calling a temptation cease-fire

I've been critiquing some of the attitudes and opinions that I've frequently seen in people who structure their lives around supernatural beliefs. Sometimes these are far different from mine, but sometimes there are similarities. For instance, I think it's clear that we share a common experience of facing temptations. One of the major pros of leaving the beliefs behind is that plenty of the "wrong" thoughts and actions simply don't seem wrong to me now, and so some of these often trivial "temptations" have stopped being problems.

Nevertheless, some temptations apply to me still. It might be the temptation to overeat an unhealthy snack or surrender to an unpleasant habit. It might be the temptation to procrastinate about a task that must be done sometime. It might be the temptation to assume the worst about someone else's motivations. It might be the temptation to litter. In any case, the temptation is for a temporary and/or minor benefit that comes with a substantial cost. Worse, the cost might only take effect in the future or gradually over time, or it might affect others more than oneself.  

The crucial differences start to appear when the basic idea of temptation is put into the larger context of how someone views reality. Within the culture that I left, temptation is consistently seen as a deadly serious battle. It's an attack from an antagonist such as the evilness someone is born with, the pleasures of the world, or diabolical spirits. Because of that, the struggle is treated as a test of inner strength. It's an arm-wrestling match between the temptation and force of will. The eight-year-old who has the impulse to steal a candy bar is in the middle of a cosmic theater of war in which good and evil are firing heavy artillery.

When I consider this picture in my present frame of mind, I'm struck by how counterproductive it is. Regardless of what the temptation is about, handling it as a hard-fought battle isn't a wise strategy. I've become more familiar with alternatives. I'd argue that it's better, when the temptation first forms, to not charge at it full-speed. Instead, leave it be and let it pass.

I don't refer to pretending the temptation doesn't exist. On the contrary, I mean that it is to be seen fully, without flinching away from it, as the bare thought that it is. It's a "bare" thought in the sense that it doesn't need to be inflated into something big and scary. It doesn't need to be focused on or connected up to anything else. Does it produce a reaction of desire in the person tempted? Of course. And neither is it useful to pretend that this reaction doesn't exist. Bare thoughts of all kinds evoke reactions constantly. The fact that a thought evokes a reaction doesn't imply that the thought merits even more of a reaction (a counter-reaction and then a counter-counter-reaction, and so forth). 

Admittedly, there are challenging subtleties to this approach. First is emphasizing that it's not the same as simplistically ignoring temptation. To focus on banishing the thought, forcefully replacing it, or coming up with counterarguments, is to prolong the thought and "play its game". The recommendation is to recognize it, observe its futile efforts to be provocative, and endure its temporary effects. Simultaneously its pull is only observed too, in the sense that it's felt without being linked to corresponding action. It's like tugging on a rope tied around a tree trunk.  

The main thing is to steadily break the mentality that if a temptation thought isn't fought, then it's only a matter of time before the tempted person will act on it. Fear of the experience of having the thought, and the self-defeating determination to ignore it all costs, is tied to the assumption that the sole path to not perform the particular behavior is to strenuously never have the thought. However a thought is a thought; it's not the act and it's no more than brain activity. Someone who's sitting quietly and experiencing a temptation is still only sitting quietly.

On the other hand, I wouldn't say that it involves embracing the temptation thought either—granting it a stamp of approval or relishing it. Merely watching it calmly until it fades doesn't imply that someone is welcoming the thought. Refusing to feed the thought is to withhold either strong acceptance or strong rejection from it, until it starves by itself or its repetitiousness just grows uninteresting (or annoying). This is why it works better when it's applied as early as possible, when the temptation pops up, before it's progressed to dominating mental attention. Someone doesn't think "This is just a bare thought; I can enjoy it for a bit as long as I don't take action". They do think "This is just a bare thought; I see the desires it provokes but I'm not under the dictatorship of something that appears and vanishes without hurting me in a lasting way". 

Another motto to describe it is that temptation is normal. It's no cause for dread once someone is comfortable with that fact. The existence of an unfulfilled desire isn't a never-ending torture! If it's genuinely left alone and not dwelt upon, it will likely diminish in minutes. If it arises again in an hour's time then so be it. It will again likely diminish in minutes at that time too. (This doesn't work for something like hunger pangs, naturally.) Depending on personality, keeping a sense of humor about the whole thing might be good advice. 

Furthermore, a coping strategy for temptation pairs well with prevention. Shrinking temptation down to the size of a bare thought is good, but stopping the thought from forming at all is better. One of the reasons it's a relief to think of a temptation as a thought is that thoughts can have plain origins like anything does. If a temptation thought regularly comes about in a specific situation, then that situation can be avoided. Being less worried about the experience of temptation when it happens isn't a reason to be careless about letting it happen in the first place. 

Prevention is immensely useful, but it comes with its own layer of subtlety. The situations to prevent have both external and internal contributions. A person's surroundings can matter but so can the condition of the person. Tempting thoughts could be frequently seen alongside boredom, fatigue, rage, sadness, isolation, or something else. These general conditions might not be preventable—sometimes life gets hard—but it's smart to recognize that these can affect the number and the strength of tempting thoughts. And then someone will know to expect the increase when the conditions return.   

The final subtlety is that letting temptation pass is far from a perfect strategy. There will probably be instances in which someone sees the temptation thought for what it is...and proceeds to choose to obey it. (Any strategy at all can give someone "room" to analyze a decision, but it won't make the decision for them.) Afterward, the tempting thought's return will stir up ruminations on the past and the associated shame and regret. 

But responding to it by ruminating on the past is yet another method to fuel it. Obviously, the only time someone can act is in the present. A failure in the past isn't an absolute prediction for how someone will respond now. Perhaps someone has obeyed a specific temptation numerous times, with little hesitation. Such a trend doesn't inspire hope, but perhaps this case today could very well be the start of a new trend. This case could be the turning point if someone chooses it to be. The amount of control someone has to change their future is limited, but that amount of limited control is infinitely greater than the zero control they have to change their past.  

tossing out change

I've written that people frequently—and perhaps strategically—don't respond to the actual statements made by those who discarded their supernatural beliefs; instead they simply respond to what they guess or wish we'd say. So it's fair for me in turn to put a spotlight on the favorite words of followers of supernatural beliefs. Permanence is an underlying pattern of many of these words: "forever", "never", "timeless", "faithful", "always", "never-ending", "everlasting", "enduring", "solid", "unceasingly", "unfailing" (and "unchanging", needless to say). 

Once someone has shaken off this mindset, its weaknesses stand out. The sort of perfect permanence expressed by these words starts to appear so plainly unrealistic. The more that people have examined the universe in depth, the more apparent it is that change itself is fundamental. From the largest collections of matter to the smallest, individual energy fields and particles don't remain in the same positions. Even massive stars and black holes are predicted to go through different phases. Mountains erode. Atmospheric gas concentrations shift. Although important quantities are conserved at specific scales, conservation isn't a rule against change. It's for restricting the changes that can possibly coexist.

Someone might laugh and retort that they're still who they've always been. But this is an illusion: human bodies replace individual cells constantly (and also, er, accumulate wrinkles and spots and such). Work is necessary for anything to stay the same. A thing that doesn't appear to change a lot is generally going through changes of maintenance and repair to reverse changes of decay. Like a person on a treadmill, it's running to hold position. Similar metaphorical truths apply to relationship commitments and personalities. People do change over time in how they think and behave, and their goals and preferences can too. Commitments between people are repeated recommitments as they choose to persist regardless of changes in circumstances and personalities. 

To demand that something never change is to refuse to face something as it really is over time. I'd say that it's beneficial to acknowledge one's own honest reactions about change, whether the reactions are positive or negative. But there is a point at which clinging too much to the past or trying to resurrect it is a waste of the finite time and resources someone has in the present. 

Change is central and inescapable. So how is it that followers of supernatural beliefs can confidently proclaim that the very real beings and otherworldly realms in their beliefs absolutely never change? From the vantage point of someone on the outside looking in, the claim doesn't seem right. Its characteristics are like a flashing red warning light. Questions are raised. What are these beings and realms made of? What are the different rules of motion and composition and why are the rules so different? How do the different rules fit into or violate the rules of everything else that's real? And to return to the main point, how is that these rules work without change being fundamental?

Of course, there are well-known things that don't change: concepts and information created and communicated by minds. Mathematical definitions. Written stories and songs (that have been accurately copied and stored). Theoretical abstractions. It's true that some groups of followers are more than willing to agree that the contents of their beliefs exist purely as historical myths that are useful as inspiring metaphors. And some cerebral followers might be willing to state that the contents of their beliefs are no more than the stark conclusions or axioms of a philosophical logical system. 

However, this comparison isn't a workable solution for many common followers. The more that they say that their preferred deities are as timeless as an integer or a catchy tune, the more that they're placing their deities directly next to human creations...which are understood and preserved through human mental efforts. After all, a supernatural concept can indeed be timeless because, well, a concept can be whatever someone imagines it to be. 

It doesn't help their case that they regularly gather to insist to themselves and each other that the objects of their beliefs have timeless qualities. If these objects are intrinsically timeless, then outsiders have good reason to wonder why people clearly pour so much mental effort into reinforcing the idea. It's almost as if the timelessness of the concepts is a reflection or projection of the unending craving for timelessness and not a discovered independent reality...   

feeling things out

It's obvious that in-depth intellectual debates are often fruitless at convincing people to discard their supernatural beliefs. An analogy for this is attempting to play tennis with someone who responds to a gentle serve by leaping out of the ball's path, picking it up after it lands, and hurling it away from the court ("Hah! You weren't ready for that!"). If pressed, they might state that they follow their beliefs because of how the beliefs make them feel. They aren't pondering what facts they would expect to see if their beliefs were accurate and then judging how closely those expectations are met by the facts on hand. They judge by their emotional expectations: "How could the beliefs I follow be inaccurate when they line up with my emotions so well?"

One answer is that the beliefs have been designed to do this. They took modern form after the tremendous effort of councils and prophets and theologians. Alternative forms with jarring inhuman qualities simply didn't win the arguments. The second answer is that the beliefs have evolved too. The more that they could pull on their followers' heart-strings, they more that they were likely to be accepted, faithfully kept, and passed on. The more that they failed to connect with common human feelings, the more likely they were to fail to compete and then die out. As others have observed, countries without official supernatural beliefs actually boost this evolution because beliefs can lead to mutated competing variants instead of a vigorously enforced monopoly or monoculture.

On the other hand, to some degree the ability of supernatural beliefs to match followers' emotions isn't because of the beliefs at all. When a belief of any kind is conventional, it's integrated into a context. It plays its particular part. It satisfies needs that the context evokes, so of course it seems fitting. In a context in which family ancestors are heavily revered, a belief that grants lasting afterlife and oversight to those ancestors will "feel right". In a context in which individual freedom is a top value, a belief that emphasizes the import1ance of a personal conversion decision will "feel right". In a context in which people's hunger for thrilling mystery isn't well-served, a belief in paranormal phenomena will "feel right". 

Even apart from specific content and favorable contexts, supernatural beliefs tend to have a general advantage for validating sentiment: constant certainty. They provide larger-than-life inspirations and targets that aren't messy. A supremely evil thing merits uncomplicated condemnation, and supreme good merits total adoration. The (alleged) support of an utterly powerful ally is a reason to remain calm despite circumstances. Statements that cannot be false (...or disproven...) give an unbending structure that can encourage trust. Detailed laws about morality offer up categories of acts and thoughts that deserve total disgust. Missions to save the world gratify cravings for purpose. 

Essentially, while emotions paint huge importance onto normal many-sided existence, supernatural beliefs can directly present an existence that in itself has huge importance and is made out of one-sided ideas. No wonder the diligent gathering of verified impartial knowledge can't fit emotions as well. But it's a superb fit for one: the drive to embrace reality as it is and escape the oppressive thoughts that don't.

unbalanced

I exited slowly from religious belief (though it was common to call your emotional connection to God a "relationship, not a religion"). A major reason I didn't move any faster was because it took time to accept that my entire perspective needed an overhaul. Obviously, year after year, I either learned about or experienced flaws in my former beliefs. But my rigid perspective acted as a comforting frame around the flaws. It was as if my brain automatically placed each flaw under a protective glass dome and calmly set it aside, like a collector of insect specimens. A flaw wasn't treated as anything more than a harmless curiosity to ponder for a little while, perhaps to feebly show that followers don't dodge the hard questions. It wasn't permitted to genuinely disturb one's bedrock assumptions. To the contrary, it was an opportunity to further solidify assumptions by coming up with a rationalization...and of course the rationalization could be crude. It didn't need to be able to persuade anyone else.

As problematic as this mode of thinking is, some clever people who are stuck in it may offer up a reasonable-sounding justification. "I see the flaws you've mentioned. I don't claim that those are nonexistent or easy to explain. However, I have reasons of my own for why I do follow my beliefs. These two collections of clues are in competition. And that just means that all of us are balanced between thinking that my beliefs are accurate or inaccurate. The fragile balance is like a pencil standing on its eraser or unsharpened end. It could tip either direction. I fall one way, and I follow my beliefs. You fall the other way, and you don't. Both you and I can present evidence for our stances, and the evidence we present is more than enough for each of us to be satisfied with opposite conclusions. The only difference is a choice that each of us makes about which collection of evidence speaks to us more as individuals."

This approach is far more appealing than insults. It's tactful. It doesn't shut down conversation immediately. It encourages mutual tolerance, because no side's evidence is said to be superior. It portrays the sides more like people with differing preferences. By doing so it echoes the common-sense advice that attacking anyone for having other tastes than yours is mean and unsophisticated (yet typical in internet venues).   

Unfortunately, it has a shortcoming that's hard to overlook: it's a deception. The reasons and the flaws that anyone happens to count as "evidence" aren't all on equal footing. A supposed clue, whether it's a reason to accept an idea or a flaw in it, must do more than exist. It must be weighed in order to see how much it deserves to affect the total balance. This weighing refers to asking essential questions about the clue and facing the answers fearlessly: 

• How was it obtained? A story about an event in someone's life is vulnerable at first to incorrect interpretations of sensations, then vulnerable to revisionist human memory, and finally vulnerable to the gap between the storyteller's intended meaning and the listener's understanding. Another source of clues is what someone "feels" to be right, but the motivations underneath this feeling need to be examined. It's very possible that the clue is really an expression of the feeler's deep wishes, thoughtless instincts, or narrow preconceptions. The thoughts that make people relax or make them queasy vary greatly between cultures and time periods. Statements about how things are "meant to be" are actually prone to widespread disagreement and evolution.
• How is its accuracy determined? Until a statement has been checked and supported, its level of accuracy cannot be assumed. After all, it takes extremely little effort to spit out an inaccurate statement. The expectation should be that accurate statements are rarer, and any given statement is more likely to belong in the inaccurate pile. And the clue's accuracy could have limits because the methods for obtaining the clue have limits. Nobody should ever be penalized for forthrightly stating that a clue's accuracy isn't absolute! 
• What is the context it came from? A clue is less convincing if it emerged from someone whose consciousness was in an abnormal state. Brains in abnormal states are known to produce total fantasies and display impaired judgment.
• Is it self-consistent? A clue is less trustworthy when it can't be reliably reproduced, or is frequently found among facts that throw doubt upon it ("just...overlook all the times when that other thing happens!"), or even contains a logical contradiction. 
• Is it plausible? A clue requires a greater amount of support if it demands a perfect coincidence, a sequence of improbable events, or a thinly stretched thread of arguments that have few observable connections to, well, anything. For example, explaining a dubious claim's lack of effect on reality with a dubious excuse doesn't inspire confidence.
• Is it distinctive? A clue doesn't speak for itself. The more effort someone needs to put in to clarify how a clue can be viewed as a significant contribution to their side, the weaker the clue. Or, if it could easily be twisted to support multiple points of view, then it's not an excellent contribution to any single one. That said, ambiguity isn't necessarily avoidable—we live in complex realities where ambiguities abound. 
• Is the source credible? Someone earns more consideration if they avoid sloppy generalizations, go into gory details about the work they did to find the clue, and have shown that they value truth more than "winning". If they have a habit of pompously spewing whatever fiction that they have a "gut feeling" about or whatever statement will benefit them if a sufficiently large group eats it up, then it's best to cover one's ears and eyes and sprint away. Communicating with such a person is futile. 
• Does it clash with clues that carry a lot of weight? Real clues coexist in harmony with other real clues. When an idea is well-verified, it should prompt questions about the clues that don't fit with it. When one fresh clue disagrees with an idea that's been confirmed repeatedly, the idea isn't in danger of being thrown out momentarily; the clue is.

After the clues have been sorted by "weight", the perception that the sides are well-balanced quickly falls apart. Instead it's easier to realize that each side's ability to endlessly suggest clues doesn't lead to an evenly matched contest. Quality matters. A little mound of many wafer-thin clues isn't enough when the clues on the other side are much more substantial. In fact the outcome is a pronounced tilt, not a balance. 

This shift to analyzing clues more closely happened at larger scales than individuals' philosophies. It took place in a variety of subjects and had massive effects. Theories about the motions of physical objects were tied to measured experiments and mathematics, not creative philosophizing. Chemical reactions were openly shared instead of performed in hidden rooms and written in arcane books. Historians distinguished between primary and secondary sources and remembered that people are often biased or enjoy telling tales that have been...dramatized. Medical treatments were thoroughly vetted in large trials. Journalists adopted standards instead of spreading unverified rumors. 

At the same time, some people don't always appreciate the value of it. A tilt toward one side might not impress such a person at all. They may blatantly choose to override the tilt and follow the beliefs they want. That's not what I did after I learned to weigh clues honestly. However I'm grateful when anyone at least admits it rather than bluff that their beliefs are backed by equivalent evidence.

Postscript: There's a position on the materialistic naturalism side that also appears to assert that evidence itself hasn't resolved the debate. "I haven't yet been presented with sufficient reasons to think that there's a supernatural realm. Meanwhile, as a general principle it's impossible to prove that anything definitely doesn't exist. Therefore, I still need to be alert for the required evidence if it does arrive. Until then, I'll be neutral, which in practice means that I won't prematurely speculate that there's a supernatural realm."

This second case doesn't arouse the same antagonism from me because it has a crucial difference. It assigns the burden of proof appropriately. It recognizes that, echoing the comments above about accuracy, falsehoods vastly outnumber truths. There's a sea of incompatible possibilities. So most of the group must turn out to be false most of the time. Ideas aren't scarce. Each one should need to earn more attention than the numerous others available. Opting to not hastily accept a belief is wise, if one's goal is to accept as few falsehoods as one can. Simply put, skepticism is a shrewd default. 

Another characteristic of this difference is the complexity of the belief that's followed or declined. In the first case, the belief being followed consists of a whole system of interrelated concepts, not to mention a stack of astounding stories. That's a lot to go along with. It's a stretch to argue that there are enough clues to furnish satisfying rationales for every concept in the system. The decision that's presented is an extensive one, as if the only two options are not believing at all or believing in A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H... 

In the second case, the belief being declined is relatively minimal. The two options are logical opposites; there is or isn't a supernatural realm. Furthermore, "supernatural realm" is left vague on purpose. Ideas about what's in the realm or the rules by which it operates are separate from bare existence. The second case acknowledges that convincing someone of the realm's existence is step one of many. Once someone has demonstrated that a First-Cause god exists or that human souls exist, then the tasks of demonstrating the myriad details of a particular belief system come next—keeping in mind that these details differ dramatically in the huge range of belief systems.

reality is in the details

The saying goes that the devil is in the details. But I would add that reality is in the details. This is borne out by day to day existence. By contrast, thoughts can leave out details—in fact this is an essential strategy for sketching out the basic outlines of a complex whole without getting lost partway through. Details cannot be left out forever, though. When thoughts are confronted by the reality of the universe outside one's skull, the overlooked details often take revenge. Hasty plans are ruined. Naive hopes are dashed. Again and again, the details of reality are the tests that eliminate flimsy thoughts. The thoughts that mesh the best with reality keep the details in.

This reasonable and experienced point of view is the opposite of the frequent advice to not "get hung up on the details". Offering that innocent-seeming advice can quickly deflect any question...rather than the ordeal of attempting an answer. Even so, the above comments show why it's inherently flawed. It's not as convincing as intended. For the more that someone is nonchalant about the details of the position they're arguing for, the more they deepen the impression that their position is independent of reality. 

This isn't an insult; it's simply the immediate consequence. Real things have many nonnegotiable details in many categories: characteristics, histories, forms, appearances, patterns, locations, interactions with other things, etc. Furthermore, the thing's details are the exact "handles" for grasping its existence. The different existences (substances) of, say, a marshmallow and a bowling ball, are observed through differing details. The more that details don't matter, the more that the nature of a thing appears to be closer to that of a hazy thought than a solid reality.

(Naturally, there are all sorts of creative and nuanced versions of deities that embrace the quality of being more like human thoughts than real things. In these, "God" isn't an anthropomorphic mind that ponders and takes action. It exists more like an abstract ideal such as Order or Oneness. I'd guess that most who say "don't get hung up on the details" aren't going that route.)

On the other hand, the advice to drop the details could have several pluses. First, it's probably an earnest reflection of how the speaker really treats their own beliefs. It isn't a ploy. It isn't someone pretending that their beliefs are a logically constructed system of propositions. It isn't the pretense that they arrived at their beliefs after carrying out a long intellectual study. Instead, it's what someone would say after they've already decided what to think. When someone is committed to a stance, they don't need to know the details. They've already signed up, so they're uninterested in double-checking the fine print. Unsurprisingly this attitude is far less appealing to someone who isn't using a belief as a basic assumption or granting it "the benefit of the doubt"—when a belief is under the magnifying glass, the full details do make a difference.

The second plus of dropping the details is that it's diplomatic. The fewer details that someone insists on, the easier it is to potentially reach a common ground, and the less hardheaded they appear to be. Yet once more this quality has an inherent flaw. If the details of a real thing can easily be viewed differently by different people, then that thing suspiciously resembles subjective thoughts: preferences, wishes, fantasies. Wording is crucial. To say that a detail can be whatever you like or however you see it is to undercut the objectivity of the thing the detail applies to. If the details of a thing can be poured into people's minds, and the details expand to fill each mind's unique shape, then that thing must not have much of a shape of its own. It's worth remembering that these "details" aren't mere interpretations of a thing but its fundamental attributes.

Admittedly, this result can be dodged with enough imagination. Retreating into paradoxes and mysticism has a long tradition. Religious followers could opt to make themselves very slippery indeed. They may bluntly claim the equal accuracy of many contradictory details. (They may need to do this anyway after they've been forced to harmonize incompatible doctrines.) The key is to propose that a thing is so special that contradictions are united in it: it's too huge or beyond understanding or many-sided. Its form of "realness" is unlike normal realness. It doesn't obey the usual rules. It can't be analyzed or translated into language. This time around, the inherent flaw is so blatant that it hardly needs stating: this level of specialness amounts to the demand to remove the thing from the dangerous realm of logic and debate. The advice to give up on asking a particular question, i.e. not get hung up on the details, mutates into the more drastic advice to give up on the entire mode of thought that the question sprang out of. 

In effect, the suggestion is to compartmentalize the beliefs and apply a lower standard. The scary aspect of this suggestion isn't its strangeness; it's the complete ordinariness of it. Like the brain's cerebral cortex coexisting with the amygdala, the deliberative frame of mind coexists with competing frames of mind that operate along different lines. It consumes more conscious attention and develops at a slower rate. Extracting, collecting, and judging details is harder than accepting a detail-free statement at face value. It's also more intuitive for some personalities than others. These challenges highlight the preciousness of plain details in the search for objective reality. The alternative can't compete: a pile of superficial and/or ambiguous decrees made by authorities who cannot be contested.

The final plus of the advice to drop the details is that it might be a sign of the faint level of loyalty that the religious follower has. And that would be the happiest outcome—from my perspective. If a follower treats their "belief" as nothing more than a creation of their native culture, then of course the details aren't of vital importance to them. (Anthropologists and historians know that putting belief at the center of religious practice isn't a universal or constant social norm anyway.) They may openly state that they pick out the bits that give them inspiration or reassurance and discard the rest. Or they may value their belief purely as raw material for drawing analogies. Given that it doesn't rule them or impair their comprehension, some may cheerily consider themselves quite "secular" otherwise...perhaps to the point of declaring "I'm an atheistic ______ ." Whether they're idly repeating words that mean nothing to them, or undergoing empty rituals to feel connected to their traditions, we de-converted tend to let them be. They might even concede that they too would want the beliefs to firmly stand upon bold details—but only if they were trying to equate the beliefs with realty in the first place!

no, personal gain is not the main point

Soon after finishing the previous post, I found myself easily anticipating one of the reactions it could provoke. Clearly I'm able to slide right into that well-worn supernatural mindset like a pair of old loafers. The reaction I imagine comes out sounding like, "Pfft. I can see what happened to you. You think that you became disillusioned, but you really were discouraged. You weren't showered with blessings and floating on a cloud, so then you retaliated by throwing your arms up and storming out. God didn't march to the beat of your drum. The cost of living a virtuous life wasn't adequately paying off, so you cut your losses. Mysterious doctrines weren't presented to you in an obvious manner that you could test through experiments. What a shame that religion wasn't simple and easy enough to fit your egocentric demands."

This reaction shows something about how religious followers approach belief: it's a matter of character  not analysis (in fact, they may advise someone to stop thinking so hard and "choose to just believe"). They're eager to shift blame from the content of the belief to the vices of the unbeliever. They're content to assume that personal gain drives people to dismiss their beliefs. 

Moreover, the flaw of greediness fits their ingrained preconceptions about everybody outside their group. Of course, they say to themselves, it's only natural for someone who's not living by the light of truth to view beliefs as a means instead of an end. Reasoning too much about the beliefs' outcomes is nothing more than fixating on what someone can get by having the beliefs. It indicates that someone is on the wrong track entirely. That's the secret of how anyone who once said they believed could go on to fail to be convinced by the beliefs' accuracy.

Unfortunately, in addition to oddly shaming the de-converted for the error of taking their beliefs' claims too seriously, this reaction misses the main point. The aim of contrasting the list of grandiose claims to the claims' tight restrictions isn't to whine about how little the claims amount to in practical terms. It's to thoroughly establish the pattern of the restrictions: each one is verrrrrrrry similar to the kinds of restrictions that would be necessary for beliefs that spring out of cognitive biases and communal/ritual reinforcement. True, the restricted claims are still about overlaps between reality and the supernatural realm...but the overlaps are so curiously subtle that someone might reasonably suppose that the overlaps aren't there at all. Or the overlaps are dependent on the lenient mindset of the believer or on the thoughts and actions of other people who conform to the beliefs—thereby making the beliefs real through human rather than divine intervention. 

The actual observed fulfillments of the amazing claims fall short because they don't provide objective signs of the supernatural, not because they're minor ("thank you for a close parking space, ruler of the cosmos"). A supernatural realm of wondrous claims that merely touches ordinary life in ordinary ways is hard to distinguish from, well, ordinary religions that have been created by humanity for millennia. Some have placed greater emphasis on what the religion supposedly does for you, and some have placed greater emphasis on what you must do without expecting a lot in return. Neither strategy successfully stands up to scrutiny.

restrictions may apply to 15 claims

Every once in a while I'm abruptly reminded—accidentally—of the vast differences between my materialistic naturalism and the supernatural beliefs followed by many people I know...and by me too in the past. Of course, the size of this gulf doesn't imply that I crossed it with one stupendous leap. My long journey was a sequence of one small step after another. The change was so gradual that at the end it took some additional self-evaluation to simply realize where I'd come to.

It's rare for most religious followers to closely examine us de-converted people (and listen to what we plainly say). They're much more apt to think of total outsiders as their opponents. As they see it, their beliefs are unbeatable. Anyone with a thorough understanding would be convinced. Logically then, in the case of anyone who isn't convinced, the conclusion is that their understanding is faulty or incomplete. Total outsiders are opposed because they don't grasp the full truth and the whole story. They would be followers too if only the message were communicated in the right terms and then they surrendered to its charms. 

Just by existing, de-converted insiders derail this line of reasoning. We decline to follow the beliefs that we were regularly taught for years and years. We not only learned but practiced the beliefs within a community, so our view is neither second-hand nor shallow. We were committed, yet we dropped that commitment after it didn't survive further consideration and self-honesty. Greater familiarity wasn't enough to keep us content. It contributed to our ultimate disbelief! We saw up-close that restrictions may apply to the numerous claims that we heard (sometimes via artistic forms). A brisk and incomplete list of the restrictions will emphasize that, while no single restriction to a claim could be convincing enough to overturn someone's core mentality, the sheer number piles up too high to be ignored forever. 

• Claim: God will never abandon you. Restriction may apply: Not only may you never see any concrete sign that God continues to be a personal companion of yours, there may not have been any concrete sign that it ever was.
• Claim: Make bold petitions to God and whatever you ask will be given to you. Restriction may apply: Your request might be ridiculous or premature, so it will be rejected for good reason. Or it might not fit into the grand unknown plan of the universe; after all, every mortal has "their proper time" to succumb to death. No matter what, you'll be left guessing about what God's reaction to the request actually was.  
• Claim: Your beliefs will give you joy in the midst of life's troubles. Restriction may apply: For the joy to reliably trigger, you might need to spend an extended time training your brain to reflexively obsess about an almighty being, whose smile you can't see, or perhaps the reward of an afterlife, which you cannot see for yourself beforehand.
• Claim: Jesus was an idealized version of you. Restriction may apply: Anyone who lived at that time and place, and raised in a highly different culture, didn't significantly resemble you in behavior, appearance, or general outlook.
• Claim: God's activity in human affairs will be obvious to you. Restriction may apply: Seeing God's caring intervention everywhere you look will depend on the mental lens that you view events through. By approaching every situation with high expectations, the smallest clue that might be construed as God's fingerprint can be magnified into solid evidence.
• Claim: God will heal the sick. Restriction may apply: Sicknesses that are vulnerable to skilled physicians will be healed by their hard work. Of course, God can still have been assumed to play an unseen role in that...somehow.   
• Claim: God controls everything. Restriction may apply: Tragedies with no apparent meaningfulness will happen. Societies will be governed by oppressors. Religious organizations will be led by people who can be motivated in petty ways. 
• Claim: There is one set of religious beliefs that's genuine. Restriction may apply: Religious beliefs have multiplied into a bewildering variety of sets, and subsets, and subsets of subsets. Each one contains one or more details in contradiction with the others and there's no objective method to decide among the group.
• Claim: The single firm foundation for ethics is the unchanging commands of God. Restriction may apply: The moral stances of the commands might seem outdated. Specific examples might require contorted interpretations that attempt to explain the intended moral for the modern age. Alternatively, the multiple commands might be exchanged for the simplistic sentiment, "Maybe just try caring about someone else for a change, huh? If you do that then feel free to pretend these other commands are unimportant relics and make up the rest for yourself. Always let your conscience by your guide."
• Claim: Every wrongdoing is forgivable thanks to the unearned mercy of God. Restriction may apply: Forgiveness is granted through the arduous task of being a bona fide follower, rather than a mere pretender who parrots the right words. This task demands the giving of time, money, and effort. Sincerity is a prerequisite. Obedience is not sufficient; you must love your spirit lord.   
• Claim: God will provide inner strength to do right instead of wrong. Restriction may apply: Inner strength is something you must laboriously cultivate by thinking regretfully about your past evil actions (confessing helps with that), growing accustomed to strictly policing your spontaneous thoughts, and choosing a new duller lifestyle that prevents common temptations. As with followers of any ideology, the human flair for compartmentalization might lead to the outcome that someone has extreme inner strength for some repulsive evils and yet they have zero resistance to their favorite evils.
• Claim: Official religious documents are accurate and as trustworthy as God. Restriction may apply: Careful and impartial investigation of the universe might appear to strongly disagree with official religious documents. The disagreement can be overlooked as long as the corresponding parts of the documents are classified as metaphorical and poetic. Fortunately, if the documents descended from legends, the original writers probably would've readily admitted that they couldn't know for sure whether the legends had been embellished in countless retellings. In addition, the original decision to decide what documents became official might have been a difficult struggle between competing followers, some of whom would've said that the documents that didn't become official were more accurate.  
• Claim: Divine guidance will be provided when someone earnestly seeks it. Restriction may apply: The process of seeking might be a demanding one of prolonged prayer sessions and fasting. The guidance received might be minimal or a nonverbal feeling of "peace" about a tricky decision. Experienced followers will warn that divine guidance should be compared with other sources such as the aforementioned official religious documents, or someone's peers and authorities. As with every claim, the fulfillment of it might come from one or more people who are being moved around like uninformed pawns on God's massive four-dimensional chessboard.
  
• Claim: God's presence is sensed directly during times of mass singing or praying or times of quiet contemplative solitude. Restriction may apply: The ease of sensing God's presence might vary depending on the follower's imagination, suggestibility, personality, mood, skill of visualization, and the level of distraction in their environment. It might be necessary to brush aside the fact that people can enter similar emotional states in nonreligious circumstances. Consistently getting the best results might require associating the psychological state to symbolic external cues, in the manner that Pavlov documented.
• Claim: The part of people that provides a sense of identity and makes decisions is a nonphysical soul that persists after the body stops functioning. Restriction may apply: No satisfying answer will be offered to the classic philosophical question of how to strictly define the boundaries and interactions between the nonphysical and physical domains. Meanwhile, experts of all areas except theology manage perfectly well without the concept of a soul. (A more interesting tactic would be to reject this claim and argue the doctrine that the whole bodies of the faithful dead will be resurrected/restored prior to entering heaven in the unspecified future.)

I'm aware that none of this is revolutionary news. And it's most clearly applicable to my former culture of typical U. S. evangelical Protestantism, a religious category that's losing relevance daily through its own efforts (albeit not without the political equivalent of a kicking and screaming tantrum). Nevertheless, I have faith in the worthwhileness of a passing reminder about exactly why the "sales pitch" wore thin for many of us and still occasionally grates on us now.

unwinnable conditions in the game of defining free will

The sad truth is that games can slip into unwinnable conditions: game situations that cannot lead to an eventual victory. Many one-player card games routinely become unwinnable through an unlucky order of cards in a stack...or short-sighted mistakes in how the player moved the cards around. Some two-player games with multiple pieces, such as chess and checkers, become unwinnable by either player once they're left with next to nothing on the board. Adventure-style computer games, which depend on collecting and cleverly using items to escape danger, become unwinnable through losing (or overlooking) items that will be surprisingly crucial to survival.

Philosophical debates have a tendency to become unwinnable too. This happens when precious yet poorly defined ideas are somehow expected to meet clashing requirements. The result is that the corresponding debates cannot be won, if "winning" means hammering out a self-consistent version of the idea that's satisfactory to everyone in the debates. But the proper response isn't giving up. It's returning the debate to a winnable condition by dropping or reshaping some requirements. 

The idea of free will is a prime example, since discussions about it frequently end in stalemates. And it's particularly appropriate here because game-playing itself is an analogy for it. Regardless of how relatively trivial a game might be, the players carry out the widely recognized aspects of free will. They analyze the circumstances, then select from a set of actions, to attain goals. (Of course, topics have been usefully compared to games for a long time. Wittgenstein described language games. Game theory is a branch of mathematics that's constantly referenced in a range of contexts.)

Some common unwinnable conditions of the effort to define free will are worth examining. To echo the statement from earlier, the aim of doing so isn't to abandon free will but to pinpoint one or more troublesome requirements. The most fundamental of them should be attacked first: that free will needs to be capable of violating the physical laws that are followed by things that don't have free will. In a word it needs to be unabashedly miraculous. The equivalent in gameplay is spontaneously disobeying the game's rules—which is not the same as when all players agree upfront to slight modifications.

This places the debate into an unwinnable condition because the best evidence available simply hasn't uncovered this kind of violation. At the scale of the person-centered decisions customarily placed in the category of free will, the rules are firm and uncontroversial. Atoms aren't created or completely destroyed, although some decay. Energy only changes form, and it tends to become more diluted when it does. Velocity stays the same unless something acts to change it—including a velocity of zero. Objects cannot be accelerated to the speed of light. Differing electric charges are attracted. If free will doesn't follow the known rules or patterns, then it cannot be reasonably integrated to the rest of reality. And presumably it could contradict any precise definition assigned to it.

A believable idea of free will should stay within the same broad boundaries that allow for the behavior of galaxies, continents, algae, clouds, platypi, etc. Furthermore, there's an upside: reliable consistency. This is crucial for effective short-term decisions and also long-term plans. Acquired items don't vanish. Notebook pages filled with ink don't switch back to blankness. Projectiles descend at an expected speed. Food temperature doesn't suddenly diverge from the environment it's in. Arguably, without impartial rules to govern the consequences of actions, free will wouldn't be worth a lot in practice. The rules are tools as well as limits. People are participants in rule-governed existence, not spectators.

Admittedly, committing crime against physical laws is extreme. Most probably don't lump together free will and sorcery. By comparison, a seemingly moderate compromise is imagining the power to just disconnect from potential influences. Through the application of this power, decisions could be rendered perfectly independent, separated from external things, internal pressures, or the past. Decisions in this state could not possibly be manipulated by anything.

Nevertheless, this requirement's drastic solution has two problems. The first problem is that it leaves decision-making with a hollow core. It's certainly good that nothing can indirectly yank around decisions like pulling the strings of a puppet. But if the decision isn't determined by anything, then it's uninformed. It's cut off from the context that provides meaning to why action A was selected instead of B. If it's made for no deeper reason, then it's due more to chance than thoughtfulness. High unpredictability isn't synonymous with willful freedom. The problem isn't eliminated by merely using a fancy source of randomness, such as the precise probabilities of quantum mechanics. A heavily randomized decision is still the opposite of taking responsibility. It's more like the game act of rolling dice than the act of choosing to skip an optional dice roll or not. (Or it's like flipping a coin to choose to roll the dice?...)

The second problem with free will hinging on the power to disconnect is the sheer implausibility. Modern knowledge shows, in addition to the previously mentioned physical rules at the human scale, a grand web of cause and effect between the multitude of particles and energy fields of the universe. Therefore it's frankly bizarre to picture a tiny strand wandering off whenever the urge strikes. How could it possibly do that? Why should it have such authority over other strands joined to it? Breaking cause and effect at will qualifies as a superpower. Demanding it isn't a winning approach for arguing that free will is realistic.

An alternative is therefore necessary. Adaptation fits the role. It's when actions vary based on influences. The definition is vague because the actions fall into a host of categories. Adaptation might consist of taking the influence's impact and neutralizing/dampening, or amplifying, or aggressively countering, or preventing, or redirecting. In general terms it's perception followed by corresponding action. 

Importantly, adaptation in the vague sense isn't a unique characteristic of human consciousness. It appears in many things of differing complexity. Single-celled organisms react depending on events in their minute but brutal ecosystems. Computer systems jump between Wi-Fi routers. Hedgehogs roll up into balls. Metaphorically, a spring could be said to adapt, because its "actions" vary based on the stress of squeezing. Obviously, its adaptation is far different from, say, people adapting to their circumstances by revising their life insurance. The part that matters is that feedback, the primitive building block of adaptation, isn't unusual or ghostly at all.

Moreover, advanced multi-layered adapting can come quite close to gaining effective control over decisions. If multiple influences are observed, understood, and consciously managed, then the influences are mastered. No single influence dictates the decision. The decision-maker isn't metaphysically separated from influences, but they don't need to be. All the paths from influences to the decision can be, er, adapted: continuing to exist but now much more complex. Within a person, these adapted paths are literal. The signals from the influences take more complicated routes through the brain's network of cells. 

For one person, the path from stimulus to rage (or panic or gloom, etc.) could be extremely simple and predictable. For another who has adapted by noticing the first signs of oncoming rage, and who has spent significant time weighing the pluses and minuses of how they act, the path traveled by the stimulus could be twisty and stop in any of several outcomes. For the latter, the "natural" or quicker path hasn't been vaporized by psychic force. It's been circumvented through the development and activation of competing paths. And since everything is material, the process of overriding costs actual energy. It's like two crowds attempting to outshout each other. With this in mind, free will can be more of an ideal to strenuously pursue than an inborn capability. 

One last feature deserves mention. As a temporary adaptation of behavior or thought is repeated over time, it's reinforced. This is an aspect of how brains evolved to learn. And with enough reinforcement, the corresponding brain path functions as the relatively "natural" or quicker one. So adaptation may become a method of self-change and even a type of self-determination. It has the caveat that it's gradual and difficult. Uttering the magic spell "I am different" doesn't instantly engrave adaptations into the self, any more than uttering a magic spell doesn't instantly etch a design into stone. It calls for visionary thinking and persistence, a combination which few things are capable of. To become an expert at a game, nothing helps as much as the "work" of playing countless times, making good and bad moves, in order to replace beginner instincts with seasoned ones.    

Excessive focus on self-governance has a subtle risk. It might evoke a requirement that makes a definition of free will unwinnable: treating denial as too pivotal. To suggest that rejecting an impulse reflects free will, but fulfilling an impulse doesn't, runs into trouble. First, if denial isn't serving the purpose of a desired result, then it's not inherently meaningful. That purpose might be nothing beyond "proving that I'm the sort who doesn't do that" or "getting some enjoyment out of punishing myself", but it's present. Denial isn't a self-sufficient motivation. Second, the statement can be flipped. A decision-maker who's absolutely ruled by denial isn't convincingly freer than a decision-maker who's absolutely ruled by fulfillment. 

Third, some cases don't involve a strong element of denial in the outcome. Yet the decision-making process that led to fulfillment could be as rigorous as a process that led to denial. In either decision, the influences could've been thoroughly mastered (...or not). Picking an influence to obey can be a free choice. Free will isn't viewing decisions as stark intellectual puzzles, after pushy motivations have been completely drained out. Relative preferences at the very least should be factored in. If someone were playing a game, nobody would maintain that a craving for victory is incompatible with a reasonable style of play.

Clearly, a kind of free will can function without dragging along unsupported assumptions. That might not stop especially stubborn debaters from insisting on unwinnable conditions anyway, by raising a final requirement that to them seems equally clear. As they would say: for people to be truly free, they must make use of something apart from particles to make decisions. After all, a particle doesn't have the freedom to deviate from the predictions of a skilled onlooker. Predictable particles adding up to a person with unpredictable free will doesn't make common sense.

The retort won't surprise anyone who's heard this before. Despite their particles, people are in fact complicated. Particles connected in certain ways can rapidly "add up" to more unpredictability than one in isolation. Once a particle is connected to its surroundings, then predicting the particle depends on predicting the effect the surroundings will have on it...and that means predicting the movements of these surroundings. Then those surroundings in turn cannot be predicted without predicting the outer surroundings that affect the closer surroundings. The mandatory edges of the predictions keep getting pushed farther and farther. 

For instance, the full motion of a particle in one of the bones in one of the fingers of a person typing an email isn't predictable unless the next letter to be typed is predicted. The next letter depends on the word being typed. If the email is about an amusing memory gleaned from the previous day, then the word being typed depends on the person's mental reconstruction of the past. Or they may jump up from the keyboard after the doorbell rings, and then the motion of the one particle can't have been predicted without also predicting the doorbell ringer.  

The essential problem is there are too many particles interacting and too many independent motions to track. Transforming these inputs into accurate particle predictions would consume an impractical amount of space and time. And the dense simulation might start failing to match reality less than five minutes later, when the person receives a text asking for help...sent from someone on the other side of town. Sure, human free will without something apart from particles could be calculated, but it's pure fantasy. And it's irrelevant next to the immense realm of possible actions for people made of particles, as they sift through all of their intricate concerns and justifications and construct endlessly creative variations. Given that deceptively limited games have turned out to have fascinating depths of strategy, there's no need to worry about feeling restricted by the few real walls around human decisions.

(Addendum: A short while ago I read How Physics Makes Us Free by J. T. Ismael. Parts of this blog entry are almost certainly surface-level restatements of ideas I picked up in it. But the book covers interesting topics such as the formation of coherent self-voices, entropy in human experience, and the network model of causes and effects. It also teaches words like diachronic and modal and immanent, with a glossary in the back.)

mid-real

Some common questions demand surprisingly nuanced answers in practice. For instance: "How real is this thought?" My unremarkable position is that a thought's realness is equal to its connections to actions whose outcomes affect and are affected by realities. These actions may be relatively mental, such as reviewing a mathematical proof, and/or relatively passive, such as observation. But at times the action is more or less the opposite of abstract: perhaps I claim that the thought of a tall, wide, concrete wall on my near left side is real because I can lean over and extend my left arm until I touch it.

This definition can be visualized as semantic distance. How much of a leap is there between the thought and the action outcomes that back it up? Is the thought a bit of a reach...thinly stretched...tenuous? Are there many links in the chain? Is it mostly a plain description or does it sneak in assumptions and speculation? If it's a fruitful substitution of one concept for another, then what qualities are added or subtracted? Depending on the wildly varying answers to these fine-grained considerations, the semantic distance could be like an inch or 500 miles...or in-between.

The consequence is that a thought's realness must also sometimes lie between real and unreal: mid-real. To deny this possibility would be inconsistent. Yet as exotic as it seems, a mid-real thought isn't that unusual. It's not mid-real like a ghost. To start with, it could be an ordinary thought that summarizes, such as the mean age of the people at a family reunion. It's very possible that nobody's age is equal to the mean age of everybody. Nevertheless, it manages to represent the group as a whole through a method that's transparent and clear-cut.

Someone may point out that summarizing thoughts are obviously real because they're not mere fantasies. The problem with that argument is that not only fantasies but metaphorical communication in general is capable of conveying real meanings; these meanings are simply emotions and analogies rather than bare facts. The dramatic thought "I couldn't take another step" is more expressive of current foot pain frustration than the reality of complete leg exhaustion. The thought is therefore mid-real. Its obvious exaggeration is less connected to the superficial meaning of the sentence than to the the communicator's real state of mind. The semantic distance is a longer scenic journey. Grand fictional narratives can be mid-real in a loose sense also. Whether it's a talking animal fable or a dramatization of true events, the accompanying message or theme that it carries is precisely the part of it that's more real.

However, narrowing focus onto purely literal thoughts isn't a surefire escape from mid-real status. Too many complications crop up. For example, a straight line from a cause to an effect isn't always the case; many factors can affect one thing simultaneously. In these situations, the naive thought "my favorite single factor is enough to thoroughly explain the state of the complex thing" is neither strictly real nor strictly unreal. It's just mid-real because the factor is surrounded by others, and its own very real effect is partial. I'm reminded of thoughts about diet correctness. Both a person's body and the items they ingest are highly complex. It's tempting to pick a dietary factor and embrace the thought that it's the one real cause of desirable (...or undesirable) physical welfare. Then the thinker is freed from the burden of admitting that the factor's level of control might be greatly modified by the presence or absence of other factors: how the food is prepared, what else is ingested at the same time, personal sensitivities, how much of the food is eaten, and the time of day. But the topic isn't hopeless. Well-grounded (albeit boring) dietary recommendations abound. One or more minor improvements are better than none.

While the messiness of realities can lead to certain thoughts being mid-real, the messiness of actions can too. The truth is that actions' outcomes are routinely imperfect. Besides the inherent limits of all feasible actions, there might be some kind of unpredictable interference, or natural degrading of tools (our own aging sense organs qualify), or an outcome that mimics another. No matter the root causes, honesty calls for the language of probability and range. "The reality is 60% likely to be in the narrow range 300 to 800, and 95% likely to be in the wide range 50 to 1200." Regardless of the amount of precision—or the "numbers" being gut feelings—the result is that the connected thoughts are colored mid-real. Fortunately, of course, mid-real thoughts are valuable anyway for planning. Flexible plans can be constructed to succeed based on the whole range. A mid-real all-or-nothing situation is less manageable, but knowledge of the probability is at least good information.

Lastly, thoughts can be mid-real all by themselves. Some thoughts are essentially mid-real. Due to the thought's construction, the supposedly supporting actions actually can't settle the question of its realness. The issue might stem from the thought being too vague, or self-contradictory, or accommodating of any conceivable circumstance, or demanding circumstances that probably can't ever be achieved. Mid-real thoughts of this kind may be comforting or fun to play with, but allowing them a status beyond mid-real would be inconsistent with the definition applied here. Admittedly, the thoughts' creators and followers may not mean for the thoughts to be mid-real. Maybe they haven't noticed the gradual dilution of the thought they champion; now, for whatever reason, they're continuing to treat the thought the same although it's been emptied of firm assertions. Then again, that might be the characteristic that attracts them. They cannot be shown to be conclusively wrong. The downside is that they cannot be shown to be conclusively right either.

I realize I'm obligated to confront one particular objection. What if the practical, genuine existence of mid-real thoughts is only a distraction from the main question of realness rather than a valuable clue about which answers are serious? Did I start out by skipping too casually over the terms "thought", "action", "outcome", and of course "realities"? If the subtle difficulties of mid-real thoughts were escaped, what would the ultimate source of realness be? Unfortunately, my response is to concede that I offer no escape. Those terms are indeed circular (interdependent). Thoughts are events in the brain. The judgment of connections between thoughts and actions happens in the brain but so does the judgment of which realities are in harmony with which outcomes. Thoughts are approximations of realities but realities are only represented in the brain by thoughts. ("I'm 70% sure I see the back of Bill's head across the room" is a thought.) The hypothetical actions to execute in order to verify thoughts originate as thoughts. The thoughts can't be infallibly real because the actions need to tie them to realities. Even the realities can't be infallibly real because realities are in the form of sometimes-incorrect thoughts. The actions can't be infallible because of the flaws that have been explained. No single component is enough to be an ultimate source of progress toward realness. The path requires a team effort. Though, on occasion, the teamwork might resemble a melee as realities force thoughts to change or shatter.  

in the eye of the decoder

The saying goes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, what if a symbol's meaning is in the eye of the decoder?

Significant philosophical disagreements stem not only out of holding differing ideas but also out of holding differing degrees of interpretation of the same ideas. That's why beliefs frequently come in strong/hard versions versus weak/soft versions. Surprisingly, the distinction between the strong and weak interpretation of "meaning is in the eye of the decoder" indicates a lot about someone's whole philosophy. If two people are divided on this, they're probably divided on more too. 

The weak interpretation should be undeniable: meaning is affected by the decoder fairly often. They're part of the context, and any single symbol's perceived meaning can be greatly modified by whatever context it's in. For instance, the meaning of "boot" to UK listeners can be unlike its meaning to US listeners. Or words that are offensive to one society can be relatively less offensive in another. Or a film that enchants one viewer can be dumbfounding to another; meanwhile its writer and director might have had another intent altogether.

However, in my view—and in the view of countless other thinkers now and in the past—the relationship runs deeper. I side with the stronger interpretation: the meaning is literally in the decoder (...just not in the eye). It's an event of a decoder. This event is the meaning's real essence (locus). And it probably occurs a multitude of times in a multitude of decoders, unless the meaning truly is novel. The converse is that a symbol without a decoder cannot have meaning.

Linear B is an illuminating case. It's a puzzling and old form of writing that was discovered by archaeologists. It wasn't well-understood at first, and several insights led to success some years afterward. In order to be consistent with my view, I'm forced to assert that all the tablets of Linear B didn't have real meanings for an extended period. Bluntly put, once the original writers/readers all died there weren't meanings for centuries, until the breakthroughs that enabled scholars to translate the symbols. Of course, they had excellent reasons to expect that they could reconstruct coherent meanings eventually. The source markings had the characteristics of language elements; they repeated in lengthy sequences but not in an unchanging or a random pattern.

Despite how it appears, distinguishing "they found the meaning" and "they reconstructed a meaning" isn't pointless hair-splitting. If someone objects to the idea that the meaning itself exists purely in the decoder at the time of decoding, then they face a deluge of sensible follow-up questions. Where else is the meaning? How is it created and destroyed? Does it move or metamorphose or duplicate? Why can it be perceived differently?

Because these questions revolve around the metaphysics of the objector's alternative notion of meaning, their answers reveal whatever stuff they prefer to tack onto physical reality. Again, this is a striking contrast to simply accepting that meaning is an event of the decoder. Then everything involved can be matter alone and standard physical phenomena. The meaning consists of the state of the decoder's matter after the task of decoding has changed it.

In effect, symbols are like the steps to follow to shape the decoder into an internal arrangement that embodies the meaning. At a low level they function like pressures, sometimes quite subtle, on the motions/physics of particular segments. Having the ability to elaborately shift in response to symbols is how something qualifies to be a decoder. Even decoding is transcoding, in which the result's new code is the inner code for meaning used by the decoder's substance.

The crux, previously mentioned, is that the symbols are matter, the path that the symbols take to the decoder is a path taken by matter or energy, e.g. waves of sound, and the consequences of the received symbols in the decoder happen in matter. This overall picture has obvious appeal to people whose views leave out popular supernatural concepts such as souls and eternal realms. It's relatively less common to stubbornly combine an irreligious stance with a metaphysical understanding of meaning. One possible fusion, which echoes panpsychism, is that matter in general has a "mind property" in addition to its detectable properties.

On the other hand, regardless of the number of issues avoided when meaning doesn't have an extra-special kind of existence, the important issue of telling apart subjectivity and objectivity becomes a little problematic. How can meaning ever be objective at all if it's the subjects' matter? The challenging answer is that it's certainly not by default. Greater levels of objectivity are progressively earned through diligent work to connect meanings to objects rather than only subjects.

Thus the meanings that are most objective are precisely those that have been most thoroughly backed by such work. Ideally the full details of the work are then communicated and recorded so that everyone may judge how much objectivity has been earned. The meaning of "the nation of Suriname is north of the nation of Uruguay" is considered highly objective because recent maps are plentiful, trustworthy, and in unwavering consensus. For this reason the action of viewing a South America map verifies that the meaning is tied into objective reality, regardless of how many subjects the meaning is formed in at any moment. If a meaning can be reliably applied in relevant actions, then it's objective enough. It doesn't need a mystical external abode. The metaphorical eye of the decoder suffices.