The Horizon of Reason

The customer is always right

2008-11-30T15:45:00.000+11:00

One of the adages often proclaimed in marketing is: "the customer is always right". An often heard objection against this is that bowing to every whim of customers would make it very hard to achieve organisational goals, i.e. to make a decent profit.

To find out what this actually means, this statement needs to be unpacked and analysed.

There are three aspects to this statement: the customer, the qualifier "always" and the the idea of being "right".

For this statement to make sense, the term customer - refered by some as the 'c-word' - needs to be closely demarcated, or in marketing jargon: segmentation. Market segmentation is, however, an artificial construct.

Russell Haley argued decades ago that demographic variables are poor predictors of behaviour as they are determined post facto and rely on descriptive, rather then causal factors. This implies that the statement should actually be "a customer is always right" - narrowing it down to individuals, rather than all or some customers.

Second part of the statement - 'always right' - seems to refer to a universality. Whatever a customer says, truth is on their side. However, truth is a tricky concept, specially when combined with a universal statement. The way out of this conundrum is to find out what a customer can be right about.

A fact: There is a fly in my soup
A feeling: I am angry because there is a fly in my soup

Customers can certainly wrong about facts because they are by their very nature verifiable. A waiter can confirm whether there actually is a fly in the soup or whether it is a oddly shaped croûton.

The second type of statement is much harder because it is, in the words of Bernard Williams, incorrigible. A proposition p is incorrigible when it satisfies this description: if I believe that p, then p. These statements can neither be verified nor denied, but, assuming the customer is sincere, they have to be true.

So, assuming a customer is sincere, they are always right about when it comes to incorrigible propositions. This is problematic because of the implied sincerity. Of course, some customers might exaggerate their feelings in order to obtain preferential treatment. Many psychologists would argue that nobody can be sincere about their feelings. In this respect, see also my column about personality tests. Or in the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins:

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed.

Although customers might not always know or able to express their state of mind, incorrigible statements are absolute truths to those who utter them.

The customer is always right about their own state of mind and the marketer has to accept these statements as absolute truths.

The truth of Pi

2008-11-30T14:07:00.000+11:00

My idea of a great time: smoking sheesha in Egypt, wearing my favourite T-shirt (ThinkGeek.com).

The print on the shirt consists of the first 4,493 digits of the number Pi in the shape of the symbol itself.

The number Pi, not the number 42 as some have proposed, symbolises the ultimate truth of the universe. Let me explain why.

On the way back from Egypt I watched The Oxford Murders. In this movie, the question whether mathematics is the underlying truth of the world is discussed between the two main characters. Martin, a student played by Elijah Wood, said:

"Things are organised following a model, a scheme, a logical series. Even the tiny snowflake includes a numerical basis in its structure. Therefore, if we discover the secret meaning of numbers, we will know the secret meaning of reality."

But is Martin correct? Can all philosophical questions and truths be expressed in mathematics? Will we eventually calculate our way out of ethical dilemma's? Can we improve our understanding of Shakespeare by expressing his prose in formal language?

I tend to agree with Professor Martin Seldon, played by John Hurt in the same movie:

"Since man is incapable of reconciling mind and matter he turns to confer some kind of entity on ideas because he can not bear the notion that the purely abstract only exists in our brain."

With this in mind, why does the number Pi reflects the ultimate truth about the universe?

Pi is an irrational and transcendental number and the digits of which it is composed comprise an infinite array of random numbers. Even after calculating billions of digits, there does not seem to be any pattern in the arrangement of the digits. It is this lack of any pattern, the absence of logic, that illustrates the structure of the universe itself.

Pi is an artificial structure of our mind, not something existing in reality. Nature doesn't care about perimeters and diameters, although it might seem that the ubiquitous nature of Pi seems to suggest differently.

Pi is an important number in physics and is included in many formulas. This implies to me that there is something inherently random in the structure of reality.

However, we perceive our environment in discrete terms. Common sense mathematics does not include irrational numbers such as Pi. We think in whole numbers and fractions. This is reflected in the fact that in ancient cultures, Pi was perceived to be a fracture, such as 22/7. This is the value that I use in my own calculations as it is accurate enough for almost all computations.

But the number Po is ubiquitous in mathematics and physics. We rely on an irrational numbers such as Pi and e in much of our modeling of reality. What does this say about the structure of reality? I d not have an answer on this, but for me, the existence of irrational numbers shows the great divide between common sense and our scientific description of the world.

Know Thyself

2008-05-30T10:16:00.005+10:00

One's own is well hidden for one's
own; and of all treasure troves, one's
own is the last to be excavated . . .

Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra

The importance of self-knowledge has been acknowledged through the ages and across cultures. A visitor to the temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece was commanded to "Know Thyself'' and Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote that "self-knowledge is enlightenment''.

Self-knowledge is different from knowledge of the objective world. It is, by definition, subjective and is thus not easily obtained, as illustrated by the epigraph. Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers, two of the most influential psychotherapists of the last century, theorised that people have a hidden personality of which they are not aware. It is this hidden, subconscious, nature of personality that creates epistemological hurdles and makes self-knowledge a difficult to obtain treasure.

Many different psychometric tests have been developed to determine a subject's personality or other aspects of the self. These tests are used in clinical settings and research, but are also widely used for recruitment and leadership development.

For my MBA studies I was asked to undertake a battery of personality and motivation tests in an attempt to improve my self knowledge. The main question to be answered is whether this myriad of numbers and classifications actually describe me as a person and whether they can provide a deeper self-knowledge to enable me to be a better manager.

Numerous studies have shown that psychometric tests can be used to make predictions about behaviour of individuals and job performance. There are, however, many situational variables, such as organisational culture, which influence behaviour and research indicates that personality plays the greatest role in situations where there are no social clues on how to behave .

Some of the often used methodologies are scientifically problematic. There is little empirical evidence to confirm the validity of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Also for Theory X/Y and ERG Theory there is little or no evidence to confirm the validity of their assumptions.

Problematic aspect of self administered psychometric testing is a high level of inherent confirmation bias, also known as the `Forer Effect'. Am I really very conscientious, or do I perceive myself to be conscientious? Am I really an extroverted person, or is it my high level of energy which subjugates any innate introvertedness? Do the results of these tests provide a picture of my inner self, or are they a reflection of my perceived self?

The test results do not actually reveal any information beyond what has been entered by me, because the results are only a linguistic rearrangement of the answers. This is confirmed by recent research that showed that most people are able to guess the outcome of personality tests without actually undertaking them.

Comprehensive self-knowledge can thus not be obtained by completing surveys because they can only reveal the perceived self and are not capable of unearthing the inner (subconscious) self. Psychometric tests are suitable only as a vehicle for introspection, providing an entry point for reflecting on one's self. This introspection can, however, not occur without life experience to reflect on.

Obtaining self knowledge, considered essential for leadership development, requires something deeper and more substantial, as alluded to by Nietzsche in the epigraph to this blog entry. As our behaviour is predominately controlled by situational variables, the only way to obtain self-knowledge is life experience.

Only by being exposed to a multitude of situations and challenges can we know what our personality actually is. As we gain life experience, our inner and perceived selves slowly converge. Maturity is the situation were the inner self and the perceived self are almost identical and self-knowledge becomes apparent. Even the most carefully designed personality test can not leapfrog the knowledge obtained through life experience. Carl Gustav Jung, who inspired development of the MBTI recognised this when he wrote:

"Anyone who wants to know the human psyche ... would be better advised to abandon exact science ... and wander with human heart through the world.''

This foray into psychometric testing leaves me to conclude that no psychometric test can ever replace the fullness of life experience to obtain true self-knowledge. Experiences such as exposing oneself to a challenging situations, occasionally exploring the boundaries of morality, experiencing different cultures or going through emotional turmoil are the only meaningful ways to gain self-knowledge.

The end of magic?

2008-02-10T21:05:00.000+11:00

I have recently purchased a facsimile copy of Reginald Scott's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (originally published in 1584).

This is an important book in the history of Western civilisation as it is the first ever book in which methods for creating magic are explained. This might seem an overstatement, as magic is nowadays a trivialised from of theatre which barely has any influence on the way we think.

Scott's book is important because it was the first time somebody openly challenged the belief in witchcraft and supernatural powers by exposing conjuring methods. The book contains some interesting magic; there are pictures of trick knives that make it seem like you are cutting your nose or finger. The picture on the left shows a contraption used to create the illusion of somebody's head being severed. There is also a description of a Magic Colouring Book, which is still used in children's magic shows and many other tricks still performed by contemporary magicians.

The book was published in the Renaissance, a period which heralded Western culture as we know it today. Although many people see the renaissance as a period where Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, some do not see this as a positive development. Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, for example, questioned whether the renaissance was a positive change and argued that it was a period of decline from the High Middle Ages, destroying much that was important.

One of the important things that was destroyed is a sense of magic and The Discoverie of Witchcraft illustrates, if not helped the cause, this development. It might seem strange for an engineer/philosopher like myself to argue that dispelling a belief in magic would not be a good thing. Magic is, however, more than a simplistic belief in supernatural forces that control our lives.

Magicians have been part of human civilisation for as long as there are records - and possibly as long as human culture exists. There are many anthropological accounts of medicine men and shamans using conjuring skills as part of their healing and rituals. Most magic history books interpret this use of sleight of hand as an attempt by the shaman to obtain power mischievously. But there is much more to magic than one person gaining power over others.

Magic is a psychological force - a means to understand our position in nature. Although some might argue that magic has been wiped from contemporary culture, it has never actually disappeared from our psyche. Simple acts, such as writing your name on a wall are in fact magical. To some this is a simple act of vandalism, but that is not the real motivation for people to do this.

Writing your name on a wall makes the wall becomes an extension of yourself and you become part of the wall. It is a way to exert our self onto the world. This is I think the deeper psychological reason for the popularity of tagging. Tagging is a way to impart part of your self onto the environment in which you live. This is in essence an act of magic because it is a way to connect the inner world (psychology) with physical reality. There is no rational reason to write your name on a wall

There are many more examples of non rational behaviour; why do we prefer one brand over another? Why we choose one political party or football team over another? When analysing motivations in every day choices we see that people often cross the horizon of reason and this is the realm of magical thinking. Magic, as a psychological force, is still alive and kicking in a hyper-modern world.

Why study an MBA?

2008-02-05T20:43:00.000+11:00

I have asked myself several time why I should drag myself through this course as management is not the most invigorating line of study I can imagine.

Only last year, I have completed my arts degree, specialising in philosophy and sociology, with a smitten of psychology. As an elective for this degree, I studied one unit of Strategic Management and became very interested in the work of Henry Mintzberg, specially concerning his line of inquiry regarding the usefulness of formal planning systems as a sufficient or necessary means to improve company performance.

In a recent book he argues against the whole idea of an MBA as a prerequisite for senior management (Henry Mintzberg, Managers, not MBAs, Berret-Koehler, 2004).

Am I wasting my time? Is an academic education useful in managerial practice?

My philosophy studies have strongly influenced my thinking about good management and has moved me from a systems (Taylorist like) approach to a more human resource focussed perspective. Management is a social science through and through and I am treating it as such.

I have argued previously (Prevos, 2005) that: "an organisation can not rely solely on formal systems to develop corporate strategy. Although empirical research points towards a positive correlation between strategic planning and company performance, these studies suffer from some methodological problems. Because strategic management is not an exact science, strategy formulation requires a great deal of intuition and company performance relies to some extent on serendipity. This does, however, not imply that strategic planning as a formal exercise is futile. Strategic planning is vital for good management of an organisation. Not as a means to plot the course for years ahead, but as a way to be able to anticipate the unpredictability of external influences".

I think this sums op Mintberg's issue with an MBA - no education can teach intuition, creativity, insight and so on. But I hope that it will certainly help in shaping my ability to make better decisions. In the end, nothing is more practical then a good theory :)

Why I am not an Australian

2007-11-18T21:00:00.000+11:00

Many Australians ask me why I do not want to become a citizen of this dry hot land. The past few weeks, i.e. the federal election, illustrates one of my standard answers to this question.

First of all, I do not want to be subjected to compulsory voting. Although I do believe that voting is a great good and if I could I would, compulsory voting actually reduces the quality of democracy. People have no reason to really care about politics, it is just something you do. I have read somewhere that only 75% of the votes are valid, so what is the point?

Besides compulsory voting, the quality of political debate in Australian politics is very low. Now political debate is not very enlightening in most cases, but in my experience, Australian politicians are champions at producing meaningless drivel. The rhetoric is so thick it can be cut with a knife.

I am not sure whether the political parties think Australian are actually that stupid, or whether interest in politics is so low that nobody really cares what politicians say.

The campaign is aimed at explaining people why not to vote for the other dude. Also, for a country that voted against becoming a republic this election is very presidential. The choice is between Rudd and Howard, not between liberal and socialistic ideals.

Furthermore, the Australian system prevents small parties from being able to have a say in parliament. It is very unlikely that the Greens will ever have a fair number of seats, so Australian governments will always be a ping pong between Labour and Liberals. This is not good because the two party system severely limits the richness of the political debate.

The current election circus shows that there is no clear policy from either party. Policy making s a reactive contest, trying to outsmart each other with on the run populist options.

Why should I choose to become actively involved in a system I do not support?

Now I am not saying that the Netherlands is a perfect country, but it is the place of my birth and therefore my default citizenship.

Besides my disagreement with the Australian political system there are other reasons, such as jury duty and my emotional binding with the country I grew up in, not to become an Australian. This could be a topic for the future.

The illusiveness of fairness

2007-08-06T20:10:00.000+10:00

Fairness is a concept which is used often to justify a point of view when discussing the distribution of goods or benefits - "it should be done fairly". But what does this mean, what is fair and what is not fair? Most people seem to have a very strong sense whether something is fair or not, but what is this based on? As a philosopher, I do not take common sense for granted and decided to research this claim.

I was initially surprised to find that none of the philosophical dictionaries and encyclopaedias I have access to contain a lemma on fairness (besides references to John Rawls' concept of Justice as Fairness). Searching the scholar section of Google provided some starting points. Unfortunately academic publishers charge exorbitant amounts to read journal articles and I refuse to pay for research which is essentially funded through taxes. So I started from scratch.

The common sense point of view of fairness is a sense of equality. Our sense of fairness is cultivated at a very early age: I remember having fights with my sister over who should get the largest piece of cake and even using a measuring tape to support our point of view.

Fairness as an absolute equality, such as in the cake problem, is a strange concept. If we apply this childish view of the world to adult problems, everybody would be paid exactly the same salary; would live in the same kind of house, wear the same clothes ...

An absolutist concept of fairness can also lead to some extreme consequences. The Old Testament concept of "an eye for an eye" (Exodus 21:23-27) is a very well known example of absolute fairness. This is one of the arguments that Christian apologetics use to justify the death penalty. This bizarre ritual is, for many reasons outside the scope of this article, a very irrational punishment. The eye for an eye concept leads to situations such as we currently see in the middle east and is a slippery slope that should be avoided.

Absolute fairness is an artificial concept, which does not take the realities of life into consideration, e.g. we don't all need or deserve the same piece of cake. It is a dangerous concept which can lead to unwanted consequences.

This leads to the next concept: relative fairness. For the cake problem this means that one child should get a larger piece because he or she is more hungry than the other or has behaved better. This relative concept comes much closer to the common sense concept of fairness which is used in every day life.

We accept that doctors are paid more than taxi drivers. Doctors save our lives, while taxi divers perform a much less critical function in society. Western society is, when it comes to distribution of wealth, basically a meritocracy in which everybody is rewarded on their merit.

Although merit is not the primary driver, it is a guiding principle in determinations of fairness. But is consideration of merit by itself sufficient to have a fair determination? Who determines who has how much merit? Is merit our individual contribution to society or to a business or is merit based on our personal needs? How much merit warrants one person getting a piece of cake twice as big as the other?

Another determinant in distribution problems can be need. The most hungry people need to most or best food. Need, beyond primal necessity, is not a very practical concept to use. Need is a concept which can be used only in situations where survival or health of people is at stake. Health care is an example where need has preference over merit.

If we want to use fairness as a determinant in solving a wealth distribution problem, we effectively shift the question. The discussion shifts from fairness to merit (being good) or need (being more hungry) and possibly other considerations I have not yet explored.

It seems that fairness is an utterly useless concept when trying to determine the distribution of goods. We can not use it to determine who gets which size of cake because it either leads to a blanket absolute equality or a series of further questions. The answer of these further questions (what is merit? what is need?) depends on our philosophical (or political) orientation.

My conclusion is that fairness should not be used as a determinant in wealth distribution problems and the word should be reserved for its original meaning, e.g. "free of spots and stains".

From Shaman to Showman

2007-07-28T20:16:00.000+10:00

Earlier this month, I attended the Centenary Convention of the Australian Society of Magicians. This convention has reignited my passion for performing magic, albeit in a different direction.

The amazing Jeff McBride used the phrase 'from shaman to showman' several times during his performances and lecture. The shaman, or medicine man, used to perform a central function in prehistoric and primal cultures and incorporated the philosopher, healer and entertainer. In contemporary culture, these functions have, however, been separated and the philosopher, healer and entertainer are different people and the magician usually only functions as the entertainer, working for children, performing close-up in restaurants or more traditional stage acts.

Performing magic can be a powerful experience for the spectator as well as the magician and is, in McBride's words, a 'mood altering device'. Experiencing well crafted magic releases positive chemicals in the brain and magic becomes, following Eugene Burger, a way of transcending the human condition, even if it is only for a fleeting moment. In this way the magician becomes a healer.

The magician becomes philosopher by providing meaningful context to the magical experience. The philosophy expressed by performing magic is not about providing a solution to the life's problems. In magical thinking the world is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced. By providing the spectator with a sense of mystery, magicians can integrate the philosopher back into their performances.

Unfortunately, most magic has not elevated itself from triviality and remains a fringe form of entertainment. Magicians try to provide people with puzzles to solve, rather than with mysteries to absorb. Hearing Eugene Burger and Jeff McBride speak and seeing them in action has greatly inspired me to attempt to attempt to create some meaningful magic, combining my passion for philosophy, skill in magic and knowledge of psychology.

What does it mean to be human?

2007-06-25T22:11:00.000+10:00

In the second episode of Torchwood, 'Day One', Gwen feels that Jack and the others have lost touch with humanity. Jack then asks Gwen in return what it means to be human.

In this episode, Carys is possessed by an alien entity which uses her to have sex with people and consume their orgasmic energy. Gwen's practical reply is to care for the victim as an individual; a person with intrinsic value. The rest of the Torchwood crew think of Carys as a problem to solve, they see her as a person with extrinsic value.

The deeper question thus is whether people have intrinsic value? The gut-feel reply will be 'of course!', but what is the argument for this?

If people only have extrinsic value then they are means to an end for each other. If we believe that people do have intrinsic value then we see them for what they are, which essentially leads to altruism, e.g. doing something without external motives.

Our ethical system is based on the idea that people have intrinsic value. If this was not the case then it would be perfectly acceptable to breed people to provide organs for others. Denying people intrinsic value can thus motivate cruel behaviours. The German Nazis saw people as a means to their end of obtaining absolute power and in Stalinist regimes people are considered as part of a collective, rather than an intrinsically valuable individual. We seem to be forced to introduce an intrinsic human value in order to provide a limitation for unacceptable behaviour.

But do people really have intrinsic value? Some argue that our motives are never truly altruistic and that we always use other people as a mean to an end - albeit not in ways as dramatic as the above examples. If this somewhat pessimistic view of humanity is true, how do we draw the line between acceptable use of people and unacceptable use?

I think that the intrinsic value of people is a social construction which enables us to live together without harvesting each others organs and not something that exists without our reflection upon it. The as such constructed intrinsic value has no objective existence in the world, but that does not matter because it serves its purpose of creating stable human societies very well. The boundary between acceptable and unacceptable use is drawn by justice and fairness, which in themselves are also very fluid concepts.

Some might argue against this and proclaim that there are many examples of successful civilisations where the intrinsic value of humans was not as engrained as in our culture. Intrinsic value is thus not a prerequisite for a successful civilisation.

When looking at some of these cultures in detail, we see, however, that they differentiated between 'them' and 'us'. There are many examples of human sacrifice and in most cases only slaves and people from other tribes where used. In other words, they changed the definition of being human; something the German Nazis also used to justify their actions. Those people that were considered to be human were given intrinsic value, evidenced by the fact that all cultures have some sort of legal system.

The fact that many cultures undertaking human sacrifice were highly successful only underwrites the point that that intrinsic human value is a social construction!

Torchwood

2007-06-18T21:40:00.000+10:00

The first episode of Torchwood has finally aired on Australia television! This contemporary Doctor Who spin-off is more than just another way to cash in on the popular science fiction series. Torchwood is more violent and daring than the series that spawned it, but underneath the sex and violence the stories deal with philosophical issues, some of which deserve exploration beyond the screen narrative.

The Torchwood people have a metallic gauntlet by which they can revive the dead for a short period. Several people are killed by the same method and knife. When John Tucker, one of the victims, is revived, Jack Harkness asks him:

"What was it like when you died? ... Nothing, I saw nothing. Oh my God, there is nothing."

John is clearly disturbed by this prospect, specially because he knows that he will die again soon. The idea of total blackness and nothing seems to scare him profoundly.

This fear of nothingness is a fascinating aspect of the human condition. When analysing the problem it is clear that this fear is not rational because when there is nothing, there is also no threat. A state of not-being is not something to fear because it is not rational (not justified) to fear something that does not exist. So why are people not content with a prospect of an absolute end to life?

Leo Tolstoy thought that if there was no life after death, then life would be meaningless. This approach is, however, not satisfactory because it relocates the problem of whether there is meaning to a life after death. If there is life after death, then what is the meaning of that life? Is there a life after life-after-death to provide meaning? Ad infinitum ...

The Epicureans did not agree with this line of thought and were right in arguing that death is inconsequential to the question whether life has meaning or not. Although death may be final and could make all our efforts futile from a perspective of eternity, we can only judge life from the internal perspective. The idea that death only removes meaning is forced upon us
when we look upon life from the eternal perspective.

We can, however, not view life from an external perspective, because we are bound by our internal point of view. Any attempt to take an external perspective, such as religion, can not provide a final answer to the quest for a meaning of life.

The meaning of life is embedded in life itself and we should not hope, nor fear for anything after death.

Red Dwarf and the Meaning of Life

2007-05-16T17:57:00.000+10:00

I have been watching episodes of the science fiction series Red Dwarf over the past few weeks. Most episodes are delightfully silly, filled with absurd plots and cheap laughs. The second episode of the fifth season is very different, as it deals with the ultimate question: the meaning if life. Kryten tells the tale of the Inquisitor:

Well, the legend tells of a droid -- a self-repairing simulant, who survives till the end of eternity; to the end of time itself. After millions of years alone, he finally reaches the conclusion that there is no god, no afterlife, and the only purpose of existence is to lead a worthwhile life. And so the 'droid constructs a time machine, and roams eternity, visiting every single soul in history, and assessing each one. He erases all those who have wasted their lives and replaces them with those who never had a chance of life -- the unfertilised eggs, the sperms that never made it. THAT is the Inquisitor -- he prunes away the wastrels, expunges the wretched, and deletes the worthless!

After hearing this story, Lister asks how to determine who is worthless and that is a profound philosophical question. No so much the question who is worthless and who is not, but the question whether there actually can be rational demarcation criteria to seperate the 'wastrels, wretched and the worthless'.

Dealing with these issues is seen by some as philosophical Russian roulette because the answer might lead to a totally different view of the world - some pointing directly to the Nazi eugenics projects. But this question is not about that - it is a meta question. Can we find rational means to determine which lives are worth living and which are not. The question whether a life that is found not worth living can be expunged is an ethical question and a whole different mater all together.

Is, as Rimmer eloquently puts it "eating sugar puff sandwiches for eight hours every day" more or less valuable than writing symphonies or painting the Sistine Chapel? The immediate gut feel answer is that the latter is more valuable than the former. The silent premise of this reasoning is that something has to have external value, e.g. value to something outside the person themselves in order to be worthwhile.

Kryten clearly follows this external view when he argues that: "you don't have to be a great philanthropist, or a missionary worker, you simply have to seize the gift of life! ... Make a contribution!"

If this would be the case, if a life was only worth living if it has external value, then all animals are leading worthless lives. Looking at our cats, I see totally egocentric beings, who do not care about anything else but their own please. To them, eating the feline equivalent of sugar puff sandwiches is a perfectly good life, most certainly worth living.

I don't think there are rational means of finding absolute criteria to determine which life is worth living. My essays on Values and the Meaning of Life I have already argued that there are no rational means to determine which life s worth living. Religion provides no philosophical justification and philosophical reasoning often leads to concluding that there is no meaning of life, outside life itself.

In Red Dwarf, the Inquisitor determines whether somebody's life is worth living by letting people judging themselves: "a bit metaphysical ... but it is the only fair way". The Inquisitor thus judges each life on internal values. It is indeed the only fair way. Not very rational or scientifically justified and theologically surely not satisfactory, but it is the only thing we got!

The Wonder of Religion

2007-04-14T18:01:00.000+10:00

Dutch Magician Tommy Wonder provides an interesting insight in Volume I of The Books of Wonder (1996). He gives advice to magicians on what to do when a spectator discovers - or beliefs to discover - the secret to a magic routine:

I've frequently wondered why people sometimes come up with painfully silly solutions and don't stop to realize it. If they would give the matter more thought they would quickly see that their solution couldn't possibly work. I believe their reasoning runs something like this: The moment a spectator sees a magical effect that he [sic] doesn't understand, he is confronted with a problem, a problem that stands square in front of him like a granite boulder. [...] Now if the spectator contrives some solution, in a way he has enabled himself to move the problem. He can roll this boulder out of his way, so that he is no longer confronted by it. The problem seems to be solved. [...] his mind throws a big party. He's solved the problem! (p. 251)

This observation from the every day practice of a professional magician shows a very interesting psychological mechanism at work. Somebody is presented with a problem, which creates a conflict of the mind. As soon as a solution is presented, no matter how improbable, the conflict seems to disappear. Wonder continues:

Because his mind is dancing and celebrating its victory, it never stops to realize that it only moved the problem, [...] it still exists in another place.

The psychological mechanism at work is a process of cognitive dissonance. When a magician makes a ball disappear, there are two observations for which there is no causal relationship. It is the job of the magician to hide this cause - the causeless event is the magical effect. Humans are inclined to remove any tension between dissonant observations, even if this means inventing miraculous connections - cognitive dissonance.

The term 'cognitive dissonance' is often used as an explanation for the emergence of religion in pre-scientific cultures. The idea being that ancient people experienced a cognitive dissonance in their experience of natural occurrences, such as the daily disappearance and re-appearance of the sun. The explanations created to relieve the tension is what we now know as religion.

I think this is only a partial explanation, as much of religion is a means of providing explanations for the way the world is - albeit very non satisfactory in modern scientific terms. Religion is much more, however, it is - for those who follow it - a vehicle to provide meaning to life and a foundation for ethics.

But does all cognitive dissonance need to be resolved? Why can we not live with the tension - accepting that there are questions for which we do not have an answer, or for which there even might not be an answer?

Tommy Wonder touches on this when he argues that magicians should aim to defuse the cognitive dissonance experienced by the spectator, creating suspension of disbelief and giving rise to a feeling that magic really exists - even if it is only for a fleeting moment, as our rational mind quickly takes over, trying to resolve the dissonance.

The limits of Dawkinism

2007-03-14T21:48:00.000+11:00

I have been reading Richard Dawkins' book, The God Delusion. Although I largely agree with his atheist point of view, I think he stretches his argument a bit too far as he does not seem to acknowledge that there is a limit to what we can achieve with reason, a horizon across which rational thinking can not take us.

His view can be summarised by Wittgenstein's famous proposition: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. Dawkins places the limits of knowledge at the limits of reason. His view of religion, which lies largely outside the limits of reason, is directly derived to this assumption. I would, however, like to argue that the limits of knowledge are not formed by the limits of reason.

One of his arguments is that there is a negative correlation between religiosity and intelligence, e.g. the higher the IQ, the less likely somebody is religious. This seems to give the impression that religious people are generally less smart than atheists, thereby labelling most of the world population as dumb.

The reason for this correlation is, however, that measurement of IQ is totally biased towards rational thinking. Tendencies towards religion or spirituality in general are not part of an IQ test. This does not explain the correlation, but shows the limitations of comparing religiosity and intelligence.

Religion should be considered as a Vehicle for Meaning. Rational thinking can not provide us with the meaning of life and religion is a way to deal with the vacuum.

Religion is not my preferred way if providing meaning to life; I choose an existentialist point of view - flying in a metaphysical hot air balloon. This attitude is, however, only possible after deep and complicated rational thinking. Most people do, however, not have the energy or capability to live this way and religion is an 'easy' way out.

Dawkins does not seem to consider the provision of an answer to meaning to life questions. He places a very high burden on the rational abilities of people. The creation versus evolution question is an example of this.

Dawkins might reply that this is all very well, but what it is about is the provision of truth. This is philosophically very slippery ground. Science is based on presuppositions, as much as religion is. Science is only confirmed by its own rules, it is a self fulfilling prophecy. The same can be said for religion.

I think truth is not important, if truth exists, we will not be able to find it. Knowledge is more important than truth and knowledge is nothing more that that which is able to provide the outcomes we desire. Both religion and science are very capable of doing this.

Living without free will

2007-02-26T10:57:00.000+11:00

A thought experiment was put to me recently:

Assume you have been charged with a crime. In court you are able to conclusively prove that free will does not exist and therefore you can not be held responsible for this act.

I was asked to reflect on this philosophically. Although this seems more to be a legal than a philosophical problem, some core issues of philosophy are embedded in this scenario.

From a pragmatic point of view, if I was the judge in this case I would simply argue that I am forced to sentence you for the crime, as also I have no free will in this matter.

The idea that it would be scientifically provable (the only type of evidence that would be acceptable in court) comes from the reasoning that since we are made of material components and that since those components follow the 'laws of physics', our behaviour is a result of predictable interactions between atoms.

This idea is contrasted with the view that, although we have physical bodies, we also have something non physical, which does not follow the laws of physics, allowing for free will.

I don't want to delve into the discussion between the materialist and idealist points of view in this blog, as this is a philosophical minefield. For the purpose of this thought experiment, we need to assume that it has been proven that our minds and therefore our behaviour follows causal relationships and is therefore, assuming we can know the starting conditions and have full access to the laws of physics, fully predictable. Free will does in this context not exist and what we perceive as free will is to be considered an illusion.

The philosophical question that this thought experiment poses is what would the world be like if there was overall agreement that we are biological without free will. The consequences for our culture, our societies and our psychologies could be devastating. The philosophical problem is thus an existential one.

Some would argue that being deprived of a free will removes all morality and meaning from life because without will there can be no humanity - all our triumphs and digressions can be simply be blamed on causality. The person in our imaginary court case would argue that it wasn't him or her that perpetrated the crime, but the laws of physics.

My position in the materialist/idealist discussion is towards the materialist. Although, this does not mean that I think we would ever be able to conclusively prove that either is the case. Also, I think our so called 'laws of physics' are based on a logical error, as shown by David Hume, but that is food for thought for another time.

In the hypothetical situation of this thought experiment I think that society would not come to an end. In some ways it would be great for society because it would bring philosophical thinking to the foreground. Everybody would have to take position in this situation.

If humanity would be without free will, meaning and morality would most certainly not collapse. In some ways it would be very good for those who try to provide morality with a rational foundation - because if our minds are based on pure causality, than it would be possible to construct moral algorithms.

As for the question whether lie has meaning or not, I don't think that having no free will makes any difference. But for that question I refer back to the tireless Sisyphus, rolling the boulder up the hill till eternity.

Heraclitus and Freud

2007-02-23T21:20:00.000+11:00

It dawned me a little while ago that the human condition is one of ongoing tension between the way the world is (ontology) and the way our mind works (psychology).

The world is inherently unpredictable - even our best attempts to make it predictable ultimately fail. We have trouble predicting the weather more then a few days ahead and predicting earthquakes and volcano eruptions are even more unpredictable.

Heraclitus had a great insight when he proclaimed that: "You cannot step twice into the same rivers ; for fresh waters are flowing in upon you" (Fragment No. 12). Heraclitus understood that the world is ever changing and nothing is ever the same.

Our human psychology, however, has difficulties accepting this eternal change. Sigmund Freud thought that we are not as free as we think we are, but are ultimately creatures of habit. More about the problem of free will in a future blog.

Our minds are designed to find regularity, even where there is none. Hume's sceptical argument regarding inductive inferences is a great illustration of how this works.

Also in this respect we need to jump into the abyss, as argued in my previous blog entry. This does not imply that we should just accept the chaos and not use our mind to attempt to understand the world. We should, however, accept that all our attempts to grasp the world around us in neatly packaged theories will never succeed. All knowledge is practical knowledge and can only be judged in its ability to produce the desired effects.

Don't Stare into the Abyss

2007-02-23T18:52:00.000+11:00

About fifteen years ago my friends and I discussed one of Nietzsche's famous aphorisms in from Beyond Good and Evil:

"146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." (Source: Project Gutenberg)

This almost mystical utterance has kept me thinking - until recent. The solution came to me from reading a book about the boundaries of thinking by Dutch philosopher Jan Bor. He quoted Chinese Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi: "Leap into the boundless and make it your home!" He also mentioned Dutch poet Lucebert who wrote: "... who falls into the abyss becomes an airman - free and floating".

It dawned to me that the only way to stop staring into the abyss is to jump into it. The staring seems to refer to trying to locate firm ground down in the dark depths of the chasm. This is what philosophy has been doing for most of the 2500 years it has been around as we know it. Many philosophers have attempted to find some solid foundation for knowledge. Descartes' thought experiment in his Meditations is a great example of somebody jumping into the abyss, or as he put it, into deep water. This leap takes great philosophical courage and Descartes tries hard to: "either to plant [his] feet firmly on the bottom or sustain [himself] by swimming on the surface". As I argued previously, I don't think that Descartes has succeeded in plating hsi feet firmly on the bottom and should be content with simply floating in the water.

The solution to Nietzsche's aphorism is to take the same leap of faith as Descartes did, but not to hitherto find firm ground, but to make the void your home, or in the words of Lucebert, become an airman - free and floating.

This comes close to the concept of the metaphysical hot air balloon I theorised about some time ago. Jumping into the abyss and accepting there will be no firm ground removes the fear of falling to your death. The eternal free fall, a state of blissful weightlessness, will be the result of taking this leap into the abyss. The warning signs should be removed - be brave and practice some philosophical base-jumping!

Does God have a sense of humour?

2007-01-09T14:18:00.000+11:00

This photo arrived in my mailbox with the subject line: "FW: Someone's going to hell for this!!!".

I found this statement a bit strong because, I figured that if God is by definition a perfect being, then he (or she) surely would most certainly have a great sense of humour.

He or she would be rolling on the floor with laughter when receiving this photo in his mailbox!

There is, however, not much in the Bible - or any other religious book for that matter, which would indicate that God, the gods, or whichever way you might swing, has a sense of humour.

One story of the Bible that comes in mind though is the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11), were Jesus provided the booze when they ran out of wine.

Jesus and his disciples were invited for this wedding and it only seems logical that they were drinking as well. Following the grammar, it seems that they already had been drinking when the wine ran out. I love this passage because it shows how human Jesus was - and in a roundabout way that he had a sense of humour.

Therefore, in my humble theological opinion I do not believe that the guys in this photo will go to hell because they have a great sense of humour.

Magic and Philosophy

2006-10-15T13:54:00.000+10:00

I recently turned back to pick up my teenage passion of performing magic tricks. Some might think that it is quite a big step from the seriousness and heaviness of philosophy to the giddiness and lightness of magic. The two are actually much more closely related to each other than obvious at first glance.

Both the magician and the philosopher have arisen from the same archetypical and historical figure of the shaman. The anthropological record shows that shamans use technical and psychological principles, similar to those used by contemporary stage magicians, to aid there spiritual work.

I became interested in philosophy as a teenager by reading books about the history of magic that refer back to the shamanistic origins of the craft. Snowballing my way through literature I eventually stranded at philosophy itself. My journey has gone full circle and I am back at studying magic tricks!

Immanuel Kant the Mystic?

2006-05-18T19:31:00.000+10:00

Some time ago, I found this picture of Immanuel Kant on the web (I forgot which website) and used it on my page with Ethics essays. The interesting thing about this engraving is that Kant is surrounded by the mythical snake Ouroboros. I have yet to find out exactly what is meant with this etching, as the combination of Immanuel Kant and mysticism is a bit puzzling. I recently bought an English translation of the Critique of Pure Reason, which has this picture on the front page. According to the book, it is an engraving by J. Chapman. There is a John Gadsby Chapman (1808-1889) who was a Freemason, judging by the painting The Masters Carpet in the George Washington Masonic National Memorial. I would love to know more about this portrait of Kant and what the idea is between the combination of him and the mystical snake. Any answers?

Post Mortem

2006-05-10T20:47:00.000+10:00

Funerals are the oldest signs of human culture, some anthropologists even define the onset of culture by the fact whether the dead were buried or not.

Our fascination with and fear of death relates directly to our ability to think about the future. We are the only animal that seems to have the ability to ponder life and conclude that there is only one certainty: we will all die. That insight creates a whole lot of existential anxiety, which is the defining factor of the human condition. This anxiety is mitigated by developing vehicles for meaning, such as religion.

Funerals are an amazing ritual. It is our way to pay respect to the memory of the deceased and their family. It is also a form of catharsis for the emotions that have built up since the death occurred. The announcement of somebody's death is surreal. The funeral brings reality to the death, helping to anchor the irreversibility into our psyche.

Funerals make us ponder our own mortality and provoke good intentions that we should make the most of the time available to us. The funeral ritual is the end of one life, but provides new beginnings for al those who attend.

Christian funeral rites are, however, unsatisfying. The empty promise of eternal life and the hope that we will meet the deceased again after we have fallen to the same fate lead us astray. The promise of a life after death diverts our focus from life itself to the afterlife. One could argue that it doesn't really matter and it is better to believe, it is better to play it safe, just in case religion is true. Religion is founded on metaphysical skyhooks - there is no justification for the idea of life after death, besides our existential anxiety.

I choose to accept that there is no metaphysical foundation. My philosophy is not based on a skyhook, but a metaphysical hot-air balloon, floating over the cultural landscape. Accepting that there is no certainty, no absolute truth is a very liberating experience. It forces one to choose life over death!

Death

2006-05-03T09:24:00.000+10:00

During our lifetime we have to deal with crises. Some might loose a leg, but that doesn't stop them from having a meaningful life. Some can go bankrupt, but most bounce back. A natural disaster wipes somebody's house away and they build a new one. The one problem, however, that we can not fix is death.

I have written about this topic several times from a rational point of view. The Egyptian pyramids and the monuments at Avebury are testaments on how humans deal with death. I have also tried to analyse reasons behind strongly held beliefs in a life after death and have argued that life only has meaning because there is death.

But with the death of somebody you know, all rational arguments loose their validity. We have reached the horizon of reason!

Postmodernism

2006-04-27T20:43:00.000+10:00

When I studied philosophy in the Netherlands, postmodernist thought was an important part of the curriculum. Now that I am studying in Australia, I am more exposed to the analytical philosophy tradition. (See also my previous article Schools of Thought). I have been reading some analytical criticisms of postmodern though and think some are missing the point.

The analytical thinkers have a big issue with the postmodern dogma that there is no absolute truth. A very common counter argument is that this is by itself presented as an absolute truth and therefore a logical contradiction. I think most criticisms are missing the point.

The answer to the problem lies in the work by Richard Rorty. His interpretation of Wittgensteinian Language Games provides a very powerful way of dealing with relativism.

Within a Language Game (closely related to Khun Paradigm and Foucault's Episteme) there is absolute truth. Rorty argues, however, that there is no almighty Language Game that can provide a universal truth. Human culture has produced many different language games across time and cultures and none of these provide a final answer to any problem, nor will any future products of the human mind be able to do so.

This thought is very worrying. We are psychologically wired to favour certainty. Our gigantic brains give us the possibility to think about the future. This amazing feature enables us to develop science and philosophy because we can think about an answer to the question "What if?". This causes a great deal of grief because with an uncertain future comes fundamental existential uncertainty. Science, philosophy and the arts are psychological band-aids to help us deal with this uncertainty and prevent anxiety.

Postmodern philosophy is, in a way, an attempt to create a universal language game. The quest for universality comes at a great price, because the only universal claim we have been able to find is that all knowledge is relative and is only true within a certain Language Game. The issue that many analytical commentators, and also many postmodern thinkers, do not seem to understand is that postmodernism - as a universal language game - can not be used for any practical purposes. It is a Language Game about Language Games - not a Language Game by itself.

Postmodernism is therefore only useful to be able to talk about language games in general. The problem is that postmodern mankind is by definition detached from the possibility of finding truth and there is a risk that we fall into nihilistic despair. Postmodernism is a Venom Crystal, a beautiful wisdom which is poisonous to the mind. From an existential point of view, postmodernism is a view that can only be maintained by those who are able to float in a hot air balloon above the landscape of Language Games.

The True Philosopher

2006-04-17T13:27:00.000+10:00

What is a true philosopher? What distinguishes them from other people? Are philosophers smarter, wiser or crazier? Answers to this question have been sought since the beginning of philosophy. Plato's answer to this question is:

"... philosophers are those who are capable of apprehending that which is eternal and unchanging, while those who are incapable of this but lose themselves and wander amid the multiplicities of multifarious things, are not philosophers ..." (Plato, Republic, 484b)

This quote is related to Plato's idea that reality is unchanging and fixed and that our ever changing perceived reality is an illusion. He illustrated this idea in the Allegory of the Cave. In this allegory, we are imagined to be locked in dark a cave. What we perceive as reality are in fact shadows, cast by objects in the cave. Reality is, according to Plato, not the shadows on the wall, nor the objects that cast the shadows. Plato thinks that reality is the unchanging world outside the cave. Philosophers are, in Plato's view, those people who are able to unchain themselves and leave the cave. Once outside, the true philosophers are those who are able to stare into the sun - to look absolute truth in the eye.

It is my contention that Plato's idea of a philosopher needs to be reversed. The ever changing, unpredictable and chaotic reality we perceive is the real reality and our ideas of a reality above our perceived reality is the illusion. We have this illusion because it is psychologically not satisfying to have to accept that reality is unpredictable.

The main reason we have issues with dealing with the unpredictability of reality is that we have the ability to think about the future. Our huge frontal lobes allow us to think ahead in time much more than any other animal. This ability is a blessing as much as a curse, because with it comes a fundamental existential uncertainty. The fact that the future is, even in our best efforts, is unpredictable, causes anxiety. This anxiety causes a cognitive dissonance and we try to relieve it by constructing vehicles that reduce the dissonance. These vehicles - or language games, as Wittgenstein calls them, alleviate our anxiety by constructing an ideal reality in which there is no unpredictability. These language games become vehicles for meaning and reality - a foundation for our mind (See also my paper Religion as a vehicle for Meaning). In reality, these constructs of the mind are sky-hooks, based on nothing but the urge to reduce existential anxiety.

In my view, the true philosopher is the person who is able to accept the fundamental unpredictability of life and able to live in an existential hot-air balloon, flying over the landscape of philosophical and religious constructs.

The Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster

2005-11-02T15:12:00.000+11:00

The battle between evolutionists and creationists is still waging strongly. Evolutionists are propagating "Intelligent Design" - the idea that "certain features of the universe and living things exhibit characteristics of a product resulting from an intelligent cause or agent".

However, the fact that organisms function so well and that nature is very efficient proves the reverse. The perfection and balance we perceive in nature is actually evidence of the fact that living things could not have been designed.

Following the Intelligent Design argument through to its Judeo-Christian roots, we are all created in the image of God. Mankind has, however, never been able to design anything that works as well as living organisms.

Some might argue that we are but imperfect reflections of God's image and that this is the reason that designing anything is always a process of trial and (t)error. God, as a perfect being, would have designed the universe as it is now in only six days. The idea of God as a perfect being has been proposed many times to prove that a god actually exists. It has always struck me as a strange concept. Defining a being as perfect is an enquiry limiting rethorical move. There is no empirical evidence or rational argument that leads to the idea that God is a perfect being - it can only be presumed.

The fact that the universe and living organisms work they way they do is in fact evidence of evolution. Nature has perfected its orginal "design" through billions of years of trial and error.

A vastly superior theory to Judeo-Christian creationism is offered by the Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster.

Proponents of this brand-new religion assert that an invisible and undetectable Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe, starting with a mountain, trees and a midgit. All evidence pointing towards evolution was intentionally planted by this being. 'Pastafarians', as they call themselves, make some of the same basic philosophical mistakes as Christians.

However, the Spagetti Monster theory is superior to Christianity because there is no dogma that we are created in the image of the monster - as can be clearly seen in the illustration.

If anyone wants or needs to believe that the world was created, rather than evolved, the Flying Spagetti Monster offers a great alternative to established religions.

Management as a Science

2005-10-01T16:32:00.000+10:00

In my work as Business Improvement Manager I get exposed to a lot of theories of management. Many theories proclaim to provide final solutions to the complexity of managing contemporary corporations. Some theories are deceivingly simple, others are very complex, requiring specialist training.

One thing the theories have in common is that they come and go in rapid succession. None of these theories are based on a solid scientific foundation, supported by the fact that there are many theories and models covering the same aspect, using widely differing theoretical foundations.

I have written an essay about strategic management as part of my arts degree. In this essay I have argued that luck and intuition are equally important to improving business performance as rational formal planning.

Many systems of strategic management assume that business performance can be positively influenced if only an organisation plans everything in sufficient detail. Reality is, however, totally unpredictable. David Hume has shown quite convincingly that our assumption that the future will resemble the past is not based on reason. Strategic management is therefore feigning rationality.