So What?

Self-Deception

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It's worth reading the article What a tangled web we weave by Robert Trivers, from last week's New Statesman.  The article intrigued me and didn't end up where I anticipated from its opening paragraphs.

There is an interesting paradox at the heart of the idea that self-deception has evolved.  Leaving aside the question as to whether self-deception is in fact an advantage, let's assume it is,  then why do we believe it is not ethical?  This is part of the problem with a lot of evolutionary theory.  Most of us feel strongly that the desires we are told have some sort of evolutionary advantage are not desirable.  Why do we think that?

Let me summarise how Trivers addresses this question.  This summary is under the heading 'Fighting self-deception', towards the end of the article.

 

1. To the question why, given self-deception can have evolutionary advantages, don't we simply ensure we practice it where it is advantageous, Trivers responds he does not believe in building one's life, relationships or society on lies. 
2. He argues self-deception is morally inferior to deception because it deceives not only the other person but also the deceiver.
3. The consequences of deception intensify over time.  The benefits tend to be more immediate but the cost of ignorance kicks in later.
4. We have been selected to rape, wage war and abuse children (it seems) but we are in fact not obliged to do these things.  Trivers writes: 'As one evolutionist told me, his genes could not care less about him, and he feels the same towards them.'
5. It is possible ,Trivers has found, to compensate for self-deception.  When he loses track of what he is doing, then his attention is distracted by self-deception.  So when he stumbles or drops something, he asks himself what was distracting him at that moment.
6. He goes on to suggest it is possible to correct for your own biasses and meditation, prayer, disclosure of trauma to a friend or through a journal can all help.

At their best religions aim to help people identify self-deception.  It is altogether appalling where we find religion being used to reinforce self-deception.  An example can be found the blog, Exploring our Matrix, where James McGrath explores The real reason some Christians oppose Halloween.

Religion can become a form of escapism, instead of being a means to perceive things as they are, it becomes a collection of fantasies to distract from the world.  At the least a child dressing as Dracula, knows the difference between fantasy and reality.  Would that more adults were able to make the same distinction.

Related articles

• A Worse You Could be Better Off: Robert Trivers' Folly of Fools (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
• Deceit and Self-Deception: Fooling Yourself the Better to Fool Others, By Robert Trivers (independent.co.uk)
• Trivers's book out soon (whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com)
• Deceit and Self-Deception by Robert Trivers - review (guardian.co.uk)
• Deceit and Self-Deception by Robert Trivers - review (guardian.co.uk)
• Evolutionary guru: Don't believe everything you think (newscientist.com)

Projection and Idolatry

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Sorry about the long delay since my last post.  Things have been rather hectic.  I want to pick up some of the threads from my recent posts about Quantum Puppetry.  You will remember, I suggested the effects of super-position, where we see mutually contradictory things at the same time, is illustrated by puppets.  But it is more widespread.  In this post and the next I will explore first the negative side and then the positive.

Let's start with projection.  This is where I project my prejudices onto others.  This is what de Mello is getting at in his story about the rose bush.  When we look at a rose, do we see the rose or our preconceptions, our prejudices, our projections?

If it works for roses, it certainly works for people.  When we allow our prejudices to cloud our judgement, we cannot see people because we already know what they are like.

And of course, there is no greater target for our projections than God.  The word for projection of  our preconceptions onto God, is idolatry.  (I wrote at some length about this a few years ago - this is the first post in a sequence of 24!)  Most faiths try to guard against idolatry because much of the time, followers of religion fall for their idols.  When we know what God is like, we are projecting and making a puppet of God.  How often do we get the sense when cornered by a religious fanatic that they have their hand up their puppet's behind?

So, how can we know anything?  The key is in the puppets.  We have no problem suspending disbelief when we see a puppet.  So, why should the fact that we project our beliefs be so much of a problem?  Two things.  First, we don't need belief in order to live.  The important thing is not whether I believe God exists or does not exist; rather it is the quality of the life I lead (more about this next time).  Second, the key to unlock this is to pay attention to what is there, rather than what I believe to be there.

 

Related articles

• Quantum Puppetry (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Puppets and Projections (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)
• Easiest Meditation? Rose or Motorcycle? (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Easiest Meditation? Rose or Motorcycle?

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To the disciples who wanted to know what sort of meditation he practiced each morning in the garden the Master said, "When I look carefully, I see the rose bush in full bloom."

"Why would one have to look carefully to see the rose bush?" they asked.

"Lest one sees not the rose bush," said the Master, "but one's preconception of it."

(From: One Minute Wisdom, Anthony de Mello, page 138)

Following on from my last post, I suggest our ability to see the puppet and what it represents simultaneously is one example of the type of seeing in de Mello's story.  Another example can be seen in the quotation from Matthew Crawford's book I mentioned a few days ago.

So which is easier to see, a rose or a motorcycle?  Strangely it could be the motorcycle.  It may be difficult for the novice (and sometimes the experienced mechanic) to see the motorcycle as it is but there is direct feedback.  See the motorcycle properly and you can fix it or make it go faster.

See the rose bush and, well, you see the rose bush.

Related articles

• Working with Your Hands (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Puppets and Projections

I thought I'd have another go at saying what I was trying to say last night.  When we see a puppet show we suspend our belief that the puppets are simulacre.  We can see they are puppets and yet we are disposed to see them as somehow real.  It is interesting to consider the conditions under which we are willing to do this.

So, I think with today's Dr Who we would be less tolerant of a visible puppet than we were with the classical series.  Even the famous Myrka "pantomime horse" in Warriors from the Deep (below) was somehow tolerable in a way even a subtle lapse would not be today.

Yesterday, I compared our relationship with puppets with the quantum mechanics idea of super-position.  Here something can be both a particle and a wave at the same time, for example.  We project onto the puppet our imaginary rendtition of the thing it represents and so see the (real) puppet and the (pretend) creature at the same time.

But of course, puppets are simply one clear example of what is a much more common experience.  Indeed we project our interpretations all the time.  The goal of any spiritual discipline is to see through our projections to the reality beneath.  How do we know we're seeing the reality beneath?  Well, that is of course what we have to learn. 

This is where the atheists get it wrong of course.  The goal of good religion is to see clearly.  It is not about believing loads of things that are self-evidently not true but seeing the truth behind what is delusional but appears true.

   

Related articles

• Quantum Puppetry (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

What Does it Mean to Prove God Exists?

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I wonder whether tacit knowledge might help with the perennial debate about the existence of God?  Although atheists sometimes concede God's existence is not in principle provable, my usual experience, especially online, is a demand for proof.

Crawford, in his book The case for working with your hands, tells the story of his father, who was a physicist, making the claim that it is possible to untie a double knotted shoelace by pulling on one end.  Mathematically this is true, or so Crawford claims.  The point is though in real life, you cannot untie a double knotted shoelace in this way.  The problem is the physical properties of the lace have a bearing on what can be done with it.  Whilst mathematically it might be possible, physically it is impossible because shoelaces are made of something.

So, let us assume I have a proof of God's existence.  How do I know it is in fact a proof?  The rules that determine a scientific proof demand we strip a problem down to its basics, ignoring the realities we encounter when things are apprehended in our lives rather than through our heads.

This claim that only formal proofs are valid, gives away the reality of the radical atheist's position.  It is in essence a requirement for control.  It is not a free encounter with reality but one that is determined by prior ideological constraints.  It is an assertion of imperialism over and against the radical call to freedom.  We are told to sacrifice what we experience as true, to a particular partial understanding of our world.  The point is formal knowledge alone is not sufficient to make a chair or mend a motorbike, lat alone encounter God.

But there is a sense in which radical atheists are right.  if you really want proof of God, you need to do what the scientist does.  Scientific proof requires many hours in the lab, applied to getting experiments to work, in the sense of providing reliable results.  Usually this requires the application of significant technical expertise.  Without this dedication we would have no science whatsoever.

What I find difficult to understand is that anyone who wants proof of God, needs to apply themselves to it, in just the same way as the scientist applies herself in the lab.  It's all very well demanding proof but a little odd to condemn those who claim to be believers as having no proof, when you are unwilling to do what is necessary to find out for yourself.

Related articles

• Tacit Knowledge (chrississons.typepad.co.uk)

Tacit Knowledge

The problem raised in my last post, is the difference between formal and tacit knowledge.  The power of formal knowledge is in its universality.  It is true for all times and all places.  

The trouble is nothing is true for all times and places.  Reality has a habit of flipping real instances on their head.  So, we may know how a machine should work but knowing why this particular machine isn't working, is an entirely different matter.

Human systems are similar.  We may know a lot about human behaviour and psychology and yet we often find ourselves completely unable to read a real situation, particularly one involving us personally. 

But the dispassionate observer is not guaranteed read a particular situation fully.  There is always more to know.  We encounter tacit or intuitive knowledge, where we see the patterns even if we have difficulty explaining what it is we see.

Tacit knowledge is found through observation and experience.  Formal knowledge is no short cut to tacit knowledge and might be a barrier.  Ultimately, we have tacit knowledge if we are able to perceive things in the round, as a whole.

This song has always amused me as it highlights this distinction:

   

Working with Your Hands

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I am reading The case for working with your hands: or why office work is bad for us and fixing things feels good by Matthew Crawford.  I'll possibly review it later but here's a passage, from page 91:

Countless times since that day, a more experienced mechanic has pointed out to me something that was right in front of my face, but which I lacked the knowledge to see.  It is an uncanny experience; the raw sensual data reaching my eye before and after are the same, but without the pertinent framework of meaning, the features in question are invisible.  Once they have been pointed out, it seems impossible that I should not have seen them before.

This is a common observation and many people will recognise it.  But it is also something we don't necessarily acknowledge as a matter of course. 

To put it negatively we often fail to pay attention and it is being attentive that is at the core not only of working with our hands but also of spirituality.  Indeed, spirituality is essentially paying attention.  You can have something pointed out to you but someone must have paid attention at some point in order to be able to point it out.  Paying attention is hard work, often the experience of being stuck leads to someone paying attention to some detail after hours of frustration.

Paying attention is at the core of prayer.  When we pray, it is not God who is revealed to us but reality through God.  I think it was Anthony de Mello who said something like, asking God to reveal himself is like asking a knife to cut itself.

Prayer is about encountering reality, as it is, independent of our plans and strategies.  It is not hectoring God about what we need in order to do our thing, but simply being aware of what is there and needing our attention.  Indeed the god who needs to be hectored is no god, just a fantasy.  God is never revealed but always reveals.

In my other blog, Exploring Ecumenism, I have frequently visited the idea of conversation and its power to transform.  The mistake we make in too many religious debates, is to expect the world to be final and perfect.  What we find is a world not of unchanging perfect entities but of many things in relationships, in conversation, imperfect, sometimes free, sometimes imprisoned, extremely complex and always stumbling across new things.  This is what makes the universe the place where we encounter life, because all is in relationship with God.

We are conscious beings and it is through prayer our consciousness becomes disciplined enough to apprehend the genuinely new amongst the pointless frustrations of our fantasies.

On Belief in Scripture

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I came across this from One Minute Wisdom by Anthony de Mello, page 118:

There was once a student who never became a mathematician because he blindly believed the answers he found at the back of his math textbook - and, ironically, the answers were correct.

This is beautiful and it is difficult to add anything that will improve upon it.  So I won't.

The Tao of Who

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I've named this post after the title of a book; The Tao of Pooh was an interpretation of Taoist spirituality through A A Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh'.  It would be an exaggeration to say this book is an inspiration for this series of posts (I haven't read it!) but it makes for an eye catching title.

I'm planning a series of posts about Dr Who.  The plan is to review some of the episodes of the new Who era and reflect on some  emerging themes.  I may from time to time dip into the classic series too but we shall see how it goes.

These posts will not be reviews; their purpose is threefold and I will explain them further in the next three posts.

I watched Dr Who religiously from the very beginning in 1963, although I slowed down  during the late Pertwee era, watching fewer episodes and stopping entirely at the end of the Tom Baker era.  In recent years I've seen a few of the episodes I missed and so I have a fairly good idea of what has happened during the history of the the programme.

William Hartnell is still 'my Doctor' and I tend to compare all the others to him, or him as I remember him.  The point is the Doctor is a hero and at that, a British hero.  He bears comparison with Robin Hood or King Arthur.  So he tells us something about ourselves as a nation, how we understand our role in the world and what we value.  The comparison is sometimes made with Star Trek.  In the Star Trek universe everything is clean, tidy and disciplined.  The muddle and confusion with the Doctor has been there from the beginning.

From the very beginning the programme has been about science but not science as we know it.  It is usually optimistic about science as a means to solve problems.

Finally, I want to use this series as a means to reflect on public spirituality.  It seems our values and our science say something important about our relationship with God.

Analysis, Planning and Implementation

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And this is from the handout from my study year presentation this last weekend.

Strategic Management

	Analysis	Planning	Implementation
Management	Feasibility Studies	Business Planning	Operational management: action planning
Theology	Faith – metanoia, seeing things from a different perspective.	Hope –purpose, sense of direction, following God	Love – responding to interruptions, paying attention
Spirituality	Eyes	Feet	Hands

 

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion cares for the peoples’ of this world.

Yours are the feet through which Christ goes about doing good.

Yours are the hands through which Christ now brings a blessing.

Analysis

Social Research

Social research is the use of conventional social science research methods to analyse a situation, typically using methods such as questionnaires, participant observation, structured or semi-structured interviews ...  Usually to do this properly you need significant resources, especially of time and the professionals, such as Local Authorities can usually out-research you.

You are much more likely to analyse other people’s data and so need to know how to find it and how to interrogate it.  Here are a few pointers to help you.  A good understanding of statistical methods is very helpful.

Mao Tse Tung and the Three Fish

Who’s saying it?

Why are the saying it?

Who is not being heard?

Who benefits?

Who loses out?

 [A long lost cartoon shows three fish, the largest about to swallow the medium fish, which is about the swallow the smallest.]

Smallest:  "There is no justice in the world."

Medium:  "There is some justice in the world."

Largest:  "The world is just."

Getting to the truth

Things are never presented as they truly are – however things are presented they always represent someone’s interests.  It is important to identify whose views are represented in any statement.

Always be suspicious, especially of people you trust, people who trust you and especially yourself.

There may be a single great truth behind all the little truths running about on earth but you don’t have access to it.  You are not Jesus Christ.  No-one alone has access to truth.  Truth can be glimpsed through conversations: with other people, with God (prayer) and with the material world (scientific research).

Kahane’s four types of conversation.

Kahane identifies four types of conversation:

1.       Downloading.  This is where we listen from within our own story and consequently hear only what supports it. 

2.       Debating.  This is where we listen from outside, dispassionately weighing evidence. 

3.       Reflection is where we listen from inside and hear ourselves reflexively and others with empathy.

4.       Generative dialogue is where we hear not just ourselves and others but also the whole system. 

Details can be found on my blog[1].

Planning

Relevant People

National standards in management emphasise the importance of identifying relevant people, working out who needs to know what and how to ensure they are in the loop.  Not everyone will need the same information or involvement and the ways they participate might vary. 

Who are relevant people?  They are sometimes known as stakeholders.  They might be staff, volunteers, customers, suppliers, neighbours, others doing similar things elsewhere, competitors, funders, ...

Not all of these will be involved at every stage of planning.  Funders for example need to know what you plan to do, but you may need to know about them before they know about you! 

Some key people will need to be in at the start or even before the start.  These are the people who will make a personal commitment to the work.  Start with open conversations, based on your analysis, hoping to generate new ideas from conversations. 

It is tempting to run with the first idea.  I call this the curse of the first idea.  Often a powerful person will close down conversations early and this can mean there is little commitment and the best ideas are missed.

It can be difficult to have second ideas.  So, for example, a community cafe might be a good first idea.  How you market it and bring in customers are second ideas and can be more difficult. 

Taking time at early first idea stages allows time to scope the work.  What is it we’re actually trying to achieve?  If the first idea is a cafe, why is a cafe a good idea?  Is it to make money?  To promote other areas of work?  To support and befriend people?  Whatever the scope of the work, is the cafe actually the best way to achieve these wider goals? 

Once there is a clear first idea, papers can be written and circulated to wider groups of people.  It may be necessary to redraft several times in the light of comments. 

Implementation

Operations require a different skill set to strategic thinking.  Note the best person to manage the work is not necessarily the person who wrote the plan.  Getting things done is not the same as planning the things to be done.

A good operational manager is good at delegating.  Delegation is not the same as ordering people about.  At its best it is about working hard with people to identify the best person for each task.  Also, it is not always top down.  It is possible to delegate up and sideways!

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[1] http://chrississons.typepad.co.uk/exploring_ecumenism/2009/02/a-taxonomy-of-conversations.html