iPioneer: Mark Johnson's Blog

Happiness: Epistemological Alchemy

In general, it's good to keep your metaphysics and epistemology in line; that is, what's going on inside your head should match what's going on in the world. Let's translate the old adage, "Ignorance is bliss," into philosophical terms: if happiness is solely an epistemological issue, then maybe it's best not to seek out certain kinds of knowledge. Is that even possible?

This all stems from an argument I had with a friend today. Imagine a situation like this: I have a bottle of wine in my cellar from '93. I could open it now and it might be fabulous. However, I don't know anything about '93 or the winery, so it might also taste like balsamic vinegar. An idealized conversation:

MNJ: Clearly it's best to leave the bottle corked, as then you won't have to deal with the disappointment of bad wine.
Friend: If you open it now, Eminjay, the worst case is that it's bad and you have to pour the bottle, which is the same outcome of not opening it at all. At least when opened, there is the possibility an enjoyable bottle!
MNJ: The bitter taste might be awful.
Friend: But brief, Eminjay.
MNJ: The mere possibility of the '93 being good is better than the reality of it being bad, even if the wine's not drunk in either case.
Friend: That's obviously wrong.
MNJ: Leave a kiss but in the cup and I'll not drink the wine.

I'll explore three possible frameworks to make "Ignorance is bliss," a viable life philosophy. And I'll fail.

Actually, there is one trivial case: if you really have no idea that things are bad, then you will certainly be happy. Perhaps you're enjoying food at your favorite restaurant, enjoying dinner with a hot date.  Should you eat a spinach salad with E. Coli, then you'll remain happy until you (and likely your date) discover this unfortunate fact, when the metaphysical havoc of your GI track takes hold.  Black and white.  And brown.

Now, let's say that you're a Creationist and you're faced with a mountain of evidence that evolution is true. The evidence points to a metaphysical reality that doesn't suit you well. There are a couple of ways to deal with this problem. The first and weakest idea would be to believe any evidence that supports Creationism and deny any evidence that does not. Instead of being based on ignorance, bliss derived from said method is simply stupid. This may work for some, but one wonders what acrobatics their brains must dance in order to keep reality so separate from fantasy. Especially for issues more difficult to avoid than evolution (e.g. "My wife still loves me"), denial is not viable.

Another tactic might be to ignore as much of that evidence as possible: turn off the TV when you hear something contradictory, read good Creationist magazines, go to a Creationist school, and surround yourself with people who have similar view. This seems completely unsatisfactory. In denying yourself access to certain kinds of knowledge, you are acknowledging that it might be the case that evolution is true. That implicit assumption of possibility ruins happiness for you: though maintain ignorance of direct evidence, you do have some knowledge about evolution, namely that you know that some evidence exists, even if you aren't privy to the details. You don't know how strong (in this case) or how weak (which could be the case in many other situations) the evidence actually is. By refusing to hear evidence, you implicitly give the evidence value, no matter what the actual outcome is. This can't be called happiness, since you will live in constant fear of happening upon some unsettling fact.

Another, very versatile, idea would be to assume that Creationism is true, evidence be damned. Then, rework your framework so that facts that support evolution actually support your revised theory of Creationism. This methodology has the advantage of being very flexible: even new evidence can be adapted into the new theory. However, even this will fail at some point. Once there is a preponderance of evidence, the only way to work Creationism into reality would be to change your framework so drastically that other parts of your happiness completely break. For example, if you're a scientist, you might be stuck with the choice of denying the scientific method in general, which would likely cost your job, or denying the scientific method for Creationism only, which brings you to the same denial in our first case.

I've explored three ways to deal with the existence of evidence: deny it, ignore it, or change your framework so that it becomes truth. Bottom line: I don't know and I'm totally unhappy.

On Privacy

OK, this isn't a shocking realization.  I've always been a little odd.  Even though I do normal things, like prefer Coke over Pepsi, drive a German auto, and work out an average of 3.34 times per week; I also have ambitions to be the Pope, I love Alcoa, and Worship music gets me hot.

In a creative profession like product management, "weird" translates into "creative" which can yield non-boring results.  Unfortunately, if it isn't solving some kind of consumer issue, then it's probably not worthwhile.  For example, though I'd love to receive my Cato Daily Dispatch in Latin, I doubt it would be a profitable venture for the Cato Institute.  The old Cathedral and the Bazaar adage to scratch your own itch doesn't work so well in product management, unless you and your target market have all been stung by the same, pesky mosquito.  Reminder to self: always check assumptions about the consumer with a consumer other than me.

My weirdness surfaced on Friday during a focus group in which we were talking about our photo taking/sharing habits.  Out of the group of 25-35 year olds, I was the lone person who shares every photo, no matter how inappropriate, boring, offensive, or personal.  Most people seemed to have nebulous worries about sharing their life online.  Worried about their mother seeing bad pictures.  About something offensive surfacing before an interview.  Or just worried about "them" out "there" who might do "something" "bad."

I've heard some real concerns from people about not wanting to put pictures of their children online, but even these I question.  We live in a world in which we can't choose our privacy levels.  There are yearbooks for Sally Jo's kindergarden class.  There are phone books, public streets, cameras, K-12 homepages, and *shudder* the Internet.  Let's face it people: we're not going to be able to keep our lives or the lives of our children [entirely] private anymore.  Any privacy you enjoy today is going to slip away as information exchange friction decreases.  And, as far as I can tell, it's on a hockey stick curve towards zero.

What I find most interesting is that people aren't worried about putting the juicy, dirty details of their life online, they're worried about the mundane crap.  For example, there are two people in the world who care about my pictures from Veteran's Day weekend last year. What's the problem in sharing the pictures with the world?

My guess is that most people are terrified of a world in which the personal/private boundary has been eliminated.  Everyone has their fetishes, quirks, kinks, embarrassments, humbling moments, mistakes, gaffes, misunderstandings, goofs, etc.  Heck, there are plenty of things about me that I don't want to share with a wider audience, but usually because of the social pressures.  If everyone were to share more of their private side, things that once seemed weird in isolation would suddenly become commonplace and no big deal.  Urban legends like hairy palms are dispelled when you realize that every boy in 8th grade isn't wearing gloves to conceal his furry phalanges.

Lest you think that I share everything about myself, I can assure you that I go through a rigorous process of censorship.  I try to be as liberal as possible, given the current framework of the world.  If we, the technologically enlightened, don't push the envelope, who will?

So, blog away!  Flickr away!  Share everything that you're comfortable with and others will follow naturally.  Maybe.

Technorati tags: privacy  markisweird 

SMS Conversations on the Dance Floor

Sometimes my mind focuses and wanders while I'm dancing and odd things pop out.  Friday night, I SMSed myslf brief thoughts that were representative of my thinking at that time.  Oh, and I got 2 SMSes from a friend, who joined the conversation.  It's high-time that I sat down with some hardcore philosophy to exercize this brain of mine!

Art as metaphor.  Inaccurate description, when accurate means scientific precision: attachment to ideal forms.

Art itself is some kind of reflection of reality, so I began to wonder that if you take body as medium    , person as artist, and music as representation (seeing as I was hangin' out on a dance floor), you get three states: those who try to reflect the ideal, those who mimic and falter under the pressure, and those who interpret the most broadly.  Are they discrete units or a continuum? What's the underlying variable?

From a friend: 'Ideal forms: the inverted world.  Intersubjective agreements are all we have.'
My response: Inverted forms are nonsense.  That doesn't even help towards agreement.

If ideal forms represent "perfect sense" of the world, then the inversion (that is, at least one version of inversion) is just perfect unsense or perhaps imperfect sense.  Either way, the inverted world doesn't seem to help us towards intersubjective agreement.  Isn't intersubjective agreement a fallback as nebulous and unarguable as "the truth"?

From a friend: I know.  I'm taking Nietzsche's stance.
My response: Inversion need not be a flip of reality, but rather a flip of the question that gave rise to reality.

Nietzsche doesn't fall back.  His inversion is to turn the questions that give rise to bad concepts on their head.  Nietzsche asks us to unthink.  Intersubject agreement becomes too, convenient to employ in the world, but not an explanation.

Metaphor as shorthand

What's the utility of metaphor?  To describe the world accurately and richly; but succinctly.  And, every level is shorthand for the level below it: how accurate do you want to be?  Finite beings will always leave out something.  The line between science and metaphor (at least, as we use it colloquially) is arbitrary.

Metaphor: the data set is one but the program is large.

If science aims to describe the world in great details, then the set of data you gain is large, but the rules governning that are small.  On the other side of the scale, metaphorical phrases need a great deal of interpretation to be understood properly (more data is often extraneous to the point).

Kant vs. Rand: The Most Generous Reading

Rand hated Kant because she believed that he, almost single-handedly, was the cause of reason's erosion in the 20th century.  I always found it odd that Ms. Rand didn't seem to understand Kant and referred to those who wrote about him, instead of referencing him directly.  I didn't have the mental wherewithal to stomach Kant and a cursory understanding of his basic ideas seemed to confirm Rand's suspicion. Ms. Rand's prejudice rubbed off on me.