Rational Philosophy

Just because we’re superstitious doesn’t make it rational, or does it?

It’s been a wet week here in New York. On days when it might rain, I like to take along an umbrella to reduce, I hope, the chance that it will rain on me. This week I took an umbrella and still it rained. It hasn’t shaken my faith in my superstition.

John Tierney’s “Why Superstition Is Logical” makes a muddled and perhaps incomplete attempt at explaining the rationality of superstition. He begins with the example of a rational person irrationally resisting the temptation to set her watch to the correct time zone until the plane lands. He then discusses some circumstances in which superstition induces a positive psychological boost to “do the right thing.” To wit:

1. Students think that not doing their reading makes them more likely to be called on in class… so they do the reading.

2. People think that trading away a lottery ticket makes that ticket more likely to win… so they hold onto the ticket… obviously with much more of an upside potential than a trade.

3. An applicant to Stanford graduate school is less likely to get in if he goes around wearing a Stanford T-shirt… he may or may not get in, but he’s less likely to look like a jerk.

I couldn’t quite figure out how not having set one’s watch before an airplane disaster fell into the same category as these examples.

Interspersing these sets of seemingly divergent examples, Tierney inserted yet another intriguing piece of data related to superstition. He mentioned that negative outcomes have a subliminal tug. We recall the day we got caught in the rain much more readily and with much more emotion than we recall the days when we didn’t get caught in the rain. This leads us to believe that getting caught in the rain is the more likely outcome.

To all of which I have a couple of thoughts to add.

Let’s say that there’s a 50/50 chance that we’ll get rained on when we think we might get rained on. And let’s say that if we’re neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic we’ll sometimes take precautions against the chance of getting rained on and sometimes not. Naturally, if it looks like rain our precautions might include avoiding going outside, or taking the car instead of walking. On the remaining days, when we stick to our plan of going out and walking not driving, we’ve therefore, without superstition, increased the likelihood that we will get caught in the rain.

Here’s how that works:

Start with ten days. Five will be rainy, five won’t. Five days we’ll be optimistic and risk the rain. Five days we’ll be pessimistic and won’t risk the rain. Of the five pessimistic days, we’ll stay in one day, drive another day, leaving three days that we’ll carry an umbrella. This means that out of ten days, we avoid the risk of rain entirely on two days, (on average one of these will be rainy). This leaves eight days, four of them rainy four of them not rainy. But we’ll have our umbrella with us on just three of those days…

Even to get to an even chance, we need a little superstition.

Now to the other thought.

We recall negative outcomes for an evolutionary reason. They are learning experiences, cautions. All animals have evolved with this feedback mechanism. Or, perhaps more precisely, those that didn’t have died.

For a rational, science-based explanation of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

New findings of brain research, exoneration through DNA analysis, and relationship twists.

My four year-old son gloms on to new interests with great intensity and with a level of focus that seems infinitely unflagging. Depending on the interest, his mother and I either rejoice (relatively speaking) at his fascinations, or despair. But neither state lasts long. Just when we think he’ll be a Thomas The Tank Engine junky all his life (despair!), he moves on to Lightning McQueen (better). And as we begin to worry that he’s reciting all the words to the Cars movie, he drops that and moves on superheroes. Now we’re anxiously awaiting the next new thing while we try to figure out how to dissuade him from wearing his superhero costumes — complete with capes and masks — everywhere he goes.

For children, new habits are old hat. But as we grow to adulthood, we tend to narrow our focus and stick to things we feel comfortable with. But according to research findings (and this one passes the ‘duh!’ test) when we stretch ourselves and try new things, form new habits, we create new pathways in the brain, and even new brain cells, that can lead to innovative thinking.

The NY Times article is light on references, but points to a couple of interesting concepts:

1. That research in the 1960s indicated that we’re born with the capacity to tackle challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, relationally (or collaboratively) and innovatively.

2. That when we reach puberty our brains tend to close off half of that capacity, maintaining the approaches that have worked best for us so far.

These seem like very dubious claims. I’ve always felt that true analysis has to begin with innovation. Sure, spoon fed bookwork can be achieved with almost no innovation — if we’re told to tackle a problem in a certain way — but if we’re faced with a true challenge, one that comes without a prescription, don’t we have to think innovatively in order to get the analytical ball rolling?

So, I take these strict categorizations with a large grain of salt. But I do like the idea of challenging ourselves to forge new pathways in the brain. And the more that I read about the studies in this area, the more excited I become about the prospect that people can change the way they think. (See Irony And The Plastic Mind and The Promise of The Plastic Mind.) We can respect the idea that we approach challenges with some mix of analysis, procedure, collaboration and innovation, even if we don’t consider them mutually independent strategies. And this gives a new dimension to our habit experimentation — if we tend to do a lot of things heavy on analysis, try something that’s heavy on innovation…

NPR reports on James Lee Woodward, the 17th Dallas man to be exonerated by DNA evidence. Woodward had spent 27 years behind bars, even forgoing chances of parole because he wouldn’t apologize for a crime he didn’t commit. The new Dallas DA — Craig Watkins — is determined to reexamine as many dubious convictions as possible in order to get the innocent out from behind bars. At an institutional level Watkins has begun to institute new habits of fairness and due process in the DAs office. And this seems to be a very important connection between these two articles. Just as we can stretch ourselves on a personal level to get ourselves out of a rut, to challenge ourselves to think more innovatively, so, too, the same thing can and does happen with society.

Institutions, after all, comprise people, people doing what they’re accustomed to doing, and what they are told to do, or implicitly or explicitly encouraged to do. It is the Craig Watkins of the world who act as catalysts for change within our institutions. (Sadly Watkins success at overturning old convictions with DNA evidence can’t be replicated in other parts of Texas — everywhere else the DNA evidence of these old cases has been discarded.)
(Of course, not all change is positive. The Bush administration has provided a striking example fo change for the worse, creating an institutional mindset in government that has set the country back several decades in terms of enlightened national and global policies.)

Coincidental to the main theme of this post, I came across an article on CNN.com that dips into the things that can happen in relationships when one partner makes a big change. The report gives several examples — the man who encourages his wife to become a nudist, the woman who ditches her fiance when he quits his high power job, and the man who loses his wife when he tells her he’s a cross-dresser.

What’s interesting about the CNN article vis a vis this post is that it points to a subtle way that we can forge new pathways in relationships just by being ourselves, by accepting our desire for something and being honest about it. Interestingly, the relationship experts don’t seem to unreservedly endorse honesty and self-expression. There’s a bit of finger-wagging going on. But in each of the three examples I found it hard to see that the relationship would be worth salvaging if it couldn’t survive the new challenge at hand.

I’ll end with the words of James Lee Woodward: “Time is what you make of it. You’re living no matter where you are.”

For a rational, science-based explanation of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

On personal and public stress.

We tend to regard stress as something inherently bad. Doctors worry about it in their patients. Spouses worry about it in their spouses. Employers sometimes worry about it in their employees. But, as with most things, I would expect that some degree of stress every now and then may not be a bad thing. If we were to react to risky or troublesome situations without any stress, would we respond appropriately?

Researchers have uncovered a connection between the likelihood of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and particular gene variations. This outcome indicates that the body’s stress responses have evolved over time and worked their way into our DNA.

Stress seems to be of help in its short term effect on our behavior. Stressful situations often require an urgent response. Stress spurs us to focus and act. Stress becomes harmful, perhaps, when it becomes chronic and unaddressed.

When life circumstances lead to recurring or constantly stressful situations the stress response ceases to be beneficial and becomes harmful. If the circumstances don’t change, if we don’t or can’t extricate ourselves from the stressful situation despite focus and action, we begin to suffer. We tend not to recognize this as a problem, because chronic stress works in small bursts over a long period of time and acts on the body gradually.

In an example from recent news stories, Harvard ($35 billion), Yale ($22.5 billion) and many other universities have endowments of over $1 billion dollars. But as the senate begins to ask questions about what this money gets spent on schools have been somewhat tight lipped and not a little affronted. The school administrators are suffering short term stress at the thought of someone poking into their business.

But now that private school tution costs about $50,000 per year, many private school students and alumni (and their parents) face long term stress in figuring out how to repay student loans.

This brings us to the point that some stress remedies are personal — regular exercise, working to a reasonable household budget, taking time for onesself — and some are societal. The cost of private education seems to be a case in point. Generally speaking, the cost of private education has been going up so dramatically that it looms large in people’s minds for years before a child goes off to college, and then looms large for many years afterward as the debt hangs over them.

Society is saddled with this stress and society, it seems, could and should be able to do something to relieve the stress.

I grew up and went to school in England where this stress is to all intents and purposes absent. College education costs very little unless you’re well to do, and even then it doesn’t cost a great deal.

Harvard, with its huge endowment, has been increasing its financial aid to students, and Harvard Law is now considering tution reduction that could amount to as much as $40,000 for law students who enter public service. This kind of step is aimed at encouraging more law students to enter public service by reducing the prospect of the stress brought on by large debt and small income.

The London University study on work stress indicates that we don’t pay enough attention as a society to the long term impacts of stress. As we learn more about stress I expect that we will find that there are many examples of stress that is inherent in our way of living. Identifying such stresses and deciding upon reasonable ways to reduce that stress strikes me as a worthy and interesting challenge.

Until that time, our only recourse will be to recognize the presence and dangers of stress in our own lives, and work to reduce it.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

How do imagination and logical thinking interelate, and what purpose does thinking serve?

Michio Kaku has spent some time thinking about which inventions of the imagination may be plausible in the forseeable future. He’s written a book on it called “The Physics of The Impossible.” But Kaku’s descriptions of the possible scientific implementations of invisibility mechanisms, force fields and lightsabers seem far less functional and intuitive than their fictional counterparts. This got me thinking about the power of the imagination. Which got me thinking about why we think.

After two years of study the National Mathematics Advisory Panel has issued a report on what to do about the poor state of math skills in late middle school. American students stumble in 25th in math competency out of 30 developed nations. The panel recommends streamlining math education, relying more on specialist math teachers rather than generalists, and ensuring that children memorize core math facts, a tactic that “frees up working memory for more complex aspects of problem solving.” After working with my daughter on her middle school math for the past few years, I’d agree with the panel on these points. There’s a lot to learn in middle school math, and math as a discipline relies a great deal on adding and combining concepts.

As I consider the power of the imagination alongside the power of rational or logical processing I realize that the kind of thinking we do to survive combines these two elements. Thinking entails imagining scenarios or possibilities and calculating or predicting outcomes.

The more powerful our imagination, the more options we will have. The more adept of processing of facts and likelihoods the more likely we will be to make good choices.

This brings us closer to answering the question of why we think. Working backwards, since thinking gives us the power to manufacture and select options, thinking evolved as a good way of gaining advantage through anticipation.

All of which seems rather obvious now that I’ve set it out. But I don’t think I’d ever before considered that imagination had such a powerful and important role in rational thinking.

In an individual, a healthy dose of both capabilities seems advantageous. But if we think about society as a whole, we can all benefit from the imagination of others, as well as from the logical processing power of others. In society we have a collection of minds, some more disposed to imagination, some more disposed to logical processing. If we respect the value of both, society as a whole will benefit.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

What response to public wrongdoing?

In his chronical of Eliot Spitzer’s predecessors in doing wrong, N. R. Kleinfield makes a compeling case for a connection between power and irrational risk-taking. The piece focuses on sex scandals, but could just as easily have included bribery and corruption. Kleinfield draws on the opinions of experts in psychology to underscore the logic behind the link — people who seek power typically have an appetite for high stakes and pushing the envelope.

We gasp in surprise when we learn of each new scandal, but perhaps we should not really be surprised. Abuse of power, sexual extravagance, and a sense of being above the law have been with us all through history. The difference is that these days there’s generally more accountability, and more publicity.

In his initial announcement, Spitzer apologized to his family and said that his connection to the prostitution ring was a private matter (although he did apologize to the public, too). This echoes previous scandaleers who have either explicitly or implicitly sought to separate their private actions from their public role.

Unless we’re to compound the abuse of power, any illegal actions should be appropriately prosecuted. But what about immoral or inappropriate acts, things that are not illegal or wouldn’t typically be subject to prosecution.

As members of society we can ask ourselves two questions:

1. How much do we care to let the private actions of public figures reflect upon their public roles?

2. How do we action upon that answer?

In America in recent years it has begun to seem that the intense scrutiny of the private lives of candidates for public office has gone beyond the point of appropriateness and good sense. After all, if we accept that those who seek public office must be prepared to tolerate risk, and to gain or lose a great deal, shouldn’t we tolerate the idea that this personality type won’t be happy with slippers and a pipe in the evening (at least not a tobacco pipe)? I’m not saying we should excuse or overlook illegal activity, nor turn a blind eye to serious character flaws, but the important thing is that the person can do the job he or she is elected to do.

If the politician can maintain a rational and exemplary record of public service, why should we care, or even need to be aware, that he or she has a personal pecadillo or two?

Which brings me to the definition of flaws. On moral matters we define a sin as something that, from our perspective, we would judge immoral. As I outline in my book (LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do to Survive), it’s possible to point to a rational origin for our sense of morality, thereby lending it an objectivity, but as morality reveals itself in the world, it tends not to be rational.

Let’s cut the politicians a break and allow them their private lives, flaws or no flaws, moral or immoral. Let’s not dig if we’re only digging for private dirt. When society expects its leaders be not just effective and law-abiding, but also irreproachable in mind and body, society loses.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

Stress reduction: If we stress about time, what is the answer?

Stefan Klein’s OpEd piece on our perception of time, and our sense of time’s scarcity, leaves me wondering what advice he would give to the time poor. Stefan points to some compelling data that implies that we feel time pass more quickly when we’re using more of our muscles or when our senses are stimulated. We’ve all felt both time’s elongation (sitting through a boring lecture or when waiting for a bus, perhaps) and time’s contraction (reading one of these dazzling blog posts, or enjoying an evening on the town with our friends).

I read somewhere recently that someone (I forget who) aimed to eke the most out of his life span by avoiding excitement, therefore making every second feel like an eternity. This points to the self-defeat of such an endeavor — who wants an eternity of boredom?

Herr Klein’s target, though, at which he takes aim in somewhat rhetorical mode after leaving his research data behind, is the time stress we put ourselves under these days. One can’t dispute that Klein speaks the truth when he says that “Our society is obsessed as never before with making every single minute count. ” But what, may one ask, are we to do about it?

Yesterday evening, my wife and I got into a tiff when she asked me to take a look at an article she’d written before she submitted it to her editor. I replied that I’d do it if she could put our son to bed (usually my joyful task.) This got her riled up; why did I feel the need to barter over the favor? Because I felt time poor. Those few minutes would be stolen from me, leaving me less time to do the things I’d already alotted for the evening.

Klein seems to suggest that we create the sense of time pressure. He laments the accepted equation between time and money, and argues that trying to do things quickly actually ends up costing us, because when we work quickly we make mistakes.

Then there’s the Bureau of Labor Statistics time survey for the year 2006. The survey tells us that on average Americans spend over 5 hours per day pursuing some kind of leisure activity, and that more than half of this time is spent watching television.

(As a relevant tangent, my friend, a university lecturer, told me that his students comlpained recently when he asked them to watch an educational program during the evening because the program went head to head with Deal or No Deal…)

This puts the concept of time stress into some kind of context.

The way we live these days succeeds in filling those days with many things to get done. For someone who likes to watch his or her “shows” on TV, time stress means getting everything else done before the shows come on. For someone who doesn’t watch much TV, there will be other things.

Klein doesn’t offer any suggestions. But, rationally, there are only two suggestions:

1. Do less.

2. Worry less.

One can make the case that these two solutions may work most effectively when combined. In order to try to accomplish less, and give ourselves more time to do things at a less frenetic pace, we first need to worry less about the things that we’re letting go of. And then we need to continue to worry less about the things we’re not getting done that we used to get done.

My mother retired a few years ago. It was a wonderful opportunity for her to do more painting, something she loves. At first, this worked. But then other tasks began to squeeze out the painting, until now she does it much less. She’s always busy. But what if she were to turn her priorities around, worrying less about the garden or the house cleaning, and instead making paintin a priority. She’d get fewer chores done on any given day, but she’d feel less time stressed because she’d be getting to do the things she wants to do.

If we examine our lives we can start to pick off a few things here and there that we’re less critically concerned about accomplishing, let something go, let a door close. Do something less often. As long as we then give ourselves time to do other things at a more appropriate pace, we’ll come away feeling less stressed.

Klein didn’t make the connection, but the industrial and technological ages have been instrumental in increasing our sense of time stress. The more we feel we can accomplish, the more we try to accomplish. We get places quicker, we have more options, we can connect with more people and communicate with them more readily. And the more we can carry things around with us to do, the more we will do.

There’s something very human about this. But there’s also something worrying. Consciously, rationally, choosing to reduce our time stress seems like an eminently sensible thing to consider.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

 

 

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On the philosophy of constraint: Solar power. Swearing bans. Street parking.

Attention has turned to solar power plants as an economically and environmentally promising source of electrical energy. Instead of using solar panels, a better-known device for capturing solar power, these plants use mirrors to focus the sun’s energy, generating heat, and steam, which then turns a turbine. As the article points out, these plants are no longer considered experimental. And as the economics of burning fossil fuels continues to make coal plants more costly, so solar power will become even more attractive.

The “no cussing” initiative of a fourteen year-old boy in South Pasedena has led to a town-wide ban on swearing. “My mom and dad always taught me good morals, good values, and not cussing was one of them,” he says.

And the New York City mayor’s office has discovered that it doesn’t have tight control over the 142,000 parking permits issued by the city. Not only has the city issued far more permits than the mayor’s office initially estimated when it first promised to reduce the number, but it doesn’t even know who has them all.

These three diverse stories led me to think about the concept of constraint and how we think about constraint as both a positive and a negative force.

Until global warming entered the collective consciousness as a real and pressing concern, the possibility for generating power from the sun or the wind seemed quaintly academic and remotely whimsical. But was this the case? As the Times article points out, the viability of the kind of solar power plant now gaining popularity was proven back in the 1980s. In fact, economics not innovation constrained the emergence of solar power plants. In order to make collectively good decisions about things such as carbon taxes it’s important to understand such constraints.

Thinking solar power plants not viable, we would be more cautious to levy large carbon taxes. But the knowledge that solar power is viable and not much more expensive to generate than coal power, may inspire us to want to slap carbon taxes on coal power, forcing energy companies to accelerate the switch to solar power.

(As a dramatic case in point, an article only several months ago cast great doubt on the near term prospects of viable solar power from photovoltaic cells without even mentioning the upswing in using solar power to drive steam turbines.)

South Pasedena seeks to constrain people’s behavior by persuading them not to swear. The aim of this constraint is twofold — to improve the quality of life for those who find cussing offensive, and to reduce violent behavior that might accompany or be sparked by colorful language.

But a behavioral constraint can cut two ways. Is a constraint on cussing one step toward a constraint on vulgarity, either spoken or written? Does this take us a step toward a constraint on the kinds of books that it’s appropriate to stock on the shelves of the South Pasedana public library?

I’m not arguing for cussing, but arguing in favor of encouragement rather than stipulation. These distinctions are important. Constraint has a way of hardening into dogma.

Whereas, the proliferation of parking permits (enough to fill many city blocks with “official” vehicles) seems to call loudly and rightly for greater constraint. Here again, though, the concept of constraint can be looked at from two perspectives. If I were a city employee I would probably enjoy having a parking permit. And, if I felt I needed the permit in order to do a better job for the city, I might not like the idea that someone may deny me a permit. But, as a member of the public, I would like to believe that vehicles get issued with a permit for legitimate reasons. After all, I’m subject to parking regulations, tariffs and fines, why should a regular city employee not be?

Viewed from the public’s perspective, uncontrolled proliferation of permits puts a constraint on available parking spaces. Lax control on the perks of city employees leads to a culture of reduced respect for public service and reduced respect for the public.

For more rational, science-based explanations of life’s meaning and purpose, please refer to my book: LIFE! Why We Exist… And What We Must Do To Survive.

 

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