Unreal:  Students Justifying Beliefs

    “Argument” to me is essentially just reasoning, because when I write out an argument I'm writing out my own thinking on an issue.  I participated in a debate in the sixth grade where the instructor required us to argue the opposite of our convictions.  I no longer admire people who do that.

I see the pedagogical utility of the exercise: among other things, you learn to see the logic of other perspectives. But as an adult nothing annoys me more than people who take positions they don't actually find credible themselves.

 

    Sometimes people think they believe something, while their behavior indicates otherwise.  This happens to all of us.  But when I find myself arguing opposite to the perspective I was arguing ten minutes before, I take that as a sign I've become concerned with winning, or with showing off my racionating skills, with something other than Truth.

 

I often raise objections to my own convictions. Isn't this the healthiest attitude?  Rarely am I on more dangerous ground than when I've made up my mind.  Playing the devil’s advocate for purposes of sharpening your thinking and attaining Truth, however, is not the same as building castles in the air.

 

    So now my reasoning (including feelings) is my writing.  I want the main difference between my reasoning and my writing to be that my writing is more explicit, organized and rigorous, because I've put more time into it. 

In practice it's hard to separate working my explicit beliefs out on a keyboard from my rhetorical presentation.  It's just that working out the genuine beliefs takes precedence for me over rhetorical considerations.

* * * *

Our assumptions cause weak arguments and many disagreements. Intellectual honesty, however, demands we acknowledge that we can’t get off the ground without making assumptions.

Too many people don't get this. They treat assumptions - even conclusions - as facts.  The real question is, which assumptions does the evidence best support? Which assumptions about the evidence does other evidence best support?

The question is not: How do I remain consistent?

The question is not: How does this sound?

The question is not: How do I defend this position?

     I schematize ideal reasoning as a movement from perceived evidence ---> via perceived implications  ----> to a conclusion/judgment.  The rest of the thousands of other considerations that an in depth look at rigorous reasoning will reveal only buttress, question, qualify, or otherwise elaborate points along this progression.   Any inquiry genuinely aimed at uncovering knowledge has the overall shape of a movement from evidence to judgments about the implications of that evidence. You look, listen, sense, then you decide on the significance of what you've perceived.

    Yet students of writing, rhetoric and argument are taught to craft a strong thesis first and foremost.  The claim comes first.  Their job, they're told, is to justify that judgment with evidence. 

  Schools have been teaching this way for decades. (For centuries? For the millennia since Aristotle?). Now everyone on earth goes around making bald assertions and then defending them.  Just look at the Internet or the Congress.  I do the same thing. I'm doing it now.

 Is it any wonder the world is so screwed up?

    I'm not saying this is all bad.  Following an up-front assertion with evidence exemplifies one rhetorical approach to conveying your personal Truth.  Monotony bores, so constantly laying out the evidence, followed by its implications, followed by a judgment, would make for boring writing.

 

Writers may present the findings of their reasoning in a variety of ways.  And they may reason as they see fit. In fact the possibilities are endless.

But why are they reasoning? To convince, as I'm doing now? Or to inquire and learn, as students should spend most of their time doing?

Writing doesn't just help us to persuade. Writing helps us to learn, by articulating our thinking and getting it out there as an object. Once it's an object, we can look at our thinking from some distance. We can manipulate it to our liking.

By writing, we can find out what we think.

* * * *

     Unfortunately, by the nature of our brains evidence usually must first pass the gatekeeper of our existing beliefs before we even notice it, let alone accept it.  That shouldn't stop us from trying to keep an open gate, so we can follow where the facts lead us. Argument, fundamentally, is not about justifying judgments. It's about reaching judgments.  An argument is a line of reasoning.

In the real world our reasoning jumps around.  Our trains of thought visit and revisit all sorts of stops on the tracks of argument.  But on our vacation journey to the sunny paradise of justified conclusions, we should start from the evidence station. And we should return to that station often.

 

Unreal:  Prison Healthcare

          The courts have ruled that the 8th amendment guarantees those incarcerated for committing crimes access to adequate health care. In fact, many prisoners lack this access. This means that prisoners who should be paying their way in prison are prevented by illness from working. Prisoners with untreated mental illnesses and addictions endanger the communities they return to, their families, and corrections officers.

          Chronic illnesses worsen when left untreated. But the cost of healthcare both in and out of prison threatens taxpayers. To fix prison healthcare we need to explore the effects of current policies on all involved.

The Prison Healthcare Context

Rehabilitation or Recidivism

          According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics over 95% of those incarcerated in the U.S. will eventually be released into their communities. In fact annual releases now outnumber admissions.  Thus it is in our interests to rehabilitate those who commit crimes.

          According to Columbia University 85% of prisoners have substance abuse issues. For many, their addictions led to their crimes in the first place. Untreated, these addicts don’t wait until they’re released from prison to return to drugs and crime; illegal substances are usually available inside. Thus many addicts continue abusing substances and committing crimes both inside and outside of prison walls as if they’d never been arrested. Prisons are becoming unmanageable for corrections officers, while society outside prison walls remains unsafe.

          About half of those incarcerated show symptoms of serious mental illness (National Institute of Mental Health). Most mentally ill prisoners don’t receive adequate psychiatric treatment . What’s more, the prison environment can worsen psychiatric symptoms. Untreated mental illness, like addiction, increases the likelihood of recidivism.

          When left untreated, both mental illnesses and addictions create a cycle of dysfunction in which children of prisoners grow up with addictions and mental illnesses, then turn to crime themselves.

          In short, society is punishing lawbreaking in a way that creates more lawbreaking.  Why should prisoners, corrections officers, families and society all suffer from the effects of treatable illnesses?

Dollars and Sense

          Aside from drugs and mental illnesses, over one third of U.S. prisoners suffer from some chronic disease or infection (Society of Correctional Physicians). Because chronic illnesses worsen without treatment, and are often only treated once prisoners get released, these illnesses end up costing society more than they would have were they treated in prison.

          Meanwhile, health care is consuming an increasing share of corrections budgets. Reasons for this include:

          • The aging prison population
          • Communicable diseases in the close confines of prisons
          • The prevalence of substance abuse and mental illness among prisoners
          • Challenges inherent in delivering healthcare to prisons, such as distance from
             hospitals

          Enrolling prisoners in health care plans, and ensuring more oversight and accountability could help lower costs. Releasing those too sick to pose a danger to society could also ease the financial burden. Telemedicine could lower costs. Allowing more volunteers, such as those from Narcotics Anonymous, into prisons to offer counseling would provide more care at a low cost.

          What else can be done to provide effective, low cost health care to prisoners? Don’t prisoners have this right? What can the stories of stakeholders teach us? How can we collaborate to solve this problem?

Unreal: “Reality” Shows

          It would seem to take a world of cojones to characterize as “Reality” a show in which pretentious people, paid for their performance, put in contrived situations, create drama for the camera. Actually it takes a world of self delusion and con games. Such is the reality of “reality shows.”

          Recreation, entertainment and play time by definition need not be limited to the real, the useful, the serious. So I see nothing wrong with watching such shows. But don't let the marketers kid you; actors by definition are professional phonies. These aren't documentaries, these are scripted dramas.

          Drama involves artificial conflict. This is true whether your spouse creates a public scene at your favorite restaurant over and extra fifty cents on the tip, or someone on Duck Dynasty, taking a jab at common decency, claims to base intolerance on “religious” beliefs.

          The word “religion” comes from the Latin, signifying “Unite again.” Unite with what? Unite with the Divine, with your neighbors, with all of existence. If anyone can point to any traditional world religion whose basic tenets don't include a call for spiritual connection – for love and compassion - please let me know.

          I've pointed out in previous posts that scientifically and spiritually we aren't really separate beings in the first place – in reality. All religion asks of us is to recognize reality and act accordingly.

          Actors like everyone else have every right – every legal right – to express their opinions. Entertainment companies have every right – every legal right - to broadcast these opinions. The public has every legal and moral right to ignore or follow, criticize or praise them. No one involved loses their status as Divine beings no matter their decisions.

          It's just that some of us aren't acting like the Divine beings we really are.

          Being nonjudgmental about dissenters from our personal truth doesn't come naturally to any of us. Loving our neighbors - or at least acting with common decency - takes hard work. We all need breaks. Winding down by escaping into idealized, funny, dramatic, adventurous, scripted – that is imaginary - worlds needs no justification.

          Calling such fantasy “reality,” on the other hand, doesn't justify substituting pretension for integrity. Calling these actors “down home, religious, and grounded” because they speak their “truth” and a lot of other phonies agree with them doesn't justify intolerance. It all justifies an apology.

          Entertainment, yes. Reality, no.

Unreal: Inorganic

          Are the living and the dead really different?

          We living creatures seem to have the ability to move “on our own.” Plants grow, animals walk or fly or swim or slither. People flap their lips. Wiggling, reproducing, seemingly self-interested cells comprise living organisms.

          The dead – rocks, chemicals, air, things – seem to just sit there unless some external force acts on them. Gravity pulls a rock, chemicals are combined, air is blown around. It's just inert stuff.

          Or is it?

          I feel the traditional biochemical distinction between organic and inorganic – between living and dead – diverts our eyes from deeper truths the way a poorly calibrated set of gun sights results in off-target shots. This has resulted in a wild west of ideology where bystanders with objective perspectives fall to the dust riddled with logic holes by dogmatic gunslingers aiming to bring the entire world into their mental courtrooms “dead or alive.”

          Henceforth I'm the new Sheriff in town. I'm going to bring the irresponsible and the dogmatic to justice. You can decide their fate in your own mental courtroom.

* * * *

          A single fact unites the living and the dead: energy.

          Scientists have shown that energy and matter are equivalent. One morphs into the other under many circumstances. Chemical reactions release or absorb energy, nuclear reactions do the same. Mechanical devices can convert one to the other as a byproduct, for instance via friction.

          Biological – living – processes convert energy and matter back and forth as well.

Albert Einstein formally announced the amount of potential energy in matter and the amount of matter energy can create in his famous equation Energy [E] equals Matter [M] times the speed of light [C] squared. Whether this equation will turn out to perfectly measure the amounts involved may never be known. But instead of haggling over the tenth decimal place, let's recognize the fact that energy and matter are just two forms of the same thing. Over a hundred years of data from physics, chemistry and engineering support this.

          Furthermore, this force of nature we call alternately energy or matter never goes out of existence. It changes forms, but lives on perpetually.

          You don't need to do something to matter to create energy from it. Experiments from physics and chemistry have demonstrated that “inert” matter in fact consists of particles/waves in constant motion. When you push against a rock, its energy fields push back. Meanwhile, billions of electrons in the rock swirl amongst its atoms. The rock is alive with energy.

          So are we. The thing is, the energy in us and the energy in matter are the same energy.

          Energy in our food “fuels” our muscles, our senses, our brains. This food ultimately comes from minerals in the soil and air reacting with sunlight. From this “inert” energy/matter we derive our life.

          A philosophical view called “Vitalism” contradicts my take on “things.” This view holds that some ineffable vital spirit inhabits the organic, while the inorganic lacks this spirit. As a key piece of evidence the Vitalists point to our present inability to explain the origin of life.

          Yet physicists and chemists inadvertently provide a much stronger piece of evidence against Vitalism: scientists simply can't tell you where life begins and inert matter ends. No existing definition of “life” gets around the fact that living and “dead” matter do the same thing.

          Chemists define “organic” substances as those containing both carbon and hydrogen. But carbon and hydrogen are “inorganic” chemicals. We can combine carbon and hydrogen in a lab. Is this creating life? Hardly.

          Biologists point to reproduction as an essential ingredient of all known life. But “reproducing” versus “non reproducing” matter-energy is a nonsense distinction. The matter and energy don't reproduce themselves. As the Conservation of Energy/Matter law teaches us, matter and energy only change forms. Nothing comes into or goes out of existence. Some chemicals may be grouped in one configuration today, in another tomorrow.

          In fact “inorganic” chemical reactions are self-reproducing too, so long as the necessary chemicals and energy remain available. Smoke goes on reproducing itself from firewood as long as the firewood lasts.

          How does this differ from animals, plants, or any other living organism reproducing their kind so long as food, water and air remain available?

          Both we and the rocks have a “will of our own.” Stub your toe on a rock and you'll see what I mean.  The rock doesn't appear to have consciousness, but neither do some people I've met.

*  *  *  *

          Nonetheless I agree with Vitalism in certain respects.

          A Spirit does inhabit us. We do have souls. But we share this Spirit with all of existence.

          At present Spirit appears to manifest as energy/matter. I'm almost certain this won't be able to explain everything. For example how this energy-matter-unity gives rise to my subjective experience, my “mind,” I don't know. I doubt anyone ever will (I'd love to be wrong on this).

          I've come to understand that I don't and won't completely understand the world beyond my perceptions of it. Humans don't have a God's eye view. Mysteries will always remain, and I choose to call some of these mysteries God.

          But as I indicated in my last post, no properly analyzed facts show us to be separate from the universe or from each other. A Separatist view relies on unexamined appearances.

          So the next time you see an ugly, “dead,” unmoving patch of dirt, ask yourself whether you can't commune with it. You might just come away enriched with Divine Spirit.

Unreal: Conflicts of Interest

          We are all connected. We literally aren't separate people.

          If you look closely at your skin, the membrane “separating” you from the rest of the world, you'll see it is more like a cloud than a seal.  Could you look through a powerful microscope such as an electron microscope, you would see molecules and atoms of yourself shooting off in all directions by the billions.  At the same time, elements of the external world are being sucked through your skin continuously.   If I were sitting across the room from you, we'd be exchanging body parts by the thousands every second. 

           Billions of cells with thousands of other people's DNA are in your body as you read this.

          You inhale the air other people exhale even when you're separated by miles.   You eat other life forms – plants and animals – which then morph into you.

          A surprisingly large portion of your innards consists of other life forms.  “You” include all sorts of bacteria - “them.”  Are they just along for the ride, or are you just a vehicle which spreads them so they prosper?

          Neither and both.  You and they are mixed so completely that any distinction you draw between the two yous, between you and the rest of us, between you and the rest of existence, is on a fundamental level an arbitrary convention.

          Yes, we appear different.  We (mostly) have different faces, fingerprints, DNA, and dreams.  Our nervous systems perceive each other as separate.

          But those are just appearances.

          In both the scientific and the spiritual senses, we're all connected.   We're clouds of atoms and energy fields intermingling in fantastically complex combinations.  The atoms and energy  (Spirit?) change forms, but according to modern physics, none of it is lost.  One moment it's me, the next it's you.  It's always somewhere.  It's everywhere.

          We are One.  Eternally.

          So why is there so much conflict in the world?  Why are we constantly at odds with one another?  Why don't we respect our planet?  Why do we create so much misery?

          We bounce off each other, leaving physical dents and loose, damaged, disconnected spirits, because we don't see that our true interests dovetail with those of other people.

          It's in all our interests to live in harmony.  The robber who “gains” at our expense gains only the wrath of the police.  More importantly, he kills a piece of his own soul.  What goes around comes around.  You sow what you reap.  The thug who “enjoys” tormenting other people believes this is the way of the world, so he lives in constant fear that the same will happen to him.  People who pollute not only destroy nature for the rest of us, they deprive themselves of the spiritual nourishment of nature.

          Contrary to popular opinion, it is not the ultimate goal of Zen practitioners to “become one with the universe.”  Christians don't fundamentally want to commune with the Divine.  Muslims and Jews don't want to submit to Divine Law.  Hindus don't want to connect with past incarnations of themselves.

          Zen practitioners already are one with the universe.  They want to realize this fact fully and act accordingly.  

          God already dwells in Christians as in all people, whether they accept Him or not. Christians' need is to be mentally, spiritually, existentially present to His Presence, and act accordingly.

          Divine law already acts on Jews and Muslims as on all of us whether we realize it or not.  There's no escaping the laws Allah or Yahweh or whatever you want to call the Divine has created:  natural laws.  All Muslims, Jews and the rest of us need to do is recognize Divine sovereignty and act accordingly.

          Past creatures – people – have disintegrated.  Their elements were scattered.  Plants used them for nourishment, after which people used the plants for nourishment.  Other elements of the "departed" evaporated into the air, only to be breathed in by animals and people and made part of our bodies.  So Hindu reincarnation is real. We become worm food, the worms become bird food, the birds ...

          We are all connected.

          Let's recognize this fact, as the world's religions admonish us to do.

          Then let's act accordingly.   Easier said than done, but imagine the consequences.

     Welcome to The Unreal Department!  I'm Paul, your guide in the Land of Insanity.  Here I'll explore the issues, ideas, actions and trends that strike me as unreal - in every sense of the word:  Ideas so cool they're unreal.  Beliefs that don't correspond to reality.  Pseudo issues.  Craziness.  Illusions.  And practices that only seem to distance us from reality until we've looked at them closely.
     Let's get started with a question I ask myself daily:  Am I out of touch, or is everyone else?
     When you just know something is true, yet everyone you meet holds contrary beliefs, that question arises.   Twenty years ago the question fell on me repeatedly like trees hitting a bare forest floor.  The trees hit me, but I wasn't around.  Did the impacts make sounds?  Yes and no.
     Over the course of several years, I had degenerated into deep psychosis due to severe schizoaffective disorder.  Friends and family tried to get me help, but I refused - the problem was "out there."  No one else could see the truth.  Paranoia, voices, mood swings, and illusory beliefs fired through the neuronal networks between my ears like electric current through a shorted computer chip ... the chip started bursting into flames.
     The voices of other people didn't feel as real as the never-never land born of genetically deviant brain structures.  The voice-pines felled by other people thumped against my skull both loudly and silently.  They annoyed me one moment, and in the next they dropped into the wild, overgrown forest of my mind without a trace.  I did a lot of things I'm not proud of.
     Eventually "they" - the shadowy figures behind the falling conifers - forced me to swallow medication.
     My first med regime only added to my troubles the sensation of cockroaches crawling just under my skin, as well as anxiety and a perpetually dry mouth.  With the doctor's second attempt, however, I sobered up.  I've still had to work hard every day since to sort out fact from fantasy, but in the last twenty years I've seen cognitive and spiritual growth I couldn't have imagined possible.  Night and day is an inadequate metaphor for my life before and after my involuntary encounter with modern medicine.
     After the blessing of partial sanity let some light into the asylum, I slowly began to realize that most people don't know the difference.
     Circumstances never force most people to examine more than a few of the mechanisms involved in faulty thinking.  Never having experienced the extremes, they view insanity the way a comfortable pensioner might view a homeless person:  Thank God that's not me.  Don't want to get involved in that fellow's world.
     Remember when the burst housing bubble wiped out all those retirement funds?  I'm here to tell you your mental security is in the hands of greedy, corrupt investment bankers too busy following the latest trend to see the inevitable end.
     I'm making heavy claims on your bank account right now.  Why spend your precious cognitive currency listening to me?  I don't know.  Let me outline my product, then give you my pitch.
     Here's they are:  Nothing you think, nothing you believe, nothing you feel is fully real.  You experience something alright.  That part is real.  It really happens.  But no matter how you try, you'll never understand the true nature of what you experience.  You'll only ever experience very limited perspectives on phenomena.  And you can't avoid this.  Your experience comes through your body and mind.  You see with your own eyes.  You hear with your own ears.  We don't have a God's eye view of the world.  We don't have a complete view.  We can consider other perspectives, but we can't take into account all perspectives simultaneously.
     Who cares?  Doesn't one perspective take priority, because it's the Truth?  It's not even really a perspective if it's the Truth - it's just true.  It's the way things really are.  Right?
     That may be, but you don't have access to that one true outlook on life.  Neither do I.  The brain doesn't allow it.
     Bear with me.
     When you look at this article, a tiny fraction of the light coming from it reaches your retina.  You don't see what's here, your eye takes a sample - a very small sample.  But the kicker is, when those photons are converted into firing neurons, they are processed into an even smaller sample.  By the time they reach your "mind's eye," whatever that is, you get a fraction of one percent of the available information.
     Guess what?  Everything in your mind involves firing neurons, and this narrowing down, this processing, happens to all your thoughts and feelings.
     You aren't aware of one percent of your own mental activity.
     Almost all of this activity goes on under the surface.  In darkness.  Beyond your ability to critically examine.
     You get a "sanitized" version of reality (pun intended).  You see, hear, think, feel, sense what your brain allows you to.  You have massive blind spots.  That's "sanity."
     The agglomeration of billions of neurons connected to each other in trillions of ways works amazingly well in spite of this.  But it's not a truth detector.  It's a perception machine.  It's been designed - by natural selection or by God, it doesn't matter which - to preserve our lives, not to establish the ultimate nature of reality.  Our brains are far more interested in avoiding danger than in seeking wisdom.  I'm not saying you don't seek wisdom with cognitive telescopes, microscopes, and every other available tool. I'm saying the lenses on those instruments bend light - that's what they're designed to do.  Everyone's outlook is distorted.
     You do have some recourse.  You can seek out alternative perspectives.  And as thoughts and feelings - perceptions - arise, you can look at them in the full light of conscious awareness.  You can reprocess them according to rules you've examined carefully beforehand, such as the laws of logic and scientific methods, or rules of thumb gleaned from experience.  You can also bring a higher fraction of your mental processes into view by simply paying attention, focusing your mind.  You'll still see only a slightly larger fraction of what's in there.  But at least you'll have gone one more step under the surface.  Doing all this, you can reprogram your brain to a certain degree.  When you do that, your perceptions change.
     In the same vein, in this blog I plan to look at "stuff" in the world as I notice it.  I'll do this in the same way I try to answer every day whether I'm out of touch or other people are, by asking:  Which perceptions don't hold up to scientific inquiry?  None of my own conclusions - perceptions - will be the last word.  Part of the virtue of the scientific method is its open-ended nature.
     But maybe when the word-lumber I fashion from trees that have fallen in my life hovers in front of you a while, you'll put some of it to use in your own ongoing construction of a kinder, gentler asylum.