Uncertainty

The other day my yoga teacher was talking about the importance of the ability to embrace uncertainty. She mentioned to me a book by Pema Chodron called Comfortable with Uncertainty. I've not read the book, but if you don't write down your references when you remember them, you forget them (hard to believe, I know!).

Anyway, this is a principle that I think is useful on many levels. (As, indeed, are many ideas--which was almost the subject of this post--if I hadn't written about uncertainty.)

Logically speaking, we are faced with limits to our certainty. The work of David Hume, especially his Treatise of Human Nature, clearly framed the limits of our logical certainty in many different ways. On a very basic level Hume argued "that the supposition, that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is deriv'd entirely from habit, by which we are determin'd to expect for the future the same train of objects, to which we have been accustom'd" (Treatise, Book I, Part III, Section XII, italics are Hume's). Essentially he is saying that there is no logical argument that proves that the future will resemble the past--logical in the sense of a priori logic--something that can be proved from basic premises. Yes, he says, we expect the future to resemble the past, because we have seen patterns repeat in the past, but this expectation is not certain--it is only probable (part III of book I is titled "Of knowledge and probability"). Later in the same section he says "even after the observation of the frequent or constant conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have experience" (the italics, again, are Hume's).

This general logical principle, sometimes called "Hume's Problem," is also called the problem of induction. It is still debated; no response to Hume has swept away his claims. The most notable response was that of Karl Popper in The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Popper's response was to suggest that we cannot prove the truth of a claim through induction, but that we can prove the falsity of a claim, and therefore science can proceed using the hypotheses that have survived the most tests. But this too, one must note, is logically uncertain: we have certainty (perhaps) that we've rejected bad theories, but we have no certainty that the theory we have not yet rejected is actually good.

Well, the litany of sources of uncertainty in logic is long, and I don't want to go into it here. There are similar ideas outside the realm of Western Philosophy: is there not uncertainty in "The Tao that can be told of is not the absolute Tao."?

I think there are benefits in embracing uncertainty. Especially in logical debate: it's an escape hatch--if we know uncertainty exists, we can use that to justify some degree of imperfection in our argument: we simply cannot know everything; we must somewhere start with something unproven.

We embrace the uncertainty. Of course, we also need to act decisively: so we balance the uncertainty somehow. Ultimately we chose what we believe is important and act on that--if we cannot make such a choice then we're paralyzed.

Of course lots of people go through life thinking that they're certain about everything, but it's hard to get away with that as an academic--at least we're taught to question. So for the academic--or for any philosophical, thinking person--we look at the uncertainties that face us and choose among them the ones that seem best.
If we understand that we are choosing from a place of logical uncertainty, we have to embrace our beliefs for another reason. There's a certain freedom to believing in an idea and knowing that you may be wrong--there's a danger, but also a freedom.

Carrots and Sticks

So I got an e-mail:

I understand what you say here, " The point I'm really aiming at is the value of being accountable to yourself rather than to someone else. " Sometimes however I feel motivated by the enthusiasm of others. There are days like today when I just want to ask, "am I on the right track." Of course I'm looking for an affirmative response so if I received the contrary, I might be utterly shattered. But if I can get some dialogue and discussion to affirm that I am on the right track, it helps me keep going just a little longer. I'm still doing the work for myself (I think/hope) but sometimes the energy to go after that carrot does have to do with the support of someone else...don't know if that makes sense, but it's what I thought about when I read...

I was wondering about this.
Because, of course I believe in the power of getting encouragement from others and from having your own work appreciated.

Here's answer number 1:

Last night as I wrote about sticks and carrots I was thinking about something I had heard from George Lakoff. I cannot remember what source this material was published in; I remember reading it, but not where; I do remember George discussing it in a lecture. Anyway--sorry for the lack of a real citation--the story is this:
Lakoff (and perhaps a co-author) had analyzed a set of proverbs translated into English. They were looking for metaphorical structures that were repeated in different languages. One proverb--Chinese, I think--was "Cows run with the wind; Horses run against it." In the brief analysis of this proverb Lakoff suggested that proverb favored horses, i.e., one should persevere in the face of difficulty. And so it was published, but according to Lakoff a native speaker of the language whence the proverb came contacted him to say that the proverb in its native language and culture favored cows: one should go with the flow and be wise.
But the way I see it, they're both right. Both the horses and cows are worthy of respect and emulation.
Or, in other words, we need to find a balance between the self-righteous ego-driven sense of purpose and motivation, and the sense that we are connected with a larger whole.
Living in Berkeley, I have had the opportunity to meet some interesting people--people drawn to the city for its intellectualism, and for its radical reputation; people who are passionate about their causes that they have researched extensively. But I can see these people--they're all preachers of their own little religion in a way--and they are so far removed from what other people are seeing and thinking that they have trouble connecting. I respect their intelligence and their passion for their cause. But there's a part of me that says: "I'm a writer; if I'm writing to share my ideas, then I need to understand how to connect with the people around me."

Answer number 2 is forthcoming.

Beyond Reason

I was wondering what to write about tonight.
Lacking any particular subject, I decided to write about an old favorite of mine, an essay by Jorge Luis Borges titled "Avatars of the Tortoise." The whole essay is maybe six pages long. I have it in a collection titled Labyrinths, translated by James E. Irby.

Many writers get caught in a sort of perfectionist trap: "I don't know enough," they cry. And then they flee to the library, or to the safety of someone else's writing. It's easy to feel like we don't know enough. There will always be something new to learn. As writers and researchers we need to be able to acknowledge this, so that instead of looking for perfect, complete explanations, we can finish our work.

"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others," opens the essay. "I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the infinite." The famed paradox of Zeno of Elea of Achilles and the Tortoise provides the basis for the essay's name: Borges looks at various manifestations of paradoxes caused by the concept of infinity.

Of particular interest to academic writers is Borges's attention to Agrippa the skeptic, who "denies that anything can be proven, since every proof requires a previous proof," and "Sextus Empiricus [, who] argues in a parallel manner that definitions are in vain, since one will have to define each of the words used and then define the definition."
What does this say to the academic writer about wanting complete knowledge? It suggests that there is no utter certainty. We must start from something else. Bertrand Russell, recognizing this problem in his Philosophy of Logical Atomism says that we need to start our arguments from somewhere, and as we have no access to truth, we must start from something that is "undeniable." But, of course, in this day and age on what point of interest can we find no debate?

We must choose some place to start our argument. Ideally that is what we can use the literature review to do: we can position our fundamental premises in terms of the discourse of our field. What it means is that we make a choice of where to start rather than having some logical rule that determines where to start. And what this means is that if you, the author, face your blank page and say "I don't have enough knowledge to start," it is worth sitting back a moment and asking yourself "can the material I already have provide a strong foundation for my first draft?" If the answer is yes, start writing. The sooner you start writing, the sooner you will finish.

Confusion and Clarity

Yesterday in my yoga class the teacher was talking about confusion and clarity. I was a little confused by her take on it, but clarity is definitely what I'm interested in.

I should start by saying that my confusion is not necessarily a reflection of her confusion, but rather of my attempt to integrate what she had to say into what I'm interested in.

What follows is my take on what she was saying--very heavily filtered by the fact that the subject of confusion and clarity (clarity especially) is so near to my heart that I could not listen without my internal dialogue running away with things. (This in itself is a lesson, but not my subject for the moment.)

I don't believe in logical certainty, and I say that with a great deal of confidence, though not with certainty. At the boundaries of our knowledge everywhere, and in the spaces beneath--the very foundations by which we understand the world--there are gaps and questions that logic cannot answer. To me then, the struggle of the academic writer is to make valuable knowledge crystallize out of the background of uncertainty. And yet the academic must not push to far towards towards the crystalline clarity of certainty, because the work then becomes fragile--by overstepping we lose credibility.

The writer has another problem related to the interplay between confusion and clarity. We don't usually know what it is we're going to write when we first sit down. We are seeking that understanding. The writing process is a learning process during which we come to understand our subject matter more deeply. As we write, then, we face problems of what our project should look like. And each time we come up with an answer, that answer will raise new questions. In other words, each time we reach clarity on one question, that answer is likely to create new questions.

Within the writing process this cycling from confusion to clarity and back is almost continuous. Sometimes the confusion moves to smaller and smaller scale, while, for example, you move a draft towards completion. But sometimes the confusion moves to a larger scale--as, e.g., when a completed draft receives feedback requesting changes.

I was also thinking about how clarity is often related to a closed mind, while confusion is related to the open mind. To the mind that sees something as clear, it is hard to get that mind to see things differently. The "confused mind" on the other hand, is open to different answers--if only because no answer seems good enough.

I was also thinking how confusion can often be related to the most profound of learning experiences. If we experience a major shift in how we look at the world, there will likely be a period of confusion where we start to see problems with our old way of looking at the world, but are not yet fully convinced of a new way of looking at the world.

Confusion is not always bad. It is part of the process of seeing the world and it is intimately intertwined with our ability to see clarity in the world as well. If we can embrace the confusion, we can try to explore it and see the possibilities it has to offer, which may prove to be a quick way out of the confusion: listing available options always helps in making a choice. What we don't want to do is complain about confusion without looking for what we can learn in the moment of confusion. Epiphanies don't arise when we're already crystal clear; epiphanies arise when we're still seeking understanding--in other words epiphany can only enter the space where there is room for a new way of seeing the world.

Confusion is not a reason to stop working. And it is not something to feared. It is something to engage (ok, well, there may be circumstances in which confusion is to be feared--you don't want to lose your sense of direction walking on the edge of a cliff in heavy fog, for example--but the academic's confusion is usually not life-threatening).