Previously I wrote about the limitations of reason, and suggested that the part of reality that cannot be reasoned about is very large, as though what can be reasoned about is equivalent to the top of a small table in the middle of a very large world.
Consider in any case that reason starts from premises, and premises come from experience. Reason itself generates nothing new - it merely re-arranges things in law-conformable patterns.
I should like you to indulge me in a thought experiment. Suppose it is the case that there is a world beyond or even prior to reason. Suppose further that you are someone who habitually interprets the world through reason. You test every claim and hypothesis against reason.
There is, I would emphasize, nothing wrong with that. There is a great deal to be said for pointing out contradictions and requiring evidence, especially for dangerous, tendentious and unpleasant opinions. There is, in effect, a proper use of reason and a proper realm in which it operates.
However, if you are such a person you may find it difficult to conceive of anything outside the reasoning world. You would be like the cartographer of old who leaves a blank where definite knowledge ends, or perhaps fills it with mermaids and fantastic creatures, or writes, 'here be tygers.' Although more usually these days it is those wedded to reason who insist on not merely leaving a blank but insisting that there is nothing there or that reason will one day fill the blank, given more research. Whereas it is those opposed to reason or who do not value it who fill the blanks with sirens of their own invention.
If reason is a game of chess, what do the pawns or even the kings and queens know of the world beyond the chequered squares? Reason cannot reason about that which is outside the world of that which can be reasoned about. It is impossible, like a Flatlander trying to point to the third dimension.
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Friday, 17 March 2017
The limitations of reason
In one of Carlos Castaneda's books, perhaps A Separate Reality but I don't recall for certain, Carlos has a conversation with his shaman teacher Don Juan Matus, in which Don Juan explains reality in terms of the contents of a small table.
He is attempting to explain two terms, the Tonal and the Nagual. I have read since that anthropologists dispute that Yaqui shamans use these terms in the way Castaneda has Don Juan explain them and some have claimed that Castaneda never went to Mexico and that Don Juan himself is a fabrication. In any event my own memory of A Separate Reality may be faulty and I have not checked, nor do I possess a copy any more. None of this really matters for the purpose of this essay, which is about how we experience reality and the limitations of reason in apprehending reality.
The explanation went like this. See the contents of this breakfast table. There is a table cloth (for some reason I remember a gingham check-pattern plastic table cloth, but that is probably my fabrication) on which are plates, perhaps salt and pepper shakers, knives and forks and so on. I imagine sunshine on the table cloth - perhaps this is a humble breakfast on a day in which there is no hurry. Again, the details are not important. Don Juan explains that the table top and everything on it represents the Tonal. The Tonal is the normal everyday world (although even this description needs to be qualified). The Nagual is everything else.
At first I wrote that the Tonal is the world of our everyday perceptions, but that is not right. The world of everyday perceptions is extraordinary and is not the world we usually inhabit. Rather we live in a world constructed out of thoughts and ideas. In any event, as I understand it the contents of the table top represent the realm of things we can talk about, and what we can talk about we can also reason about.
Somewhere in Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a description of two philosophers meeting for a discussion. Instead of using words they bring along a large number of disparate objects (kettles, armchairs and so on) and dispute with those. Now clearly that is a bit impractical. That is why we use words instead. If I wish to tell you about an elephant it is very inconvenient to bring an elephant into the room, and although people talk about elephants in rooms quite a lot, there is rarely a real elephant there.
So over perhaps tens of thousands of years, perhaps longer, humans have built up vocabularies of words and signs to refer to things and to states of affairs. The words stand in place of the reality. Words, ideas, images build up to form an internal representation of reality, and these representations are necessarily different from one person to the next, although there will of course be large overlaps and similarities (otherwise communication would be impossible).
While this is all very convenient it also distances us from the reality of our immediate perceptions. We see a tree, and instead of marvelling at its size, structure, the way the light catches innumerable leaves, the way it rustles, it is as if we only see the label, 'tree.' The same can happen with our interactions with each other, and with every mundane event. The label is fitted into our internal map of the world, which is as much like the real world as Google maps is to the town you live in, that is, it is and is not. It is in fact not merely a map but an internal monologue that replaces much of reality, so that it is as if we were wearing virtual reality goggles all the time through which we can see a dim representation of the real world as through a glass, darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12).
It is the world of words and ideas that we can reason about. Everything else belongs to the Nagual. That does not of course entitle us to make bold unsupported assertions about anything. Any assertion can be reasoned about, challenged, disputed. All one can do with things that cannot be reasoned about is make poetry, art, dance or drama in order to try to resonate with that within us that knows already.
As Simon and Garfunkel sang:
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
[...]
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said:
"The words of the prophets are
Written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence."
He is attempting to explain two terms, the Tonal and the Nagual. I have read since that anthropologists dispute that Yaqui shamans use these terms in the way Castaneda has Don Juan explain them and some have claimed that Castaneda never went to Mexico and that Don Juan himself is a fabrication. In any event my own memory of A Separate Reality may be faulty and I have not checked, nor do I possess a copy any more. None of this really matters for the purpose of this essay, which is about how we experience reality and the limitations of reason in apprehending reality.
The explanation went like this. See the contents of this breakfast table. There is a table cloth (for some reason I remember a gingham check-pattern plastic table cloth, but that is probably my fabrication) on which are plates, perhaps salt and pepper shakers, knives and forks and so on. I imagine sunshine on the table cloth - perhaps this is a humble breakfast on a day in which there is no hurry. Again, the details are not important. Don Juan explains that the table top and everything on it represents the Tonal. The Tonal is the normal everyday world (although even this description needs to be qualified). The Nagual is everything else.
At first I wrote that the Tonal is the world of our everyday perceptions, but that is not right. The world of everyday perceptions is extraordinary and is not the world we usually inhabit. Rather we live in a world constructed out of thoughts and ideas. In any event, as I understand it the contents of the table top represent the realm of things we can talk about, and what we can talk about we can also reason about.
Somewhere in Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a description of two philosophers meeting for a discussion. Instead of using words they bring along a large number of disparate objects (kettles, armchairs and so on) and dispute with those. Now clearly that is a bit impractical. That is why we use words instead. If I wish to tell you about an elephant it is very inconvenient to bring an elephant into the room, and although people talk about elephants in rooms quite a lot, there is rarely a real elephant there.
So over perhaps tens of thousands of years, perhaps longer, humans have built up vocabularies of words and signs to refer to things and to states of affairs. The words stand in place of the reality. Words, ideas, images build up to form an internal representation of reality, and these representations are necessarily different from one person to the next, although there will of course be large overlaps and similarities (otherwise communication would be impossible).
While this is all very convenient it also distances us from the reality of our immediate perceptions. We see a tree, and instead of marvelling at its size, structure, the way the light catches innumerable leaves, the way it rustles, it is as if we only see the label, 'tree.' The same can happen with our interactions with each other, and with every mundane event. The label is fitted into our internal map of the world, which is as much like the real world as Google maps is to the town you live in, that is, it is and is not. It is in fact not merely a map but an internal monologue that replaces much of reality, so that it is as if we were wearing virtual reality goggles all the time through which we can see a dim representation of the real world as through a glass, darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12).
It is the world of words and ideas that we can reason about. Everything else belongs to the Nagual. That does not of course entitle us to make bold unsupported assertions about anything. Any assertion can be reasoned about, challenged, disputed. All one can do with things that cannot be reasoned about is make poetry, art, dance or drama in order to try to resonate with that within us that knows already.
As Simon and Garfunkel sang:
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
[...]
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said:
"The words of the prophets are
Written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence."
Friday, 10 March 2017
That strange moment
... when the mind catches up with our feet. Suddenly we're there. Then we're not again. It is a mystery.
Friday, 3 March 2017
Reflections on Mr Trump
 |
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos(The sleep of reason produces monsters) |
What will the president do or say next? It's a rather compelling soap opera, like the Real Housewives of wherever, where one is momentarily fascinated by shallowness out of control. It is tragedy with a veneer of glitz.
Are we not shallow also, when mesmerised by events entirely outside our control?
Stuff happens, especially when some of the most powerful rulers in the world are fast asleep.
This fellow who calls himself the Happy Philosopher says it rather well. Don't listen to the media.
Anxiety, despair, fascination butter no parsnips. Remember the six handshakes theory? We are each connected to everyone on the planet by no more than six handshakes. What can we do? Carry on being ourselves, and making ourselves be and act the best we can. Be in the moment and be aware of others' needs. Look and listen more and talk less. Assume the best of each person we meet until proven otherwise. Make every moment the beginning of a new creation.
That is real power, and it will still be yours when the strange people in charge are replaced (hopefully by a peaceful democratic process) by other strange people.
Friday, 24 February 2017
Where do we go from here?
A rather serious meditation on what is, after all, intended to be a funny book. Lionel's quest in 'A Mermaid in the Bath.'
Do I live in a dream?
Yes, because I live in my head, or at least, I am not for the most part aware of my own existence. Yet as soon as I think about it, immediately I am aware of my body, these hands typing these words.
Or if I am driving, my mind can be away with whatever is on the car radio while my hands, feet and senses drive the car, perfectly safely, on autopilot, correctly stopping at red lights, anticipating and avoiding hazards and so on.
To be aware of the body driving is an interesting and even enjoyable experience. The mind does not need to interfere -- indeed it is too slow -- but it can watch. One can become aware (without looking) of one's hands on the steering wheel and also, somehow, of the traction of the wheels on the road. It helps to turn off the radio.
Touch-typing is a similarly odd experience -- to trust the fingers to find the correct keys, which inexplicably they do.
One learns to watch oneself doing all kinds of things.
Then on top of all this there are the complications of life, any life in which one takes some responsibility for the choices one has made, taking what is not so pleasant along with what is pleasant, because avoiding the unpleasant consequences of what one is, is to become a kind of tramp, barely to live at all. On the other hand, to live responsibly is to live fully, gradually to become free of little me.
That, I suppose, is what happens to Lionel in 'A Mermaid in the Bath.' The mermaid becomes his heart's desire, so he has to make the payment of leaving behind the safety of his previous self, and he has to do this with no certainty of success.
Yes, that is the other element: one's heart's desire.
Still, I believe in happy endings.
Do I live in a dream?
Yes, because I live in my head, or at least, I am not for the most part aware of my own existence. Yet as soon as I think about it, immediately I am aware of my body, these hands typing these words.
Or if I am driving, my mind can be away with whatever is on the car radio while my hands, feet and senses drive the car, perfectly safely, on autopilot, correctly stopping at red lights, anticipating and avoiding hazards and so on.
To be aware of the body driving is an interesting and even enjoyable experience. The mind does not need to interfere -- indeed it is too slow -- but it can watch. One can become aware (without looking) of one's hands on the steering wheel and also, somehow, of the traction of the wheels on the road. It helps to turn off the radio.
Touch-typing is a similarly odd experience -- to trust the fingers to find the correct keys, which inexplicably they do.
One learns to watch oneself doing all kinds of things.
Then on top of all this there are the complications of life, any life in which one takes some responsibility for the choices one has made, taking what is not so pleasant along with what is pleasant, because avoiding the unpleasant consequences of what one is, is to become a kind of tramp, barely to live at all. On the other hand, to live responsibly is to live fully, gradually to become free of little me.
That, I suppose, is what happens to Lionel in 'A Mermaid in the Bath.' The mermaid becomes his heart's desire, so he has to make the payment of leaving behind the safety of his previous self, and he has to do this with no certainty of success.
Yes, that is the other element: one's heart's desire.
Still, I believe in happy endings.
Friday, 17 February 2017
Redcap and the Wolf - the true story
Hello again Fishy Friends, Twinkling Teleosts and Elegant Elasmobranchs,
Moving for once away from the topic of fish and Mermaids, you will be entranced to learn that I have written the true story of Redcap and the Wolf (Red Riding Hood), which was vouchsafed to me in a dream. You will discover that the story has been given a false spin by unscrupulous journalists in the past, and that the Wolf, while not entirely innocent, was not as dark as painted, and in fact survived the unprovoked attack on him by the Woodcutter. As for the grandmother, well, just because you're old doesn't make you a saint necessarily.
Your chum, Milton Marmalade
Moving for once away from the topic of fish and Mermaids, you will be entranced to learn that I have written the true story of Redcap and the Wolf (Red Riding Hood), which was vouchsafed to me in a dream. You will discover that the story has been given a false spin by unscrupulous journalists in the past, and that the Wolf, while not entirely innocent, was not as dark as painted, and in fact survived the unprovoked attack on him by the Woodcutter. As for the grandmother, well, just because you're old doesn't make you a saint necessarily.
Your chum, Milton Marmalade
Thursday, 26 January 2017
An interesting medical scam
When I was writing the chapter about the pink alternative medicine clinic, I found myself challenged to come up with something so bizarre that it would be obvious it was a satire. Just so, I later discovered that bananas occasionally emit positrons. This means that the wobbly bananas I described are occasionally sending out electrons that are going backwards in time.
No doubt sooner or later someone in the alternative medicine world will conclude that sufficient exposure to wobbly bananas, preferably while lying naked on a couch, can make you younger. Of course you'd have to be properly quantumly entangled with the bananas.
However there are some forms of medical wackyology that are more cleverly dressed in the outer garments of science and can fool even quite intelligent people. I here present one such piece of tomfoolery for your education.
It works like this: the practitioner promises to improve the patient's health by re-balancing them. To do this he or she orders a very large number of blood tests. Then, if there are any blood tests that are abnormal the practitioner will offer to rectify this by prescribing some supplement or other.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? After all, if someone feels tired and their doctor finds out that they have a deficiency of (say) iron, they can fix it by prescribing iron tablets.
However, medicine is generally a bit more complicated than that. If someone is genuinely iron-deficient it is important to ask why, and to look for the cause. In this context, merely 're-balancing' could be dangerously negligent.
The real basis of the scam is actually mathematical. Consider a field full of women of the same age. Line them up according to height. Most of them will be somewhere around the average, but there will be a few really short ones and a few really tall ones. Even if we remove the ones who are tall or short because of some medical abnormality, there will still be a variation. Thus, healthy people can be tall or short, and a few will be extra tall or extra short without there being anything wrong with them.
When the laboratory measures something in someone's blood, most of the time the result will be somewhere in the middle of the range, but some results will be outliers. This will happen fairly often even in perfectly healthy people. There is no absolute cut-off where something suddenly becomes abnormal. The laboratory somewhat arbitrarily defines the range as the middle 95% of values. This should not be referred to as 'the normal range,' rather, it is properly referred to as 'the laboratory reference range.'
It's the same thing with height. If a child is in the bottom 10% for height, you don't think much about it, especially if their parents are short too. If they are in the bottom 2% for height, you start wondering if there is a problem, and you look at the parents' heights and at the previous measurements of growth to see if there is a pattern suggesting disease or not.
In the same way, if a laboratory value is outside the laboratory reference range, you ask yourself if there is a pattern to it or not (such as, all the liver tests are out and the patient drinks too much, or, only one of them is out and the patient is a perfectly healthy teetotaller).
So now we come to the essence of the scam. One or two values being 'out' may or may not indicate a disease process. What is the probability that at least one value will be out in a perfectly healthy person?
Consider first the simpler case of tossing a coin. What is the probability that it will be heads? Fairly obviously 1 in 2, or half, or as normally expressed, a probability of 0.5.
What is the probability that it will be heads twice in two tosses? The answer is the probability that it will be heads the first time multiplied by the probability that it will be heads the second time: 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25 (a quarter). Three times in three tosses? 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.125 (an eighth) - and so on. What is the probability that in three tosses of a coin at least one will be tails? 1 - 0.125 = 0.875 (seven-eighths).
To do our calculation we use the same process. The probability of a test being within the laboratory reference range is 0.95 (19 times out of 20). The probability of two tests being within the reference range is 0.95 x 0.95 = 0.9025 (nearer 18 times out of 20). We multiply the probability together with itself the number of times there are tests. If there are 20 tests that is 0.95^20=0.36. This is the probability that all the tests will be 'normal' - just over a third. To get the probability of at least one test being 'out' we subtract this number from 1. So if we do 20 tests on a healthy person, the probability that at least one will be out of range is almost two-thirds (0.64).
For thirty tests the probability of at least one test being 'out' is 0.78, or more than three-quarters. So in such a case on average three out of four healthy people will be convinced they need 're-balancing' and will no doubt purchase whatever is recommended to do the re-balancing, plus of course the consultation fee. Of course this is unlikely to make any difference to anything so they'll be back for more until they decide to save their money and get on with the rest of their lives.
I'm not a cynic, I am simply reporting what I see. As the saying goes, 'you do the math.'
No doubt sooner or later someone in the alternative medicine world will conclude that sufficient exposure to wobbly bananas, preferably while lying naked on a couch, can make you younger. Of course you'd have to be properly quantumly entangled with the bananas.
However there are some forms of medical wackyology that are more cleverly dressed in the outer garments of science and can fool even quite intelligent people. I here present one such piece of tomfoolery for your education.
It works like this: the practitioner promises to improve the patient's health by re-balancing them. To do this he or she orders a very large number of blood tests. Then, if there are any blood tests that are abnormal the practitioner will offer to rectify this by prescribing some supplement or other.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? After all, if someone feels tired and their doctor finds out that they have a deficiency of (say) iron, they can fix it by prescribing iron tablets.
However, medicine is generally a bit more complicated than that. If someone is genuinely iron-deficient it is important to ask why, and to look for the cause. In this context, merely 're-balancing' could be dangerously negligent.
The real basis of the scam is actually mathematical. Consider a field full of women of the same age. Line them up according to height. Most of them will be somewhere around the average, but there will be a few really short ones and a few really tall ones. Even if we remove the ones who are tall or short because of some medical abnormality, there will still be a variation. Thus, healthy people can be tall or short, and a few will be extra tall or extra short without there being anything wrong with them.
(Image taken from this web site)
When the laboratory measures something in someone's blood, most of the time the result will be somewhere in the middle of the range, but some results will be outliers. This will happen fairly often even in perfectly healthy people. There is no absolute cut-off where something suddenly becomes abnormal. The laboratory somewhat arbitrarily defines the range as the middle 95% of values. This should not be referred to as 'the normal range,' rather, it is properly referred to as 'the laboratory reference range.'
It's the same thing with height. If a child is in the bottom 10% for height, you don't think much about it, especially if their parents are short too. If they are in the bottom 2% for height, you start wondering if there is a problem, and you look at the parents' heights and at the previous measurements of growth to see if there is a pattern suggesting disease or not.
In the same way, if a laboratory value is outside the laboratory reference range, you ask yourself if there is a pattern to it or not (such as, all the liver tests are out and the patient drinks too much, or, only one of them is out and the patient is a perfectly healthy teetotaller).
So now we come to the essence of the scam. One or two values being 'out' may or may not indicate a disease process. What is the probability that at least one value will be out in a perfectly healthy person?
Consider first the simpler case of tossing a coin. What is the probability that it will be heads? Fairly obviously 1 in 2, or half, or as normally expressed, a probability of 0.5.
What is the probability that it will be heads twice in two tosses? The answer is the probability that it will be heads the first time multiplied by the probability that it will be heads the second time: 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25 (a quarter). Three times in three tosses? 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 = 0.125 (an eighth) - and so on. What is the probability that in three tosses of a coin at least one will be tails? 1 - 0.125 = 0.875 (seven-eighths).
To do our calculation we use the same process. The probability of a test being within the laboratory reference range is 0.95 (19 times out of 20). The probability of two tests being within the reference range is 0.95 x 0.95 = 0.9025 (nearer 18 times out of 20). We multiply the probability together with itself the number of times there are tests. If there are 20 tests that is 0.95^20=0.36. This is the probability that all the tests will be 'normal' - just over a third. To get the probability of at least one test being 'out' we subtract this number from 1. So if we do 20 tests on a healthy person, the probability that at least one will be out of range is almost two-thirds (0.64).
For thirty tests the probability of at least one test being 'out' is 0.78, or more than three-quarters. So in such a case on average three out of four healthy people will be convinced they need 're-balancing' and will no doubt purchase whatever is recommended to do the re-balancing, plus of course the consultation fee. Of course this is unlikely to make any difference to anything so they'll be back for more until they decide to save their money and get on with the rest of their lives.
I'm not a cynic, I am simply reporting what I see. As the saying goes, 'you do the math.'
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