"An Honest and Pure Drive for Truth"

"Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself — in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity — is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.

I have mentioned previously on this blog the interesting theory of Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber that reasoning evolved -- not to nobly discern truths -- but to persuade our fellow apes to cooperate with us. Thus Mercier and Sperber argue:

"The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things."

In other words, those of us who wish in at least some cases to arrive at rational beliefs and rational decisions are somewhat in the position of a person who must drive screws with a hammer -- the tool we have available to us (reason) did not evolve for the purpose to which we wish to employ it, and only by taking the greatest care can we arrive safely at our goal.

I do not think Mercier and Sperber quite address Nietzsche's question of how any of us could actually have "an honest and pure drive for truth".  Moreover, I'm not sure Nietzsche in his later writings maintained that any of us had such a drive.  But I'm curious what you think: Do any of us -- even the rarest of us -- have what Nietzsche called "an honest and pure drive for truth", or do we always have one or another ulterior motive on those occasions when we actually seek the truth (as oppose to a mere justification for our beliefs or actions)?  

Rape and the Madness of Crowds

About a year ago, a 14 year-old girl was raped in a small Swedish town.  What came after the rape is simple to outline:  The town not only rallied to the support of her rapist, but eventually drove the girl from the community.

The rape has been investigated both by representatives of the Swedish Government and by private journalists.  None of them deny the rape happened.  In fact, even the rapist himself does not deny the rape happened: His confession to the police is on record; he has been tried in court; he has been convicted.  There seems no legitimate doubt the raped occurred.

Yet, despite those facts, most of the town folk have all but systematically denied the girl understanding, compassion, and even justice (by driving her from the community).  For instance: When the girl reported her rape to her school's principal, her principal responded: "You file a police report if you want, although this is not a prioritized case as no serious crime has been committed."

The principal then went on to remark: "Guys do this kind of thing, you have to get used to it."

That "conversation" was not only witnessed -- and reported -- by the girl herself, but by a member of the school staff who had accompanied the girl to the principle.

The principal by no means stood alone in his bastard treatment of the girl. At one point, 2000 people from the town and its greater community had signed a petition to have the rapist's conviction overturned.  The town's immediate population is about 1800.

I will not attempt to report all that happened to the girl following her rape.   You can read a much fuller account of those events here.  I recommend that you do.

The story of this poor girl came to my attention when it was reported last month on an internet forum.  At first, many of the people on the forum questioned the report.  They could not believe what they were reading was true.  It was only after they had read several separate accounts that they accepted the accuracy of the reports.
 
I cannot prove it, but I suspect one reason the forum folk could not believe what they were reading is that the events happened in Sweden.  Many of us have come to expect such things to happen in places like Afghanistan.  But Sweden?  Sweden is not only a progressive society, but it has the reputation of treating women better than almost any other place on earth.  It seems improbable an entire Swedish town would almost to its last citizen ally itself with a rapist.

Of course, once someone gets his or her head around the concept that such events actually happened, and happened in of all places, Sweden, then the obvious question for him or her to ask is why did they happen?  And this is where it gets dangerous.

It gets dangerous because most of us -- perhaps even all of us -- seem to have a tendency to bullshit ourselves about these things.  That is, it seems human nature to at this point demonize the wrong-doers.  Or -- if we do not go so far as to actually demonize them -- we usually still find some way to think of them as "not at all like us". 

So, for instance, we decide the Swedish townsfolk must, unlike us, be provincial hicks to condone rape.  Perhaps they are even inbred.  Or maybe it's just that they are socialists. Everyone knows Swedes are socialists -- and some of us at least know what that does to your morals, right?  Regardless of how we explain the town's behavior, our "explanations" have one thing in common:  All of them insist the Swedish townsfolk are "not like us".

One of the problems with such theories -- besides the likelihood they are simply false -- is that they do nothing to prevent events such as happened in Sweden from happening again.  And again.

If the Swedish townsfolk can be dismissed as "not like us", then there is no reason for us to be further concerned.  Since they are not like us, and we are not like them, we need not worry that such events as happened in Sweden can happen here.  Indeed, the more alien to us the Swedes are, the less we need do anything to prevent ourselves from ever condoning rape.

That attitude would be fine if it were realistic.  But I don't think it is.  What happened in that Swedish town could have happened nearly anywhere.  It's not the Swedes who are to blame:  It's human nature that is to blame. 

I don't mean it is human nature to condone rape.  I mean it is human nature to often enough go along with the crowd.  One of the most obvious things about us as a species is that we are a cooperative social animal.  I even once heard it said by a notable primatologist that humans are the single most cooperative species of mammal on earth with the possible exception of meerkats. She went onto explain that our ability to cooperate with each other was crucial in our evolutionary success. We didn't have the biggest fangs, we weren't the fastest species, we were by no means the strongest: But, in essence, we knew how to overcome "problems" by ganging up on them.  The instinct to coordinate our behavior with those around us -- to go along with the crowd, if you wish -- is deeply bred into us.  All of us.

I think that's what happened in Sweden.  At least it seems to me a good chunk of what happened.  There almost certainly were other factors at play, but one of the biggest factors was "the madness of crowds".  Individuals joined together to turn a cruelly raped girl out of her own town because going along with the crowd is a human instinct.

I believe it is true that some of us -- a minority -- tend to be relatively less prone to join in with the crowd than most of us.  But I see no evidence to strongly suggest that many of us are without any instinct to go along with the crowd.  If any of us are, our immunity probably comes about as the result of some psychological disorder.

Yet, even if I am wrong to place such an emphasis on the role going along with the crowd might have played in all of this -- even if other factors were much more important -- I believe I am right to assert that what happened in Sweden could have happened mostly anywhere.  That is, the townsfolk's behavior -- no matter how ugly it is -- is a product of universal human nature, rather than unique to them.

Hence, I think a lesson to take from all of this is that we would be foolish to believe we ourselves would necessarily behave any different than the majority of the townsfolk if we found ourselves in their circumstances. If we ever find ourselves in a similar situation, then let us actively be on guard to do what's right, rather than find ourselves passively carried along with the crowd.  

Can Insects be Happy?

Like most sensible folk, I occasionally spend my afternoons wondering whether life forms other than my own can experience feelings of happiness.  After all, I have only to look out my window to notice that four or five dogs are currently playing in the yards neighboring mine.  And those dogs appear to be happy.

Beyond the simple appearance of happiness, it would not at all surprise me if those dogs now and then actually felt happy.  That's because dogs and humans are related to each other through evolution and, consequently, we share some of the same neurochemistry.  It's certainly not hard to imagine the possibility that similar -- or even identical -- neurochemical processes occur in both humans and dogs.

Besides, if, as some scientists now suspect, the same neurochemical processes can produced feelings of happiness in both humans and politicians, then how much more likely is it that the same neurochemical processes can produce feelings of happiness in both humans and dogs?

It seems, though, that thinking about happiness in dogs naturally leads one to wonder what is the simplest animal that can feel happy?  Can birds feel happy?  What about frogs and salamanders?  Spiders?  Insects?  Worms?

To me, the cool thing is that it seems we are able -- at least in theory -- to somewhat answer those questions. In theory, we could establish the precise neurological processes that are associated with feelings of happiness in us.  We could then check if those exact processes were ever present in other animals.  And if we discovered that they sometimes were, then we would have a clue suggesting other animals might sometimes feel happiness.

Of course, even then, it would be extremely problematic to assert that many other animals do in fact feel happiness in much the same way we do.  There are simply too many variables for any conclusive answer.

All the same: Some might find it an interesting question if only because answering it might shed some light on human happiness.  And, as for myself, I would love out of simple curiosity to better understand the evolution of feelings of happiness.

What is the Function of Emotions?

About 30 years ago, when I was at university, I had a good friend who was a teaching assistant in computer science, and who was quite interested in artificial intelligence.

Since both of us were night owls, we used to sit up into the wee hours speculating about thinking computers.  I recall once asking him what role emotions might play in a thinking computer.  He answered that emotions were "primitive" thoughts.  That is, they were the half made up, vague, and fuzzy precursors to clear thinking.  And it followed that a thinking computer would not need to have emotions anymore than it would need to have partial or incomplete thoughts.

Thirty years ago, his answer didn't sound quite so outlandish as it might sound to you today.  There was quite a bit about emotions that just was not known back then.  And his notion that emotions were "primitive thoughts" was a respectable guess. 

Yet, if today we know better than to think of emotions as primitive thoughts, then what are they?  Or, in other words, what is their function?

Well, one way to approach that question is to first ask what people would be like if they had absolutely no emotions at all.  As it happens, we actually know a little bit about what people are like when they lack any ability at all to feel emotions.

However, if you think people who cannot feel emotions function like the famous (and fictional) Mr. Spock, you would be wrong.  Mr. Spock functioned quite well without any emotions.  Yet, real people do not function well without emotions.

The reason we know what real people are like when they lack any ability to feel emotions is because -- now and then -- someone has an accident that damages his or her brain in such a way that s/he no longer has any emotions.


One of the few scientific studies of such people that I've heard of discovered they are dysfunctional in a surprising way.  Surprising, because many of us tend to think of emotions as things that typically get in the way of making good decisions.  Yet, if that is true -- if emotions do indeed get in the way of making good decisions -- then we would expect to find that people who have no emotions routinely make better decisions than the rest of us.

In fact, we find they have great difficulty making any decisions at all.

In general, decision making requires us to prioritize things.  That is, in order to make a decision, we must decide what is -- and what isn't -- important to us.  It has been found, however, that people who cannot feel emotions cannot easily prioritize things in such a way that they can decide between one option and another.

Suppose, for instance, that you yourself had no emotions.  One day you are sitting in your office when you hear the news that the stock market is crashing.  You realize that your life savings are in danger.  But it's about noon.  Do you call your stockbroker or go to lunch?

If you have no emotions, it will be very difficult for you to decide which course of action is most important to you.

So, if the scientists are right -- if the above is true -- then at least one of the functions of emotions is to help us prioritize courses of action.  My friend and I didn't know about that 30 years ago when we would sit up late discussing artificial intelligence.  Which makes me wonder what new things will be known about emotions in another 30 years?