The World Is Messy - Probabilistic - Relativism

Listened to this Hidden Brain on the commute this morning. 

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/why-youre-smarter-than-you-think/

The IQ part is of course interesting and how IQ can't measure desire or passion or interest of course leaves the concept wanting. 

I have always found myself going back to Kurzweil's definition of intelligence - the ability to solve problems with limited resources. 

Alas, problems for you might not be problems for me.

But the real kipper of the piece for me was when he used the word "messy."

The world is messy. 

Here is some of the context:

Shankar Vedantam:

You've also said that IQ tests fail to capture the full range of human potential, in that they focus on the explicit, the conscious, the controlled forms of thinking. What does this leave out, Scott?

Scott Barry Kaufman:

Absolutely. Well, one specific thing I did study in my dissertation is this idea called implicit learning, which is our ability to learn the probabilistic rule structure of the world automatically and implicitly without a level of awareness. This is deep implications. I mean, so you talk about the theme of your show, right here, we're getting to... this is very, very congruent. I mean, think about what is required to develop social intelligence. Sometimes when people smile, they mean this, sometimes they don't. Sometimes when people's eyes are like this, sometimes they don't. The world is messy.

Probabilistic rule structure of the world. 

There are no absolutes. From the hard sciences to the social sciences, not one truth.

And yet, we can be happy. We can move through the world with grace and patience and humility and smile and be smiled at. 

Relativism is your friend. 

Old systems, especially in an education system, but you also see it in organizations and hiring practices. It goes deep, this stuff, a lot of these assumptions we have about human potential that are really outdated and just wrong.

 

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Religion is an old system, really outdated and unhealthy. We aren't fallen, we aren't born in sin, we aren't corrupt, we don't need saved, the body isn't bad. 

Time to let it go. Time to embrace the messy world with a new paradigm. A healthier paradigm. 

You'll thank me.

The Imagination - Bigger Than Me

 Atheists, like myself, can run the risk of protesting too much. It gets very Freudian, almost like a defense mechanism:

"Why all the atheism? Huh huh? Why all the mistrust of religion? Huh huh? Who hurt you? Huh huh."

Still, I do think about this stuff...and have since my late teens and my first philosophy class, back in 1990 or so.

One theme with the theists is the ole something as opposed to nothing. I won't tackle this one head on but I will morph this theme into something I consider kin:  the something bigger than me theme.

I think a fear among theists is that if there is no sense of something bigger than me, then there will be no order:

Mass hysteria will rule unless we humans accept something bigger than us. 

An interesting context here is, Alcoholics Anonymous and step 2 of the 12 steps (or traditions if you prefer):

"2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."

So what is an atheist to do in the midst of such a, let us say, predicament/quagmire/conundrum? 

Maybe this atheist realizes something bigger than him, alone, in his closet studio every night. 

Stay with me.  

At night in my studio, I will play along to a rhythm track and solo. 

"Is this guy about to tell us he touches god with his stratocaster?"

Stay with me.

As I am playing I begin to hear things I want to play; sounds I want to realize and bring into the world, birth if you will.

"Is this guy about to have a guitar baby or some shit?"

Often times my technique will prevent the sounds from being realized - my fingers won't fly like I need them to, and the sound idea, parishes, if you will.

I tell you this because this sound idea, waiting to be born, is my imagination at work, and it is bigger than me.

This is the crux - my imagination is bigger than me - my imagination creates. From nothing - ex nihilo.

Let there be sound.

And here is the public health angle: I othered not a single person. I condemned not a single person to hell nor did I promise eternal salvation to like-minded folk. 

I simply found the head space to listen, and IMAGINE something not yet here and try to will/birth/create it. 

This is bigger than me. This is enough for me. The precludes mass hysteria and allows me to remain sane, whatever AA means by sane. 

"Is this guy actually going to try to save humanity with a pentatonic scale? Is this some bullshit fundraising in disguise for the National Endowment for the Arts?"

Of course not. I'm simply showing you that you can recognize something bigger than you without anthropomorphizing or indoctrinating or othering your fellow sapiens to hell. 

I like to think I'm offering you a public health opportunity. Because personal beliefs are a public health issue.

You're welcome. 

If you have some money burning a hole in your pocket, you can help others create something bigger than themselves.

 "I knew it, this motherfucker is after my money."

Not An Image Problem, An Imagination Problem

In this post I was sarcastic in regards to objective truth. Please know that objective truth is different from an ethic. An ethic, by definition, admits of relativism. Stinks of it, just like my gym bag. But I digress.

Here is a snip from Metaphors We Live By:

Interpersonal Communication and Mutual Understanding

When people who are talking don't share the same culture, knowledge, values, and assumptions, mutual understanding can be especially difficult. Such understanding is possible through the negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might he like. You also need patience, a certain flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance for mistakes, as well as a talent for finding the right metaphor to communicate the relevant parts of un-shared experiences or to highlight the shared experiences while de-emphasizing the others.

Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experience. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all ex-tended conversations where understanding is important.

When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate un-shared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and skill and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.

Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the

evil when they are applied in-discriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves —disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUIT metaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products.

Following up on my Ben Yagoda readings, especially the one on Style, consider Metaphor again:

“Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experience.”

Imagination is important, and not just for artists, scientists need it too. Teachers need it too, and let’s not forget parents and children, and men and women and boys and girls and blacks and whites and Latinos and Russians (white & black – with and without vodka) and Germans and athletes and philosophers and pet whisperers and the guy at Lowe’s trying to help you with your electrical outlet problem that occurred when your wife knocked over the space heater.

You don’t have to be Harry Connick Jr. to know that with imagination, we’ll get there.