One is that (with limited exceptions), we do not have conscious thoughts or make conscious decisions. For, if we did, we would be aware of them directly, not through interpretation. The conscious events we undergo are all sensory states of some kind, and what we take to be conscious thoughts and decisions are really sensory images – in particular, episodes of inner speech. These images might express thoughts, but they need to be interpreted.
I will explain ISA theory in a future post. That theory is entirely compatible with my Flatland model.
I want to explain a few things. As regular DOTE readers know, I don't believe that humans are exercising "free will" because there is no such thing. Thus I am a determinist. Now, when we think about "free will" we (and researchers) naturally think about individuals—his brain, or her brain or, more rarely, my brain.
On the other hand, I've also arrived at the conclusion that the most important stuff going on in the unconscious mind is social in nature. Social instincts (like harmonizing) are hard-wired and therefore wholly automatic, just like fight or flight, negativity bias and many other processes. Thus it might be more appropriate to think in terms of groups rather than individuals in so far as humans naturally and mindlessly form strong social bonds. It is therefore more appropriate to investigate free will questions at the level of large populations or social groups.
There is a great deal of superficial variation at the level of individuals; at the large group level, there are only predictable behaviors because the unconscious mind has free rein, unencumbered by weak and ultimately deceptive "deliberative" processes in individual minds.
In the wake of the Brexit, we're hearing a lot about xenophobia and calls for a second referendum, but we're not hearing much about the UK economy since the financial meltdown in 2008.
My view is that prosperous people do not rock the boat. Prosperous people favor the status quo. So it behooves us to look at macroeconomic trends in the UK.
Every time you hear some self-serving elite bullshit about ignorant, xenophobic people in the UK, point them to this post. I've reprinted the entire article and emphasized the relevant text. It's not long.
The neoliberal, globalized "world order" we've been hearing about for years is now falling apart. There is Brexit hysteria everywhere. Elites are panicking. The people have spoken! That's the last thing elites wanted to happen.
NPR actually did us a service today by interviewing Yascha Mounk, a lecturer in political theory at Harvard University and a fellow at New America. I subsequently found a recent article by him called Illiberal Democracy or Undemocratic Liberalism? (Project Syndicate, June 6, 2016). That's where I got the title.
Take it away, Yascha!
CAMBRIDGE – How did it come to this? In the space of a few short months, the prospect of a President Donald Trump has gone from preposterous speculation to terrifying possibility. How could a man with so little political experience and such manifest disregard for facts get so close to the White House?
In a much-discussed essay, Andrew Sullivan recently argued that “too much democracy” is to blame for Trump’s rise. According to Sullivan, the political establishment has been shoved aside by the anti-intellectualism of the far right and the anti-elitism of the far left. Meanwhile, the Internet has amplified the influence of the angry and the ignorant. What matters in politics today is not substance or ideology; it is a willingness to give voice to the people’s nastiest grievances – a skill at which Trump undoubtedly excels.
In an incisive response, Michael Lind argued that Sullivan gets things backwards: the real culprit is “too little democracy.” Trump, he points out, has fared best among voters who believe that “people like me don’t have any say.”
I recently exchanged e-mails with a new reader "Peter" who sent me the following thoughtful note.
I came across your blog today by accident and just want to express my enjoyment of a well-written and well-researched series of posts that contain a great deal of sensible commentary rather than the too-frequent empty rantings one generally encounters across the 'Net.
I tried to subscribe to your blog via my Facebook profile but unfortunately encountered a fatal TypePad error. I'll try again later and see if I can successfully subscribe.
My own intellectual interests and concerns overlap with yours to a significant degree, but I have a slightly more hopeful (and, probably, more unrealistic...) outlook insofar as I continue to wonder if a more adequate knowledge of our cognitive limitations will ultimately enable us to engineer structures that limit much of the damage we cause ourselves today. By way of analogy, when physiology and aerodynamics were very poorly understood, people killed themselves by strapping large feathered wings to their arms and jumping off tall structures in the hope that they could fly. Once we had a better understanding of our limitations (insufficient pectoral mass, too low a rate of blood flow, etc.) and the challenges involved (a better grasp of aerodynamics) we were able to engineer solutions that gave us what we wanted (flight) while dramatically minimizing potential harm.
So the possible way forward would involve us facing up to our cognitive limitations and behavioral hardwiring (all of which are a consequence of various selection pressures operating throughout primate history) and consciously trying to engineer social structures and processes that are designed to minimize our capacity for self-harm. Provided that we also recognize the need for feedback/adjustment loops so that such engineering can adapt to real-world outcomes, this would in theory offer a way forward. That said, the challenged involved in (a) getting enough people to recognize the need for such an approach, (b) securing majority consensus on implementing at least a trial, and (c) doing the practical engineering, are all non-trivial.
The first step, in any case, is to define our cognitive boundaries, which your blog continues to do in a very readable and informative manner.
Anyhow, just wanted to say "thanks a lot" for your writing.
I always appreciate it when I get notes like this. Here is my reply. I made two small edits for clarity.
A long time ago—it seems like a long time ago to me—I published Jeremy Jackson's short lecture How we wrecked the ocean.
Now, five years later, I see that Jackson received a lifetime achievement award by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. I've embedded his acceptance speech below.
You will recognize many DOTE themes in his remarks, especially near the end. Listen for his reference to his "pollyannish" wife as he talks about fixing our wrecked oceans.
At least, I hope you will recognize DOTE themes in his remarks. I'm not feeling optimistic about that or anything else lately. For good reason, I might add.
I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first? If it’s bad news, you’re in good company — that’s what most people pick. But why?
Negative events affect us more than positive ones. We remember them more vividly and they play a larger role in shaping our lives. Farewells, accidents, bad parenting, financial losses and even a random snide comment take up most of our psychic space, leaving little room for compliments or pleasant experiences to help us along life’s challenging path.
The staggering human ability to adapt ensures that joy over a salary hike will abate within months, leaving only a benchmark for future raises. We feel pain, but not the absence of it.
Hundreds of scientific studies from around the world confirm our negativity bias: while a good day has no lasting effect on the following day, a bad day carries over. We process negative data faster and more thoroughly than positive data, and they affect us longer.
There is no doubt such a bias exists. We quickly absorb bad news, and we dwell on it. We tend to gloss over good news, or the absence of bad news. For example, reader "Ed" asserted yesterday that I am autistic, which is simply not true. Ed doesn't know me, has never talked to me, and so on. I took that remark as insulting. Yet, the brain (in this case my brain) is wired to take notice of and dwell on such negative remarks, and downplay the importance other more positive comments, some of which complemented me.
And I am absolutely sure that you too have had such experiences all your life. Negativity bias is real.
I have seen some stuff lately (e.g., here) which has re-stimulated my interest in the Flatland model of how the human mind works. I don't know how long my new-found interest will last, but my intention is to start posting about it again. Much to my surprise, there is indeed a theory of mind out there which is compatible with (part of) the Flatland model, and even fleshes it out a bit. That part rests crucially on what researchers call confabulation.
Even when we think we are making rational choices and decisions, this may be illusory too. The intriguing possibility is that we simply do not have access to all of the unconscious information on which we base our decisions, so we create fictions upon which to rationalize them...
“The possibility is left open that in the most extreme case all of the people may confabulate [i.e., make shit up] all of the time,” says philosopher Lars Hall.
I took that discovery as encouragement. On the other hand, my interest in the subject has waxed and waned before. Modeling human nature is very hard, but I'm not afraid to make mistakes. I think the problem is that it is also very depressing. The more you figure out, or think you've figured out, the more depressing it gets. That is off-putting. I lose heart. What's the point in explaining all this human confusion if nothing is going to fix it?
I mean, just look at the primitive political (group) conflict going on in the United States right now. We can say a few things about it, things which require explanation if you're trying to theorize about human nature. Here are some examples/observations with a common theme.
Bernie's progressives denied that Bernie would lose right up until he lost California and New Jersey by a wide margin. Various rationalizations were employed to keep things going. This was a massive case of "bad news" filtering because the existence of the group itself was at stake. Requiescat in pace, Bernie Bros.
The defensive posture of powerful American elites has never been so obvious as it is right now. But even as we see elite political bias (and status quo bias, naked self-interest) everywhere in the media representing them, there is no acknowledgment of bias, and can not be, because the elites are not only trying to deceive us, they are also deceiving themselves. This is the elite unconscious working overtime. The elites have been under threat this year—again, we have existential threats to social groups—so we see lots of post-hoc rationalizations (e.g., the U.S. economy is fine, especially when compared to other developed economies). We've been subjected to a veritable flood of bullshit by the people who run the country. And guess what? Those elite mouthpieces believe their own bullshit! Really!
The United States is a very fucked-up place. There's hardly anything (housing affordability, wages & inequality, health care, college affordability, infrastructure, etc.) that works in this country. And what is the election about? Donald Trump! Racism! Homophobia! Transgenders and bathrooms! Terrorism! Border Fences! Every day we are presented with this depressing caricature of reality. From a human nature point of view, one must ask what unconscious psychological factors are at play in this massive self-deception. And who benefits from it? One might say that America-as-a-society is under threat. And what do humans do in the face of existential threats? Generally, they filter them, and in this case, they have changed the subject (which is also a way to filter threats.)
Thus America is like the drunk who lost his keys (Flatland, third essay).
A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks the drunk if he is sure he lost them there, and the drunk replies, no, he lost them in the park.
The policeman asks why he is searching under the streetlight, and the drunk replies, "because that's where the light is."
I could go on in this vein, but I trust I've made my point about Flatland. It's all very depressing.
Make no mistake about it, humans are hard-wired to worry about other humans and the shit they do. Not many humans worry about coral reefs. So here at the outset, I want to praise the few who want to save the reefs. I'm talking about anthropocentrism here.
On the other hand, in other respects, those few who worry about coral reefs are just like everybody else. They want to be hopeful. They need causes for optimism to keep them going. A new Nature study purports to give them reasons to carry on. For those who study and want to preserve the biosphere, grasping at straws is the only thing left to do.
Before I report on that study, I want to be absolutely clear on the salient point—the world's coral reefs are doomed. Warming oceans, acidification, overfishing and other human-caused stressors will eventually destroy most (if not all) of the Earth's coral reefs. The last year has been especially bad for reefs, but while most still remain, albeit in various stages of degradation, hope is not vanquished.
I've watched and enjoyed the first two Hunger Games movies, and seen clips from the third and fourth movies. These movies tell a simple but compelling story—there is a rich capital served by twelve poor outlying districts. The whole is called Panem. The districts eventually rebel, a young woman (ultra-talented Jennifer Lawrence) becomes the symbolic leader of the resistance, and there is civil war pitting the districts against the elite capital. You can guess the rest.
During the fictional Hunger Games, two children are chosen randomly from each district every year to fight to the death in a high-tech arena. Only one remains standing at the end (the "victor"). These ritual sacrifices are meant to maintain the "peace" the elites impose.
Sound familiar?
Simple fictional narratives boil things down in a way which strips away important details. In the United States, we are living during the Real Hunger Games. The details are important. Let's see how things are working out.
