Apr
23
What Assumptions Do You Take for Granted?
Filed Under Featured, Mindful Ideas | 1 Comment
Knowledge and learning are funny things. Really funny. For example, what most young people know by the time they are in the sixth grade is equivalent to what some of the smartest people in the world knew two thousand years ago (depending on what part of the world you are looking at). A high school honors student today knows far more than most adults did during the American Revolution. Most of what we “know” is based on the notion that some of the ideas that other people have already figured out, are true. If we did not build off our predecessors, it’d be pretty tough to know much of anything. We rely on a wealth of assumptions that help us to build up our own knowledge base. But is everything we assume to be true really true?
I am not suggesting that you go out and test every theory that you have ever been taught, just to be sure. There is most likely something to the law of gravity, for example, and dropping a bunch of crap out your window won’t add anything to your own knowledge base, while it will piss off your neighbors a great deal. Not all assumptions are as harmless as this one, however, and it may be worth it to consider which ones you are taking for granted.
For example, most of us generally assume that “experts” know what they’re talking about. That’s why when I go to the doctor and he tells me “take these pills”, I take the pills. It seems reasonable to assume that doctors are in the business of helping people, and that following their advice is generally a good idea.
On the other hand, if you go to the doctor for some sort of cold or flu, chances are they have no idea what’s actually wrong with you, not specifically at least. They give you a bunch of generic advice like “get some rest” or “extra fluids” and then they write you a prescription for antibiotics. The purpose of this is threefold. First, you feel like they are really doing something and not just taking your money in exchange for advice that you could’ve gotten from your mom. Second, they are initiating a placebo effect. You take pills and, because you believe that the doctor knows what’s going on, you begin to recover. The pills aren’t doing anything, but your brain doesn’t know that. Finally, the doctor is covering his or her butt just in case you actually do have some terrible infection. Chances are it’s a virus, most colds are, but they avoid an angry phone call and a potential lawsuit.
This all seems relatively harmless. However, we now live in a world where a shocking number of formerly curable illnesses are “antibiotic resistant.” According to medical lore, this should never have happened. Penicillin, which now cures almost nothing, was touted as the ultimate weapon against tiny germs, but because doctors have so frivolously prescribed antibiotics, we now have a generation of super-germs to contend with. Our assumption that the doctors know what they’re doing has led us to highly unsatisfactory consequences.
For the record, I am not saying that you should stop taking antibiotics or avoid listening to your doctor. My point is that we make a lot of assumptions about all sorts of things that we think we know, and it’s a good idea to question those once in a while. If, for example, you resist the urge to blindly follow medical advice and ask for an explanation of your particular care regiment, you are then in a position to make better choices for yourself. You may still choose to take antibiotics, even though you probably don’t need them. But at least you know what you are really doing, rather than letting a bunch of unchallenged assumptions run the show.
Apr
22
What Does Determinism Mean to You?
Filed Under Mindful Ideas | 1 Comment
Determinism, a currently popular theory of metaphysics, has rather interesting implications for everyday decision-making. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that focuses on various issues about how the world works, such as what kind of stuff it’s made of, what causes events to occur, and what identity consists of. Determinism is a theory of this variety.
More specifically, determinism is the notion that everything that happens is determined by everything that happened before it. For example, the car crashed into the telephone pole because the driver slipped on an ice patch, which was due to their lack of attentiveness behind the wheel, caused in this case by their conversation on a cell phone with their son, who they got into a fight with this morning, and on and on until the beginning of time. So if determinism is true, everything that happens to you is somewhat inevitable because it was caused by a bunch of stuff that happened before you were around, and which you have no control over.
Determinism for things like nuclear particles and other inert materials seems relatively benign. But for humans, this theory has unbelievable implications. If determinism were true, human free will is something of an illusion. Our choices, while they appear to be meaningful, are in fact the only choices that we could have made, and they make no difference in any significant way, because whatever we choose to do is as pre-established as the act of choosing itself.
Most philosophers, even those who support some notion of determinism, agree that human free will is not an illusion. Our choices do make a difference, and they are not preordained by the molecules bouncing around in our brains. Softer versions of determinism leave room for some degree of human freedom, though they do maintain that a lot of what happens in our lives is the result of things that happened long ago and far away from where we are now.
What are we to make of determinism from the standpoint of our own normal decision making habits? There are a couple of valuable lessons to consider. First, the idea that humans are entirely self-made simply cannot be true if determinism is even vaguely true. This is an important realization, I think, because it reminds us that we are, to some extent, a product of our environment and our upbringing. Violent people have been “determined” to be violent, liars are “determined” as liars. This does not mean that unethical people are off the hook, but it does help with regard to perspective. It is certainly important for both our normal interaction with others and our notions of justice to remember that some aspects of who other people are was not really decided by them.
The other important point to take from the determinists is that, despite any deterministic elements in our own world, our choices do make a difference. Every time we choose to lie, steal, or be violent, we are choosing to let determined factors control us. When we choose otherwise, we are taking control of our own lives and making an effort to overcome the determined aspects of our selves. We may not always win the battle, but we always have a say, and reshaping ourselves in the image we choose often means breaking free of our determined traits and behaviors, embracing a higher vision of ourselves in the process.