Midgets on my shoulders

I have previously mentioned my failed search for a 'thinking master', a reliable guide to approaching and assessing the most important intellectual and moral questions. Perhaps it was a good thing that I never found one; perhaps even seeking such a guide is a sign of intellectual indolence. Certainly, George Steiner's study of maîtres à penser and their disciples which I cited in that previous post suggests that the vast majority of such relationships end in disillusionment. This is not to say, however, that we are not utterly dependent on what others have discovered and thought and said.

Isaac Newton wrote that he had seen further than other men only because he had stood on the shoulders of giants. Steven E. Landsburg cites an anonymous variation on this saying: "If I have not seen as far as other men, it is because midgets are standing on my shoulders."

Landsburg may or may not be an intellectual giant but - to his great credit - he is not afraid of addressing the big questions, and often brings to bear upon them a refreshing candor and directness coupled with ruthlessly rigorous logic (usually).* I have a few reservations about some of his positions, but I believe his general approach is well grounded.

One of his most interesting ideas relates to what people really believe. Wisely, he is very skeptical about what people say in response to survey questions, and he thinks that much of today's anti-religious literature (including Richard Dawkins's efforts) is based on the false premise that people really believe what they say (and perhaps think!) they believe.

According to Landsburg, "Dawkins undercuts his own position when he points to statistics showing that ... there is no correlation between religiosity and crime. His point is that religion does not make people better, but he misses the larger point that if religion doesn't make people better, then most people must not be terribly religious."

Different parts of our brain can in effect 'believe' different, incompatible things, and it's often only when circumstances require or force a single choice that the inconsistency is noted and resolved - one way or the other. So most purportedly religious people only believe in the tenets of their religion when there is no real cost to them. They believe that they believe, but it doesn't matter all that much so their beliefs are what Landsburg calls "disposable".

"Suppose you could take a devoutly religious person," he writes, "ask him, 'Are the tenets of your religion true?' and somehow convince him that the life of his child depends on getting the answer right. I'm guessing that nine times out of ten, you'd find yourself confronting a born-again infidel. The only reason that rarely happens is that there's rarely an occasion when getting the right answer actually matters."


*See The big questions: tackling the problems of philosophy with ideas from mathematics, economics and physics (Pocket Books, 2010). See also http://www.the-big-questions.com/

Lessons of the masters

The French expression, maître à penser, has no English equivalent. A 'thinking master' is what I have always wanted and never found. Perhaps wisdom is unstable and only exists fleetingly in an action here or a thought there. A strange thing, the desire for discipleship (to be a disciple - not to have them). It may reveal deep psychological flaws, but I think not. In my case it reflects simply a combination of a desire to know and a certain laziness. (Why should I do all the work?)

Some years ago, George Steiner gave a series of lectures (which became a book*) on the topic of masters and disciples. Most of the relationships he describes end badly, by the way, not unlike love affairs.

The lessons I have learned from my hoped-for masters have pretty well all been negative, and the thinkers I have flirted with have all been seriously flawed in one way or another. Arts and humanities-oriented writers and scholars are too often ignorant or (worse) scornful of scientific knowledge. Scientists and mathematicians, on the other hand, are often amazingly uncritical in non-scientific areas, and especially in social and political contexts.

It is not surprising, perhaps, that politics works as it does, catering to the lowest common denominator, that legislators lack vision or that government debt is spiraling out of control in so many jurisdictions.

But I continue to be amazed when intellectuals - as happens all too often - align themselves with religions or discredited ideologies - the desire for discipleship trumping the desire for truth.



* Lessons of the masters (Harvard University Press, 2003).

Fake wisdom

"Half the time," writes Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book The black swan*, " I am hyperconservative in the conduct of my own affairs; the other half I am hyperaggressive. This may not seem exceptional, except that my conservatism applies to what others call risk taking, and my aggressivenes to areas where others recommend caution."

For example, on the stock market, 'safe' blue chip stocks present invisible (and potentially terminal) risks, whereas speculative stocks "offer no surprises since you know how volatile they are and can limit your downside by investing smaller amounts."

There might be some wisdom in this - it is the theme of the book. But this, which follows on the next page, is, I think, more dubious.

"I once received [a] piece of life-changing advice, which ... I find applicable, wise, and empirically valid. My classmate in Paris, the novelist-to-be Jean-Olivier Tedesco, pronounced, as he prevented me from running to catch a subway, "I don't run for trains."

Taleb continues: "I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule, and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that's what you are seeking."

The last sentence is good. It makes sense. But my advice on the other matter (for what it's worth) is to run fast and catch the train. (And, more generally, to be wary of anyone who speaks in parables.)


*The black swan: the impact of the highly improbable. (Penguin 2008). Quotations from pages 295, 296 and 297.