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Edge has a variant of the hoary old year-end custom of evaluation of the old year and prognostication about the coming year:
The Edge Annual Question — 2007
WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT? WHY?
As an activity, as a state of mind, science is fundamentally optimistic. Science figures out how things work and thus can make them work better. Much of the news is either good news or news that can be made good, thanks to ever deepening knowledge and ever more efficient and powerful tools and techniques. Science, on its frontiers, poses more and ever better questions, ever better put.Brockman's stable of thinking/writing/talking heads each take a whack at the question. I checked out a few, and may read more later, but my first impulse was to scrutinize the question: What is optimism anyway?
A dictionary definition such as this one is that optimism is "a general disposition to expect the best in all things ". The word seems to have had slightly different meanings and usages over time. In the 18th century these great expectations were predicated on a doctrine that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds, in which the creator accomplishes the most good at the cost of the least evil.
The creator influences a smaller percentage of humans now, even though his flock may be larger in absolute terms since population has increased. But the sentiment persists with a twist noted by Kevin Kelley in his response to the Edge question.
to remedy currently perceived ills, we keep creating new good things.We are the creators in Kelley's formulation, but the notion is otherwise much the same. Given Kelley's previous work there is a greater difference that can be unpacked from his answer. "We" will not work this progress by debating and persuading one another to do this or that, and act as a group. We will each muddle through as best we can, poaching from another to be sure but maintaining independence. Some will blunder as well as muddle, and so produce the modern equivalent of evil, contributing to the 49+% of death and destruction. Others will do better and be part of the 51-% that creates more than it destroys.Some of these new solutions are often worse than the problems they were supposed to solve, but it is my observation that on average and over time, the new solutions slightly outweigh the new problems. As Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi once said, "There is more good than evil in the world—but not by much." Unexpectedly "not much" is all that is needed when you have the power of compound interest at work—which is what culture is. The world needs to be only 1% (or even one-tenth of 1 %) better day in and day out to accumulate civilization. As long as we create 1% more than we destroy each year, we have progress. This delta is so small that it is almost imperceptible, particularly in the face of the 49% of death and destruction that is in our face. Yet this tiny, slim, and shy differential generates progress.
This is largely faith since it is very, very difficult if not impossible to predict. But even someone temperamentally pessimistic can find things to be optimistic about. Oliver Morton answers Brockman's question this way:
I am not, by default, optimistic; it is an attribute that I take on as a duty more than out of temperament. Left to myself I do not look out at the world and see a hopeful place – and did not do so even when the geopolitical state we are in was not so dreadful. But I have been convinced over the years that an outlook that gives play to hopefulness is by and large a better tool with which to help improve the future than the alternatives. You are more likely to find solutions if you believe they are there than not. The trick for those of us without the sunny state of mind naturally suited to such an outlook is to find objects for our optimism that make the duty feel less dutiful.I like that. Optimism is a mental tool that increases chances of success. It does not guarantee success, but it may make a difference and tip the scales toward Kelley's 51-%. Thus faith is demystified a bit and so made accessible to those who have neither the habit of faith nor a sunny disposition.
That's me. I'm more of a second law type:
Oddly, just after writing that I came across a line Neil Gaiman gave to his character Destruction in the Sandman comics: "Entropy and optimism: the twin forces that make the universe go round." Sounds about right.
Happy New Year to you too
o
Posted by: Oliver at January 3, 2007 01:32 AMThe phrase "the best of all possible worlds" was coined by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz.
Even in the 18th century Voltaire tore into the philosophy with the book Candide.
But yes there was more optimism for the future then.
I'm an optimist because pessimism always provides a lose/lose situation. For instance take climate change as an extreme example. If the pessimists are right then the world collapses and being right will not improve things. If they are wrong
and civilization continues they will look plain silly in the history books.
Hi Etzel,
Perhaps I should have credited Leibniz rather than just tossing out his ideas as if they were commonplace pub chatter in the day. At the time it seemed a distraction from the point I was driving to, but with hindsight it might have made a better post to include it, especially if I had provided a link to a discussion of the idea.
I should also say that it's not only the second law, but the first and third as well.
A related joke with a political slant is that capitalism is based on the assumption that you can win, socialism is based on the assumption that you can break even, and mysticism is based on the assumption that you can quit the game.
Posted by: back40 at January 4, 2007 03:42 PMHi Mr. Jones,
I hope re-replying isn't a faux pas, but I enjoy reading your posts.
I only dropped names because they were contradictory and pertinent.
The debate is (has always been) amongst a few.
No, no fox paws. It's a conversation. These dashed off posts can usually benefit from editing, both to correct errors and to improve clarity. A conversation following the post can serve that purpose. It just doesn't happen often here for some reason. I'm doing something wrong.
Posted by: back40 at January 5, 2007 12:13 PM
Wow. I should be commenting more often, if for no other reason than to contradict the last sentence in your comment above. The only thing you're doing "wrong" is making rational arguments, rather than sloganeering.
Being an ex-historian's apprentice (ABD after more than a decade of academia) who specialized in environmental history, I can say I only wish that more individuals who were working in your (multitude of) interest areas were to try and engage with your (unusally sound) logic.
Obtopic: I grew up with that rendition of the three laws (what comes of having a parent who was at one point a science teacher)...and am pretty much a pragmatist with occassional lapses into realism. Specifically, win, lose or draw, it's still the only game in town...
M
who will try and comment more often, rather than just be a free rider on your thought trains
Thankyou Mr.Jones,
I shall comment more often. (As long you forgive my innate irreverence!)
Posted by: Etzel at January 5, 2007 01:09 PM...and sometimes it's hard to get the feedback in before the posts go behind the (presumably spam-blocking) no-comment wall.
for instance, I meant to ask, on the recent 'world class' post: so are you even against market-based mechanisms for reducing (or maybe just 'managing' at this point) greenhouse emissions? the conflict with Montreal goals seems like a relatively minor implementation issue within a generally sensible policy, certainly a better alternative than other possible approaches (renewables mandates, crash 'Apollo' tech development, carbon tax, etc) that are kicking around. I'm guessing you're opposed to any sort of policy on greenhouse emissions at this point - which might be a rational enough position, as you freq argue - but in the light of the currently-unavoidable pressure for such a policy, I feel like the 'right' kind (global in scope, economically efficient) of approaches merit support, no?
and, happy New Year!
Posted by: john at January 5, 2007 01:14 PM