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.

lotto balls and snap judgments

The mindfulness meditation craze has led to a few odd misconceptions about its goals. I'm convinced that imprecise wording is partly to blame. Like other subtle mental states, mindfulness can be easier to describe by emphasizing what it's not. So teachers note that it isn't analyzing any one item in depth, and it isn't reacting emotionally—positively or negatively—to any one item. They may refer to the meditator's role as "bare awareness" of the flow of present experience. Apart from re-centering attention when it becomes entangled, the only thought process is receptive observation. And the only attitude is undisturbed neutrality. Unfortunately, enthusiastic beginners may confuse these instructions' overall intent. They may jump to the conclusion that these are absolute laws for a mindful life: thinking and judging are no-nos.

But the slightest investigation into Buddhist tradition reveals that mindfulness meditation coexists with strong reverence for reasoning and morality. Obviously, wisdom and right living are values of equal or greater importance. Given this context, the proper aim can't be to extinguish every form of mental activity that supposedly falls into the vague categories of "thinking" or "judging".

As I understand it, the target of mindfulness is more specific: lotto ball thinking. A lottery's mixing machines rapidly churn masses of numbered balls until several emerge from the chaos in single file. Brains are like mixing machines, but the objects are nerve impulses that travel and combine and fizzle out along myriad pathways. A deluge of signals comes in from the senses and the body itself. It's no surprise that surprising thoughts pop out of the cerebral cortex's vortex like lotto balls, sometimes for seemingly little reason.

Meditation helps people to recognize the existence, the extent, and the nature of lotto ball thoughts. However, I for one wouldn't claim that lotto ball thoughts are inherently useless or harmful. Some are flashes of creative brilliance. Even the most distasteful could be beneficial for discovering uncomfortable truths about self-destructive thought patterns.

The point is the ongoing insight that lotto ball thoughts just happen naturally. Meditation is practice for seeing them for what they are and then responding to them deliberately and productively. Without it, lotto ball thoughts have a greater chance of pushing and pulling the thinker in various contradictory directions, prompting them to develop a sour mood, encouraging their selfishness, distracting them with trivia, etc. The tyranny of lotto ball thoughts is the enemy; thinking isn't.

Similarly, I'd argue that mindfulness has the specific target of snap judgments. Snap judgments are either instinctive or embedded by long-term associations. They follow immediately on the heels of the judged item. They're so basic that writers frequently call them attractions or aversions. They're perceived as powerful because they're raw and deeply rooted. Needless to say, they're not obligated to make much sense.

Once more, I for one wouldn't claim that the lesson to be learned is that snap judgments are inherently incorrect. (Did I mention that I'm neither a mainstream nor secular Buddhist?) Instead, meditation is for practicing the often difficult task of refusing to act on these snap judgments or to dwell/ruminate on them. Then these will gradually fade, like the electricity-saving screen of a device that's merely stared at rather than interacted with.

The effort to defang snap judgments doesn't mean pretending that pleasant experiences aren't pleasant or that awful experiences aren't awful. It doesn't mean indifference about the world and society. Arguably, it enables sophisticated and coherent judgments to take the place of error-prone gut feelings. At the same time it assists with effectively carrying out whatever principles have been chosen. High-minded ideals can hardly be followed while someone is really ruled by the whims of the moment.

I hope it's clear that mindfulness isn't an alternative to rationality or a moral center. It's an admirable tool for pursuing both!

the column of sieves

In the midst of controversial debates, it's too common for either side to demand a "smoking gun" proof from the other. They insist on an item of evidence that's easily understood, beyond all doubt, and strikingly dramatic. They need to be impressed before they'll budge an inch. (Of course, whether or not their demand is sincere is a separate question.)

The strategy works in the heat of a debate because grand indisputable tests are relatively rare. Tests that are actually workable tend to have built-in limitations. Ethical reports of such tests attach sober probabilities to the corresponding conclusions. Imperfection is normal. Tests have holes. The genuine reality could "slip through". A favorable result might still be wrong.

Nevertheless, the big picture is more hopeful. Uninformed people often fail to grasp the total value of an array of imperfect tests. Although one test has known weaknesses in isolation, combining it with other tests can make a vast difference. If one test's holes are like the holes in a sieve (...a sieve with fewer holes than a real sieve would have...), then an array of favorable tests is like a line of sieves arranged in a column. Through this arrangement, anything that slipped through one sieve's holes would probably not slip through another's as well.

The rules of probability correspond to this analogy. As long as the tests are statistically independent, i.e. running one test doesn't affect another, the likelihood is very low that all the favorable results of the array of tests are simultaneously false. That coincidence would be unlikely. One example is five successful tests, and each success had a one in six chance of being false. Having every success be false would be comparable to getting only sixes in five rolls of a die.

Unfortunately, the convincing persuasiveness of an array of tests is a much more difficult story to tell. The focus is abstract and awkward. In place of a lone heroic test to admire, there's a team of mediocrity. It's broad and messy, like reality. Sleek certainty is easier to find in fantasies.

And the situation is generally less clear than this simplified portrayal. The mathematics are more complex and the conclusions more arguable. Perhaps the test results aren't all successes. Or opponents may suggest that the probability that a test is wrong should be greater; they may assert that it's far more flawed than it was said to be. Or, if they're more subtle, they may try to claim that the tests in the array just have identical holes ("pervasive blind spots"), so multiple tests aren't an improvement over one.

Attacks on the details would be progress compared to the alternative, though. Better that than a childish sweeping rejection of tests that can't be faultless. Perhaps the usual tests are suspect, but the recommendation is to round up all these usual suspect tests anyway. Four honest approximations reached through unconcealed methods deserve more credit than an "ultimate answer" reached through methods which are unknown or secret or dictatorial or unrepeatable.

verifiable definitions for everybody

It's a frequent mistake to try to elevate one culture's notions into universal laws. That's why I don't mind considering the charge that the philosophical stance I encourage is a "purely Western invention".  If it had no chance at broader relevance or appeal, I'd rather know than not.

Nevertheless, at least the core principle isn't a Western-only concept. It's binding an idea's meaning and accuracy to the "shadow" it should cast on outcomes, i.e. realities which are exposed via human actions. (These actions might be mental and/or passive, such as calculating or unbiased observing.) The important instructions to follow this principle properly aren't especially Western either: to be diligent, honest, and fair throughout the tasks of gathering up and evaluating the outcomes that supposedly reveal the corresponding idea's meaning/accuracy; to be alert to any outcomes that are equally supportive, or more supportive, of competing ideas; and most difficult of all, to recognize the absence of the idea's shadow on outcomes that really should've been affected if the idea were meaningful and accurate.

The reason I think this stance is widely applicable is because of the widely occurring human problems that it was created to address. When one person is trying to narrowly determine what another person is talking about, comparing the idea to specific actions and outcomes helps. "I'm talking about the position you would reach by traveling to latitude and longitude coordinates X and Y in decimal degrees...or the position you would see on a map by finding the intersection of them." A second problem might be trying to decide whether another person is using differing ideas to express a meaning that's close to identical. A third problem might be trying to estimate an idea's overall feasibility by estimating the feasibility of the actions associated with it. A fourth problem might be trying to deflate another person's deception (or ignorant self-delusion) through noticing that their idea lacks adequate rationales that anyone can check. Wherever and whenever there are groupings of people whose symbolic communication empowers them to refer in detail to things that aren't here right now, they're empowered to carelessly refer in detail to things that aren't so.

Actually, speaking from where I sit, it's debatable how widely this stance is firmly embraced within any of the cultures that are said to have a Western heritage. It's in a continual contest with other cultural currents, some of which have the backing of social pressure and a formidable history. The effect is that people within these cultures have also long used alternative "methods" such as superstition or the opaque rulings of unchallenged authority figures. True, the exact content of the shoddy ideas changes over time, because fashions—and blind spots—change. But the mechanism is depressingly consistent. For instance, anxiety about counteracting bad spirits gives way to anxiety about counteracting bad energy (or counteracting minute quantities of bad toxins?). I'm forced to confess that even many of the members of my own culture aren't in favor of the stance I preach.

A more general truism is at work here: sorting both ideas and cultures by a single Western/non-Western split is too coarse-grained to reliably predict people's responses. There are significant differences among all the cultures which are said to have a Western heritage. The result of these differences is that my stance is more welcomed in some of them than in others. And it's more welcomed in some subcultures more than others.

Just as receptiveness varies throughout the group of Western cultures, it varies throughout non-Western cultures as well. In the same way that everybody placed on one side cannot be assumed to be completely open to it, everybody placed on the other side cannot be assumed to be completely closed to it. Despite eager attempts both to neatly assign an idea to one side and then to emphasize a rift between the sides, large numbers of people on either side have always been willing and able to absorb the bits they like from the ideas that reach them. Voluntary exchange of useful ideas has been going on for as long as the voluntary exchange of goods has. The cultural divide might be a good representation of the accidental misunderstandings that can happen so easily...but it's hardly an impassable barrier in practice.

My expectations of finding common ground don't stop there. I suspect that "they" might find that portions of the idea feel familiar. Worthy ideas have the tendency of springing up independently in several times and places, although the triggering situations and the forms of expression are of course unique. In this sense, I highly doubt that the origins of stances like mine have always been in the cultures in the Western pigeonhole. As I stated earlier, the most abstract debates about meaning and accuracy still have natural motivations. People in non-Western cultures must have developed their own versions of the triangle of ideas/actions/outcomes...though perhaps less formally or less fully. If so then their reaction will be "Oh, you're describing a view that has a few strong resemblances to ___ in my culture" instead of "You're describing a view which is entirely alien to anything that I've known before".

The risk of focusing on culture is to miss the other levels in which opposing ways of thinking clash. Clashes at the level of culture are obviously pertinent, but so are the clashes at the levels of the individual's everyday struggles with their own thoughts. The truth is that my upbringing in a Western-categorized culture wasn't sufficient to stop me from restricting the introspective reach of this "very Western stance" for years. Else it would've clashed with the unsound beliefs that I shielded from its standards. The turning point came when I aimed it at my base assumptions; I stopped treating it as an optional tool suitable solely for limited areas of knowledge. As tough as it might be to introduce a way of thinking to someone, it's not as tough as the next challenge of convincing them to value a rigorously examined, intellectually coherent life. The end goal isn't to convert every part of their culture to be more "Western" (how boring), it's to equip them to better analyze the parts of their own many-sided cultures for themselves and to free their minds if they wish. Some Westerners like I have had the same task.

Force-curious but not Jedi?

By springing surprise after surprise on its fanatical audience, Star Wars: The Last Jedi has triggered an avalanche of differing reactions. I for one was neither passionately against or in favor of it. My personal interest in anything related to Star Wars has been lukewarm for years. I liked it enough while I was at the theater, but I didn't have the urge to go again. I'm less disturbed by its own plot twists than I am about the seemingly slim possibilities that it left for the next movie. What will the heroes do now to save themselves and defeat their foes? What mysteries remain unsolved? Perhaps the third Star Wars movie of recent years will be subtitled "The Search for Lando".

The movie managed to stun me with a few jaw-dropping scenes, though. All of these were playing with one revolutionary concept: the Jedi voluntarily becoming extinct. I need to hastily add that the dialogue pointedly clarifies, however, that the hypothetical extinction would apply to the Jedi "religion" alone. The Force itself could never become extinct. As a result, individuals who have Force awareness and/or abilities would still be around, too. Without Jedi scholarship or apprenticeship to guide them, their belief status would be Force-curious but not Jedi. They'd be non-Jedi or "Nons" for short.

A Star Wars universe of Nons offers plenty of fuel for speculation. Rather than benefit from the findings (and mistakes!) of their predecessors, each generation of them would fumble anew at understanding elementary topics and performing novice feats. They might opt to pick and choose from a hundred contradictory understandings of the Force. With their meager knowledge, they'd try to judge for themselves whether particular actions were "light-side" or "dark-side". Their ignorance of the dangers would inevitably result in a few—maybe more than a few—using the Force for selfish aims and eventually having a destructive effect on everything around them. In addition, some of them would be motivated by their loyalty to the specific groups they identify with to use the Force purely to advance the glory of their group instead of the common (galactic) good.

Their contact with the Force would be outside of time-tested paths. They wouldn't be weighed down by the irritating restrictions of petty Jedi taboos. They'd be free of the drudgery of antiquated teachings and heavy-handed institutions or councils or elders. On religion surveys they'd check the box for "no affiliation". If asked for more details, they'd say that they're spiritual but not religious. If pestered what they're spiritual about, they'd say that they can sorta sense an invisible Force of benevolence when they reach out with their feelings. And they can lift rocks or janitorial tools through telekinesis.

I suppose that this is well-aimed at the current cultural context. My guess is that many would be open to seriously considering that informal laid-back Nons going back to the basics of transcendence would be an improvement from haughty, intrusive, inflexible, child-indoctrinating Jedi who oversee big budgets and vast initiatives in a mega-Temple. Organizations, religious or otherwise, are loathed for how they can be abused to empower terrible leaders and control the members.

That's not all. In some, this attitude also operates at a deeper philosophical level. They loathe committing fully to definite statements of their own beliefs. In the spiritual realm, and almost everywhere else, it's thought to be more acceptable for everyone to be on their separate individualized journeys. Clear and verifiable thinking is devalued. Or, worse, it's purposely shunned to ensure that no opinion can ever be viewed as more accurate than another. That's why it's optional to confidently ground one's abstract beliefs in concrete actions, facts, duties, etc.

I doubt I'm spoiling the movie by revealing that, in the end, it didn't overturn one of Star Wars' core parts. It only proposes and discussed the shocking concept of a complete handover from Jedi to Nons. Nevertheless, it shows the pluses and minuses that stand out to me when I listen to the mushy words of the spiritual but not religious. If they're always able to think whatever they wish about "spirituality", then the odds are excellent that they're merely imagining a fluid external "cause" that they fill with their wholly subjective experiences. By its nature this phantom cause couldn't have an innate form or shape to take into account. But if they object to this impolite characterization and insist that their spooky spirit is as real as the Force is within the Star Wars fictional universe, then why does It exist by vaguer rules than every other real thing? Unlike those other real things, why can't they or anyone speak as conclusively about It in ways that are compatible with neutral confirmation...or disproof?

hunting for license

Followers of materialistic naturalism like myself have a reputation of scoffing at wishful thinking. We're pictured as having an unhealthy obsession on bare inhuman facts. Despite that, I'm well aware that one of my own ideals is closer to a wish than to a reality a lot of the time. I refer to the recommended path to accurate thoughts. It starts with collecting all available leads. After the hard work of collection comes the tricky task of dispassionately sorting and filtering the leads by trustworthiness. Once sorting and filtering are done, then the more trustworthy leads form the criteria for judging among candidate ideas. The sequence is akin to estimating a landmark's position after taking compass bearings from three separate locations, not after a single impromptu guess by eye.

If I'm reluctantly conceding that this advice isn't always put in practice, then why not? What are people doing in its place? We're all creatures who by nature avoid pain and loss, including the pain of alarming ideas and the loss of ideas that we hold. That's why many people substitute the less risky objective of seeking out the leads which would permit them to retain the ideas they cherish for reasons besides accuracy. They're after information and arguments to give them license to stay put. As commentators have remarked again and again, the longest-lasting fans of the topics or debates of religious apologetics (or the dissenting counter-apologetics) are intent on cheering their side—not on deciding to switch anytime soon.

Their word choices stand out. They ask whether they can believe X without losing respect, or whether they must believe Y. Moreover, they significantly don't ask which idea connects up to the leads with less effort than the others...or which idea introduces fewer shaky speculations than the others. The crux is that their darling idea isn't absurd and it also isn't manifestly contrary to one or more indisputable discoveries. They may still care a bit about its accuracy relative to competing ideas, but by comparison this quality is an afterthought. They're gratified as long as the idea's odds exceed a passable threshold. They can honestly envision that the idea could be valid in some sense. The metaphor isn't searching for a loophole but snatching up every usable shim to fix the loose fit of their idea within the niches that need filling. The undisguised haphazardness of it at least ensures that it's adaptable and versatile.

Of course, at root it's a product of compromise for people who are trying to navigate all the forces which push and pull at them. It soothes them about the lower priority they're consciously or unconsciously assigning to accuracy. By scraping together an adequate collection of leads to make an idea viable, they're informing everyone, including themselves, that their selection of the idea isn't unreasonable. If the pursuit of authenticity were a game, they'd be insisting that their idea isn't out of bounds.

Irritatingly, one strange outcome of their half-cured ignorance might be an overreaction of blind confidence. The brashest of them might be moved to declare that their idea is more than just allowable; it's a first-rate "alternative choice" that's as good or better than any other. By transforming it to a matter of equal preference, they can be shameless about indulging their preference.

In isolated cases it really could be. But the relevant point is that, successful or not, the strategy they used was backwards. They didn't go looking honestly for leads to the top idea. All they wanted was greater license to keep the idea they were already carrying with them while they looked. In effect, thinking in these terms motivates more than a mere bias toward noticing confirmations of their idea: they're sent on the hunt. Needless to say, they can't expect anybody else to be as enchanted by their hunt's predictable findings.

trading posts

From time to time I'm reminded that it's misguided to ask, "Why is it that faulty or unverified ideas not only survive but thrive?" In my opinion the opposite question is more appropriate: "What has prevented, or could prevent, faulty or unverified ideas from achieving even more dominance?" The latter recognizes the appalling history of errors which have seized entire populations in various eras. The errors sprout up in all the corners of culture. The sight of substandard ideas spreading like weeds isn't exceptional; it's ageless.

The explanations are ageless too. One of these is that the ideas could be sitting atop a heaping pile of spellbinding stories of dubious origin. After a story has drawn its audience toward an unreal idea, it doesn't vanish. Its audience reproduces it. It might mutate in the process. When it's packaged with similar stories, its effect multiplies. Circles of people go on to trade the stories eagerly, because when they do they're trading mutual reassurance that they're right. There's a balance at work. Possessing uncommon knowledge is thrilling, especially when it's said to be both highly valuable and "suppressed". But the impression that at least a few others subscribe to the same arcane knowledge shields each of them from the doubt that they're just fantasizing or committing an individual mistake.

As is typical, the internet intensifies this pattern of human behavior rather than creates it out of nothing. It's a newer medium, albeit with a tremendous gain in convenience and visibility compared to older forms. In the past, the feat of trading relatively obscure stories depended on printed material such as newsletters or pamphlets or rare books. Or it happened gradually through a crooked pipeline of conversations that probably distorted the "facts" more and more during the trip. Or it was on the agenda of meetings quietly organized by an interested group that had to already exist in the local area.

Or a story could be posted up somewhere for its intended audience. This method especially benefited from the internet's speed and wide availability. Obviously, a powerful computer (or huge data center full of computers) with a memorable internet address can provide a spectacular setting for modern electronic forms of these posted stories—which have ended up being called "posts". Numerous worldwide devices can connect to the published address to rapidly store and retrieve the posts. Whether the specific technology is a bulletin board system, a newsgroup, an online discussion forum, or a social media website, the result is comparable. Whole virtual communities coalesce around exchanging posts.

Undoubtedly, these innovations have had favorable uses. But these also have supplied potent petri dishes for hosting the buildup of the deceptive, apocryphal stories that boost awful ideas. So when people perform "internet research", they may trip over these. The endlessly depressing trend is for the story that's more irresistible, and/or more smoothly comprehended, to be duplicated and scattered farther. Unfortunately that story won't necessarily be the most factual one. After all, a story that isn't held back by accuracy and complex nuance is freer to take any enticing shape.

It might be finely-tuned in its own way, though. A false story that demands almost no mental effort from its audience might provoke disbelief at its easiness. It would have too close of a resemblance to a superficial guess. That's avoided by a false story that demands a nugget of sustained but not strenuous mental effort—or a touch of inspired cleverness. It more effectively gives its audience a chance of feeling smug that now they're part of the group who're smart and informed enough to know better.

I wish I knew a quick remedy for this disadvantage. I guess the superior ideas need to have superior stories, or a mass refusal to tolerate stores with sloppy substantiation needs to develop. Until then the unwary public will be as vulnerable as they've ever been to the zealous self-important traders of hollow stories and to the fictional "ideas" the stories promote.

no stretching necessary

I'm often miffed at the suggestion that my stance is particularly extremist. According to some critics, materialistic naturalism is an excessive interpretation of reality. It's a stretch. They submit that its overall judgment is reaching far beyond the tally of what's known and what isn't. It's displaying its own type of dogmatism: clinging too rigidly to stark principles. It's declaring a larger pattern that isn't really present.

This disagreement about who's stretching further is a useful clue about fundamental differences. It highlights the split in our assumptions about the proper neutral starting point of belief. When two stances have little overlap, the temptation is to hold up a weak mixture of the two as the obvious default, i.e. the most minimal and impartial position. Like in two-party politics, the midpoint between the two poles receives the label of "moderate center". As the poles change, the center becomes something else. I gladly admit that according to their perceived continuum of beliefs about the supernatural domain's level of activity and importance, mine lies closer to one of the clear-headed ends than to something mushier.

From my standpoint, their first mistake is imposing the wrong continuum. Applying it to me is like saying that the length of my fingernails is minuscule next to a meter stick. Although a continuum can be drawn to categorize me as having an extreme stance, the attempt doesn't deserve attention until the continuum itself is defended. It's not enough to decree that people more or less radical depending on how much their stance differs from yours. For a subjective estimation to be worth hearing, the relative basis for the estimation needs to be laid out fairly. Part of that is acknowledging the large role played by culture. Rarities in one culture might be commonplace in a second. Many times, perhaps most of the time, the customary continuum of "normal" belief isn't universal but a reflection of the setting.

The good news is that the preferable alternative isn't strange or complicated: it's the same kind of continuum of belief that works so wonderfully in myriad contexts besides this one. This kind begins with the stance that people have before they've heard of the belief. This beginning stance is perfect uncertainty about the belief's accuracy. It's at 0, neither positive nor negative.

Yet until the scales are tipped for high-quality reasons, the advisable approach is to continue thinking and acting on the likely guess that the belief isn't to be trusted. This is a superb tactic simply because unreliable beliefs are vastly cheaper to develop than reliable beliefs—the unreliable should be expected to outnumber the reliable. In the very beginning, before more is known, to make an unjustified leap to a strongly supportive stance about the belief...would be a stretch.

That's only one point of the continuum. But the rule for the rest is no more exotic: the intensity of belief corresponds to the intensity of validation. Information raises or lowers the willingness to "bet" on the belief to serve some purpose. The information accumulates, which implies that new information doesn't necessarily replace older information. Each time, it's important to ask whether the belief is significantly better at explaining information than mere statistical coincidence.

A popular term for this kind of continuum is Bayesian. Or, to borrow a favorite turn of phrase, it could be called the kind that's focused on fooling ourselves less. It's a contrast to the myth-making kind of continuum of belief in which stances are chosen based on the familiar belief's inherent appeal or its cultural dominance to each individual believer. At the core, Bayesian continua are built around the ideal of studiously not overdoing acceptance of a belief. This is why it's a futile taunt to characterize a Bayesian continuum stance as a fanatical overreach. The continuum of how alien a stance feels to someone is entirely separate. For that matter, when the stance is more unsettling largely as a result of staying strictly in line with the genuinely verified details, the reaction it provokes might be an encouraging sign that pleasing the crowd isn't its primary goal. If someone is already frequently looking down to check that they're on solid ground, they won't be disturbed by the toothless charge that they've stepped onto someone else's definition of thin ice.

The accusation has another self-defeating problem: the absolutist closed-mindedness that it's attacking isn't applicable to most people of my stance. All that's needed is to actually listen to what we say when we're politely asked. Generally we're more than willing to admit the distinction between impossible and improbable beliefs. We endorse and follow materialistic naturalism, but we simultaneously allow that it could be missing something frustratingly elusive. We could be shown that it needs to be supplemented by a secondary stance.

But by now, after a one-sided history of countless missed opportunities for supernatural stuff to make itself plain, and steadily shrinking gaps for it to be hiding in, the rationale would need to be stunningly dramatic. It would need to be something that hasn't come along yet, such as a god finally speaking distinctly to the masses of planet Earth. Corrupted texts, personal intuitions, and glory-seeking prophets don't suffice. The common caricatures of us are off-target. We aren't unmovable. We'd simply need a lot more convincing to prod us along our Bayesian continua. (The debatable exceptions are hypothetical beings defined by mutually contradictory combinations of characteristics; logic fights against the existence of these beings.)

There is a last amusing aspect of the squabble over the notion that materialistic naturalism stretches too far to obtain its conclusions. Regardless of my emphatic feelings that intermediate stances aren't the closest match to the hard-earned knowledge that's available, I'm sure that I'm not alone in preferring that more people followed these in place of some others. While I disagree that their beliefs are more plausible than mine, deists/pantheists/something-ists upset me less than the groups whose gods are said to be obsessed with interfering in human lives. I wouldn't be crushed if the single consequence of losing were more people drifting to the supposed "middle ground" of inoffensive and mostly empty supernatural concepts.

Because outside of staged two-person philosophical dialogues, it's a short-sighted strategy to argue that my stance presumes too much. It'd only succeed in flipping people from mine to the arguer's stance after they added the laughable claims that theirs somehow presumes less than mine, and that it presumes less than deism/pantheism/something-ism...

supertankers and Segways

Back when my frame of mind was incorrect yet complacent, the crucial factor wasn't impaired/lazy intelligence or a substandard education. It wasn't a lack of exposure to influences from outside the subculture. The stumbling block was an extensive set of comforting excuses and misconceptions about not sifting my own supernatural ideas very well for accuracy...combined with the nervous reluctance to do so. It was an unjustified and lax approach to the specific ideas I was clutching.

I wasn't looking, or not looking intently enough, at the ideas' supporting links. Like the springs around the edge of a trampoline, an idea's links should be part of the judgment of whether its definition is stable and sturdy under pressure. If it's hardly linked to anything substantial, or the links are tenuous, its meaningfulness deserves less credit.

This metaphor suggests a revealing consequence of the condition of the ideas' links. When the links are tight and abundant, the ideas are less likely to change frequently or radically. An idea that can be abruptly reversed, overturned, rearranged, etc. is more consistent with an idea that's poorly rooted. Perhaps its origin is mostly faddish hearsay. If it can rapidly turn like a Segway for the tiniest reason, it's not showing that it's well-connected to anything that says unchanged day by day.

However, if it turns in a new direction gradually like huge supertanker-class ships, it's showing that its many real links were firmly reinforcing its former position/orientation. Changes would require breaking or loosening the former links, or creeping slightly within the limits that the links permit. By conforming to a lengthy list of clues, an explanation places the same demands on all modifications or substitutions of it. This characteristic is what separates it from a tentative explanation. Tentativeness refers to the upfront warning that it isn't nailed down or solidified. The chances are high that it might be adjusted a lot in the near future in response to facts that are currently unknown.

Although revolutionary developments are exciting, such events call for probing reexamination of the past and maybe more than a little initial doubt. There might be a lesson about improving methods for constructing and analyzing the ideas' links. Why were the discarded ideas followed before but not now? How did that happen?

Amazing upheavals of perspective should be somewhat rare if the perspective has a sound basis. Anyone can claim to have secret or novel ideas that "change everything we thought we knew". The whole point is to specifically not grant them an easy exclusion from the interlinking nature of knowledge. Do their ideas' links to other accurate ideas—logic/proofs, data, calculations, observations, experiments, and so on—either outweigh or invalidate the links of the ideas that they're aiming to replace?

If their ideas are a swerve on the level they describe, then redirecting the bulk of corroborated beliefs ought to resemble turning a supertanker and not a Segway. Of course, this is only an expectation for the typical manner in which a massive revision takes place. It's not a wholesale rejection of the possible need for it. From time to time, the deceptive influence of appealing yet utterly wrong ideas can last and spread for a long time. So it's sensible that the eventual remedy would have an equally large scale. Paradigm shifts serve a purpose.

But they must be exceedingly well-defended to be considered. When part of an idea's introduction is "First forget all you think you know", the shrewd reaction isn't taking this unsolicited advice at face value. It's "The stuff I know is underpinned by piles and piles of confirmations and cross-checks. How exactly does your supposed revelation counter all that?" The apparent "freedom" to impulsively modify or even drop ideas implies that they were just dangling by threads or flapping in the wind to start with.