Theism, Empiricism, and Human Variation

• Psychological Adaptations: A Model and It's Relevance by James Brody, 4/24/97
  • Lorenz, Dawkins, and Ed Wilson by James Brody, 4/25/98
    
    

Jim raises a lot of interesting points, for which Dawkins, Lorenz and Wilson provide good backdrops. Each of these persons has (had) special talents, and probably special blind spots.

I did not meet Lorenz until his later days (1960s) and indeed was struck by his confidence, charisma, and intuitive plus story telling skills. Dawkins is more shy, as is Wilson. But each has great confidence. I have talked to, and argued with, each. Fun!

It is hard, for any of us, to try to see the world through the eyes/minds of others. Theism versus empiricism is a classic example: "How could those people not understand that.... ". My bias that we each dance to our own tunes with nature, and thus our extrapolations from nature. Inside and outside worlds form a unity that is hard to disintangle, perhaps at bottom line IMPOSSIBLE to disintangle (my personal religion of the moment). Science gives us powerful tools for analysis, indeed the best ones we've got. It has trouble touching on such things as explanation for subjective states - in the sense of "why does the rose SMELL NICE" - cf Crick's ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS for a good discussion. Theism is subjective states personified through reference to (in my view) invented external power(s). We are each victims of the fact that separating inner and outer worlds is tricky, if indeed possible at all.

When I train students to see things the way I do (objectively, of course), I have changed their internal maps to match mine more closely. Maybe I have given them a better grasp on "reality"; maybe I have brain-washed them to be less embarassing to me and to the establishment I represent. As James Keys has warned, I may have "qualified" these students in the two opposite senses of the term! When they, or I, speak outside of our specialized mental maps troubles in communication with those who have different maps arise. William James once told this story: Take a room of 100 people. One sees a ghost. The others do not. The one person is carted away in a white jacket. Take another room of 100 people. One cannot see the realities of the others ("ghosts"). Guess who gets carted away. Gotta be in the right crowd!

More than that, gotta realize there are different crowds, made up of different sort of minds. The challenge is to see how these differences match up with one another.

Many, like me, find the "mechanical" explanations of the universe much more appealing than other stories. Our facts seem to fit these mechanical explanations. They work. Obviously we may be fooled, but science is a study of what works and what does not. We obviously need to trust our measuring instruments to come to a conclusion on what works and what does not. We need to trust, but also examine, our starting points (assumptions). And so on.

To me science is the most rigorously honest human enterprise I know of. We set ourselves up to be wrong. Can't lie, cause we will get caught. But we normally do this narrow science stuff only within larger frameworks that we accept with rare scrutiny. Other frameworks are just dismissed, because they are so obviously stupid! Maybe.

Think about these fundamental "parodoxes": Nature is continuous . .. Nature is discontinuous. Nature shows stabilities...and is always changing. Inside worlds are distinct from outside worlds..but intimately linked. "Pieces" of nature are interconnected, and even (one of my favorites) "interdependent". Reductionism works, but higher order constraints in our lower order behavior are seen all the time (e.g. motor equivalence - different movements towards invariant goal).

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Lorenz once bragged that he had never published a graph. He trusted his intuitions, and won a Nobel prize in the process. He used metaphors, such as flush toilet models of motivation, not because they were "true" but because they offered a testable framework for future thought. He speculated, correctly, about the importance of genetic constraints in adaptive action, the importance of central motor programs, and so on. His work is a good lesson in how an insightful and broad observer of nature can add to what others see only from the narrow confines of the science lab. Clinicians are Lorenzian in this sense. They observe what falls outside of the norm, which can tell us about the norm.

Dawkins is a quantitative magician (unlike Lorenz), and a master of logical argument. One has to try to catch him on assumptions and overgeneralizations. Wilson is one of the supreme naturalists of our time. He knows nature, and can pursue this knowledge from a variety of stances.

Maybe there is a lesson for each of us here. While we can never really get "inside" of the heads of others, we can, intentionally, try taking different stances "within our own heads". "What if a operate on the assumption THAT..., THEN what do I see?". "What if I simply describe nature from this as opposed to that perspective, what happens to my world view?". And so on.

My fear in all of this is that we can get overly comfortable with our own favorite stances, and then blast away at the stupidity of others who do not happen to share our stances. Dumb. Arrogant, in fact. Idiotic, in my "humble" opinion. The other extreme, equally muddling, is to take the "any stance is equal" approach. We lose all constraint, and thus all hopes to actually learn something. So we need to look at our constraints as we fill our knowledge buckets. Not easy.

Attempts to apply evolutionary thought to human actions is exciting in part because it involves bringing in constraints developed in other realms, such as beetle colors. Darwin got us started; the social scientists nearly stopped us. Some still try to stall the works.

Try this on for size (with a social science colleague or humanist):

"Development is a derivative of evolutionary processes, and learning itself is but a derivative of developmental processes".

I think this is true, but its a hard sell. Otherwise, why would learning theory today still ignore developmental biology and genetics? There is lip service paid, but that's about it.

I think the Lorenz's, Dawkins, Wilsons of the world are each working us toward a deeper, naturalistic, view of the human world. Its good to understand our constraints, even though we are (natch) constrained in this understanding. Its good to push the constraints. Its good to see how others have pushed the constraints. Its good to see where we agree and disagree, and then try to examine that. And so on.

Psychology today is being re-vitalized. When I was a graduate student I escaped into ethology for I wanted a bit of old fashioned nature (biology) in addition to nurture. Now we have psychologists looking at brains and thinking about evolution. Our framework is broadening. The next challenge is to be critical in thinking about these new insights, because many remain shakey. Its easy to get overly excited about newly discovered "truths", and then to throw all facts into the new waste can. Enthusiasms are great, especially if they are tempered.

So, I like comparisons such as those Jim offers. Its good to recognize that the Dawkins, Wilsons, Lorenzes have similar but also distinctive views. Its good to know that those outside of science DO have views that they hold onto with dear life. Its good to know that each of us wants some sense of security that we somehow KNOW, even when we probably know much less than we like to claim. Its good to expand and also be critical.

Its not good to preach....so, I'll shut up!

John

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