear

call ‘onomatopoeia’

 

 

(Response to a challenge to write a piece including seven words -- highlighted in bold above).

Need to speak the truth?

It has been pointed out to me that when someone tells me they need to speak ‘the truth’, I roll my eyes and grimace.

Let me offer some words to explain the meaning behind my pre-verbal expression.

Essentially, it communicates two questions: 'is it really true?' and 'is it kind to speak it?'

What is truth?

Truth is an ‘epistemic’ concept – which is a fancy way of saying it is about ‘knowing.’

Mostly when we say we ‘know’ something, we’re saying that we believe it to be true.

The truth however, is that ‘truth’ is decidedly difficult to pin down. That is, you may firmly believe it to be true, but whether it is or not is another matter.

For instance, when I was young, my mother would chide me for some misbehaviour, and as we were walking away from one another, she would say ‘And don’t roll your eyes’.

It was ‘true’ that I was rolling my eyes, but how did she know?

As a very young child, I believed that she had x-ray vision that allowed her to see backwards through both her tough head and mine and therefore, see what my eyes were doing.

As a louche youth, I believed that eye-rolling was my habitual and non-verbal way of expressing doubt about her judgment.

Which belief is true? My mother thinks it’s the first, I think it is the second.

We (the majority) generally believe it is true that humans have walked on the moon.

Now, without saying I doubt that it happened, I can admit that I was not there – and I’m almost certain you weren’t either. (Are you rolling your eyes?)

Perhaps it was faked? (Are you grimacing?)

To be clear, I do not think it likely that the moon landings were faked. But who knows what is true! I believe it is true that man walked on the moon. But I might be mistaken.

What should be spoken? (What is right action?)

Speaking – and in particular choosing what to say and what not to say – is an ‘ethical’ concept. That is to say, it is about how one behaves.

More generally, ethics is concerned with the question ‘what is right action?’ But here, I am focusing on the action we call speech: ‘what is the right thing to say?’

What is the right and wrong thing to say (and more generally do) is difficult to pin down. Maybe even more difficult that ‘what is true?’

The guiding principle for self-behavior is probably kindness. You know, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, ‘if you can’t say something kind, don’t say anything’, etc.

So what do you say to a child who is eagerly awaiting the arrival of Christmas Eve and the delivery of presents to the stocking at the bottom of her bed by Santa Claus?

You could start by asking whether Santa Claus is ‘true’. And most grown-ups believe he is a fiction. Or you could argue that he is a figure based on Saint Nicholas, or is the personification of God (and who knows whether He is true – eye rolls), or is a very real representation of the idea of altruism, kindness and anonymous gift-giving.

So let’s pass on the question of ‘the truth’.

What is the ‘kind’ thing to do?

To answer that question, we must consider the hearer and their needs and wants. What is the right thing to say might be better coloured by kindness than by what the speaker thinks is the truth.

To press on this point of kindness before truth, consider the dreaded question ‘Does my ass look big in this outfit?’

If ‘the truth’ for the responder is that their ass does look big, then the responder has been given an uninvited choice which is difficult: speak a lie to be kind or tell an unpleasant truth.

That is, the questioner (whose ass does look big in the outfit) has offered the responder a choice between a shit-sandwich and a crap-wrap!

In a sense, we can flip the same question back on the questioner: is it kind to ask this question 'does my ass look big?' – even if it is ‘true’ that the questioner wants to know?

Feel a need to speak the truth?

Maybe ask yourself:

• is it really true? (Thank you Byron Katie!)

• is it kind or considerate speak it?

To be more blunt, imagine you are confronted by an evangelist or fanatic who truly believes in the truth of X - where 'X' is a religious view, a political view, or some other cause they care deeply about. And they feel impelled to tell you ‘the truth’.

Did I just see you roll your eyes and grimace?

So you see and understand my point?

And if you do, then you probably recognise the irony of my whole defence.

My eye-roll plus grimace is me expressing disbelief about your belief. The truth is that I’m questioning what you think is ‘truth’. I’m claiming that truth is something that is squirly.

I’m also challenging whether you’re being kind – but yes, in an unkind way.

The truth is that the eye-roll expresses doubt, disageement, disapproval, dismissiveness, even disdain.

And so yes, in truth and in kindness, I probably should not roll my eyes and grimace.

I'm working on it!

--------------------

Eye-rolling and how to respond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXW2L3VyyQ

A case for truth-telling – occasionally, in the right place and the right time: https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-varieties-of-travel-experience/articles/be-mean

Philosophy Funnies

Q: How many philosophers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Depends on how you define “change”

---

An engineer, a scientist, a mathematician, and a philosopher are hiking through the hills of Scotland, when they see a lone black sheep in a field.

The engineer says, “What do you know, it looks like the sheep around here are black.” 

The scientist looks at him skeptically and replies, “Well, at least some of them are.” 

The mathematician considers this for a moment and replies, “Well, at least one of them is.” 

Then the philosopher turns to them and says, “Well, at least on one side.”

---

Descartes is sitting in a French bar, having a drink. The bartender asks him if he would like another. “I think not,” he says … and disappears.

---

Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting at a French cafe, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness. He says to the waitress, “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.” The waitress replies, “I’m sorry, monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?” 

---

Dean is complaining to the physics department: “Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff? Why couldn’t you be more like the math department – all they need is pencils, paper, and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper.”

---

Final paper, final year for philosophy. Everyone is gathered in the exam hall, heads bulging with volumes read, sweating caffeine, shuffling feet, hands, bags, papers, pens as they sit at their desks.
The lecturer saunters in. A hush falls interrupted only by the clicking of pens and swish of the question sheets being handed out, face down, taunting the awaiting examinees.
The lecturer clears her throat, and announces to the awaiting students: “You may turn over the question sheet.”
The room collectively turns over the question sheet. In the middle of the sheet is written one line:
‘If this is a question, answer it.’
The lecturer continues: “And now you may begin.”
Dumbfounded silence. Nervous side-ways glances.
Followed by a flurry of pens and pages and writing which mutes the muffled thoughts of the many. Is this indeed a question or not? By what logic? By the thoughts of what philosopher?
One student sits back in reflection, taps her pen to on her lips. She transfers her response to paper in a single, meticulously written line:
‘If this is an answer, mark it.’

---

   Reasons Why God Was Denied Tenure

• He had only one major publication.
• And it had no references.
• It wasn’t published in a refereed journal or even submitted for peer review.
• And some even doubt he wrote it himself.
• It may be true that he created the world, but what has he done recently?
• The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate his results.
• He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.
• He expelled his first two students for learning.
• Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed his tests.
• His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.
  

---

  

(Some of these jokes were drawn from a blog by John Messerly: https://reasonandmeaning.com/2024/02/14/short-philosophy-jokes/#more-25014)

To be or not to be?... a fun question!

Icarus: Is there any meaning to life? Is it not just about birth and death with the middle part being a period of procrastinating on the death part?

Daedalus: Well maybe, but the way I see it, death is worth delaying as much as possible. Are you thinking of opting out?

Icarus: No, not at all. But it is fun to question the meaning of existence. And in that vein, if the fun of life ends with death, what’s the point?

 Daedalus: Hmm, sounds like the argument of an ex-lover who challenged me with the question: ‘What was the point of our relationship if it was simply going to end?’ I contest her assessment that an ended relationship is a waste. Beginnings and ends are inevitable, it doesn’t make the bit in the middle “a waste.” Birth and death are like two tasteless crackers around a lump of tasty cheese. Like two bookends around a long shelf of fascinating books. Like the title credits and end credits that bracket a film. Like the two sheets in which you find your favourite bedmate of the moment. The meaning of life is what we put into it, what we make of the part between the beginning and the end.

Icarus: Yeah, but what’s the point if the middle all disappears at the end? What is the purpose of fun if it ends? If there was a roller-coaster that you could ride but at the end of the ride you forgot about the pleasure it gave you, would you bother riding it?

Daedalus: Yep, I’d ride it even if I ‘forgot’ all about it at the end – just as I would ride it if at the end I disappeared into oblivion and there was no “I” to do the remembering. The enjoyment I experience in the middle is its own end. Life has no meaning other than what you make of it. Why not make it enjoyable?

Icarus: Well good point. But what if you don’t have control over what you get – which arguably you don’t. What if the roller-coaster was not fun? What if it is in fact a torture device – which is not far off what some people think of roller-coasters? What if it is a vile ride and you come out the end in pain.

Daedalus: Life is risky. We make choices. Some outcomes are good, some are bad, and some choices return a bit of both. Over the passage of time – if we survive the bad choices – we will hopefully learn to make choices that return more pleasure than pain.

Icarus: You’re talking about the roller-coaster ride as one of multiple events in life. What if the roller-coaster ride is the whole of your life. Once you board it, you can’t get off it. Given that scenario, what if at the end of the ride you end up with more pain than pleasure? Is it a roller-coaster ride you would board if you knew the final outcome, the final balance, was negative? If death erases what is in the middle, and the middle is pain, then surely death is welcomed?

Daedalus: Hmm, good question and the roller-coaster is a good metaphor for life. Lots of ups and downs, whether you howl with pleasure or pain is really up to you. Ultimately, we choose life hoping it will be pleasurable while having to accept that some parts – and even much of it – may be painful. We learn to accept that the world is not always going to be the way we would wish it to be. In particular, the distribution of ups and downs across people does not seem at all ‘reasonable’ or ‘just’. Some people get an abundance of pleasure, others an abundance of pain. Most of us get a mixture. Most of us aspire to be like those who appear to have a life filled entirely with pleasure. And most of us console ourselves that they too almost certainly have a portion pain in their life.

Icarus: But what you’re really saying then is we have to accept what is coming to us in life. Do we really have a choice? How can you love a life that you don’t get to choose? What if you are visited by a demon who tells you that you have lived this life before. All of it. In particular, he reminds you that each pain-point has been lived before, you’ve already experienced it all. He tells you that there is more to come. You will re-live your life exactly as you did last time. Again and again and again ad infinitum. So, can you embrace that life now? Are you willing to stay in that game if suffering is the bulk of your experience? What if you are Sisyphus, condemned to push a rock up the hill only to watch it roll down again, and required to push it up again? Why do that?

Daedalus: Tough question, but I think we do strive to love that life, the life we get. It is useful to point out however, that the demon is an unreliable informant, even evil. He’s setting you to think about the worst-case scenario which may or may not be so. Will be there some pleasure in it? Will it be like the lives of most people – some pleasure, some pain? Probably. So to hell with the demon, to hell with his focus on the miserable moments of our existence. Even in your scenario of reliving the same life over and over, we don’t know what the future holds. So it is with this life – whether it recurs eternally or not. We seem to be built to rely on hope offsetting our fears.

Icarus: Maybe, but aging is losing in some way. Every step taken is a one step closer to death!

Daedalus: Oh the irony – to be schooled in the challenges of aging by the young! But yes, you’re right, and the irony runs even deeper. You see, the greatest challenge is that just as I think I’ve grasped the idea of living the best life with what I have, I find myself with a little less – less hearing, less taste, less vision, less energy, etc -- and once again striving to live the best life with what I have. Maybe it is the striving itself that is what makes life worth living.

Icarus: So your response to 'one step closer to death' is to embrace it, make that step count, step up, step out -- even if actively towards death?

Daedalus: Precisely. If I have the freedom to choose – and it feels like I do – then I choose to live my life to the fullest that I can. I choose life, I choose to be – until I can’t. Perhaps the ultimate act of free will is to accept that eventually, I will not be at all. Or perhaps I might even choose not to be, the "one truly serious philosophical question" according to Camus.

Icarus: You’re not thinking of opting out are you?

Daedalus: Fear not. It is fun to explore the meaning – or lack of meaning – of existence. So I remain in no hurry to get to the final act – notwithstanding the downhill slide. I plan to hang around until the end comes along and enjoy myself in the interim.

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Extra Readings

To become mature is to have regained the seriousness one had as a child at play.
-- Nietzsche

Nihilism vs Existentialism: https://study.com/learn/lDaedaluson/nihilism-vs-existentialism.html

Eternal Recurrence / Eternal Return: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

The Myth of Sisyphus, and “the one truly serious philosophical problem… is suicide”: https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil360/16.%20Myth%20of%20Sisyphus.pdf

Life is for striving, not achieving: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/01/against-self-improvement-the-negative-capability-of-everyday-life.html

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life...
-- Mark (Rentboy) Renton, Trainspotting

 

Cup of tea: a lesson in learning

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868 – 1912), received a university professor who came to enquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. ‘It is overfull. No more will go in!’

‘Like this cup,’ Nan-in said, ‘you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?’

-- Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, p.17

------------------------------

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows
  -- Epictetus

Other koans: https://avocastreet.com/koans/Shaseki.pdf

Who is the better altruist?

Hede: I recently made a donation of $1,000 to a charity and I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Hart: Really? I recently made a donation of $1,000 to a charity too. Which one did you donate to?

Hede: I gave $1,000 to a charity that provides cost-effective treatment against parasitic worms that plague many people in Africa. I did a fair bit of searching for the most effective charity, and chose this one as it has the greatest impact on people's lives per dollar invested. How about you?

Hart: I gave $1,000 to a charity that provides cuddly teddy bears to sick children in hospital. I was watching this documentary about sick kids, and when I saw what this one charity was doing, well, I just cried. I called them immediately after the program ended to make a donation.

[Adapted from a scenario created by Tadeg Quillien 2022]

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

 Who is most concerned about the outcomes of her altruistic act, Hede or Hart?

Who is the most genuine in her altruistic intention? 

Who is the better altruist out of Hede and Hart? Why?

Who is more likeable person? Why?

What are the most important features of 'good' altruism? Effectiveness? Compassion? Something else?

 

EXTRA READINGS

"Is virtue-signalling a vice?" Tadeg Quillien (2022) https://aeon.co/essays/why-virtue-signalling-is-not-just-a-vice-but-an-evolved-tool 

Effective Altruism: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/

Ethics of care: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_care

Compassion & altruism: Steno (2015) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154615000261  

 

Idol Words on the meaning of life

Image from Le Magasin Pittoresque, 1839

 

[The following is an extract from "Idol Words" by Scott Alexander at https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/idol-words] 

"Hello, welcome to the temple of the three omniscient idols, one of which always tells the truth, one of which always lies, and one of which answers randomly. I know you already signed the release form, but I’m supposed to remind you that we are not legally responsible for any consequence of following the false idols’ advice. Do you have a question?”

Outrage is litter

https://blog.csiro.au/plastic-pollution-on-our-beaches/

 

Outrage is litter 

that sullies the 

moral landscape

 

-- Ssh

On judging judgments

 

Be gentle on the judgments of others;

And be mindful of your own!

 

  -- Ssh

Doctors debating vaccination

Dochotomy by MsLil (2021)

 

 

(This article is a L-O-N-G read, and it is incomplete. Constructive comments are welcome.)

The ground rules for the debate

Dr Provax: Greetings fellow doctor, what do you know?

Dr Novax: Afternoon doctor. What do I know? Not much. Well, not entirely true. There's one thing I know: I'm done with the continual coverage of COVID. It's been two years now.

 

Dr Provax: Agreed. And with the latest variant, and two years to prepare, it is time for nature to show the non-vaccinators the folly of their reasoning.

Dr Novax: Ah, so you're vaccinated?

Dr Provax: Absolutely. You're not?

Dr Novax: No.

Dr Provax: Oh my God, why not? You’re crazy. We need to stop you anti-vaxxers before you kill us.

Dr Novax: Whoa, whoa. We’re friends, so I’m happy to have this discussion, but only if we have ground rules.

Dr Provax: What ground rules?

Dr Novax: Let’s refrain from invoking any unproved metaphysical entities such as God who are unnecessary to the discussion here. No ad hominem -- meaning you can attack the argument, but not the person. Calling me 'crazy' is ad hominem. And try to wind back the hyperbole such as your presumption that I am an 'anti-vaxxer', and your exaggeration that non-vaccinators will kill everyone. Everyone? That seems a lot strong: for one thing, if the vaccine is protective, then the vaccinated ought not be especially threatened by the non-vaccinator’s choice.

Predicting the future imperfectly

Do humans want to know their future?

Yes, people are interested in knowing their future.

We want to know the future in terms of…

•  what the weather will be tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after…?
  
• whether our new product is likely to be a success in the market or not?
  
• whether our large investment will be go up or go down in value?
  
• what numbers will win next week’s lottery? 
• whether or not we will survive the fatal disease we have contracted (with certainty, not a probability)?
  
• can modern medicine prevent or cure the fatal disease I have contracted?
  
• can we humans live forever?
  
• do humans avert their own extinction?
  
• what is the human-experience after death (assuming our quest for human-generated eternal life fails)?
  

Can humans know their future?

The future remains uncertain. No matter how good our prediction skills, the future is uncertain, both empirically and logically.

Empirically, even if we have “big data”, massive computing capacity, and fantastic skills, the weather tomorrow may be as predicted, but it may not. There is no certainty about what the future holds, and complexity and chaos theory ensures that it remains so. 

Logically, even if the world is a series of causes and effects, there is no logic that permits us to say that many previous contingent events will occur again in the future (see Hume). Sure, the sun has ‘risen’ every day for thousands of millennia, but it does not logically follow that it will do so tomorrow. 

Even with “more data” and more skills, some of these questions about the future, especially the ones further down the list above, are likely to always remain beyond us. 

What is the human-experience after death? Who knows? It has not stopped many people developing stories of what they think, even believe, or perhaps wish will happen after death. But the truth is we do not know. And even more, that we are unlikely to ever know.

Do humans avert their own extinction? We might desperately wish it to be so, but humanity does or does not survive remains in the future, and is unlikely to be known. The problem is open-ended for even if humanity survives the current apocalyptic scenarios, the possibility of extinction in some other, currently unseen and perhaps unknown apocalyptic scenario remains.

Can we live forever? It hasn’t happened yet although it is clear that human life has been massively extended beyond the standard “three score years and ten”. Can a human live forever? Perhaps, but perhaps not. Even if we do manage to insert our mental selves into a machine, what happens if the world ends and the machine stops? 

So many unknowns. 

But there are also some confusions that get tangled with the idea of prediction.

The first is confusing possibility with prediction. It is possible that there is life after death, that humans escape extinction and that people get to live forever (or at least 200 years or more). So, yes, these outcomes might be possible, but that is not a prediction. The other outcome is also possible!

Which leads to the related issue of confusing guesses with predictions. Guessing that a tossed coin will come up heads is a guess, not a prediction. If the coin does come up heads, then it was a lucky guess, not a correct prediction.  

Predicting the future is already an uncertain game, but it seems certain that uncertainty will always plague questions about particular futures such as the human experience after death, whether humans avoid extinction, and whether humans can live forever. 

My prediction is that we will only ever be able to predict the future imperfectly.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"The history of predicting the future" (Rees 2021, Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/history-predicting-future/

"Humans are bad at predicting futures that don't benefit them" (Beaton 2017, The Atlantic)
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/11/humans-are-bad-at-predicting-futures-that-dont-benefit-them/544709/

Why is time so warped?

Time has a curious essence. Unlike the other three dimensions - length, breadth, depth - we can travel in only one direction through time: from past to future via the present.

 
We cannot visit a moment in time that we have passed.

Despite the past and future being simply two ends of one dimension, we take the past as cast in stone, and the future as unknown.

Travel into the past is impossible, travel into the future a dream.

How well do we ‘know’ our past & our future?

We fool ourselves that we ‘know’ both our past and our future with stories about each.

The story we tell ourselves about our past is called history.

We put a lot of faith into this story in some ways, but it seems unjustified. If history is important because it facilitates learning, how come our own history is full of stories that are like repeats on television where at some point, often much too late, we realize that we’ve seen this before?

The story we tell ourselves about the future is called a prediction. We put less faith into predictions in general, but curiously, we do put a lot of faith into some predictions. We have many imaginings about catastrophic futures – pandemic, climate change, nuclear war, etc.

All are quite possible, but we tend to focus on one at a time, a flavour of the month (or year). While the possibilities for global annihilation are plentiful, even infinite, annihilation by pandemic is the most current scare du jour.

Before death by pandemic was imagined, we feared annihilation by climate change. Before annihilation by climate change, we feared an ending in nuclear war. Before an end in nuclear war was imagined, we feared … and so on back to various doomsday scenarios, secular and religious.

Outrage ain't right

 “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions”
  – David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Book 3, Part 3, Section 3)

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Enough of the outrage!

I hear your passion, your judgment, your indignation, your disgust. All because I'm unwilling to agree with you.

Outrage is easy to hear because it is pure passion speaking out. Loudly. 

Do you know what time it is ?

 

Claire asks Tiffany "Do know what time it is?"

 

Tiffany looks around at an old-fashioned clock sitting on the sideboard which shows that the time is 6.56. 

"Yeah, it is four minutes to 7," says Tiffany.

  

Following Tiffany's glance, Claire says, "Oh, that clock doesn't work. It always shows 6.56. So you are mistaken."

 

Tiffany looks at her mobile phone and says "Really? I think you are mistaken as my phone confirms that it is 6.56 at the moment."

 

(Adapted from Bertrand Russell, Human Knowledge: Its scope and limits, 1948)

QUESTIONS

 

Does Tiffany have a legitimate claim to "knowing" the time after viewing the stopped clock? 

 

If the time was 6.56, and Tiffany believed it was, and justified that belief by reading the clock, does she have knowledge? 

 

The notion that knowledge is 'justified, true belief' suggests that she does. Perhaps we ought to change the definition of knowledge? How would you change the definition?

 

ADDITIONAL SOURCES

https://philosphere.blog/2018/03/28/russell-and-the-stopped-clock/ 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem 

Be who you are

 

Be who you are --
for no-one else can be

Become who you can be --
for no-one else can do it

Ssh

 ----------------

To be what we are,
and to become what we are capable of becoming,
is the only end of life.

Robert Louis Stevenson

----------------

Be who you are and say what you feel
because those who mind don't matter,
and those who matter don't mind.

Dr Seuss

More is the enemy of enough

 

 

'More' 

is the enemy of

'enough'

(Ssh)