Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) : “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”
Since the beginning of its existence on this planet untold millennia past, life has been a dangerous proposition for all creatures. The big fish eating the little fish has been the model for most interactions between living entities. All living entities have been either predator and/or prey. Evolution needed to develop in each entity methods of recognizing danger and thus trying to ensure that it will be able to replicate itself through procreation. Each species of course has different means of recognizing danger in its environment and various diverse senses for doing so. The importance of these senses varies by species and sometimes varies infra-species. Its own hierarchy of life preserving senses and activities can change in a species as it evolves to meet each new environmental challenge.
As humanity evolved there is no doubt that there were variations in the relative importance of our five senses at different times in our evolutionary history. What many humans believe is our most important attribute is of course the collective of our senses known as intelligence and the ability to reason. We are the singular species of this planet that has developed incredibly complex means of communication leaving us as the seeming masters of our world. Nevertheless, most of what we know of reality is our personal constructs of information that our senses have perceived and then compressed into a usable conception of our world, which despite the breadth of any one individual’s intelligence, is merely an approximation of the whole. However, to continue existence each human must make certain choices based on their personal perception of their environment. Sometimes these choices are successful ad sometimes they are disastrous. Since the arc of human existence has presented an ever-widening range of information, we have learned to edit and approximate much in own personal constructs. An example of this is that behavioral science has determined that we develop pictures in our mind of particular individuals and in our subsequent encounters rely mainly on those original pictures. Anyone who has raised a child knows that it is hard to see them as they grow, as anything more than the infant they were. While it’s true our picture of the child changes with growth, the lasting overlay of impression is usually quite dated. This is at least my conception of human perception.
With this concept in mind let me bring this post to the America of today, illustrated as a microcosm of the difficulty humans have in living with each other. Our politics have become perhaps more polarized and deadlocked than at any point in our history. Many people respond to each new issue that crosses public consciousness based on their personal sense of correctness, informed by a long developed political belief system that structures the nature of their response. The deeper ingrained this belief that there is only one path to political truth, the more mechanical the response becomes, and the less capable becomes the individual’s ability to react to the information from its environment to save itself. Those species unable to evolve to meet each new challenge to their existence became extinct. As humans our evolution has become more than just meeting actual physical challenges, we have evolved to the point that we represent the greatest danger to ourselves. Human existence is now dependent upon collectively being able to comprehend the dangers we face. How can we understand these dangers if our only method of understanding them is filtered through an ideological certainty that categorizes them based rote methodology? This is my attempt to try to make sense of why our political scene today seems so irrationally skewed by the inability to collectively recognize and adapt to dangers.
Can we agree that the information revolution has presented all of us with a dilemma? We are not quite ready or able to absorb all the information about the world that is available and that most of us are bombarded with on a daily basis? All of us, even geniuses, have learned to develop constructs of our environment and of the opinions that inform us. To a greater or lesser degree this allows us to cope with our lives. These human constructs include, but are not limited to, philosophy, religion, politics and economics. Such is the daily assault of information that we perforce need to “pigeonhole” each bit of new data as passes into our consciousness, just so we can seemingly make sense of it. I readily admit to using this shortcut, do you? I’ve come to see though, that this process of fitting prior perceptions into current situations can lead to misunderstanding. Because of that I’ve tried in my life to be self critical of my actions and opinions. As I’ve aged wisdom has taught me how much even a person like me, egotistically awash in intellectual self-esteem, can be completely wrong in any given instance simply because I filter new situations through past perceptions. I believe this is a human trait. Because of that trait, to a greater or lesser degree, our conflicting perceptions handicap our ability to make this world livable for all of us humans. In my own case some here may remember that on numerous occasions I boldly stated I was convinced that Jeb Bush would be this years Republican Presidential Nominee. My wrong conclusion was based on a wealth of information on the Bush family that I’d absorbed, but which kept me from seeing current political reality.
In prehistoric times, in a world of incessant danger the emerging human species had to rely on reacting with quickness and certitude to escaping impending danger. This was true either in the role of being predator and/or prey. Those that equivocated were those whose genetic heritage was not passed on. We are bred to look for patterns of certainty, yet how much of anything in life is really certain? The basis of almost all religion/philosophy is the need to establish a sense of certainty about our lives. Without that certainty, for many of us given our genetic heritage, comes disorientation and fear. This is a fact I believe for all of us, but its primacy of need differs from human to human.
A common complaint of Fundamentalist Religion is that the world is changing too quickly to not only keep up with, but also that change is a downward arc towards human degeneracy. Yet this change and this danger can be mediated if only one would follow the path described by Yahweh, Jesus, Allah or perhaps The Buddha. With that belief firmly rooted those so inclined view all new experience filtered through their pre-conceptions of what life is all about. If you think about it in a political sense you see the same pattern professed by politicians and political partisan from all parts of the political spectrum.
Many Republicans, Conservatives and Right Wingers express their nostalgia for the ”Roaring 20’s”, “Golden 50’s” and/or “The Age of Reagan” as if somehow it was a better world back then. Democrats, Liberals, Progressives, and Left Wingers too view the world through their own lens of nostalgia as if the “Roosevelt Era” and the “60’s” were times of clarity. The fact is there are no times of “clarity”, no “Golden Era” and no “better” past to emulate nostalgically. We are here now and it is in this “now” that we need to operate. All of us are genetically hard-wired” to abhor uncertainty in our lives, though some can tolerate the anxiety of it better than others. Therefore we seek broad-ranged “certainty” to dull our anxiety and calm our fears. We all know that the main fear of being human is the certain knowledge of our own mortality, but perhaps peculiar to our species is also the fear of not being remembered, of having not contributed anything to life and of having no purpose.
So all of us strive to quell the fear of uncertainty in ourselves, to ameliorate the anxiety it causes us, to fit our preconceptions into each new situation. We develop philosophies; adhere to religions and view the world through the lens of our personal politics. Fritz Perls, the Founder of Gestalt Psychotherapy, in which I am trained and in the philosophy that I use to live my life, once stated: “I see my role as destroying people’s character”. What he meant was that in our interactions with the world each of us develops a rigid “character”. “Character” is our personal construct of how we wish other humans to see us. He believed and I also believe that the danger of “character” was that it limits human choices in dealing with our environment. “Character” is a construct that developed in tandem with and possibly as an assist to, the civilizing of humanity. It possibly is the reason why tragedy has plagued human history. In an uncertain world the “survivor” hopefully is able to react to each new situation of conflict, danger, excitement, and pleasure in terms of their current feelings/information and not based on past pre-conceptions/premises. An example of the possible dysfunction of character might be a man threatened by someone bigger and stronger, who has the ability to run away, yet whose “character” dictates that he must “man up” and face certain pain. Are there times when one must rely on the certainty of their moral/ethical compass? Absolutely, and to one’s death if need be. However, these “life or death” decisions would serve us better if they are a true response to a present situation, rather than a decision filtered through pre-conception. To make that life changing decision, we’d be better served if we viewed each potential threat and/or pleasure in the present, without pre-judgment?
We see today in the political arena the effect of this search for certainty. The deep divisions that exist between people all arise from the fact they so strongly cling to the “certainties” they adopt to stave off the anxiety of uncertainty. Humanity as a whole must learn to live with the uncertainty that life presents, encounter it in the present moment and in essence “be here now”. Until then the “certainties” that we adopt to keep “uncertainty” away, will keep us from evolving into a species at one with our existence and possibly sow the seeds of our species extinction.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Sometimes you just have to lean into change as resistance creates fear and tension.
Speaking of bad George Lucas films and moments of uncertainty, I actually forced myself to watch more of the film “Red Tails” than I wanted before giving up on it entirely.
The film was SO AWFUL that I actually wondered whether I was being racist in my hatred of it. But, upon further reflection on the cliche characters and stilted dialogue that only Lucas can bring to the screen without blushing, I was CERTAIN that it was just a terrible movie.
And another thing, it’s the fear of uncertainty associated with induction, as opposed to deduction, that makes biology an ‘ugly science.’
Oro,
I think I would have liked your dad. He reminds me of my grandfather.
FWIW, different heading: “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE CHANGE!”:
My dad was less likely to state the maxim that the only constant is change than its corollary: adapt or die.
I think adaption, which subsumes competition, is the Darwinian touch stone of surviving changing conditions.
For my dad, change was opportunity, “every knock a boost” for the one who is prepared and has faith — a faith in one’s self and the abilities of others. The most important part of a child’s education was developing an appreciation for and an ability to handle change — cause it’s gonna happen.
He also said and demonstrated:
“Discover what you can handle by going beyond what you know you.”
“Knowledge is an important asset, but creativity is a talent; you can only turn talents into skills, not assets. Develop your talents.”
And my fave:
“All things in moderation including same.”
I think it is less a matter of swapping uncertainty for certainty than it is of exchanging faith for certitude — to avoid change by denying it, or handle change by decrying new ways.
Certitude is a death sentence in a changing environment
“Therefore, the smaller portion of the amygdala, famous for dealing with “fear” (or uncertainty as Mike S has framed it in this post), is probable quite similar at its most primitive form, but from there on out I think it is different in different societies because experience within that particular society forms brain circuitry.”
Dredd,
The research on the amygdala is certainly interesting stuff, but I think needs far more time before it becomes gospel. I think that about all human brain research because it seems to me that their presentation as understanding is jumping the gun. I am trained as a psychotherapist in the Existential-Holistic tradition. Therefore I see “brain research” as useful, but somewhat off the mark. I believe and my life has personally taught me, to trust the wisdom of my organism (my whole). Brain research to me is hampered by the supposition brought on by the “mind-body split” concept popularized by Christianity. Existential-Holistic belief denies that all intelligence is resident in the brain area of the organism. Our intelligence is a function of our entire organism and to see the brain as sole controller of our bodies wisdom and functionality is to imprint religious philosophy upon science. I live with another
man’s heart inside me, literally, and luckily that heart has allowed itself to become one with my organism. The “I” that I see myself as is, a single organism composed of many parts, that equally contribute to the wellness of the whole. As an example, if when I am dealing with someone annoying the muscles in my ass begin to clinch, telling me that this person is a pain in my ass. That pain is the wisdom of emotion and as much as they may differ, scientists have not come close to detecting a proven causal link.
However, I wasn’t using “fear” and “uncertainty” as equivalents, or even companions. That is why I said early on, that at that point in time, Gene was the only one who got my drift. My point is that the need for “certainty” has been hard-wired into us as a survival mechanism. As human life has multiplied and multiplied again in complexity, the ability to be certain about anything has diminished, yet we still look to find it by grasping as what I see as “straws” namely religion, philosophy and political “Isms”. Our need to fill the complex pattern of life we see (completing the Gestalt) leads us towards these palliatives. The irony is of course that the more we seek refuge in constants (certainties) the farther adrift we become.
Dredd,
“He points out that the amygdala is not just the two almond shaped entities in our brain, but that there are “circuits / roots” that expand it to be much larger, even physically, than once thought.
It gets ALL sensory input (sound, vision, taste, smell, feel, etc) before the conscious brain gets a shot at that info. ”
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Ah, so that’s where our intuition resides.
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“‘fear”’ (or uncertainty as Mike S has framed it in this post)”
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It may be a quibble but I don’t think that “fear of uncertainty” (what Mike said) is quite the same thing as “fear”.
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“So, since it is obvious that the various cultures of the world are so very different one from the other, I surmise that a significant portion of the amygdala is formed by our society around us (‘it takes a village to raise a child’), by our experience in those societies.”
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If you find such a study, I’d like to read about it. The actual studies use $.50 words that are hard on my brain.
A word without a socially agreed upon common meaning is gibberish. “Fish” does not mean “bicycle” just because you think you’ve “enhanced the meaning”. If you say “I’m going to ride my fish to the park today” people will still look at you like you are crazy. If you explain to them that you’ve “enhanced the meaning” of the word “fish”, you’ll simply remove all doubt that there is something wrong with the way your brain processes language. Just like “torture” is still torture even if you call it “enhanced interrogation”. Words have meaning, Dredd. They have meaning for a reason: commonality of language in describing concepts is required for communication to be effective. Without it, language descends into noise devoid of meaningful information. When you make up your own meanings to words (assuming you aren’t coining terms), that’s either foolish, dumb and/or a form of agnosia or other mental defect.
Like I said, Dredd. I’m not discouraging your delusion. Just pointing it out.
Gene, thanks for the link to the study. I read it. Have to lie down now and let my brain rest.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 4:51 pm
No, Dredd.
Not uncertainty.
Meaning. Words without meaning are as useful as laws without enforcement, which is to say not at all. You don’t get to change the meaning of words to suit your pet theories. Well, you can. You just look like a fool when you do it.
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Enhance the meaning Gene H, enhance the meaning.
A word without enhancement is an extinct word.
You remind me of the ad that was on TV some years ago, where the proprietor of a store was afraid to advertise the products because “someone would come in and purchase it, then there would not be any more product.”
Grandpa’s old words will die unless they move on dot org brother.
Get jiggy wid it for heaven sake!
bettykath 1, May 19, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Dredd,
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve read Lakoff’s “Don’t think of an elephant”.
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I read a lot of his papers and presentations.
I was unnerved, when he went contrary to Chomsky, seeing as how he was a student of Chomsky, but I got over the uncertainty.
These issues are so wide and deep that I can allow the words to change in meaning as the knowledge changes our perception.
He is a formidable scholar, as is Chomsky.
They do not see each other as enemies simply because they have some uncertainty between them.
That makes them more certain to me, I mean I certainly respect both of them and even try, upon occasion, to figure out which one is closer to the mystery under discussion.
I am looking for a book or paper that confirms a hypothesis I have, concerning the amygdala.
It is stimulated by Professor LeDoux (see video at bottom of link “Toxic Bridge To Everywhere” above).
He points out that the amygdala is not just the two almond shaped entities in our brain, but that there are “circuits / roots” that expand it to be much larger, even physically, than once thought.
It gets ALL sensory input (sound, vision, taste, smell, feel, etc) before the conscious brain gets a shot at that info.
So, since it is obvious that the various cultures of the world are so very different one from the other, I surmise that a significant portion of the amygdala is formed by our society around us (“it takes a village to raise a child”), by our experience in those societies.
Therefore, the smaller portion of the amygdala, famous for dealing with “fear” (or uncertainty as Mike S has framed it in this post), is probable quite similar at its most primitive form, but from there on out I think it is different in different societies because experience within that particular society forms brain circuitry.
Anyway, it is something I hope to consider further before I blow up my beer laboratory. 😉
No, Dredd.
Not uncertainty.
Meaning. Words without meaning are as useful as laws without enforcement, which is to say not at all. You don’t get to change the meaning of words to suit your pet theories. Well, you can. You just look like a fool when you do it.
Dredd,
Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve read Lakoff’s “Don’t think of an elephant”.
Gene H. 1, May 19, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Dredd,
…
Science and religion are both human sociological constructs.
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You keep reading from grandpa’s dictionary, which as I said before, is a foreign language to me.
Because, when someone tells me “science did not exist before humans” and “religion did not exist before humans”, I understand where that is coming from.
Uncertainty.
Mike, Thanks for the article. I’ve struggled with why some family members need so much structure in their lives. It’s possible that their need for certainty is at the root of it. And why they turn so much over to their God to deal with, as in, “I don’t understand it, I can’t deal with it, so I give it to God (or Jesus)”.
Two young girls, same age, removed from the house due a chimney fire. One is matter of fact, in the moment: we’re safe, can I get my coat? The other is worrying, in the future: what if the house burns down, what if we freeze out here, where are the fire trucks, are we going to have supper, where will we sleep tonight.
The difference in the degree of anxiety between them was obvious. The first didn’t need the certainty of answers to all the questions asked by the second who was nearly hysterical by the uncertainties. I think the differences were wired in at birth, and probably influenced by experiences that exaggerated the differences. The second has found ways of coping with the anxiety of uncertainty.
bettykath 1, May 19, 2012 at 3:43 pm
If you want to read some relevant books on why you have the political views you and others have, consider these books:
The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain (G. Lakoff)
Moral politics: What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t. (G. Lakoff)
And, since you mentioned some material that mentions the size of the amygdala, consider:
(Toxic Bridge To Everywhere). See the video of Professor LeDoux, a respected authority on the amygdala, and links to Professor Lakoff’s many works.
Read some of their books or papers too perhaps, because your mind will be blown.
From Article: “We are bred to look for patterns of certainty, yet how much of anything in life is really certain? The basis of almost all religion/philosophy is the need to establish a sense of certainty about our lives. Without that certainty, for many of us given our genetic heritage, comes disorientation and fear. This is a fact I believe for all of us, but its primacy of need differs from human to human.”
With all due respect I disagree, sorta’. All humans have the same needs and it’s only when they are met can uncertainty be examined and embraced. It all comes down to wealth, some measure thereof, and its distribution at some depth and breath of a society. It’s a balance among need, expectations and stability through time.
I equate uncertainty with embracing change but contend that change, for most of human history, has had as its aim meeting some very basic human needs. Basic security in ones needs is the need for a stable food supply, physical security from others as well as against the predation of ones own rulers and elites, and the freedom of thought and action a predictably lengthy period of stability in such matters engenders. To embrace change or the unpredictable result of actions taken today that are dramatically different, unprecedented, is a luxury.
The 50s saw an explosion of wealth, pent-up demand and for the great numbers of skilled and semi-skilled workers, the rise of job/economic stability through their unions. In the interest of stability unions traded money for tenure, retirement, health care. Between blue-collar wages, job security and the GI Bill three generations of college graduates were absolutely guaranteed in numbers not before even dreamed of in this country. For a crucial number of people in the society uncertainty in meeting basic needs was banished and there was money and time left over.
I take a very simple view of what happened next, the part of the population that didn’t have the wealth, mobility and freedom started demanding a piece of that pie and large numbers of people in the other half of the society that did have those things embraced the unpredictability of remaking their society:
maybe the student demonstrators against the war were right;
maybe women should be able to work in any job and get equal pay;
maybe people of color should be able to vote without fear and move into previously segregated parts of a cities;
maybe leaving family planning up to families was a good idea and women having privacy rights were legally overdue;
maybe integrating a child’s world and providing equal education to satisfy the need for the broad horizon of the future was a good thing;
maybe we as a society would be remiss, morally, if we did not provide health care for the sick, food for the hungry, and housing for the poor;
maybe the disabled are dis-serviced by being reduced to begging (by law) and integration of them needs to be undertaken and etc., etc., etc.
Oh, yea, the moon, we can do that, hell yea, and the government should hand out scholarships for engineering degrees like candy to kids to help do it.
I’m not minimizing that every gain was hard fought (and fought for years, daily) but the society had the stability- the lack of uncertainty in meeting basic needs- to just jump off that cliff into a greater uncertainty with some vague faith that whatever the outcome, it would be better. Just somehow, better. We may remember the names of some of the prominent combatants on all sides of those battles and debates but there was a silent, secure portion of the society that just let the flow carry them along. I knew plenty of those people. They didn’t agitate for anything or push back against the agitation, they just didn’t fear the changes they knew (or or alluded they knew) were coming. The future was not a scary place, come what may.
The altruism of embracing uncertainty, the big uncertainties and the little ones, is IMO a luxury brought with very good times or very bad times. We either have to have the luxury, physical and intellectual, to do it or it must be a last grasp at survival. Until the society (or individual) can banish the instability in meeting their basic needs there isn’t the breathing-room required to embrace uncertainty as a multitude of individuals. Too much is riding on every decision.
A two part screed.
I think the President summed it up nicely when he said in a moment of unguarded truth:
“Referring to working-class voters in old industrial towns decimated by job losses, the presidential hopeful said: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.””
Guardian UK.
Stating it thus in no way implies that your article, Mike, can be dispatched with a throw-away quote. It can’t, but the recognition that certainty and fear are twin demons and hobble a culture is playing out around us daily. I was amused that the kerfuffle Obama’s remark generated had nothing to do with what he was actually saying about the state of our society and those implications but cast as an attack on religion. LOL, sort of a meta circle-jerk of intellectual dysfunction when a more measured examination of the subject may have actually done some good.
You Mike, lived through the Golden 50s as did I and we know that they were not golden for all but a narrow sliver of he population. But in their last years and into the 60s they did sow the seeds of a Renascence that was a grand embrace of uncertainty in science and culture. Why was that?
Blouise,
I may have recommended this book before, but it’s a remarkable tool. It was originally developed to train Mossad spies, er, um, field agents. “An Elementary Approach to Thinking Under Uncertainty” by Ruth Beyth-Maron and Shlomith Dekel. It’s only about a 150 pages long, but it is a powerful 150 pages.
Blouise,
Exactly.
Dredd,
lol, You didn’t even translate what I said properly. I have no need for certainty. I think Mike deals with it well too based on his post. I understand uncertainty as immutable and have integrated that into my understanding of the world. Again, to fear uncertainty is as irrational as fearing hydrogen.
But let’s look at your translation skills. Science and religion are both human sociological constructs. Microbes no more practice science or religion than a rock is a physicist because it rolls down hill or a lifeform is a Taoist because it instinctively chooses the path of least resistance. You don’t translate anything other than gibberish when you insist microbes practice science and religion, but if it makes you feel better to think you do, by all means, think that. I’m not discouraging your delusions. Just pointing them out. Carry on, Young Jedi.