MIND READERS DICTIONARY : Mind Readers Dictionary

In economist Ha-Joon Chang's wonderful book, "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism," the first of the 23 things is that there are no absolutely free markets. Think about it. If freeing up markets were always the solution, then wouldn't we allow the purchase of slaves, hiring of eight year olds, and immigration of anyone who wanted to work here at any price? No free market purist can or would advocate these things. So where do they draw the line? Wherever they want. And then they pretend there is no line. They claim to be purists. No fine-line—to every question the answer is always completely free markets. But they never really mean it. Like all of us they have to draw fine lines between for example leaving things to markets and regulating things like child labor. When they say free, they mean freer and certainly not across the board. They mean freer on whatever they happen to want freer. Moral relativism has a bad reputation these days. I think immoral relativism is worse, the immorality of relativism dressed up in absolute purity’s clothing: Bible interpreters who claim to be literalists, self-proclaimed “originalists” whose supposedly literal read of the Constitution is as much an interpretation as anyone else’s, conservatives who demand a return to the only true and pure values while cherry-picking the values they value, and liberals too who pretend they believe in the pure principle of love when they, like the rest of us are picking and choosing. Advocating a self-serving position in the name of absolute purity is the putrefaction of democratic discourse. And blindness to one’s own biases is no excuse so long as you’re out there accusing everyone else of being biased. Here’s how to be an immoral relativist: 1. Paint a bull’s eye that pinpoints your own biased opinion as the center point, the goal, the ideal, the pure non-divergent position. 2. Forget that you did this. 3. Point to the bull’s eye you’ve painted and shout at people, “Can’t you see? Isn’t it obvious that the pure unadulterated, unbiased absolute center, the balanced, fair and perfect position, is right here at the center of this objectively crafted bull’s eye?! The technique goes way back. Try this from Plato’s dialogues: Socrates. And what is piety, and what is impiety? Euthyphro. Piety is doing as I am doing… Socrates. …I would rather hear from you a more precise answer, which you have not as yet given, my friend, to the question, What is "piety"? When asked, you only replied, Doing as you do... Euthyphro. And what I said was true, Socrates. Socrates. No doubt, Euthyphro; but you would admit that there are many other pious acts? Euthyphro. There are. Socrates. Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious… Euthyphro tries to answer Socrates but eventually gives up, unable to balance competing pieties. Balancing is harder than leaning, as any gym rat will tell you. It takes more energy to lift free weights than machine weights. With machine weights you lean and push. With free weighs you balance and push, which is harder. Easiest of all is leaning into Euthyphro’s “doing what I’m doing” and calling it pure piety, scorning others for tainting things by trying to find balance weighing relative merits. In my lifetime there has never been more of this immoral relativism in public discourse than there is now. It is a worrying sign.

My ex-partner is a sociopath. No really. I hope you believe me. But then I also hope you doubt me too. A sociopath has little or no conscience, and "the little" in that definition is a very big problem. How little is little enough to warrant the diagnosis of sociopathy? Conscience is expensive. To be entirely conscientious would be impossible for any of us, manifesting as constant effort on behalf of others and constant guilt, shame, and remorse for not being able to do enough. We all therefore allocate our finite conscientiousness, usually with lots for our closest loved ones and less or none for the people far away. Having too little conscience is measured relative to circumstances. “How can people be so callous?” says an upper class American when reading about middle-class people in Bombay who ignore thousands of beggars a day. In contrast, that American living in a gated community, providing generously to her family and wealthy neighbors demonstrates ample conscience for her circumstances. The more strife; the more compassion is called for. If the economy collapses and the climate crisis causes orders of magnitude more “acts of God,” do we all become instant sociopaths for showing too little compassion relative to the growing desperation that surrounds us? And then there’s the question of where we allocate our conscientious effort and empathy. Hotel Heiress Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her pet dog. Many would say she was a sociopath. Yet she did show more than a little conscience in her concern for her dog’s well being. When we diagnose the people who hurt, jilted or “used” us, calling them narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, or just cold-hearted, maybe we’re really just disappointed that they turned their conscientiousness away from us. Are people uncaring when they don’t care for us as much as they care for someone nhhhhew? There’s a vulgar riddle at men’s expense that speaks to disciplining our diagnoses: Q: What’s the difference between a b**tch and a w**re? A: A w**re will have sex with anyone but a b**tch will have sex with anyone but you. To which I’d add: Q: What’s the difference between a sociopath and a frustrating ex? A: A sociopath doesn’t care about anyone and a frustrating ex- doesn’t care about you. And further: Q: What’s the difference between a narcissist and a frustrating ex? A: A narcissist loves himself more than anyone and a frustrating ex- loves himself more than he loves you. These highlight one of the reasons that many frustrated ex-partners diagnose their former intimates in such clinically severe terms. But another reason is that some people really are narcissists and sociopaths and with them, not calling a spade a spade is the most dangerous thing you can do. “Should I trust here?” is about the hardest question we ever face. What we do when we trust and don’t trust are exact opposites so you can’t really hedge. The only thing worse that not trusting the trustworthy, is trusting the untrustworthy. With most people we can go case by case. We might trust our good friends mostly but perhaps not on everything. Think of a sociopath as someone who can send convincing signals to trust always when in fact he or she can never ever be trusted—a con artist with no potential for remorse--very scary, very important to recognize before he or she plays your heartstrings and cuts out your heart. For a fine, thought-proving and entertaining book on the benefits and costs of diagnosing and misdiagnosing psychopaths (a term synonymous with sociopaths), read the current NYT best seller “The Psychopath Test” by Jon Ranson. For a masterpiece of psychological reasoning and deep analysis of the challenge of dealing with sociopaths, read Martha Stout’s “The Sociopath Next Door.” Here are three

My ex-partner is a sociopath. No really. I hope you believe me. But then I also hope you doubt me too. A sociopath has little or no conscience, and "the little" in that definition is a very big problem. How little is little enough to warrant the diagnosis of sociopathy? Conscience is expensive. To be entirely conscientious would be impossible for any of us, manifesting as constant effort on behalf of others and constant guilt, shame, and remorse for not being able to do enough. We all therefore allocate our finite conscientiousness, usually with lots for our closest loved ones and less or none for the people far away. Having too little conscience is measured relative to circumstances. “How can people be so callous?” says an upper class American when reading about middle-class people in Bombay who ignore thousands of beggars a day. In contrast, that American living in a gated community, providing generously to her family and wealthy neighbors demonstrates ample conscience for her circumstances. The more strife; the more compassion is called for. If the economy collapses and the climate crisis causes orders of magnitude more “acts of God,” do we all become instant sociopaths for showing too little compassion relative to the growing desperation that surrounds us? And then there’s the question of where we allocate our conscientious effort and empathy. Hotel Heiress Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her pet dog. Many would say she was a sociopath. Yet she did show more than a little conscience in her concern for her dog’s well being. When we diagnose the people who hurt, jilted or “used” us, calling them narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths, or just cold-hearted, maybe we’re really just disappointed that they turned their conscientiousness away from us. Are people uncaring when they don’t care for us as much as they care for someone nhhhhew? There’s a vulgar riddle at men’s expense that speaks to disciplining our diagnoses: Q: What’s the difference between a b**tch and a w**re? A: A w**re will have sex with anyone but a b**tch will have sex with anyone but you. To which I’d add: Q: What’s the difference between a sociopath and a frustrating ex? A: A sociopath doesn’t care about anyone and a frustrating ex- doesn’t care about you. And further: Q: What’s the difference between a narcissist and a frustrating ex? A: A narcissist loves himself more than anyone and a frustrating ex- loves himself more than he loves you. These highlight one of the reasons that many frustrated ex-partners diagnose their former intimates in such clinically severe terms. But another reason is that some people really are narcissists and sociopaths and with them, not calling a spade a spade is the most dangerous thing you can do. “Should I trust here?” is about the hardest question we ever face. What we do when we trust and don’t trust are exact opposites so you can’t really hedge. The only thing worse that not trusting the trustworthy, is trusting the untrustworthy. With most people we can go case by case. We might trust our good friends mostly but perhaps not on everything. Think of a sociopath as someone who can send convincing signals to trust always when in fact he or she can never ever be trusted—a con artist with no potential for remorse--very scary, very important to recognize before he or she plays your heartstrings and cuts out your heart. For a fine, thought-proving and entertaining book on the benefits and costs of diagnosing and misdiagnosing psychopaths (a term synonymous with sociopaths), read the current NYT best seller “The Psychopath Test” by Jon Ranson. For a masterpiece of psychological reasoning and deep analysis of the challenge of dealing with sociopaths, read Martha Stout’s “The Sociopath Next Door.” Here are three

I'm entitled to do what you, in my same circumstances would not be entitled to do--that's a double standard. Being civilized means trying to constrain the natural human tendency toward such double standards. The tendency toward double standards doesn't originate with humans. It is as old as life itself. All organisms demonstrate autonomous agency. A bird, unlike a rock, looks out for herself and hers. A tree without even a nervous system competes for sunlight. We humans have got life’s autonomous agency plus nervous systems, a major double standard augmenter. We really feel our personal pain, much more so than we feel the pain of others. We are compelled by the neuron’s persuasive and convincing power to look out for ourselves, at the expense of others. Add to this another double-standard augmenter. Language the inventive power to give voice to our individual desires and to rationalize them. Language reliably grants me an explanation, however specious for why I personally deserve what you, in my situation would not deserve. “Ah, but don’t you see,” I say “if you were in my circumstances it would be completely different…” And then I invent a reason why it would be. Civilization’s great inventions have been constraints on double standards. “Rule by law” for example is a double standard diminisher, moving us away from “rule by man” whereby a lord, supposedly chosen by God gets to impose his double standards. That all of us are in theory “equal under the law” is a significant check on our natural selfishness and double standards. “Rule by law” also moves us away from a variation on “rule by man” whereby a Lord in Heaven defined by some Great Man of Faith exercises that man’s double standard. A pope saying “God says that I’m exceptional,” for example. Double standard exceptionalism starts at home with “I demand more,” but really takes off when extended to a tribal “We demand more.” For example, “God loves us,” instead of merely “God loves me.” Is extending our double standards to an “exclusive we” a double standard augmenter or diminisher? One the one hand charity begins at home, so extending the standard to our next of kin and tribal neighbors is exactly how you would expect the diminishment of double standards to start. Rule of Law, that great double standard diminisher grow by gradual extention ,first for example in the Magna Carta from kings to nobles. On the other hand, extending the double standard from “I demand more” to “We demand more” is probably more of a double standard enhancer than diminisher. The delimited altruism of the extended double standard liberates me to promote my double standard without fear that I’m being selfish. To the outside world the tribe member says, “Yes I’m claiming I deserve more than you do, but notice how selfless I am in also claiming my family and tribe members deserve more than you deserve.” Historically the extended double standard “We demand more” idea has unleashed both the great movements--national independence, civil rights, women’s rights, workers rights--and the horrible movements—national exceptionalism, racial supremacy, tribal bullying and bigotry of all sorts. Righteous indignation on behalf of “us” feels righteous because in some cases it is, for example when beating back the encroachment of exceptionalists who succeeded in imposing their extended double-standard and crowding others out, the way men did with women for millennia, and Nazis did with Jews and then Jews do with Palestinians today Women, Jews and Palestinians in their time of oppression are righteous for demanding more for their tribe. Their oppressors in their time think they are being righteous when demanding more for their tribe. But they’re wrong. It is the added power of extended dou

I'm entitled to do what you, in my same circumstances would not be entitled to do--that's a double standard. Being civilized means trying to constrain the natural human tendency toward such double standards. The tendency toward double standards doesn't originate with humans. It is as old as life itself. All organisms demonstrate autonomous agency. A bird, unlike a rock, looks out for herself and hers. A tree without even a nervous system competes for sunlight. We humans have got life’s autonomous agency plus nervous systems, a major double standard augmenter. We really feel our personal pain, much more so than we feel the pain of others. We are compelled by the neuron’s persuasive and convincing power to look out for ourselves, at the expense of others. Add to this another double-standard augmenter. Language the inventive power to give voice to our individual desires and to rationalize them. Language reliably grants me an explanation, however specious for why I personally deserve what you, in my situation would not deserve. “Ah, but don’t you see,” I say “if you were in my circumstances it would be completely different…” And then I invent a reason why it would be. Civilization’s great inventions have been constraints on double standards. “Rule by law” for example is a double standard diminisher, moving us away from “rule by man” whereby a lord, supposedly chosen by God gets to impose his double standards. That all of us are in theory “equal under the law” is a significant check on our natural selfishness and double standards. “Rule by law” also moves us away from a variation on “rule by man” whereby a Lord in Heaven defined by some Great Man of Faith exercises that man’s double standard. A pope saying “God says that I’m exceptional,” for example. Double standard exceptionalism starts at home with “I demand more,” but really takes off when extended to a tribal “We demand more.” For example, “God loves us,” instead of merely “God loves me.” Is extending our double standards to an “exclusive we” a double standard augmenter or diminisher? One the one hand charity begins at home, so extending the standard to our next of kin and tribal neighbors is exactly how you would expect the diminishment of double standards to start. Rule of Law, that great double standard diminisher grow by gradual extention ,first for example in the Magna Carta from kings to nobles. On the other hand, extending the double standard from “I demand more” to “We demand more” is probably more of a double standard enhancer than diminisher. The delimited altruism of the extended double standard liberates me to promote my double standard without fear that I’m being selfish. To the outside world the tribe member says, “Yes I’m claiming I deserve more than you do, but notice how selfless I am in also claiming my family and tribe members deserve more than you deserve.” Historically the extended double standard “We demand more” idea has unleashed both the great movements--national independence, civil rights, women’s rights, workers rights--and the horrible movements—national exceptionalism, racial supremacy, tribal bullying and bigotry of all sorts. Righteous indignation on behalf of “us” feels righteous because in some cases it is, for example when beating back the encroachment of exceptionalists who succeeded in imposing their extended double-standard and crowding others out, the way men did with women for millennia, and Nazis did with Jews and then Jews do with Palestinians today Women, Jews and Palestinians in their time of oppression are righteous for demanding more for their tribe. Their oppressors in their time think they are being righteous when demanding more for their tribe. But they’re wrong. It is the added power of extended dou

"The conviction persists -- though history shows it to be a hallucination -- that all the questions that the human mind has asked are questions that can be answered in terms of the alternatives that the questions themselves present. But in fact intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and a change of urgent interest. We do not solve them; we get over them." John Dewey in The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy Tell me, are you a Homoousian or a Homoiousian? Don't know the terms? In the second century heads rolled over the difference between these two camps. Intellectual culture was all steamed up about whether Jesus was made of the same substance as God or a different one, and the two factions, violent in their conviction went by these two names whose near-indistinguishability reflect the kind of "same difference" indifference most of us have about the question today. Intellectual culture has, as Dewey suggested, gotten over the question of whether Jesus and God are made of the same substance. Since I'm asking you questions, here's another: How long ago did you stop feeding your pet kangaroo moon rocks? Intellectual culture gets stuck on questions that contain false assumptions so hidden it takes us a while to even notice that we're making them. We get over these questions when the false assumptions become as glaring as mine that you have both a pet kangaroo and access to a sufficient quantity of moon rocks to feed him. It can take years, centuries or even millennia to spot the false assumptions. When there's a question we churn over for a very long time without headway, searching for hidden false assumptions is a good bet for how to get over the stalemate. Intellectual culture has been stuck for millennia on the question of whether we have Free Will or are deterministically constrained to behave the way we do. We go back and forth on it, factions emphatic in their arguments pro and con but gaining no ground. I won't recount the whole debate here. I'll refresh your mind though, with this cute, pro-determinism limerick: There was a young man who said "damn." For it certainly seems that I am A creature that moves In immutable grooves I'm not even a bus; I'm a tram. A new field of scientific research called "emergent dynamics" has exposed our hidden false assumptions about Free Will, which I'll try to distill for you here. We assume that Free Will is exercised by a little guy, an agent, a homunculus, a soul, an independent, invisible action-figure who operates the physical world's heavy equipment, exerting acts of entirely unconstrained "Will" that move matter, sometimes even mountains. Our image of this free agent is basically, God's mini-me. God, we intuit is an independent, invisible and indivisible agent who can move mountains, independent of the mountains moving Him. God is not a tram; he's a bus, free to steer where He pleases. The Free Will question is about whether we are like that, exerting independent, un-constrained "Will" on the world. The implicit metaphor for both God or Free Will's source is really a soul, an independent point of origin for "Willed" behavior. When we think about a point of origin for willed behavior, especially an invisible one like God or a soul, we think of it as a point really, not necessarily tiny, but certainly indivisible and solid with no parts and nothing moving around inside it. The Greek word for such things is "atom." Like the one-dimensional points you learned about in geometry, atoms are useful fictions, but they're decidedly fictions. Physicists gave up on atoms a while ago. Even in the physical sciences, we don't fine anything solid, not comprised of parts in dynamical (meaning moving) relationship with each other. It's not that quarks are the new indivisible atoms. They too

"The conviction persists -- though history shows it to be a hallucination -- that all the questions that the human mind has asked are questions that can be answered in terms of the alternatives that the questions themselves present. But in fact intellectual progress usually occurs through sheer abandonment that results from their decreasing vitality and a change of urgent interest. We do not solve them; we get over them." John Dewey in The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy Tell me, are you a Homoousian or a Homoiousian? Don't know the terms? In the second century heads rolled over the difference between these two camps. Intellectual culture was all steamed up about whether Jesus was made of the same substance as God or a different one, and the two factions, violent in their conviction went by these two names whose near-indistinguishability reflect the kind of "same difference" indifference most of us have about the question today. Intellectual culture has, as Dewey suggested, gotten over the question of whether Jesus and God are made of the same substance. Since I'm asking you questions, here's another: How long ago did you stop feeding your pet kangaroo moon rocks? Intellectual culture gets stuck on questions that contain false assumptions so hidden it takes us a while to even notice that we're making them. We get over these questions when the false assumptions become as glaring as mine that you have both a pet kangaroo and access to a sufficient quantity of moon rocks to feed him. It can take years, centuries or even millennia to spot the false assumptions. When there's a question we churn over for a very long time without headway, searching for hidden false assumptions is a good bet for how to get over the stalemate. Intellectual culture has been stuck for millennia on the question of whether we have Free Will or are deterministically constrained to behave the way we do. We go back and forth on it, factions emphatic in their arguments pro and con but gaining no ground. I won't recount the whole debate here. I'll refresh your mind though, with this cute, pro-determinism limerick: There was a young man who said "damn." For it certainly seems that I am A creature that moves In immutable grooves I'm not even a bus; I'm a tram. A new field of scientific research called "emergent dynamics" has exposed our hidden false assumptions about Free Will, which I'll try to distill for you here. We assume that Free Will is exercised by a little guy, an agent, a homunculus, a soul, an independent, invisible action-figure who operates the physical world's heavy equipment, exerting acts of entirely unconstrained "Will" that move matter, sometimes even mountains. Our image of this free agent is basically, God's mini-me. God, we intuit is an independent, invisible and indivisible agent who can move mountains, independent of the mountains moving Him. God is not a tram; he's a bus, free to steer where He pleases. The Free Will question is about whether we are like that, exerting independent, un-constrained "Will" on the world. The implicit metaphor for both God or Free Will's source is really a soul, an independent point of origin for "Willed" behavior. When we think about a point of origin for willed behavior, especially an invisible one like God or a soul, we think of it as a point really, not necessarily tiny, but certainly indivisible and solid with no parts and nothing moving around inside it. The Greek word for such things is "atom." Like the one-dimensional points you learned about in geometry, atoms are useful fictions, but they're decidedly fictions. Physicists gave up on atoms a while ago. Even in the physical sciences, we don't fine anything solid, not comprised of parts in dynamical (meaning moving) relationship with each other. It's not that quarks are the new indivisible atoms. They too

Between optimism and pessimism, optimism has a better reputation. 'Tis better to be optimistic than pessimistic, or so says conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Buy into it at your own peril because, if you don't watch out people will manipulate and bully you with the supposed but fake virtue of optimism. It's not that it's better to be pessimistic but that optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same coin. To be optimistic about one alternative is to be relatively pessimistic about other alternatives. “This plan will work,” means at minimum, “We don’t need another plan” but more likely means “The other plans are less likely to succeed.” Optimism and pessimism are as inseparable as inhaling and exhaling. They’re “reflexively antagonistic” the way to tighten your bicep you must loosen your triceps, and visa versa. In debate you’re opponent who is optimistic about his plan is, by definition pessimistic about yours. Don’t let him claim the high moral ground by saying that since he likes his plan, he’s an optimist. Don’t buy the currently popular malarkey about the power of positive thinking. Being positive about one thing is being negative about alternatives by comparison. Positivity isn’t a virtue it’s a focalizer, a way of saying “I’m prefer this; not that.” You can’t prefer everything any more than you can inhale everything. We have finite focus. To focus here means not to focus there. Positivity is a necessity, but then so is inhaling. That doesn’t mean you should or can inhale all day. The question is not whether to be positive but what to be positive about. When optimistic bullies say, “Well, at least I’m being optimistic.” They add insult to injury. Not only are they optimistic about their preferred plan (in comparison to yours which relatively speaking, they’re pessimistic about), they also discredit your planning skills by calling you “pessimistic.” Since optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same coin, there are ways to bully through pessimism too. Since on the optimism/pessimism spectrum, optimism has the virtue-monopoly, pessimistic bullies can’t retaliate by calling their opponents “optimistic.” But that doesn’t mean pessimists are without recourse. They can add insult to injury too by evoking the various sins associated with optimism, accusing you of being over-optimistic, unrealistic, engaged in magical thinking, and living in Lala land.” We treat “optimist” and “pessimist” as though they were descriptive labels applied neutrally, like calling that tall thing with the leaves a “tree.” They’re not descriptive, they’re opinions in disguise, opinions about who’s right and wrong, made unfairly strong by the moral weight the terms “optimist” and “pessimist” carry. Optimism and pessimism are relative concepts in two senses. One sense is that they’re merely subjective assessments relative to someone else’s. If I think a plan has a better chance of success than you do, I’m an optimist but only relative to you. Someone else might think the plan has vastly better chances of success than I do which would make me a pessimist, relatively speaking. Optimism and pessimism are relative concepts in another way also. If I think a plan has a great chance of succeeding, I’m implying “relative to other plans.” So who’s right about the plans, the optimist or the pessimist? Those terms tell you nothing about which plan will actually succeed. There’s a simple way to neutralize the power of optimistic and pessimistic bullying: Don’t ever accept the use of those terms without them being followed by “…about X.” The statements “I’m optimistic” or “I’m an optimist” don’t make sense really. They’re open-ended, like saying “I throw…” They sh

Between optimism and pessimism, optimism has a better reputation. 'Tis better to be optimistic than pessimistic, or so says conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Buy into it at your own peril because, if you don't watch out people will manipulate and bully you with the supposed but fake virtue of optimism. It's not that it's better to be pessimistic but that optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same coin. To be optimistic about one alternative is to be relatively pessimistic about other alternatives. “This plan will work,” means at minimum, “We don’t need another plan” but more likely means “The other plans are less likely to succeed.” Optimism and pessimism are as inseparable as inhaling and exhaling. They’re “reflexively antagonistic” the way to tighten your bicep you must loosen your triceps, and visa versa. In debate you’re opponent who is optimistic about his plan is, by definition pessimistic about yours. Don’t let him claim the high moral ground by saying that since he likes his plan, he’s an optimist. Don’t buy the currently popular malarkey about the power of positive thinking. Being positive about one thing is being negative about alternatives by comparison. Positivity isn’t a virtue it’s a focalizer, a way of saying “I’m prefer this; not that.” You can’t prefer everything any more than you can inhale everything. We have finite focus. To focus here means not to focus there. Positivity is a necessity, but then so is inhaling. That doesn’t mean you should or can inhale all day. The question is not whether to be positive but what to be positive about. When optimistic bullies say, “Well, at least I’m being optimistic.” They add insult to injury. Not only are they optimistic about their preferred plan (in comparison to yours which relatively speaking, they’re pessimistic about), they also discredit your planning skills by calling you “pessimistic.” Since optimism and pessimism are two sides of the same coin, there are ways to bully through pessimism too. Since on the optimism/pessimism spectrum, optimism has the virtue-monopoly, pessimistic bullies can’t retaliate by calling their opponents “optimistic.” But that doesn’t mean pessimists are without recourse. They can add insult to injury too by evoking the various sins associated with optimism, accusing you of being over-optimistic, unrealistic, engaged in magical thinking, and living in Lala land.” We treat “optimist” and “pessimist” as though they were descriptive labels applied neutrally, like calling that tall thing with the leaves a “tree.” They’re not descriptive, they’re opinions in disguise, opinions about who’s right and wrong, made unfairly strong by the moral weight the terms “optimist” and “pessimist” carry. Optimism and pessimism are relative concepts in two senses. One sense is that they’re merely subjective assessments relative to someone else’s. If I think a plan has a better chance of success than you do, I’m an optimist but only relative to you. Someone else might think the plan has vastly better chances of success than I do which would make me a pessimist, relatively speaking. Optimism and pessimism are relative concepts in another way also. If I think a plan has a great chance of succeeding, I’m implying “relative to other plans.” So who’s right about the plans, the optimist or the pessimist? Those terms tell you nothing about which plan will actually succeed. There’s a simple way to neutralize the power of optimistic and pessimistic bullying: Don’t ever accept the use of those terms without them being followed by “…about X.” The statements “I’m optimistic” or “I’m an optimist” don’t make sense really. They’re open-ended, like saying “I throw…” They sh

All adages are seeds of wisdom, eggs we fertilize by bringing our attention to them, causing them to start subdividing into a range of complementary and conflicting perspectives about matters fundamental. We fertilize them by cracking through the shells that hold them together. Opened, their parts can be played with. We can slot alternative words in, find ways to make them say the opposite. Crack open a saying and reverse the pieces, you usually get something interesting. A save in time stitches nine. Can't see the trees for the forest. Take psychologist Abraham Maslow's adage "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Why a hammer? Abraham Kaplan's slightly earlier version of Maslow's point goes "I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding." A hammer isn't just any tool. It's good for nailing things together and breaking things apart. By millions of years, it is the oldest tool in our tool kit. For a long time all of us only had a hammer. If all you have is a hammer, everything might also look like something to pulverize, to smash into tiny inconsequential pieces. Hammers tend to be big, over-sized for some jobs. We have other metaphors for overkill, for bringing too big a tool to the task. Making a mountain out of a molehill, for example. A bull in a china shop. And yet sometimes we bring tools too small for the task too, making a molehill out of a mountain, a china-shop clerk at a bull stampede, or more familiarly bringing a knife to a gunfight. One might make the mistake of bringing a gun to a knife-fight too. Of course you don't want to overthink this stuff. That would be making a mountain out of molehill. Right wing populists like Donald Trump and transcendental spiritualist like Eckhart Tolle think that people like me over-think things. Sometimes they imply that we over-think for devious reasons. The right-wingers think folks like me make a big deal out of global warming because we want to impose socialist control over society. Tolle would say our greedy manipulative egos make us intellectualize. But the anti-intellectuals also imply that we intellectualizers are just victims of the law of instrument. If all you've got is this ability to analyze things to death then everything needs to be analyzed to death. I hang out with academics and I think there's something to Trump and Tolles' perspective. I know some who seem to fit the description, knowing more and more about less and less, overworking some ridiculously inconsequential piece of theory because they can or perhaps because they can only, since intellect is their only tool. You've got to know how far to think something. There will be disagreement among us about what has been over-thought, but most of us would agree that over-analysis is possible. Analysis paralysis happens--overkill, bringing too much analytical gun-power to something best handled with a simple slice of the knife. Sometimes you've got to stop deciding and simply decide. Still, not every bit of analysis that bores or frustrates us is over-analysis. Most of us prefer simplicity. If your only tool is a gut-desire to simplify, everything looks really simple. If all you have is dismissive rhetoric, every topic is an issue to dismiss rhetorically. If you're only tool is hand-waving, every issue will be dismissed with the wave of a hand. Sometimes over-simplification is deviously motivated, but a lot of the time it's just evidence of too little available intellectual fire-power. Limited capacity for debate, deliberation and reconsideration means a limited range of issues one can consider difficult to address. If all you have is a fly-swatter every issue looks like a fly, a nuisance to be swatted away. We should keep th

All adages are seeds of wisdom, eggs we fertilize by bringing our attention to them, causing them to start subdividing into a range of complementary and conflicting perspectives about matters fundamental. We fertilize them by cracking through the shells that hold them together. Opened, their parts can be played with. We can slot alternative words in, find ways to make them say the opposite. Crack open a saying and reverse the pieces, you usually get something interesting. A save in time stitches nine. Can't see the trees for the forest. Take psychologist Abraham Maslow's adage "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Why a hammer? Abraham Kaplan's slightly earlier version of Maslow's point goes "I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding." A hammer isn't just any tool. It's good for nailing things together and breaking things apart. By millions of years, it is the oldest tool in our tool kit. For a long time all of us only had a hammer. If all you have is a hammer, everything might also look like something to pulverize, to smash into tiny inconsequential pieces. Hammers tend to be big, over-sized for some jobs. We have other metaphors for overkill, for bringing too big a tool to the task. Making a mountain out of a molehill, for example. A bull in a china shop. And yet sometimes we bring tools too small for the task too, making a molehill out of a mountain, a china-shop clerk at a bull stampede, or more familiarly bringing a knife to a gunfight. One might make the mistake of bringing a gun to a knife-fight too. Of course you don't want to overthink this stuff. That would be making a mountain out of molehill. Right wing populists like Donald Trump and transcendental spiritualist like Eckhart Tolle think that people like me over-think things. Sometimes they imply that we over-think for devious reasons. The right-wingers think folks like me make a big deal out of global warming because we want to impose socialist control over society. Tolle would say our greedy manipulative egos make us intellectualize. But the anti-intellectuals also imply that we intellectualizers are just victims of the law of instrument. If all you've got is this ability to analyze things to death then everything needs to be analyzed to death. I hang out with academics and I think there's something to Trump and Tolles' perspective. I know some who seem to fit the description, knowing more and more about less and less, overworking some ridiculously inconsequential piece of theory because they can or perhaps because they can only, since intellect is their only tool. You've got to know how far to think something. There will be disagreement among us about what has been over-thought, but most of us would agree that over-analysis is possible. Analysis paralysis happens--overkill, bringing too much analytical gun-power to something best handled with a simple slice of the knife. Sometimes you've got to stop deciding and simply decide. Still, not every bit of analysis that bores or frustrates us is over-analysis. Most of us prefer simplicity. If your only tool is a gut-desire to simplify, everything looks really simple. If all you have is dismissive rhetoric, every topic is an issue to dismiss rhetorically. If you're only tool is hand-waving, every issue will be dismissed with the wave of a hand. Sometimes over-simplification is deviously motivated, but a lot of the time it's just evidence of too little available intellectual fire-power. Limited capacity for debate, deliberation and reconsideration means a limited range of issues one can consider difficult to address. If all you have is a fly-swatter every issue looks like a fly, a nuisance to be swatted away. We should keep th

A pinhead is a person so small-minded his shoulders taper up to either a pin's head or even narrower, a pinpoint. We apply the epithet like an X marking the spot, pinpointing anyone we think is an idiot. I'm on a never-ending quest for objective definitions of wisdom and conversely, stupidity. By objective, I mean something beyond thinking a butthead is just anyone I butt heads with. This quest has practical implications in that much of the misery humans impose on each other stems from over-confident, under-analyzed name-calling, for example calling anyone I butt heads with a butthead. And then bombing them. Here I want to explore an alternative definition of pinhead, not as having a head like a pin but heading for a pin. When you head toward a goal, aim for a target, or pursue some end, are you pinpointing or narrowing in on it? “Same difference,” you might say, but no, there’s actually a pretty big difference rich in implications about everything from love, religion and politics to the natural history of goal-seeking behavior. Let’s say you’re goal is to find your iPhone, misplaced in the house somewhere. You had it yesterday. You can just picture it, your iPhone crying, “Find me please!” You’re looking for a single pinpointed thing. But what if you’re looking for a decent cup of coffee? You don’t want tea or milk and you reject that cup of coffee you forgot and left in the microwave yesterday. Other than that, within a narrowed range any cup of coffee will do. Pinpointing implies that you have a positive ideal in mind. Narrowing implies rejection of everything that falls outside of a narrow range. Some goals feel like pinpoints, those supposedly one-dimensional things we learned about in elementary school geometry class. Other goals contain whole ranges of acceptable options, known mostly by rejecting unacceptable options. Searching for your one true iPhone, your bull’s eye goal is that single pinpoint in the center of the target. Searching for a decent cup of coffee your bull’s eye is anything that doesn’t fall outside the biggish circle in the middle the target. Suppose your goal is to find a home in a new town. You stick a pushpin into your map to mark the spot. But what is the spot? Is it the big red top of the pushpin, or is it the impossibly infinitesimal point? Say your goal is to find Mr. or Ms. Right, the partner of your dreams. Is this partner a pinpoint or a narrowed range? Do you have a perfect vision of your partner in your mind’s eye, a soul mate who, like your iPhone cries, “Find me please”? Do you go around checking people against this perfect vision until you find the one exact match? Or is your Mr. or Ms. Right anyone from a narrowed range of possibilities, who, like a decent cup of coffee is found by rejecting all of the Mr. or Ms. Wrongs until you’re left with Mr. or Ms. Right-enough? The evolutionary psychologist Randy Nesse notes that it won’t do to declare to your partner, “Baby, you’re like a total seven out of ten and probably the best I can get. So I’m right here with you until, like maybe an eight comes along.” Because relationship is so high-stakes, intense, intimate, competitive, and risky, we need to be more reassuring than that, saying and even believing a very pinpointed interpretation, at the extreme something like “Baby, you are my one and only soul mate. Before we met I dreamed about you, the only person who could ever satisfy me. In my dreams I saw you crying “Find me please.” I knew someday I would find you and until I did, I keep looking, accepting no substitute.” You’ll find such pinpoint exclusivity in the pursuit not just of monogamy but monotheism. In both, high stakes and intense competition escalates us toward the pinpoint interpretation of goal seeking. A religious leader isn’t goin

A pinhead is a person so small-minded his shoulders taper up to either a pin's head or even narrower, a pinpoint. We apply the epithet like an X marking the spot, pinpointing anyone we think is an idiot. I'm on a never-ending quest for objective definitions of wisdom and conversely, stupidity. By objective, I mean something beyond thinking a butthead is just anyone I butt heads with. This quest has practical implications in that much of the misery humans impose on each other stems from over-confident, under-analyzed name-calling, for example calling anyone I butt heads with a butthead. And then bombing them. Here I want to explore an alternative definition of pinhead, not as having a head like a pin but heading for a pin. When you head toward a goal, aim for a target, or pursue some end, are you pinpointing or narrowing in on it? “Same difference,” you might say, but no, there’s actually a pretty big difference rich in implications about everything from love, religion and politics to the natural history of goal-seeking behavior. Let’s say you’re goal is to find your iPhone, misplaced in the house somewhere. You had it yesterday. You can just picture it, your iPhone crying, “Find me please!” You’re looking for a single pinpointed thing. But what if you’re looking for a decent cup of coffee? You don’t want tea or milk and you reject that cup of coffee you forgot and left in the microwave yesterday. Other than that, within a narrowed range any cup of coffee will do. Pinpointing implies that you have a positive ideal in mind. Narrowing implies rejection of everything that falls outside of a narrow range. Some goals feel like pinpoints, those supposedly one-dimensional things we learned about in elementary school geometry class. Other goals contain whole ranges of acceptable options, known mostly by rejecting unacceptable options. Searching for your one true iPhone, your bull’s eye goal is that single pinpoint in the center of the target. Searching for a decent cup of coffee your bull’s eye is anything that doesn’t fall outside the biggish circle in the middle the target. Suppose your goal is to find a home in a new town. You stick a pushpin into your map to mark the spot. But what is the spot? Is it the big red top of the pushpin, or is it the impossibly infinitesimal point? Say your goal is to find Mr. or Ms. Right, the partner of your dreams. Is this partner a pinpoint or a narrowed range? Do you have a perfect vision of your partner in your mind’s eye, a soul mate who, like your iPhone cries, “Find me please”? Do you go around checking people against this perfect vision until you find the one exact match? Or is your Mr. or Ms. Right anyone from a narrowed range of possibilities, who, like a decent cup of coffee is found by rejecting all of the Mr. or Ms. Wrongs until you’re left with Mr. or Ms. Right-enough? The evolutionary psychologist Randy Nesse notes that it won’t do to declare to your partner, “Baby, you’re like a total seven out of ten and probably the best I can get. So I’m right here with you until, like maybe an eight comes along.” Because relationship is so high-stakes, intense, intimate, competitive, and risky, we need to be more reassuring than that, saying and even believing a very pinpointed interpretation, at the extreme something like “Baby, you are my one and only soul mate. Before we met I dreamed about you, the only person who could ever satisfy me. In my dreams I saw you crying “Find me please.” I knew someday I would find you and until I did, I keep looking, accepting no substitute.” You’ll find such pinpoint exclusivity in the pursuit not just of monogamy but monotheism. In both, high stakes and intense competition escalates us toward the pinpoint interpretation of goal seeking. A religious leader isn’t goin

I both envy and loathe the self-certain. I envy them their peace of mind. I loathe their bullying. Increasingly, I see debate as doubting matches, opponents casting doubt on each other's opinions. The self-certain are master doubt-casters impervious to doubts cast their way. A mighty fortress is their opinion even when their opinion is dumb or ultimately deadly. I don’t just loathe their bullying. I loathe the peril they put us in, luring the weak-minded to their side in throngs, dominating by self-serving force, not reason, and marching us in an unwavering line, unresponsive to new evidence or changing circumstances and therefore inevitably in a direction where stupidity lies. My loathing wins out.  I will not master their lick. I will fight them, which means learning how to dominate the indomitable.  They’re hard to dominate even when you’re self-certain.  I aim to dominate with one hand tied up behind my back.  It’s back there holding my anxiety, something the self-certain jettisoned long ago. Anxiety is a sense that something’s amiss. It’s an alarm sounding to say, “pay attention here, you might be headed in the wrong direction.”  Anxiety is the emotional flavor of doubt. Losing it is the most immediate, palpable and self-satisfying benefit of self-certainty.  No doubt? No anxiety. When you wonder whether you’re going in the wrong direction, you generally lose a little steam.  You waver. You await further guidance with a receptive ear and a discerning mind.  You don’t know that you’re headed in the wrong direction.  Maybe you’re headed in the right direction.  But anyway you open up a little, softening enough to visit the possibility that it’s time to redirect. The self-certain don’t just sense your anxiety as an opening, a vulnerability they can exploit, and they don’t just take it as a sign that they will inevitably win the debate.  They take it as a vindication of their position, a reality check that proves they’re right about the world.  If you’re anxious, then their foregone conclusion that they possess absolute truth is verified. As if it were ever in doubt. I sure could use that other hand tied up behind my back.  But I can’t jettison the anxiety.  I need it. It has re-steered me right more than a few times. So how can you dominate the indomitable when you’ve resigned yourself to carry receptivity’s baggage, a parcel they’re not carrying. How does a self-doubting David beat a self-certain Goliath? How do win when they’re stoked on self-certainty’s steroids? My latest guess is that, with practice you can become familiar enough with self-doubt and anxiety that you hold them nimbly and un-distractedly.  I’ve long thought that it pays to study doubt, to understand how it works and to gain “pattern-fluency” in the generic forms it takes  (See Wonderings of the World below). A benefit is that, when your doubt is exposed in debate it’s no surprise to you.  You don’t flinch with a sudden surge of anxiety about your anxiety. You can stick with the topic under debate, persisting in what you’re insisting on. If they call attention to your doubt, you simply say or imply something like, “Of course I have doubts about my position, as any respectable thinker would.  They fit the standard mold and for you I’ll list them (do this briskly but calmly).  Now that said, I still place my full weight behind my position. The fact that you don’t doubt your position is not evidence that you’re right, just that you’re not much of a thinker.  Thinkers doubt. They’re brave enough to withstand the anxiety that doubt engenders.  I suspect you gave that up long ago.  Don’t have much of a stomach for anxiety, do you?” You’re still unlikely to win them over. In fact you’re unlikely to get the airspace to give them

I both envy and loathe the self-certain. I envy them their peace of mind. I loathe their bullying. Increasingly, I see debate as doubting matches, opponents casting doubt on each other's opinions. The self-certain are master doubt-casters impervious to doubts cast their way. A mighty fortress is their opinion even when their opinion is dumb or ultimately deadly. I don’t just loathe their bullying. I loathe the peril they put us in, luring the weak-minded to their side in throngs, dominating by self-serving force, not reason, and marching us in an unwavering line, unresponsive to new evidence or changing circumstances and therefore inevitably in a direction where stupidity lies. My loathing wins out.  I will not master their lick. I will fight them, which means learning how to dominate the indomitable.  They’re hard to dominate even when you’re self-certain.  I aim to dominate with one hand tied up behind my back.  It’s back there holding my anxiety, something the self-certain jettisoned long ago. Anxiety is a sense that something’s amiss. It’s an alarm sounding to say, “pay attention here, you might be headed in the wrong direction.”  Anxiety is the emotional flavor of doubt. Losing it is the most immediate, palpable and self-satisfying benefit of self-certainty.  No doubt? No anxiety. When you wonder whether you’re going in the wrong direction, you generally lose a little steam.  You waver. You await further guidance with a receptive ear and a discerning mind.  You don’t know that you’re headed in the wrong direction.  Maybe you’re headed in the right direction.  But anyway you open up a little, softening enough to visit the possibility that it’s time to redirect. The self-certain don’t just sense your anxiety as an opening, a vulnerability they can exploit, and they don’t just take it as a sign that they will inevitably win the debate.  They take it as a vindication of their position, a reality check that proves they’re right about the world.  If you’re anxious, then their foregone conclusion that they possess absolute truth is verified. As if it were ever in doubt. I sure could use that other hand tied up behind my back.  But I can’t jettison the anxiety.  I need it. It has re-steered me right more than a few times. So how can you dominate the indomitable when you’ve resigned yourself to carry receptivity’s baggage, a parcel they’re not carrying. How does a self-doubting David beat a self-certain Goliath? How do win when they’re stoked on self-certainty’s steroids? My latest guess is that, with practice you can become familiar enough with self-doubt and anxiety that you hold them nimbly and un-distractedly.  I’ve long thought that it pays to study doubt, to understand how it works and to gain “pattern-fluency” in the generic forms it takes  (See Wonderings of the World below). A benefit is that, when your doubt is exposed in debate it’s no surprise to you.  You don’t flinch with a sudden surge of anxiety about your anxiety. You can stick with the topic under debate, persisting in what you’re insisting on. If they call attention to your doubt, you simply say or imply something like, “Of course I have doubts about my position, as any respectable thinker would.  They fit the standard mold and for you I’ll list them (do this briskly but calmly).  Now that said, I still place my full weight behind my position. The fact that you don’t doubt your position is not evidence that you’re right, just that you’re not much of a thinker.  Thinkers doubt. They’re brave enough to withstand the anxiety that doubt engenders.  I suspect you gave that up long ago.  Don’t have much of a stomach for anxiety, do you?” You’re still unlikely to win them over. In fact you’re unlikely to get the airspace to give them