MIND READERS DICTIONARY : Mind Readers Dictionary

Folks, we face a problem I'm wondering if you're willing to think about with me. It's a real challenge, a challenge to morality posed by recent revelations in logic. It turns out we're living in a world that doesn't seem to offer a final logical authority, no highest possible perspective from which we can discriminate between right and wrong on all lower levels.  Regardless the standard we might claim is the most all encompassing and ultimate, someone can come along and claim an even more encompassing and ultimate standard. And even if they're wrong there's no way to prove they are without claiming a higher standard that they can again claim to trump with a still higher standard. It leaves us all at risk of being swept up into escalating games of oneupsmanship or, reversing the metaphor, it makes us all prone to falling into bottomless pits, arguing about the proper depth at which to find bedrock foundations of morality that don’t exist or if they do, we can’t agree on them. For every declaration that “X is moral” the declaration can itself be challenged. We crave something solid to rest our assumptions upon, but that something doesn’t exist. We can pretend it exists but it doesn’t. We can surround ourselves with people who believe it exists where we say it does, but it doesn’t.  We know it doesn’t exist, because other people say, “Ah but don’t you see, you’re missing something crucial--a higher principle; a deeper truth that proves you’re wrong.” Of course, the hell with them, right? Except that they’re saying the hell with us.  So where does that get us? This is a particular kind of one-upmanship.  It’s not just “I’m better than you.”  It’s, “I’m better because I’ve got a bigger perspective, a higher overview.  I’m taking more into consideration than you are.” Uplevelsmanship is claiming to be holier than thou by being highly-er than thou. It’s an escalation in power by escalating in perspective.  It’s an arms race in which the build-up is in ladder rungs to look down from critically. I won’t burden you with the logic here. (I have plenty of articles at my site describing the logic, for example here.) Instead I’ll provide some intuitive examples of the general logical problem: 1. You probably know what it’s like to feel regret for not having taken something into consideration: “Ah, if only I had factored in THAT. That changes everything.”  Such regret is a reason to take more into consideration, but can you ever take everything into consideration? If not, where should you draw the line?  How much due diligence is really due?  It depends on the situation. The higher the stakes the more one should take into account, but only up to a point.  Even on the highest stake decisions, you can’t take everything into account. There’s still a chance that you’ll have missed something that changes everything. This is why leaders capable of decisiveness have to be comfortable with ambiguity, the ability to place big bets, knowing as they do it, that they may be missing something that changes everything. 2. I want to hire an investment advisor. I meet a few and I notice that I’m having a hard time figuring out who’s best.  So I decide to hire someone to guide me about which investment adviser to hire.  But even that’s not an easy decision. So I decide I should hire an advisor to advise me on which advisor to advise me on which adviser to hire. But then how do I know who to hire for that? 3. I remember it to this day--the time my parents disagreed about what I should do.  Until that time they had always agreed with each other and I just had to follow their unified advice.  Suddenly, to defer to one was to defy the other.  I had to decide between them.  I asked my friends what I should do. Trouble was some friends said I shoul

IMHO: In my humble opinion--what's the deal with that? What do we ever say that isn't our humble opinion? And yet when we declare "It's raining" do we really mean "I think it's raining" or is raining a fact, and therefore not a matter of humble opinion? In the acronym IMHO, the H is redundant. IMO is already humbled, revealing awareness of one's role as an interpreter of evidence, as if to say, "The opinions expressed here are those of the expressor and may not be those of reality itself, the expressor's ultimate employer. And even "In my opinion" is redundant since the evidence that a statement is your opinion is implied by the way it emanates from your pie hole.  You've probably been in one of these exchanges before. A: It’s not a good idea. B: Well, that’s your opinion. A: Of course, it’s my opinion! I’m saying that in my opinion it’s not a good idea! If “in my opinion” is implicit, why would we ever make it explicit?  One reason would be signal receptivity to alternative perspectives.  It can signal that, “this is a conversation, not an argument or a fight.” A:  What did you think of the movie last night? B:  In my opinion it wasn’t very good. A: Ah, well in my opinion it wasn’t bad. I have yet to meet a signal that couldn’t, in some contexts mean the opposite of its literal meaning. A showy signal of accommodation and receptivity can be a way of saying “you’re so aggressive I have to walk on eggshells not to upset you.”  IMHO can signal “I’m the humble one here; you’re the arrogant one.”  I sometimes use IMAO (In my arrogant opinion) to confuse this effect. And notice also that declaring oneself humble is a fairly arrogant act.  In Numbers, one of the five books of Moses (supposedly written by Moses), verse 12:3 reads, “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”  Not arrogant, perhaps if it was dictated to Moses by God, or at least no more arrogant than saying “People say I’m really humble.” Many common phrases have a suspiciously arrogant-sounding self-reported humility. “Excuse me” is a command.  “With all due respect,” implies a claim that amounts to “I’m an authority on how much respect is due to you, and trust me, I know I’m showing you your full due.” Perhaps more accurately we should say “With all due respect, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether I’m showing you due respect when I say…”. One of the cockiest conversationalists I’ve ever met, would pepper her unsolicited advising and pontificating with the caveat, “I reserve the right to be wrong,” as though everything she said would be so compelling we might forget her potential fallibility. Any time we graciously remind and assure people that they are entitled to an alternative perspective, we run the risk of sounding like they don’t. A:  Feel free to disagree with me. B:  (Sarcastically) Why thank you, that is so kind!  I was waiting for your permission. When we preface something with IMHO does that mean everything said before it was not IMHO?  When we say, “Well, frankly speaking” does that mean everything before it wasn’t frank?  When we say, “You look great!” does that mean that you didn’t before? In sum, when is a signal a reminder of an ongoing state and when is it the announcement of the start of a new state. Another possible use of IMHO is to distinguish opinion from fact. When I say, “It’s raining,” I’m stating a fact.  When I say, “It looks dreary outside,” that’s an opinion.  But if it were as straightforward as that, we wouldn’t need to distinguish explicitly. We would all know the difference between fact and opinion.  Epistemologists--those who study the difference between fact and opinion have not come to agreement on the diffe

IMHO: In my humble opinion--what's the deal with that? What do we ever say that isn't our humble opinion? And yet when we declare "It's raining" do we really mean "I think it's raining" or is raining a fact, and therefore not a matter of humble opinion? In the acronym IMHO, the H is redundant. IMO is already humbled, revealing awareness of one's role as an interpreter of evidence, as if to say, "The opinions expressed here are those of the expressor and may not be those of reality itself, the expressor's ultimate employer. And even "In my opinion" is redundant since the evidence that a statement is your opinion is implied by the way it emanates from your pie hole.  You've probably been in one of these exchanges before. A: It’s not a good idea. B: Well, that’s your opinion. A: Of course, it’s my opinion! I’m saying that in my opinion it’s not a good idea! If “in my opinion” is implicit, why would we ever make it explicit?  One reason would be signal receptivity to alternative perspectives.  It can signal that, “this is a conversation, not an argument or a fight.” A:  What did you think of the movie last night? B:  In my opinion it wasn’t very good. A: Ah, well in my opinion it wasn’t bad. I have yet to meet a signal that couldn’t, in some contexts mean the opposite of its literal meaning. A showy signal of accommodation and receptivity can be a way of saying “you’re so aggressive I have to walk on eggshells not to upset you.”  IMHO can signal “I’m the humble one here; you’re the arrogant one.”  I sometimes use IMAO (In my arrogant opinion) to confuse this effect. And notice also that declaring oneself humble is a fairly arrogant act.  In Numbers, one of the five books of Moses (supposedly written by Moses), verse 12:3 reads, “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”  Not arrogant, perhaps if it was dictated to Moses by God, or at least no more arrogant than saying “People say I’m really humble.” Many common phrases have a suspiciously arrogant-sounding self-reported humility. “Excuse me” is a command.  “With all due respect,” implies a claim that amounts to “I’m an authority on how much respect is due to you, and trust me, I know I’m showing you your full due.” Perhaps more accurately we should say “With all due respect, I’ll leave it to you to decide whether I’m showing you due respect when I say…”. One of the cockiest conversationalists I’ve ever met, would pepper her unsolicited advising and pontificating with the caveat, “I reserve the right to be wrong,” as though everything she said would be so compelling we might forget her potential fallibility. Any time we graciously remind and assure people that they are entitled to an alternative perspective, we run the risk of sounding like they don’t. A:  Feel free to disagree with me. B:  (Sarcastically) Why thank you, that is so kind!  I was waiting for your permission. When we preface something with IMHO does that mean everything said before it was not IMHO?  When we say, “Well, frankly speaking” does that mean everything before it wasn’t frank?  When we say, “You look great!” does that mean that you didn’t before? In sum, when is a signal a reminder of an ongoing state and when is it the announcement of the start of a new state. Another possible use of IMHO is to distinguish opinion from fact. When I say, “It’s raining,” I’m stating a fact.  When I say, “It looks dreary outside,” that’s an opinion.  But if it were as straightforward as that, we wouldn’t need to distinguish explicitly. We would all know the difference between fact and opinion.  Epistemologists--those who study the difference between fact and opinion have not come to agreement on the diffe

I'm grateful for Terry Jones' Koran-burning intolerance. Right wing rhetoric has escalated to the point where more is better, crossing the line into detachment from reality that should still be recognizable to most Americans as proto-fascism, a self-confirming, untestable ideological faith that demands that reality goes along with it. Terry Jones is an embarrassment the movement that spawned him. So out of touch, he believed that burning Koran's would win over moderate Muslims, and yet his style is on only inches from that which the Right is leaning into so enthusiastically these days, the rhetoric of crusaders or jihadists. Back in the 60's the CIA would seed peace rallies with hippie-clothed agents acting crazy and violent and ruining the rallies’ reputations. Jones’ is the Right’s own crazy—no need for CIA operatives. And there will be more like him, and there’s still hope that mainstream America will respond with a backlash of civility. Inconsistent with many of my progressive friends though, I agree with Jones about one thing. Jones’ believes we must fight back against Militant Muslim intolerance and violence. He believes as I do that sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, intolerance with intolerance. There’s a tendency among us civil-minded people to believe that one should never exercise intolerance since intolerance is always bad. I operate on the fundamental moral principle that since intolerance is bad, one should be intolerant of intolerance. I know that’s paradoxical, and forces me to admit to the hypocrisy of sometimes being intolerant because I hate intolerance, but that’s why I consider it fundamental. Since the principle can’t be acted upon simplistically, it confronts me with the real and difficult question: Under what circumstances is intolerance appropriate, acceptable and unacceptable? – a question some of my nicer progressive friends sidestep. The saying goes, “Don’t fight with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” The pig in question is any bully—a person who fights dirty, imposing incivility, deaf to negotiation or reason. There are three basic pieces of advice about bullies. Depending on who you had for parents your probably heard at least one of these. 1. Ignore him. He’s only doing it for attention. When you ignore bullies, they always go away. 2. Be nice to him. He probably just has low self-esteem. If you’re nice to bullies they always stop bullying. 3. Beat the crap out of him. That’s the only way to get a bully to stop. If you fight them, bullies end up scared of you. If you don’t win, at least they’ll respect you. Either way, if you fight them they always leave you alone. Now that we’re adults we can take the bad news: No one strategy always works to stop a bully, and sometimes none of them work. If Stalin, the world’s biggest bully sent you to Siberia as he did tens of millions of others, it wouldn’t have mattered if you ignored him, were nice to him, or fought him. We owe it to the unsung victims of such bullies not to pretend there’s a surefire recipe for getting bullies to stop, that these victims just failed to employ. We owe them the respect and honor of recognizing how hard it is to know what to do about a bully. Still, say some, getting the bully to leave us alone, isn’t the most important thing. It’s more important to live a moral life. A bully is intolerant but you don’t have to stoop to that. When Newt Gingrich argued that we shouldn’t let a Muslim YMCA be built near the World Trade Center’s ground zero, because, "There are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca,” many countered that that’s no reason for us to be intolerant. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, therefore we shouldn’t fight the pi

I'm grateful for Terry Jones' Koran-burning intolerance. Right wing rhetoric has escalated to the point where more is better, crossing the line into detachment from reality that should still be recognizable to most Americans as proto-fascism, a self-confirming, untestable ideological faith that demands that reality goes along with it. Terry Jones is an embarrassment the movement that spawned him. So out of touch, he believed that burning Koran's would win over moderate Muslims, and yet his style is on only inches from that which the Right is leaning into so enthusiastically these days, the rhetoric of crusaders or jihadists. Back in the 60's the CIA would seed peace rallies with hippie-clothed agents acting crazy and violent and ruining the rallies’ reputations. Jones’ is the Right’s own crazy—no need for CIA operatives. And there will be more like him, and there’s still hope that mainstream America will respond with a backlash of civility. Inconsistent with many of my progressive friends though, I agree with Jones about one thing. Jones’ believes we must fight back against Militant Muslim intolerance and violence. He believes as I do that sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, intolerance with intolerance. There’s a tendency among us civil-minded people to believe that one should never exercise intolerance since intolerance is always bad. I operate on the fundamental moral principle that since intolerance is bad, one should be intolerant of intolerance. I know that’s paradoxical, and forces me to admit to the hypocrisy of sometimes being intolerant because I hate intolerance, but that’s why I consider it fundamental. Since the principle can’t be acted upon simplistically, it confronts me with the real and difficult question: Under what circumstances is intolerance appropriate, acceptable and unacceptable? – a question some of my nicer progressive friends sidestep. The saying goes, “Don’t fight with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” The pig in question is any bully—a person who fights dirty, imposing incivility, deaf to negotiation or reason. There are three basic pieces of advice about bullies. Depending on who you had for parents your probably heard at least one of these. 1. Ignore him. He’s only doing it for attention. When you ignore bullies, they always go away. 2. Be nice to him. He probably just has low self-esteem. If you’re nice to bullies they always stop bullying. 3. Beat the crap out of him. That’s the only way to get a bully to stop. If you fight them, bullies end up scared of you. If you don’t win, at least they’ll respect you. Either way, if you fight them they always leave you alone. Now that we’re adults we can take the bad news: No one strategy always works to stop a bully, and sometimes none of them work. If Stalin, the world’s biggest bully sent you to Siberia as he did tens of millions of others, it wouldn’t have mattered if you ignored him, were nice to him, or fought him. We owe it to the unsung victims of such bullies not to pretend there’s a surefire recipe for getting bullies to stop, that these victims just failed to employ. We owe them the respect and honor of recognizing how hard it is to know what to do about a bully. Still, say some, getting the bully to leave us alone, isn’t the most important thing. It’s more important to live a moral life. A bully is intolerant but you don’t have to stoop to that. When Newt Gingrich argued that we shouldn’t let a Muslim YMCA be built near the World Trade Center’s ground zero, because, "There are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca,” many countered that that’s no reason for us to be intolerant. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, therefore we shouldn’t fight the pi

As I've mentioned I'm trying to put my finger on what makes me and others intuit that there are two different psychological sub-cultures of humans. Red vs. Blue, Conservative vs. Liberal, Right vs. Left, religious vs. secular--maybe these divisions are symptomatic of the underlying difference, but they don't seem to get to the bottom of it. I obviously believe I belong to one of these two psychological sub-cultures, and am naturally inclined to think my sub-culture is superior. To counter my chauvinism, I’m looking for an objective way to distinguish the two sub-cultures, some characteristic about which representatives of both sub-cultures would say,  “You’re damn right that’s how I am, and proud of it.” In other words it’s not going to be the usual self-congratulatory “Liberals are more loving,” or “Conservatives are more patriotic.”  The other day I saw a vegan restaurant called “Loving Hut.” Something about the signage implied that love was a defining characteristic of liberal vegetarians.  I see the connection.  Not eating animals is more loving to the animals than eating them. But for the first time I read the connection as a conservative carnivore would: “What, you think you liberals have a corner on love? Just because your lifestyle is loving of someone, it doesn’t mean my lifestyle isn’t loving.  I love my family enough to make sure they get great animal protein.” For the first time I noticed that liberals do what conservatives do.  When conservatives claim the mantel of “patriotism,” arguing, for example that being pro-Iraq-war is patriotic, they imply that patriotism is their distinguishing characteristic, and we liberals don’t buy it.  The distinguishing feature I’m looking for would not be one of these self-congratulatory distinctions.  It would be one we’d all buy, saying, “fair enough, that really is the distinction between our two approaches.” I suspect the distinction is around a trait I’m calling meta-confidence. There’s your interpretation, story, or belief, then there’s your confidence in your interpretation, story or belief, and then there’s your confidence in your confidence--your meta-confidence. “Meta” has come to mean “recursively about” so a meta-blog is a blog about blogging. Meta-confidence is your confidence about your confidence. How sure are you that London is the capital of England?  That’s your confidence level.  If you’re 100% sure that London is the capital of England, how sure are you that it really is?  I mean, can you ever be 100% sure of something and it still not be the case? I’m exploring the possibility is that if your answer is “No.  If I’m sure I’m sure, then it’s true,” then you’re a member of one of the sub-cultures, and if your answer is, “Yes. Being sure I’m sure about something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true,” then you are a member of the other sub-culture. The capital of England is not the point.  Nor is the point that some people are more confident than others.  Confidence is the source of focus, attention and effort for all of us.  If every day you flip-flop about whether you should pursue the career you’re in, you won’t be in it very long.  Any of us can reach 100% confidence in an interpretation, story or belief. These day’s I’m high on confidence about my choices.  I think I’m on the right path. Last year at this time my confidence was way down (see mid-mid-life crisis) and I’m much more productive this year by the standards I’m confident in.  I’ll go further. I hold the theories I hold with extremely high confidence. I just don’t’ hold my confidence in them with high confidence. Though my confidence is approaching 100% my meta-confidence can’t, won’t and shouldn’t ever approach that. The distinction I’m exploring

As I've mentioned I'm trying to put my finger on what makes me and others intuit that there are two different psychological sub-cultures of humans. Red vs. Blue, Conservative vs. Liberal, Right vs. Left, religious vs. secular--maybe these divisions are symptomatic of the underlying difference, but they don't seem to get to the bottom of it. I obviously believe I belong to one of these two psychological sub-cultures, and am naturally inclined to think my sub-culture is superior. To counter my chauvinism, I’m looking for an objective way to distinguish the two sub-cultures, some characteristic about which representatives of both sub-cultures would say,  “You’re damn right that’s how I am, and proud of it.” In other words it’s not going to be the usual self-congratulatory “Liberals are more loving,” or “Conservatives are more patriotic.”  The other day I saw a vegan restaurant called “Loving Hut.” Something about the signage implied that love was a defining characteristic of liberal vegetarians.  I see the connection.  Not eating animals is more loving to the animals than eating them. But for the first time I read the connection as a conservative carnivore would: “What, you think you liberals have a corner on love? Just because your lifestyle is loving of someone, it doesn’t mean my lifestyle isn’t loving.  I love my family enough to make sure they get great animal protein.” For the first time I noticed that liberals do what conservatives do.  When conservatives claim the mantel of “patriotism,” arguing, for example that being pro-Iraq-war is patriotic, they imply that patriotism is their distinguishing characteristic, and we liberals don’t buy it.  The distinguishing feature I’m looking for would not be one of these self-congratulatory distinctions.  It would be one we’d all buy, saying, “fair enough, that really is the distinction between our two approaches.” I suspect the distinction is around a trait I’m calling meta-confidence. There’s your interpretation, story, or belief, then there’s your confidence in your interpretation, story or belief, and then there’s your confidence in your confidence--your meta-confidence. “Meta” has come to mean “recursively about” so a meta-blog is a blog about blogging. Meta-confidence is your confidence about your confidence. How sure are you that London is the capital of England?  That’s your confidence level.  If you’re 100% sure that London is the capital of England, how sure are you that it really is?  I mean, can you ever be 100% sure of something and it still not be the case? I’m exploring the possibility is that if your answer is “No.  If I’m sure I’m sure, then it’s true,” then you’re a member of one of the sub-cultures, and if your answer is, “Yes. Being sure I’m sure about something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true,” then you are a member of the other sub-culture. The capital of England is not the point.  Nor is the point that some people are more confident than others.  Confidence is the source of focus, attention and effort for all of us.  If every day you flip-flop about whether you should pursue the career you’re in, you won’t be in it very long.  Any of us can reach 100% confidence in an interpretation, story or belief. These day’s I’m high on confidence about my choices.  I think I’m on the right path. Last year at this time my confidence was way down (see mid-mid-life crisis) and I’m much more productive this year by the standards I’m confident in.  I’ll go further. I hold the theories I hold with extremely high confidence. I just don’t’ hold my confidence in them with high confidence. Though my confidence is approaching 100% my meta-confidence can’t, won’t and shouldn’t ever approach that. The distinction I’m exploring

"You believe them? Are you out of your mind?! How can you not see through their lies?! It's so obvious your leaders are manipulative. And you just don't get it, do you?" Conservative friends have said that to me about my respect for likes of Obama, Reid, and Boxer, and I've said that to them about their respect for Palin, Beck, and McCain. As America becomes increasingly partisan, I sometimes wonder if we’re not just two separate species.  What distinguishes species is an inability to make children. We’re sort of like that.  It’s hard for us to make brainchildren with each other. I do know partisan couples-- a liberal married to a conservative with kids between them. They can cross breed, just not on political issues.  Our government is like that now. The prospects for bipartisan legislation these days are about as good as the prospects for Israeli/Palestinian peace accords in the past few decades. In evolution the most common source of speciation is allopatry, or geographic separation.  Communities of organisms that don’t co-mingle will tend to drift genetically in different directions and when they’re brought back together they can’t mate. Asian and African elephants were one species that split, migrated, and then adapted to different environments. Now they can’t produce offspring together. There’s cultural allopatry too. I grew up in an almost exclusively liberal intellectual enclave, and here I am a liberal intellectual having trouble interbreeding culturally with conservative anti-intellectuals. If you’ll pardon a cosmic parallel, a variation on allopatry makes the universe go round. Literally.  The reason there’s usable energy to make planets or your washing machine orbit is that things that were once unified (before the big bang) became separate for long enough that when they come back together they don’t just re-unite, they bounce off each other from different angles and at different speeds. The difference is what’s called energy. In general, time apart creates fresh, divergent often, conflicting angles of re-entry.  The technical definition of work has to do with the way contact between two formerly independent things forces both off of their natural or “spontaneous” trajectories.  This explains some of what makes Glenn Beck rub me the wrong way.  Obviously he’s been somewhere else. And sometimes I’m grateful to be rubbed the wrong way, like when a friend brings me a fresh perspective on things. Sometimes diversity is the spice of life.  It’s great to be rubbed the wrong way the right way. Vive la difference that in the long run I’m grateful for, and as for the rest--the differences that rub me wrong the wrong way, the Glenn Becks of the world-- I wish they’d go away. This is one of the most horrifying consequences of human leverage.  In our newly interconnected world, it’s harder to just live and let live.  Our different beliefs have consequences for each other.  Beck and his leveraged effects won’t leave me alone. I’m proud to be a liberal intellectual, but that’s not probably saying much.  That my parents and my former self would be proud of and agree with my current self is about as affirming of my grasp of the truth as advertising is a credible endorsement of a corporation’s products.  I agree with myself. So what?  For the most part, who doesn’t? As George Bernard Shaw said “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.”  I’m an intellectual patriot.  I believe my ideas are superior because I was born into them. Most of us don’t fall too far from the tree. You could call it your “inheristance,” the stance you inherited from your place and people of origin. I know people who made an all-out effort to fall as far from the tree of their intellectua

"You believe them? Are you out of your mind?! How can you not see through their lies?! It's so obvious your leaders are manipulative. And you just don't get it, do you?" Conservative friends have said that to me about my respect for likes of Obama, Reid, and Boxer, and I've said that to them about their respect for Palin, Beck, and McCain. As America becomes increasingly partisan, I sometimes wonder if we’re not just two separate species.  What distinguishes species is an inability to make children. We’re sort of like that.  It’s hard for us to make brainchildren with each other. I do know partisan couples-- a liberal married to a conservative with kids between them. They can cross breed, just not on political issues.  Our government is like that now. The prospects for bipartisan legislation these days are about as good as the prospects for Israeli/Palestinian peace accords in the past few decades. In evolution the most common source of speciation is allopatry, or geographic separation.  Communities of organisms that don’t co-mingle will tend to drift genetically in different directions and when they’re brought back together they can’t mate. Asian and African elephants were one species that split, migrated, and then adapted to different environments. Now they can’t produce offspring together. There’s cultural allopatry too. I grew up in an almost exclusively liberal intellectual enclave, and here I am a liberal intellectual having trouble interbreeding culturally with conservative anti-intellectuals. If you’ll pardon a cosmic parallel, a variation on allopatry makes the universe go round. Literally.  The reason there’s usable energy to make planets or your washing machine orbit is that things that were once unified (before the big bang) became separate for long enough that when they come back together they don’t just re-unite, they bounce off each other from different angles and at different speeds. The difference is what’s called energy. In general, time apart creates fresh, divergent often, conflicting angles of re-entry.  The technical definition of work has to do with the way contact between two formerly independent things forces both off of their natural or “spontaneous” trajectories.  This explains some of what makes Glenn Beck rub me the wrong way.  Obviously he’s been somewhere else. And sometimes I’m grateful to be rubbed the wrong way, like when a friend brings me a fresh perspective on things. Sometimes diversity is the spice of life.  It’s great to be rubbed the wrong way the right way. Vive la difference that in the long run I’m grateful for, and as for the rest--the differences that rub me wrong the wrong way, the Glenn Becks of the world-- I wish they’d go away. This is one of the most horrifying consequences of human leverage.  In our newly interconnected world, it’s harder to just live and let live.  Our different beliefs have consequences for each other.  Beck and his leveraged effects won’t leave me alone. I’m proud to be a liberal intellectual, but that’s not probably saying much.  That my parents and my former self would be proud of and agree with my current self is about as affirming of my grasp of the truth as advertising is a credible endorsement of a corporation’s products.  I agree with myself. So what?  For the most part, who doesn’t? As George Bernard Shaw said “Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.”  I’m an intellectual patriot.  I believe my ideas are superior because I was born into them. Most of us don’t fall too far from the tree. You could call it your “inheristance,” the stance you inherited from your place and people of origin. I know people who made an all-out effort to fall as far from the tree of their intellectua

I still have it, the sign my father, an innovative CEO of a large corporation had printed for use at executive meetings. In a 1960s font on yellowed cardboard it reads: What are we talking about? He designed it out of frustration with agenda drift. As a meeting conversation would overheat, sidetracked on some trivial matter, my dad would silently lift the sign off his lap. What are we talking about? He was asking people to step out of their stances within a conversation to notice what the conversation was about and then to compare it to other alternative conversations including whatever was really on the agenda.  The sign was as if to say, "Notice the tree you’re barking up.  If you step back to see the tree, you’ll notice that you’ve lost sight of the forest. If you see the forest, maybe you’ll reprioritize. Maybe the tree you’re barking up is the wrong tree.” I’m sure you can relate to my father’s frustration.  Your agenda item finally gets the floor and some klutz inadvertently boots it into the dusty corner with an over-earnest “Yes, but what about my (petty) concern?” The meeting attendees follow his “concern” like Dug the dog after a squirrel in the movie “Up” and forget it--they’re never coming back to your priority topic. I feel that frustration these days about how climate legislation got tabled and now all we can talk about is the immorality of allowing a Muslim YMCA to open between the Dunkin Donuts, off-track betting parlor and sex clubs two blocks from the former World Trade Center. The more meeting participants; the harder it is to keep the conversation on track. At present the nation’s conversation has the attention discipline of a two-year-old with ADD on LSD wandering the strip in Las Vegas. And you also know what its like to be seen as that klutz, because you’ve been in meetings where the agenda gets within inches of a real high-priority issue, and you do what you can to boot the conversation to what really counts even if others think yours is a petty concern. I feel like that kind of klutz sometimes writing these columns, which are slightly offset from conventional conversation. People complain. They don’t understand why, for example, I always go for the big picture. In my defense, I could counter that these complainers “can’t see the forest for the trees,” as though the big picture perspective is simply and always better. As I argued last week, it isn’t. Sometimes the details are what really count. But as I also argued last week, the big picture on the relationship between big and small pictures is really worth a visit, so that’s what we’re talking about this week, back to hierarchy, the relationship between forest and trees and what’s really involved there. Shifts between bigger and smaller pictures explain an enormous amount of what goes on in our lives--our victories and defeats, what makes us savvy or stupid, insightful or frustrating.  The ability to zoom the lens of one’s attention to the right level of analysis is one of the greatest gifts one can have. For lack of a conventional term, I’ve called it “rung-running skill” the ability to deftly move up and down the rungs of the ladder overlooking your circumstances, to see it from up high and down low, depending on what the situation calls for. We intuit that perspectives are nested in some kind of hierarchy from small too large, but where do nested hierarchies come from?  Simplifying, there are three sources. There’s nature itself. For example, nature produced you, and you are undeniably hierarchical, what with your cells making up your organs making up your body, etc. Second, words.  Our capacity to represent things symbolically frees us to make hierarchy, chiefly by applying symbols to themselves. I can talk about talking, write about writing, think a

I still have it, the sign my father, an innovative CEO of a large corporation had printed for use at executive meetings. In a 1960s font on yellowed cardboard it reads: What are we talking about? He designed it out of frustration with agenda drift. As a meeting conversation would overheat, sidetracked on some trivial matter, my dad would silently lift the sign off his lap. What are we talking about? He was asking people to step out of their stances within a conversation to notice what the conversation was about and then to compare it to other alternative conversations including whatever was really on the agenda.  The sign was as if to say, "Notice the tree you’re barking up.  If you step back to see the tree, you’ll notice that you’ve lost sight of the forest. If you see the forest, maybe you’ll reprioritize. Maybe the tree you’re barking up is the wrong tree.” I’m sure you can relate to my father’s frustration.  Your agenda item finally gets the floor and some klutz inadvertently boots it into the dusty corner with an over-earnest “Yes, but what about my (petty) concern?” The meeting attendees follow his “concern” like Dug the dog after a squirrel in the movie “Up” and forget it--they’re never coming back to your priority topic. I feel that frustration these days about how climate legislation got tabled and now all we can talk about is the immorality of allowing a Muslim YMCA to open between the Dunkin Donuts, off-track betting parlor and sex clubs two blocks from the former World Trade Center. The more meeting participants; the harder it is to keep the conversation on track. At present the nation’s conversation has the attention discipline of a two-year-old with ADD on LSD wandering the strip in Las Vegas. And you also know what its like to be seen as that klutz, because you’ve been in meetings where the agenda gets within inches of a real high-priority issue, and you do what you can to boot the conversation to what really counts even if others think yours is a petty concern. I feel like that kind of klutz sometimes writing these columns, which are slightly offset from conventional conversation. People complain. They don’t understand why, for example, I always go for the big picture. In my defense, I could counter that these complainers “can’t see the forest for the trees,” as though the big picture perspective is simply and always better. As I argued last week, it isn’t. Sometimes the details are what really count. But as I also argued last week, the big picture on the relationship between big and small pictures is really worth a visit, so that’s what we’re talking about this week, back to hierarchy, the relationship between forest and trees and what’s really involved there. Shifts between bigger and smaller pictures explain an enormous amount of what goes on in our lives--our victories and defeats, what makes us savvy or stupid, insightful or frustrating.  The ability to zoom the lens of one’s attention to the right level of analysis is one of the greatest gifts one can have. For lack of a conventional term, I’ve called it “rung-running skill” the ability to deftly move up and down the rungs of the ladder overlooking your circumstances, to see it from up high and down low, depending on what the situation calls for. We intuit that perspectives are nested in some kind of hierarchy from small too large, but where do nested hierarchies come from?  Simplifying, there are three sources. There’s nature itself. For example, nature produced you, and you are undeniably hierarchical, what with your cells making up your organs making up your body, etc. Second, words.  Our capacity to represent things symbolically frees us to make hierarchy, chiefly by applying symbols to themselves. I can talk about talking, write about writing, think a

We all know what's meant by "can't see the forest for the trees." It's a great turn of phrase reminding us not to lose scope and to keep the big picture in mind. But what are scope and the big picture anyway? The phrase "forest for trees" is especially apt because it originates in forestry and therefore biology.  Within biology patterns of hierarchy from small picture to big picture are plainly in play.  It's not just a figment of our imaginations.  Atoms make up molecules, which make up cells, which make up organs, which make up bodies, which make up populations, which make up ecologies. There are scope issues from small picture to big in our everyday lives too.  In thinking about where you’ll vacation, you might take into consideration what you want, what you and your partner want, what your family wants, and if you have been invited to a family reunion what your extended family wants. In thinking about politics, there’s what you, your community, county, state, country and planet want.   In business there’s likewise the costs and benefits for you, your team, your division, your company, your industry, your economy, and the global economy.  In caring for your environment, there’s what protects your home, your street, your state, your country, and the globe. With these examples we see that there aren’t really just two levels--trees and forests. It’s not a duplex, it’s a multi-leveled complex. We teach children to deal with the complexity through songs like “The green grass grows all around.”  Remember?  “There’s a leaf on the twig on the branch on the limb on the tree in the hole…” Taking into account the many levels we could as easily say, “Can’t see the limb for the branches” or “Can’t see the branch for the twigs.”  Instead our intuitions pick out just two levels, call them “trees” and “forest” and argue that the broader of the two is the most relevant.  We use the saying as a way to focus or constrain attention. It’s a way of saying “you’re paying attention to the wrong picture. The big picture is the right picture.” Is the bigger picture always the right perspective?  Some of humanities’ most spectacular failures resulted from ignoring some crucial small-picture detail.  We have sayings to warn against not seeing the trees for the forest too, and these are also ways to focus or constrain attention as if to say “You’re paying attention to the wrong picture. The smaller picture is the right picture.” Concentrate where the rubber hits the road. A stitch in time saves nine. The devil is in the details. Or: For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. So it’s not so simple.  Sometimes we do worse by not seeing forest for trees, and sometimes we do better.  Sometimes we do worse by not seeing the trees for the forest and sometimes we do better.  And that’s just two levels.  With more levels it becomes much more complicated to figure out where to focus. The problem is even one step more complex than that because there are levels on different questions.  Take, for example a decision about whether to have children. Notice the levels issues on the “who, what, where, why, when” and “how” of that question: Who:  Whose preferences matter to the decision—mine, my partnership’s, my family’s, the world’s population? What:  What factors matter to the decision—money, career, love, hobbies, religion, the economy, the environment? Where:  How big an area should I factor into the decision—my own home, my community, the country, the world? Why:  In explaining my decision, how deep into r

We all know what's meant by "can't see the forest for the trees." It's a great turn of phrase reminding us not to lose scope and to keep the big picture in mind. But what are scope and the big picture anyway? The phrase "forest for trees" is especially apt because it originates in forestry and therefore biology.  Within biology patterns of hierarchy from small picture to big picture are plainly in play.  It's not just a figment of our imaginations.  Atoms make up molecules, which make up cells, which make up organs, which make up bodies, which make up populations, which make up ecologies. There are scope issues from small picture to big in our everyday lives too.  In thinking about where you’ll vacation, you might take into consideration what you want, what you and your partner want, what your family wants, and if you have been invited to a family reunion what your extended family wants. In thinking about politics, there’s what you, your community, county, state, country and planet want.   In business there’s likewise the costs and benefits for you, your team, your division, your company, your industry, your economy, and the global economy.  In caring for your environment, there’s what protects your home, your street, your state, your country, and the globe. With these examples we see that there aren’t really just two levels--trees and forests. It’s not a duplex, it’s a multi-leveled complex. We teach children to deal with the complexity through songs like “The green grass grows all around.”  Remember?  “There’s a leaf on the twig on the branch on the limb on the tree in the hole…” Taking into account the many levels we could as easily say, “Can’t see the limb for the branches” or “Can’t see the branch for the twigs.”  Instead our intuitions pick out just two levels, call them “trees” and “forest” and argue that the broader of the two is the most relevant.  We use the saying as a way to focus or constrain attention. It’s a way of saying “you’re paying attention to the wrong picture. The big picture is the right picture.” Is the bigger picture always the right perspective?  Some of humanities’ most spectacular failures resulted from ignoring some crucial small-picture detail.  We have sayings to warn against not seeing the trees for the forest too, and these are also ways to focus or constrain attention as if to say “You’re paying attention to the wrong picture. The smaller picture is the right picture.” Concentrate where the rubber hits the road. A stitch in time saves nine. The devil is in the details. Or: For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail. So it’s not so simple.  Sometimes we do worse by not seeing forest for trees, and sometimes we do better.  Sometimes we do worse by not seeing the trees for the forest and sometimes we do better.  And that’s just two levels.  With more levels it becomes much more complicated to figure out where to focus. The problem is even one step more complex than that because there are levels on different questions.  Take, for example a decision about whether to have children. Notice the levels issues on the “who, what, where, why, when” and “how” of that question: Who:  Whose preferences matter to the decision—mine, my partnership’s, my family’s, the world’s population? What:  What factors matter to the decision—money, career, love, hobbies, religion, the economy, the environment? Where:  How big an area should I factor into the decision—my own home, my community, the country, the world? Why:  In explaining my decision, how deep into r

Last week I launched but didn't complete an attack on moral principles, arguing that they tend to make us dumber, not smarter. I focused on words I've called "synantonyms" elsewhere. Synantonyms are two words that describe the same behavior, but prescribe opposite responses to the behavior. I used "clingy" and "committed" as examples. They both describe perseverance, and yet clingy makes it sound bad and committed makes it sound good. Descriptively they’re synonyms; prescriptively they're antonyms. That's why a call them synantonyms. Here are some other synantonyms: Judgmental (bad) and discernment (good) Spineless (bad) vs. flexible (good) Pigheaded (bad) vs steadfast (good) Co-dependent (bad) vs. supportive (good) Addicted (bad) vs. dedicated (good) In denial (bad) vs. Hopeful (good) Pessimistic (bad) vs. optimistic (good) Unrealistic (bad) vs. Ambitious (good) Greedy (bad) vs. Saving for a rainy day (good) Uncaring (bad) vs. Focusing elsewhere (good) Such terms are treated as the meat of morality. I’m arguing that they mask ambiguities at the heart of the human moral dilemma. Our greatest moral challenge is just what you would expect from a creature like us with strong emotions but modest powers to reason about a complex world: When our emotions get strong, we find whatever reasons we need in order to make virtues out of our preferences. We turn, “I don’t like it” into “It’s morally wrong.” We turn “I want it” into “Morality demands that I should have it.” We rationalize too easily for our own long-term good. We pray, “God, grant me one good reason why I’m right,” and He generally grants it. Think about the people you find difficult. Chances are you don’t trust the reasons they give you for what they advocate. You think they rationalize and make up self-serving excuses and reasons, claiming they are being rational when they’re being impulsive. I think this tendency to rationalize is the most serious challenge facing us today. Now that human power has such far-reaching consequences, our margin of error is rapidly shrinking. Even unfettered, reason and science would have a hard time saving us from the trouble we’re in. We really need to find ways to constrain our natural tendency to bend reason and our interpretation of reality to our personal preferences. The harder things get the more emotional we’ll get and the more inclined we’ll be to bend reason. People don’t tend to get more rational in crises, but less. I think about the climate crisis and the lengths people are willing to go to ignore evidence. Environmentalist Rob Watson says, “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax.” The good news is that almost everyone who denies the climate crisis at this late stage is going to get their comeuppance within their lifetimes. The bad news is how. In the hands of rationalizing beings like us, synantonyms—these morally heavy-handed, yet ill-defined words--are dangerous. Synantonyms smuggle a subjective prescription into a supposedly objective description. 180-degree finger pointing: Where I have been hypocritical Let’s turn the tables 180 degrees here and scrutinize my arguments for a change. Isn’t it hypocritical of me to argue for a moral principle that moral principles are bad? In last week’s article I said, “I never met a moral principle I could trust,” in effect “moral principles are bad.” And yet how would I describe my argument if not as a moral principle? Didn’t I trust it? I could say, “Ah, but mine was not a moral principle (since they are bad). I was simply offering a guideline or a suggestion (which are good).” Wouldn’t that be doing exactl

Last week I launched but didn't complete an attack on moral principles, arguing that they tend to make us dumber, not smarter. I focused on words I've called "synantonyms" elsewhere. Synantonyms are two words that describe the same behavior, but prescribe opposite responses to the behavior. I used "clingy" and "committed" as examples. They both describe perseverance, and yet clingy makes it sound bad and committed makes it sound good. Descriptively they’re synonyms; prescriptively they're antonyms. That's why a call them synantonyms. Here are some other synantonyms: Judgmental (bad) and discernment (good) Spineless (bad) vs. flexible (good) Pigheaded (bad) vs steadfast (good) Co-dependent (bad) vs. supportive (good) Addicted (bad) vs. dedicated (good) In denial (bad) vs. Hopeful (good) Pessimistic (bad) vs. optimistic (good) Unrealistic (bad) vs. Ambitious (good) Greedy (bad) vs. Saving for a rainy day (good) Uncaring (bad) vs. Focusing elsewhere (good) Such terms are treated as the meat of morality. I’m arguing that they mask ambiguities at the heart of the human moral dilemma. Our greatest moral challenge is just what you would expect from a creature like us with strong emotions but modest powers to reason about a complex world: When our emotions get strong, we find whatever reasons we need in order to make virtues out of our preferences. We turn, “I don’t like it” into “It’s morally wrong.” We turn “I want it” into “Morality demands that I should have it.” We rationalize too easily for our own long-term good. We pray, “God, grant me one good reason why I’m right,” and He generally grants it. Think about the people you find difficult. Chances are you don’t trust the reasons they give you for what they advocate. You think they rationalize and make up self-serving excuses and reasons, claiming they are being rational when they’re being impulsive. I think this tendency to rationalize is the most serious challenge facing us today. Now that human power has such far-reaching consequences, our margin of error is rapidly shrinking. Even unfettered, reason and science would have a hard time saving us from the trouble we’re in. We really need to find ways to constrain our natural tendency to bend reason and our interpretation of reality to our personal preferences. The harder things get the more emotional we’ll get and the more inclined we’ll be to bend reason. People don’t tend to get more rational in crises, but less. I think about the climate crisis and the lengths people are willing to go to ignore evidence. Environmentalist Rob Watson says, “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is. You cannot sweet-talk her. You cannot spin her. You cannot tell her that the oil companies say climate change is a hoax.” The good news is that almost everyone who denies the climate crisis at this late stage is going to get their comeuppance within their lifetimes. The bad news is how. In the hands of rationalizing beings like us, synantonyms—these morally heavy-handed, yet ill-defined words--are dangerous. Synantonyms smuggle a subjective prescription into a supposedly objective description. 180-degree finger pointing: Where I have been hypocritical Let’s turn the tables 180 degrees here and scrutinize my arguments for a change. Isn’t it hypocritical of me to argue for a moral principle that moral principles are bad? In last week’s article I said, “I never met a moral principle I could trust,” in effect “moral principles are bad.” And yet how would I describe my argument if not as a moral principle? Didn’t I trust it? I could say, “Ah, but mine was not a moral principle (since they are bad). I was simply offering a guideline or a suggestion (which are good).” Wouldn’t that be doing exactl