Free Will #12 - Willed Events

             It has been some time since I assembled an entry on the topic of free will even though I consider it a topic of highest importance.  As I have stated previously, I am convinced that human beings have free will due to my years of experience living as a human being.  People are responsible for the choices they make.  I say I am "convinced" of this because it seems to me to be the most obvious condition that I experience every moment of every day, and I just can't deny the obvious despite some well-reasoned arguments against it. 

             In this entry, I'd like to present some basic assertions that kind of summarize my thinking and then, in the next entry, delve into an issue that I believe is directly related to free will:  creativity.  It doesn't seem to me that philosophers talk much about creativity, but maybe I've just missed it.  My thoughts on this topic may be naive - I really hate finding out I'm just restating what others have been saying for centuries - but I'm going to dive in nonetheless.

             First, I have previously alluded to the concept that the existence of free will implies that there are three different categories of events.  To be specific, these three categories are:

 

1.  Caused events

2.  Random events

3.  Willed events

 

             The materialist + hard determinist probably only accepts the first category of events.  Actually, that may be true of most people, even if they haven't thought much about the topic.  Indeed, science itself can only really allow for caused events.  Specifically, we, as scientists, assume that every event has a cause and we try to understand what that cause is.  Science is an exciting exploration[1].  We also expect that such causes are repeatable, and therefore we can perform experiments that allow us to determine the cause of the event under study.  Through science we have discovered that many events that might have been considered "random" or "willed" are actually caused by some natural and material precursor.  In fact, I'm guessing that most scientists believe that eventually every event will be shown to be caused.  I believe that also implies that most scientists expect that every event is repeatable and thus can be the subject of an experiment.  In my view, at least some human decisions - those made via free will - are not repeatable and thus cannot be subject to scientific experimentation.

             Before I move on to the third category of events, just a brief word about random events.  I don't know if they really exist.  It could be that all events that appear to be random actually have either a cause or are willed.  I'm not really sure there is a way to disprove the existence of random events unless you could demonstrate that every event fit into the other two categories, and that seems pretty difficult!  But, to me, it seems likely that they do exist.

             The most controversial - and most interesting - category of events are those in the third category, which I call "willed events."  Willed events, by my definition, have no cause, at least no cause in the normal way we use the term, and they are not random.  How can something be not caused and not random?  It's very hard to conceptualize such an event, although frankly it is no harder to conceptualize than quantum entanglement!  But, just because willed events are difficult to conceptualize does not mean that they must not exist.  In fact, plain logic dictates that there has to be some original cause that is uncaused.  That could be "God" or something else.  Christians say that God is the uncaused cause, but how did God start?  We might say that such a question is outside of our realm of understanding, but that is a highly annoying and uncomfortable answer for most human beings.  We naturally want to understand and explain everything.  I know that some physicists propose some kind of matter+anti-matter (="nothing") or quantum foam or something to claim that "something" can come from "nothing" and therefore you can eliminate the problem of a first cause.  In my view, that is just redefining "nothing" to equal "something" and then saying "see:  you really can get something from nothing - you don't need any God or any original cause."  I don't accept that line of thinking as being logical in any way.  Therefore, I conclude that there is at least one uncaused cause.  However, from this argument alone, all you can really say is that there must be at least two categories of events, because the one necessary original cause could have been either random or willed.

             I put free will and uncaused causes together into one category because I do understand the logic behind the determinist's argument that every decision, when you work your way back, seems like it must have a cause.  If the decisions we make are not caused by our genetics and our environment, then what are they caused by?  If we have a soul that determines our character (i.e. is the cause of our actions), then how did that soul come to have the character it has?  There must be something that caused our soul to be the way it was.  Or if, on the other hand, you claim that God created our souls, then God must have established the character of our souls when He created us, so therefore God is the cause of our character.  Since I claim free will is a real thing for each human being, I have to accept the implications.  The major implication, as I see it, is that the exercise of free will has to be, in some way, a "first cause" all on its own.  That would mean that every time a human being exercises free will, they are establishing a new uncaused cause.  I recognize that is difficult to accept.  Also, for those who believe that God created us (as I do), this concept has its own set of difficult implications, but I will have to deal with those in a future entry.  What I want to say here is that I accept this implication fully.  In fact, it excites me, as I will explain in the next entry.

             Thus, the claim of real free will implies that we make decisions that, by our own actions, assume the existence of something that is not fully caused, not fully determined and not random. We make a decision and we are responsible for it.  Of course sometimes people do things that are entirely determined by their environment or physical condition or even genetics (or a combination of all of these), and I don't consider those actions to carry moral responsibility.  Further, I don't think we actually exercise real free will very often.  As I have discussed elsewhere, true free will is rare.  But even rare free will is sufficient to make us responsible for our actions.

             I think willed events are non-material in origin and thus require the existence of some kind of supernatural realm.  I also think that the concept of eternality - that God exists outside of time (and space) - is also somehow a part of category #3.  I will have to think that through in the future, but caused events seem to require some concept of time and therefore it seems to me that uncaused events and timelessness somehow fit together.

             I think willed events can only be generated by a "person"[2].  Within my knowledge and experience, there are only two types of "persons":  human beings and God.  God, if He exists, surely has the property that He is an "uncaused cause." And  God certainly has free will.  Whether human beings can really exhibit a will - a free will - an uncaused cause - is obviously open for debate.  I don't think you can say the same thing about God.  You could debate his existence, but if he does exist, he must have this quality of being able to generate willed events.  So, I think all theists would also have to accept that willed events are real.

             I'd like to give an example that helps illustrate what a willed event is like, but any time I try to give such an example, I end up having to use a human agent acting with free will as part of the example. And so my example becomes circular.  I don't apologize for that problem:  that's just reality.

             But, to conclude this particular entry, for me the argument for free will always comes back to our daily, moment-by-moment experiences.  If my experiences are so unreliable that free will is an illusion, then I cannot rely on my thinking at all and I might as well give up reasoning about anything.  Besides, I really like having the freedom to choose to believe that free will exists.  For all of you who deny free will, you are stuck having to be told what to believe (i.e. your belief was determined by something other than you).  I would hate that!

---

[1] Science is a great tool for exploring and understanding the universe, but it makes a terrible religion.

[2] Or, maybe, it is just that a "person" is defined as an entity that exhibits free will.

A Platinum that Tarnishes

              As part of my day job, I have to complete annual training courses.  These are typically on-line sessions that require reading through a series of slides on some topic and then answering questions at the end to pass the course and move on to the next lesson.  I was trying to complete my training recently and get through as many of the courses as possible.  Some topics, such as those related to customer service, are generally common sense principles and the test is easy.  But I got tripped up on one true or false question that seemed to have an obvious answer.  The question was:

 

             "It is important to treat others the way you would like to be treated - T/F?"

 

             That's the "Golden Rule", isn't it?  Obviously that statement is "true".  In fact, from my experience, it might be the most universally agreed-upon principle of human behavior.

 

             Well, the correct answer, according to the training course test I was taking, was "false"!

 

             At first I thought I had discovered a mistake in the test scoring.  But, no, as it turns out, the course creators consider the "Golden Rule" to have passed out of favor to the point that it is now (to state it as a "true" statement):  "You should not treat others the way you would like to be treated."  Instead, it turns out, there is now a "Platinum Rule" which states:

 

             "Treat others the way they would like to be treated."

 

             Who decided this?  I don't remember hearing about this.  On the face of it, it sounds like another nice principle to live by, but I don't remember voting out the Golden Rule.  I feel I'm reasonably well-read (on at least some topics), but I had to do an internet search to learn about the Platinum Rule.  How did I miss this major change in one of the most foundational moral principles of all time?   Remember the popular book a few years back called "Everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten?"  Well, suddenly, one of the first things I learned in kindergarten has been declared false!  Frankly, that shatters the very foundations of how to live.

 

             To be fair, the institution I work for is a public institution and it is in a difficult position when it comes to trying to train employees how to treat customers and other employees fairly.  The government isn't really equipped to make moral proclamations and so it struggles when it is put into that position.  Still, it would be interesting to know how the decision was made to dump the Golden Rule in favor of the Platinum Rule.  Was that a decision made by a single individual (the person making up the training)?  Was it a decision made corporately by the company that creates the training modules?  Did the leadership at my institution get together and decide this?  I don't know.

 

             Based on the general context of the training I was taking, I imagine that the thinking behind abandoning the Golden Rule in favor of the Platinum Rule was based on issues like gender identity and religious preferences.  I have no direct knowledge of the thinking behind this change, of course, but one of the points of the training was to respect the wishes of others in areas like gender identity and religious views.  These specific principles I can understand.  But, to be honest, I felt like these specific examples were hidden behind an authoritative-sounding principle (the Platinum Rule).  It seemed (to me) that the creators of the training module must have thought that it sounded better to couch these principles inside of a general rule and give it a nice name, thus giving it an air of authority.  But, in so doing, they overreached.  They should have stuck with the specific issues, such as gender identity and religious liberty, as being the principles that were important in the training. 

 

             The Platinum Rule has problems when it is applied too broadly.  So does the Golden Rule. But one obvious problem with the broad implementation of the Platinum Rule is that we generally don't know how others want to be treated until we talk to them.  It's certainly considerate to try to figure out how someone else wants to be treated.  But I think an appropriate application of the Golden Rule would arrive at the same conclusion.  Most of us recognize there is a certain degree of "individualizing" that is necessary in how we treat others. We recognize that even in our own lives, there are times we want to be treated one way and times we want to be treated a different way.  I'm not even sure I always know how I want to be treated.  So, if we are following the Golden Rule, I think most of us will include a component of the Platinum Rule.

 

             The Platinum Rule assumes there is no absolute right or wrong, and thus it doesn't work in every situation.  Again, the same is true with the Golden Rule (as it is generally applied).  Neither Rule "always works."  There are some weird people out there and I don't want them to treat me the way they want to be treated (i.e. the Golden Rule fails).  Conversely, there are some weird people out there, and I think it would be wrong to treat them the way they want to be treated (i.e. the Platinum Rule fails). 

 

             One struggle we face is that the whole concept of trying to come up with one simple, single, pithy sentence that describes how we should act within a society in every situation is difficult, if not impossible.  The Platinum rule can be useful and the Golden rule can be useful, but neither can just be applied blindly.  For example, people who are depressed often just want to be left alone.  If you try to apply the Platinum Rule and treat them how they want to be treated, that might not be the best thing for them.  Further, if you applied the Golden Rule, you might end up in the same dilemma, because it's entirely possible that when you are depressed, you also just want to be left alone.  So, with either rule, the principle would seem to be that you should respect their wishes.  But to be left alone might be the worst thing for someone who is acutely depressed, especially if they are suicidal.  Maybe, the best thing to do at that moment is continue to dialogue with them, against their wishes.  Or maybe you need to coerce them to get immediate counseling.  Who knows?  The point is, interacting with others in a way that is best for all is complicated and there just isn't one succinct one-liner that can be applied to cover all cases. 

 

             The fact is, neither Gold nor Platinum is sufficient to create a complete moral guidance system for your life.  There are deeper principles that really need to be established first.  If there are some moral absolutes, then those need to be expressed and established.  The individual or entity or institution or deity who decides those moral absolutes must be identified (i.e. the source), as well as the means by which the source will communicate their moral absolutes.  Such principles, by their very nature, will supersede a Golden Rule or a Platinum Rule.  But who has the authority to establish moral absolutes?  That entity needs to be identified and then explicitly cited as the source.  For example, with respect to the training module question I encountered, it would have been very instructive for the training to cite the following: 

 

·        Who decided that the Platinum Rule was right? 

·        Who decided that the Golden Rule was wrong? 

·        What was the principle used to make that decision? 

·        Can we appeal that decision?

 

             We're not going to all agree on these kinds of decisions, but we need to at least acknowledge our sources and our process.  This provides for the possibility of a fruitful discussion (though admittedly that may be unlikely!).  If we disagree on "who" gets to make the decision or on "what" the process is to be used in making moral decisions, then we have to discuss those foundational issues first and come to some agreement - some compromise - some way we can live together.  If we don't discuss the underlying principles, then the conversation will just go on in circles and we won't know why.

 

             So, for me, the issue is not so much about the Platinum Rule or the Golden Rule - those are fine principles that help guide human behavior when held a bit loosely.  For me, the critical issue is that we need to cite our sources when we make a statement regarding a moral imperative.  The reason this is critical is that it then allows for a constructive discussion:  the discussion often has to revolve around what is the basis for authority, specifically what authority can proclaim a moral imperative. Arguing about specific moral principles is futile if each person is basing their argument on a different source of authority.

 

             Ultimately, we have to decide who can proclaim moral authority.  Making such a decision is going to be difficult because we love our freedom and we enjoy our plurality.  There's not going to be an easy answer. We're going to have to figure out how we live together with this kind of incongruity.  It's going to be very uncomfortable.  Can there be a "Great Compromise" in debates of moral authority?  I have my doubts.

Grief Alone

             I recently turned 60, and for the first time felt old.  My past birthdays never bothered me - in fact I kind of appreciated another "year of maturity."  But the number 60 just seems substantially older than 59.  I don't really know why.  But there is no question that I'm closer to my death than my birth - probably a lot closer - so it made me think about funerals.  My own funeral. 

              I don't know if anyone really likes funerals, but, to be honest, I hate them.  I hate to go to funerals because I just don't know what to say to people.  There are people I know who seem to have a real skill at comforting others.  Of course my lack of "skill" does not excuse me from trying to support people who are going through grief.  I still owe it to my friends and family to try.  I just hope they have a few "skilled comforters" around them also!

              At my funeral, I'd tell people not to come if they were uncomfortable.  Do something fun instead, I'd say.  But there are two major problems with that idea.  First, I'll be dead, so I won't be telling anybody anything.  And, second, "my" funeral isn't really "my" funeral - it's for all of those surviving me who cared about me or had some connection to me or have some connection to people who had some connection to me.  So, it's not mine to decide, frankly. 

              I know that one of my problems is that I have a hard time stringing words together that I doubt are really true, even if they are the best words for the person at the time.  Here's an example of what I mean:  I recently finished reading Stephen Hawking's book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions", published (and partly assembled) posthumously.  Hawking was, of course, a very smart (and funny) physicist.  I also find his willingness to take on a variety of issues and questions in his books to be very impressive.  In this book, as in others, he leaves no room for doubt regarding his own beliefs about God and the supernatural.  He believed fully that physics left no room for God and, in fact, is convinced that physics proves that there could not be a God.  His beliefs did not leave room for even a tiny shred of the supernatural.  Or miracles.  Or life after death.  He believed that the universe will ultimately end in one of a few possible cataclysmic scenarios.  Actually, of course, he wouldn't have used the term "believe":  to Hawking these were facts based on the understood laws of physics.  So......what words of comfort can you really give at his funeral?  I would've had a hard time coming up with something.  Obviously people can look back at the great accomplishments in his life, all while battling ALS for decades and having to communicate slowly by computer and so on.  That is all good.  Great even.  But if he is right about the universe, it all ultimately means nothing.  Tolstoy summed this up in his excellent book "A Confession", which I have mentioned elsewhere and highly recommend.  If Hawking's view is all true, then life has no meaning.  Grief comes alone.  Yet, Barack Obama, at Hawking's funeral, offered the nice consoling statement: "I hope Stephen is having fun up there among the stars."  Unfortunately, I just can't bring myself to offer such platitudes when everything in me rebels against the blatant falsity of the statement.  If Hawking's beliefs are true, then he is dead and there is nothing beyond death and ultimately everything he said and did and wrote will be consumed in a black hole (ironically) and will all be lost.  If my beliefs are true, then he is definitely not in a better place and he will have an eternity to contemplate why his calculations didn't reveal God to him as it should have.  His beliefs and mine leave no room for comfort in this case.  There is no "having fun among the stars."  Grief comes alone, totally alone.

              I can't turn to spiritual comfort when that was absent prior to the person's death.  Although the person who has died ignored the spiritual all their life, now that they are gone, since there is nothing positive the secular view can offer, we turn to the spiritual world for comfort.  "They're looking down on us."  That seems like hollow comfort.  That's like pretending that Grief has an invisible friend called Hope.  A charade of hope.  I don't want anyone who survives me to have to go through that charade.  I want it to have been clear:  there is real Hope.  Grief is real, but so is Hope.

              In Hawking's case, grief is tempered by the fact that he lived a fairly long successful life and was battling a fatal disease, living well past the time that was expected of him.  But grief is still alone...it's just that the visit was expected.  How much worse it is to have that unexpected visit from grief alone.  When someone dies unexpectedly - when someone dies young - what real consolation is there?  I sincerely admire those who can offer consolation to people in those times - but I still struggle to express any of those things myself.  When Grief comes alone, I just can't wave to the side and say "Oh - look - there's Hope coming alongside Grief" when there is no hope there at all.

              I feel that the worst thing I could do to my family and friends is give them nothing to say at my funeral that is comforting without, frankly, lying.  Such a situation would be especially tragic if I never even explored, with serious intent, whether there might be a better view of the universe.  Whether, by some chance - some very very lucky chance - there really is true Hope.  If I missed that hope because, well, because I was just too busy, or because it didn't fit into my comfortable views of the universe at the time, or I couldn't derive hope from my physics calculations, or it didn't fit into my political views, well...to me that is the worst thing you can do to all your friends and family who survive you.  They will have Grief alone.

              Given this, I figure the best thing I can do is give people something real, true, and also comforting at my funeral.  I don't want grief to come alone to my family and friends.  I feel that the best gift I can give any of my family and friends is that, when they come to my funeral, they can legitimately say "he's in a better place" and "we'll see him again" and "he's looking down on us".  To be honest, I don't expect to be having "fun in the stars" - I anticipate much better!  I want to have lived in a way that gives my friends and family that real hope.  I want it to be a true statement that everyone who attends my funeral could see me again. 

              I want my wonderful wife to know that she will see me again.  It won't eliminate her grief or sense of loss.  But I want her to be absolutely certain that she and I will be in heaven together.  Grief will still be there at my funeral, but it will be standing together with Hope.

              Of course you would have to believe what I believe in order to have the same real Hope.  True enough; but one nice thing about my beliefs is that they are available to anyone who is still alive!  I have expressed, to the best of my ability, that pathway in the various entries of this blog, but it really comes down to your answer to this simple question:  if there really is a God, what would He have to do to get your attention?  If you can't answer that question with a serious, honest, well-considered response then it shows that you've rejected the notion a priori.  You will not see the light if you don't open your eyes!  You won't see the supernatural if you've already reasoned it out of any possibility of existing.  In that case there is no Hope and no hope of finding Hope. 

              Many reading this do not share my faith or anticipation that death is a transition to an eternal existence that is either "the best" or "the worst."  Many expect a void.  Nothingness.  For them, Grief comes alone.  I really wish you would allow Hope to come alongside.  I wish you would make own personal examination of the spiritual world.  Before you reject the idea of God out of hand, give Him a chance to prove Himself to you.  If, after that, you decide that death is the end and that the universe will eventually burn up and so nothing really matters, well, at least you made a serious consideration and exploration.  But don't we owe it to our loved ones to expend the energy to make a valid, rational, investment in considering life beyond death?

              At my funeral, my friends and family will not have to have Grief alone.  I have plenty of faults and warts and uglies, but the one thing I can say is that I made it a priority to ensure that Hope would come alongside Grief.  And for that hope - that future spiritual life - 60 years will still be infinitely closer to the beginning than to the end.

My first 24 hours in Cleveland Ohio

This entry relates my personal experience during the first ~24 hours of my arrival in Cleveland, Ohio.  This happened in mid-August of 1983.  I believe it was August 13, 1983, but it might have been the following weekend.

 

First, a bit of background about this event.  I came to Cleveland to go to graduate school at Case Western Reserve University(CWRU).  I had a research position that started at the beginning of September.  For various reasons, I never visited the campus prior to coming out for the start of school.  I came in mid-August so I could find a place to live and get settled before classes started.  I was 22 years old, having just finished my bachelor's degree at the University of Iowa.

 

At that point in my life, I was a true country kid.  I grew up in rural Oregon in the middle of a 200-acre cow pasture.  Our nearest neighbor was a half mile away.  The nearest "big" town was a half hour’s drive away, and that was a town of about 100,000 (at the time).  Then I went to the U of Iowa, which is in Iowa City, Iowa, a town of about 50 to 60 thousand with corn fields all around.  So I’d never lived in a big city.  I was naïve you might say.  For example, I didn't understand the concept of a suburb.  I was confused as to what the "boundaries" of a city were.  I thought there was the city and then there was the country (what you would call "rural") and I didn't have any concept of anything in between.  I had never been further east in the US than Chicago and I didn't know a single person who lived within 1000 miles of Cleveland.  I was, truly, on my own!

 

I had worked over the summer of 1983 in northwest Washington (yes, the state) where I (literally) dug ditches for a retired guy.  All total, I had saved up $500 after paying for my bus trip to Cleveland.  I figured I could pay the first month’s rent, and make it through the first month until I got paid at the end of September.  I’d have just enough money to eat, and that was about all I needed (wasn't it??). 

 

I took the Greyhound bus to Cleveland from Oregon – that’s about 52 hours on the bus.  Ugh.  I arrived in Cleveland early in the morning at the Greyhound bus station.  The bus station is downtown – about E14th and St. Clair.  It must have been 5 or 6 in the morning and it was the weekend - Saturday I think.  I had looked at a map prior to coming to Cleveland, and I saw there was a bus called the “rapid” that you could take from downtown to near CWRU, so I planned on taking that to get to campus. 

 

I had two items of luggage.  One was a big box with my bicycle in it (partially disassembled) and the other was a large light blue suitcase.  When I arrived in Cleveland, I didn’t claim the bicycle from the bus – I figured I could come back and pick it up later (a common practice).  I took my light blue suitcase (no wheels in those days, just a handle) and started walking around downtown Cleveland, looking for the "rapid bus".  I didn’t know that the "Rapid" referred to Rapid Transit and was a train not a bus!  Who ever heard of riding a train to get around in a city?  Further, I also had no idea that the Rapid Station was underground in downtown Cleveland, and I never imagined that you had to go inside a building to find it.  I wondered around for a while, looking at the bus stop signs around Public Square (center of Cleveland), but I could never find where the "rapid" stopped.  I hate looking clueless so I tried not to look too much like I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going.  I’m sure I looked pretty funny and out of place:  a country kid carrying a light blue suitcase wandering around downtown Cleveland.  Fortunately for my foolish pride, it was about 6am on a weekend in downtown Cleveland in the early 80's: Cleveland was a ghost town.  I actually don't remember passing anyone on the sidewalk once I left the Greyhound station.

 

Eventually I gave up looking for the rapid.  I looked on my map and it seemed like it was a straight shot down Euclid to E107th to get to CWRU.  I figured that couldn’t be too hard to do, so I started walking down Euclid Avenue, carrying my light blue suitcase and trying to look like I knew what I was doing! 

 

In some of the information I had received from CWRU prior to coming from Cleveland, it said that "you shouldn’t walk around west of E107th alone".  I had dismissed that statement as being meaningless – what could that mean?  After all, Oregon is west of E107th.  I did think it was kind of odd that there were a lot of metal bars on the windows of the buildings I walked past.  The idea that there might be relatively unsafe areas of a city was a totally foreign concept to me.  However, by then the sun was shining and it was still early on a Saturday.  So, actually I never saw another person until I got to E100th or so.  Maybe people saw me and went the other way! 

 

My luggage got pretty heavy by the time I got to E107th.  And, oh...did I mention that I had no place to live?  I didn't see that as a problem, though, because in the information I had gotten from the university prior to coming, they said that you could pick up a list of apartments available in the area.  The list was available at the student center at CWRU (at the time it was called "Thwing Hall" and it was right next to Severance Hall on Euclid Avenue).  After about five miles of walking east on Euclid, I finally made it to Thwing Hall, walked in (still carrying my suitcase) and went in and picked up the nicely typed-up list of apartments.  I had accomplished my first goal!

 

Now remember, this is 1983.  There were no internet searches for apartment websites.  There were no cellphones.  I didn't know anyone I could ask to say "could I come in to your house and borrow your phone?"  There's only one option:  I went out to the pay phone on the corner outside the building and starting calling around for an apartment.  First call:  answering machine.  There goes one quarter.  Second call: “well, we’ve already rented out that apartment”.  There goes another quarter.  I was starting to realize that I hadn’t thought this through very well!  I started praying.  I was already anxious, but for the first time I realized that there was some chance that I might not be able to even find an apartment.  I had to find a place to sleep before the end of the day.  I couldn’t really afford to stay in a hotel – if I could even find one. 

 

The third person I called said “Yes, we have a few apartments available that are ready to be rented out”.  So I said “where are you located?”  Now...it had not entered my mind that nearly every single apartment on my list was not really within walking distance of CWRU!  Most students drove to school.  Or rode their bikes or took the bus.  At the U of Iowa, there wasn’t any place in the whole city that wasn’t within walking distance of the campus.  I just never imagined it would be that different. 

 

When I asked “Where are you?”, he asked me where I would be coming from.  I told him I was outside of Thwing Hall.  He said, “Well – if you look down Euclid and to your left, you’ll be looking at my building.”  I could see it from where I was standing!  As far as I know, this was the only apartment building that was right next to CWRU campus.  The only one.  The apartment building is actually closer to campus than the dorms were.  And it was the third one I called.  In fact, it was right across the street from the Biomedical Engineering department where I was going to be taking classes.  But I had no clue about any of that at the time.

 

I picked up my light blue suitcase and walked over to the apartment building.  The landlord showed me the apartment.  It had quite a bit of space.  The rent seemed pretty reasonable from what I could tell from the list I had.  The location seemed pretty good.  And, let’s face it, I was in no position to be picky!  So I said “I’ll take it”.  We sat down to sign the rental agreement.  He went through the details.  I was just glad to finally sit down.  As we were finalizing things, he said, “OK, I’ll need a half month’s rent for August, and then three times the rent for the deposit.” I was in shock.  He was asking me for over $900.  I’d never heard of a "deposit" before, let alone a deposit that amounted to three times the monthly rent!  I had $500 cash and I needed to eat for the next six weeks.  I had no credit cards.  The cash in my pocket was literally all I had (oh, and a nice light blue suitcase).  So...I said the only thing I could say: “Well, I don’t have that much money.” 

 

Instead of sending me on my way, the landlord seemed to take an interest in me.  He thought about it for a minute and then he said, “Well, maybe we can work something out.”  Then he asked me out of the blue “can you fix screens?”  I thought that was a funny question, but actually I had spent many days fixing screens for people back in Iowa.  I said “yes, I can do that.”  He said “Well, I just fired my janitor two days ago, and there are a few things that need to be fixed up before the students come in.  How would you like to work for me for a few weeks until I can hire another janitor?  If you do, then I’ll discount your rent, and I’ll let you pay your deposit spread out over a few months.”  I said “OK – that sounds good to me.”  He asked if I could start right then.  I asked him if it was possible to start the next day since I still needed to go back to the bus station to get the rest of my luggage.  He said “OK – you’ll start tomorrow.”  And so I signed the rental agreement and had a job.  As it turned out, the landlord was a train engineer and he was often gone for one to two weeks at a time.  He had to leave the day after I arrived and was gone for two weeks.  I had no way to contact him.  So, within 24 hours of arriving in Cleveland, I was the "person in charge" of an entire apartment building!

 

I can’t remember how I got back to the Greyhound bus station to get the box with my bicycle that day.  I think I walked back – I’m not sure - but at least I didn't have to bring my light blue suitcase with me!  I do remember that I took a cab from the Greyhound bus station back to CWRU with my bicycle in a box.  I don’t think I’d ever ridden in a cab before.  I heard you were supposed to tip them, but I had no idea how much – so I think I tipped him $20.  He seemed pretty happy!  I was just glad to have all my stuff in one spot.  By then it was the evening and starting to get dark.

 

And - oh - did I tell you that the place I rented was an unfurnished apartment?  I had a stove and a refrigerator – that’s it.  No chair.  No bed.  No table or desk.  Maybe that was a little oversight on my part, but really, I didn’t have much choice.  Like I said, I was in no position to be picky!  However, I was now the janitor of the whole apartment building, and that had two great advantages.  First, I had access to all the extra furniture and so on that people had left behind when they moved out - it was stored in the basement.  Second, I got to meet everyone in the building, and I soon developed a few friends through that job.

 

One of the janitor’s jobs was to show apartments.  My second day in Cleveland, people were coming by and I was showing them apartments!  One student came by with his parents to look at the apartments.  His parents said, “What’s the neighborhood like here?”  I had to say “I have no idea – I’ve only been here one day!”  I’m sure they thought that was strange.

 

My first day on the job, I was able to find a bed and a chair.  Then I helped one of the students move out – he was a dental student from Thailand, and he was going back home to Thailand and only taking a minimum of items from his apartment.  He was nice guy, and he gave me all his dishes and things like that, and he also gave me all his spices.  That was very helpful – and his spices made some great chili!  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to duplicate that chili!

 

Well, that was my first 24 hours in Cleveland!  In my opinion, I experienced supernatural provision.  In short, I experienced a miracle.  It is one of the reasons I believe that the universe consists of more than just physical material.  I'm convinced of it.  You may not agree and you may chalk this all up to foolishness and chance.  But as I’ve thought more about this situation in recent years, I’ve realized that my situation was really much worse than I knew at the time.  For example:

 

1.  I had a list of apartments that I got from the University.  I’m guessing maybe a list of a couple hundred probably.  And, as far as I can remember, the list was in random order.  I don’t remember them being organized by location or price or anything.  What are the odds that the only place I could contact was within walking distance and needed a janitor?

 

2.  It’s 1983.  No cell phones.  I didn’t know anyone anywhere in the area.  So the only phone I could use was a pay phone.  It was at an outside payphone.  Fortunately, it was a sunny day and wasn’t raining.  I had a few quarters, but not hundreds of quarters.  But what are the odds that I would have found a place before I ran out of quarters?

 

3.  I’m not sure exactly what time I started calling.  I remember that the Greyhound bus arrived in Cleveland somewhere around 5-6am (it was still dark).  I had to gather my luggage, wander around downtown a bit trying to find the rapid, and finally walk all the way down Euclid to CWRU.  So I’m guessing it was mid-morning by the time I started calling prospective apartments.  I probably couldn’t call later than 7 or 8pm and still walk to wherever the place would have been.  So I had less than ten hours to find a place to live.

 

4.  If I had had to walk into Cleveland Heights (where most of the apartments on the list would have been) to look at an apartment, and then I had not been able to get it, how would I have made the next phone call?  It would be hard to find a pay phone in a residential area like that.  So, really, I had one shot to get an apartment.

 

5.  I had $500 with me (in traveler’s checks).  And that was absolutely all I had.  I didn’t have a credit card.  I didn’t have a checking account.  My parents didn’t have additional money to give me.  And how was I going to call them anyway – I couldn’t really afford to make a long distance call on a pay phone.  My first paycheck from CWRU (as a graduate assistant) wasn’t going to arrive until the end of September – six weeks from when I arrived.  But I figured $500 was enough to pay for the first month’s rent and eat for six weeks.  Apartments at that time were probably a minimum $150 per month, most were probably in the $200-$300 per month range.  So, from that standpoint, I was fine.  What I never ever considered was the security deposit.  And I don’t know if there was really any way for me to anticipate that everyone in that area wanted three times the first month’s rent for a security deposit (because all the students would skip out over the summer and leave the landlords high and dry).  It was standard practice there.  So, my measly $500 wasn’t even close to enough to get an apartment.  Even at $150 rent, I would have needed $450 for the deposit and at least $200 for rent for August and September.  Interestingly, the fact that I wasn’t even close helped to some extent.  It wasn’t like I had any room to negotiate.  When I sat with the landlord to sign the rental agreement, and he asked for the deposit, all I could say was “I don’t have it”.  If the deposit had been smaller, but had drained my money, I would have paid it and then I wouldn’t have been able to eat until October.

 

6.  Something else to consider.  I had just ridden a bus from Eugene, OR to Cleveland, OH.  That’s a 2 ½ day bus ride.  So, I hadn’t had a shower in almost three days.  I had just walked 100 blocks in the middle of a typical August day, carrying my big light-blue suitcase.  Would you have rented to me??

 

Did this all happen by chance?  I'm convinced it did not.  Of course, if you're just reading this, you have no idea if I'm even telling the truth and, even if it is true, you consider the situation to be random chance.  "Luck" you would call it.  That's fine.  As I've discussed elsewhere in this blog, these events didn't happen to you.  They happened to me so that my belief would be strengthened.  You'll have to experience your own miracle!  I highly recommend it.

Statues and Statistics

             Among the dramatic events that happened in 2020 was the groundswell of support for removing statues of people deemed prejudiced against, primarily, Black Americans.  This groundswell arose from the demonstrations against the shooting of Black Americans by police officers - the "Black Lives Matter" demonstrations.  It was a tangible, and probably lasting, outcome of these demonstrations.

 

             I'm not sure if the toppling of statues really helped reduce the ongoing problem of prejudice against Black Americans or against minorities in general, but I do understand the desire to have some immediate tangible outcome of the movement.  Social change is very hard to accomplish, generally occurs slowly, and is often hard to measure.  Thus, when there is significant social angst and a great desire to "change things now," it is tempting to look for tangible (i.e. measurable), immediate impacts.  The removal of statues of people deemed prejudiced or demeaning to Black people met that criterion.  A crowd of people can band together and by sheer force of will and determination, topple a statue.  There is something invigorating about being part of a group that acts in unison with ropes and brute strength and accomplishes a task that, by all rights, should have required a crane and a bulldozer.  And, further, when you are all done, there is an empty base of the statue left, providing tangible evidence of what you accomplished.  You can point to this spot in the future and tell people that you were part of the group that removed the statue that used to be here, a statue of someone who stood for bigotry.

 

             This blog entry is not about the Black Lives Matter movement per se, but I want to focus on the problem of establishing a benchmark of human behavior that is inherent in the removal of statues.  Of course, the actions of a random group of angry people - the "mob mentality" - is not likely to result in a well-reasoned social act and, frankly, it's easy to pick on such actions after the fact.  In the heat of the moment, it seemed like a good idea.  I'm sure it felt exciting at the time.  But, in the aftermath, society as a whole is now left to grapple with the "benchmark problem."  The problem is, we can't address the benchmark problem without understanding human nature and without a little understanding of...statistics (!).

 

             The "Benchmark Problem" is this:  where do you draw the line?  What is the benchmark behavior that qualifies a human being to be memorialized in a statue?  As more and more statues were toppled, we were left with questions about whether statues of people like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln should be toppled.  Recently I heard that there was a movement to topple certain statues of Jesus (the white, non-middle-eastern-looking ones).  Once you start down that path, where do you stop?  That's the Benchmark Problem and it includes questions such as:

·        How comprehensive should you be in evaluating the life of a person to determine whether they should have a statue?

·        What key issues of an individual's life should be evaluated?

·        What are the criteria by which the individual's life should be evaluated?

·        What defines a 'good' person or a 'bad' person?

·        Should the prevailing social views of the time be taken into account when evaluating people who lived in the past?

·        What level of evidence is sufficient to establish an individual's good-ness or bad-ness?

             These are tough questions to answer and we certainly can't expect a mob to stop in the midst of their angst and carefully evaluate and think through these questions.  But the "social consciousness" that was aroused by these events continues on and allows the opportunity for more reasoned discourse.  Personally, I think this is a good thing and, at least for the remainder of this blog entry, I'd like to focus specifically on the Benchmark Problem.  Especially the issue of deciding whether someone is "good"...or at least good enough to warrant being enshrined in a statue.  And, though it may seem odd, I'd like to use some simple statistical principles to illustrate the problem.

 

           I'm going to start by suggesting that, in general, we human beings tend to view our society as being separable into three groups, as illustrated in Figure 1.  These three groups I called: 1) the really good people, 2) most people, and 3) the really bad people.  This diagram is just meant to illustrate the sense I have from listening to people talk and trying to understand the basic underpinning of their views.  To be honest, I don't know that most people would articulate the concept in something so concrete as a diagram like Figure 1.  I think it is an unstated and overlooked foundational belief.  In other words, I think most people don't necessarily know that this is really how they view society, but if you could peel back their beliefs and statements sufficiently, I think you would find this concept is a pretty foundational and strongly held belief. 

 

             The problem with the concept shown in Figure 1 is that it is certainly not true.  In every other human characteristic than can be measured in some way (I'm acknowledging that "goodness" is very hard to quantify and measure), human traits generally follow a Gaussian distribution, or the "bell-shaped curve", as shown in Figure 2.  I've shown examples of people's height, IQ score, and autism spectrum score.  The details are not important here, but what I'm focusing on is the general pattern of the curves.  They do not follow the distribution that would be implied with the scenario in Figure 1 (that graph would result in three distinct and fully separate peaks with no overlap between the groups).  Instead, there is one continuum with a big peak in the middle and outliers at both extremes.  There is every reason to believe that, regardless of the yardstick you use to measure "goodness", you're going to get the same kind of distribution.  There will be lots of people who fall in the middle and then there will be a continuous distribution of people with higher and lower scores, ultimately bounded by some maximum and minimum scores.

  

             I added the autism graphs because I thought they were particularly relevant to the point I want to make.  When I was younger, autism was a thing you either had or you didn't.  I assume it was based on the diagnosis of a health professional somewhere.  I'm sure they didn't always use scores and I'm sure there was plenty of subjectivity in that diagnosis.  But as the field progressed and as more measurement techniques and more data became available, the field of autism study realized that autism was not at all like Figure 1 but instead it was much more like every other human characteristic - more like Figure 2.  A diagnosis of something like Asperger's became more common as a "milder" form of autism.  And, eventually, everyone realized what was probably obvious from the beginning:  there's a whole "spectrum" of autism.  So, now we talk about "being on the spectrum" which, to some extent, still holds on to the Figure 1 idea that there are some people who are "on the spectrum" and some who are not.  This illustrates how hard it is for us to let go of the Figure 1 concept, but the fact is that everyone is "on the spectrum" of autism, just like everyone is "on the spectrum" of human height or IQ level.  Or...  "goodness" rating.

 

             The reality is that human goodness must follow a spectrum from awful to great.  It is like Figure 2, not Figure 1.  Which, of course, begs one of the biggest questions of all time:  where do you draw the line along this continuum and declare someone good?  We have to face the fact that there is no good answer to that question.  Any answer we give is going to be arbitrary.  There will be some people who are just barely below the "good" line and they will be virtually indistinguishable from those who are just above the "good" line and it won't be fair to separate them into "good" and "bad" categories.  It can never be fair.  Wherever the line is drawn, it is an entirely arbitrary "benchmark".  So, if the mob decides that how you treated minorities is the benchmark for deciding if you should be honored with a statue, while they ignore other character qualities, such as whether or not you were a womanizer, well, then, that's the arbitrary benchmark and down come the statues.  Abraham...you're out.  Martin and John...you get to stay.  Is that going to be fair?  No.  There is no way setting a benchmark anywhere along a continuum is going to be fair.

 

             Actually, there would be one fair way to decide on the benchmark for goodness:  a benchmark of "perfection" would work.  There is a demonstrably fundamental difference between perfection and everything else.  That criterion can work as a yes/no category.  We're you perfect?  You get a statue.  Not perfect?  No statue.  But that criterion fails when you consider the teaching of a majority of major religions ("all have sinned") and the commonly accepted view of just about everyone else ("nobody's perfect").  In fact, I would suggest that the real distribution of "goodness" for the human race is about what is shown in Figure 3.  You might think of it similarly to the distance human beings can swim compared to the distance needed to swim across the Pacific Ocean.  Perfection isn't a high bar - it's an impossible bar.  There should be no disputing that fundamental fact of human nature.  So, while perfection might be the best benchmark, it's kind of useless for determining who gets a statue or who doesn't.

             I'm going to finish by extending the Benchmark Problem to its logical conclusion.  A benchmark for goodness (or any other human quality) is a difficulty that pervades a lot of the decisions we have to make in society, not just selecting statues.  It affects how we view ourselves, how we view others, and ultimately how we view our place in the universe.  Even the meaning of life espoused by many religions (both spiritual and secular) seem to lean heavily toward the Figure 1 view of humanity.  In my opinion, this is a fundamental problem with most religious and secular concepts.  If these concepts have, at their core, some semblance of the Figure 1 view, then they are based on a false assumption.  Thus, if there is some stated or unstated performance level (i.e. benchmark) in order to obtain or achieve some positive goal (heaven, life success, etc.), then such a concept can never be fair.  Any such system will have to have some arbitrary dividing line and some people will barely achieve the goal and some barely miss it.  That is a much more significant problem than deciding who gets a statue and who doesn't. 

 

             It is the Benchmark Problem that was key in driving me to explore Christianity.  Christian teaching takes a unique (as far as I have found) approach to the Benchmark Problem because it uses the perfection benchmark as the foundation.  Christian teaching says that no one qualifies for heaven.  "All have sinned."  That fits with my observation of human nature (Figure 3).  No one is even close to perfect.  As I have discussed elsewhere, that's why I consider Christianity to be reasonable.  This does not, of course, prove that Christianityis true in its entirety.  For that you have to examine other aspects.  But any religious or secular view that is based on Figure 1 is, for me, a non-starter.

 

             I doubt we will ever really agree on a benchmark for who gets a statue and who doesn't.  But I do think that an honest, open discussion of the Benchmark Problem and our underlying concept of human nature is a good thing for all of us.

"Post-fact" Foolishness

             I came across a "Guest Blog" in Scientific American that fully exposes a certain utter foolishness about science and facts that I have been thinking about lately.  The blog is titled "I'm a Scientist, and I Don't Believe in Facts", written by Julia Shaw, December 16, 2016.  Dr. Shaw is (or was?) a Research Associate at University College London.  She has written a book called The Memory Illusion about how unreliable our memories really are.  Fair enough - my memory is terrible!  But, anyway, her blog is about how, as she says, "facts are so last-century."  Here are a few comments - condensed a bit from the blog:

 

"I’m a factual relativist. I abandoned the idea of facts and “the truth"... much like Santa Claus and unicorns, facts don’t actually exist."

 

"We think of a fact as an irrefutable truth. According to the Oxford dictionary, a fact is “a thing that is known or proved to be true.” And where does proof come from? Science?"

 

"...science [is] inherently self-critical and self-correcting. ... Scientists want to know more, always. And, lucky for them, there is always more to know."

 

"...let’s make it our job as a society to encourage each other to find replicable and falsifiable evidence to support our views, and to logically argue our positions. In the process, please stop saying “because, science” to justify your argument, and using “FACT” as a preface to your statements. These are just the grown-up versions of “because I said so.” "

 

             First, I think one point that she is making, which is that science doesn't deal in facts but rather probabilities (because everything is science is subject to testing and refutation), is something I basically agree with.  If you accept the concept that the critical aspect of scientific theories is that they must be falsifiable, then you can't ever achieve 100% certainty.  Something that is 100% certain is no longer falsifiable.  Of course, there are theories in science that have so much evidence that even skeptical scientists treat them as if they were certain.  But, if you cornered them, they'd admit that they are just "99.9% certain" of any particular theory.  If that was the only point that Dr. Shaw was trying to make, then that would be fine - boring but fine. 

             However, she does not stop with the simple principle that science is falsifiable.  Instead she makes statements such as "facts don't actually exist."  To me, that is embarrassingly sophomoric.  Yet another example of scientists thinking that, since they are trained in the "hard sciences", they are allowed to declare themselves experts in all things.  Philosophy?  History? Ethics?  Apparently a PhD in neuroscience qualifies you as an expert in all fields.  But, ok, that's really not that big of a deal.  We all do that.  I write a blog about things I shouldn't be qualified to write about.  But it's my personal blog.  This was published in Scientific American, as if it had some quality to it.  That's what is embarrassing, in my opinion.

             OK, so first let's quickly state and move past the obvious fundamental act of foolishness:  is she really claiming that the statement "facts don't actually exist" is a fact?  Really?  Let's move on, though.

             A second point to observe but move on from is how Dr. Shaw acts as if science is the only possible arbiter of anything worth knowing.  She asks the rhetorical question "...where does proof come from?"  I say rhetorical because she treats it as rhetorical and gives the "obvious" answer:  science.  She is essentially saying that, of course, everyone knows that the only place you'd turn to for proof of anything is science.  What else could there be?  Well...um...that is so shockingly bigoted that it is hard to know where to start!  There is more to human experience than just science.  Even scientists have lives that are lived outside of science, whether they admit it or not.  There are whole fields of study that just might have something to say about truth - like philosophy and sociology and ethics and so on.  And that's ignoring religion, which has a lot to say about truth.  Humans have all sorts of experiences, such as love and grief, joy and sorrow, irony and irony, that are not grounded in science.  Is it certain that truth is not to be found in those experiences?  Ask the poets and songwriters.  I guess it would be one thing if Dr. Shaw acknowledged that there might be other fields that would have something to say about truth, but then discuss the reasons she rejects them all.  But she does not do that.  She poses a rhetorical question with a single clear answer.  The audacity and pride and, frankly, complete blindness of scientists to think that science is the only real field of study, and that all other fields are irrelevant to any discussion on truth, is shocking.  Except that it is common.  Even non-scientists are taken in by it.  But...even this issue is not the main problem with this blog!

             The fundamental foolishness perpetrated in this blog is the main point:  there is no such thing as a fact.  There is no such thing as truth.  You can't know anything for certain. 

             She seems rather certain about that!

             It is reasonable to argue that statements about the natural world made in the realm of science might not be considered "facts" in the sense that, if everything in science must be falsifiable, then we can't know it with 100% certainty.  That's a very robot-like definition of facts.  But it's not unreasonable to consider that line of reasoning if the discussion is confined to science.  But I know lots of facts that sit outside of science.  And I know them with 100% certainty.  You do to.

             I will take one example of a fact I know:

 

             It is morally wrong to kill a one-year-old child just because you're tired of the child being around.

 

             I know this with 100% certainty.  It is a fact.  And it's not just a fact for me.  It is a fact for every human being that is living now, has lived in the past, or ever will live in the future.  It was a fact even for societies that practiced child sacrifice.  In fact, even if some society in the future passes a law saying it is "legal", it still remains a fact that it is morally wrong. 

             That's one fact.  So facts do exist.  There's a second fact!

             There are, of course, an infinite set of such statements.  Some we would all agree on (like the statement above, I hope!) and some we would disagree on.  But even with the statements we disagree on, we would all accept that our view is a fact, not an opinion.  Take abortion, for example.  We don't say to ourselves "there's probably a middle ground that we will figure out in the future."  No - to some, "abortion is wrong", is a fact.  To some, "abortion is a woman's right", is a fact.  Of course we call the other side's view an "opinion."  But we also say that their opinion is false.  But just because we disagree on something does not mean that there is not a morally right answer that is a fact.  Slavery was wrong and it doesn't matter if some in the past thought it was acceptable.  Even if a majority of people thought it was right, it does not change the fact that it was, and is, wrong to enslave other human beings against their will. 

             There are more facts that I know.  Justice is good.  Injustice is wrong.  It is wrong to make fun of someone because of their appearance.  It is good to try to help people in need.  Everything is not relative.  There are absolutes, and they are absolute truths in every sense of the word absolute.

             No, Dr. Shaw, facts are not at all like Santa Claus and unicorns.  Facts do exist.  We encounter them constantly in our everyday lives.  By the way, is the statement "unicorns do not exist" a fact?

             If you are such a relativist that you cannot bring yourself to admit that the statement about the immorality of killing a one-year-old is a fact, then just consider the corner you have painted yourself into.  Do you seriously believe that, sometime in the future, we might realize that it is actually fine to kill one-year-old children so they aren't a bother anymore?  If you find yourself defending such an indefensible position, I suggest re-thinking your life philosophy.  Somewhere you've gone off the tracks.  That's also a fact.