Out of the Cave.
Even as an infrequent and irregular contributor to an online blog, I found the very act of writing out one’s thoughts (in the hopes that others might read them) to be extraordinarily self-indulgent and narcissistic. I don’t have anything particularly important to say. I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t been said before. Why should anyone listen to me? I have found, though, that as you gaze into the abyss of your own reflection, your own thoughts, just as Narcissus did, your reflection gazes back. It’s only through deep and sometimes self-indulgent reflection that we can come to learn anything at all about who we really are or what we really believe.
Let’s not pretend any longer that we get to choose the kind of person we are (at least initially). Obviously, our physical appearance is well beyond our control. Our natural-born intelligence is equally out of our hands. And everything from your favorite color to your favorite food and even your sexual preference has been predetermined for you. My favorite color is blue. Why? I couldn’t tell you. I simply don’t know. I can’t just decide one day that I’m going to be the type of person who likes the color green above all other colors. I could say that my favorite color is green, but I would be lying. I can’t force myself to like the color green.
New research in neuroscience is even telling us that our conscious actions may not even be, well, conscious. In one experiment using functional magnetic resonance imaging, subjects were asked to press one of two buttons while watching a “clock” that showed random sequences of letters on a screen. The subjects were asked to report which letter was appearing on the screen at the instant they decided to press the button. The researchers found that two regions of the brain contained the information about which button the subject would press, a full seven to 10 seconds before the subject was even consciously aware of it. More recent studies show that decisions to move or act can be predicted with 80 percent accuracy using the activity of only 256 neurons in the cortex. Neuroscientist Sam Harris sums up the experiments in his book, Free Will:
“Some moments before you are aware of what you will do next — a time in which you subjectively appear to have complete freedom to behave however you please — your brain has already determined what you will do.”
Even the ideas that we subscribe to are ones that have, more than likely, been bestowed upon us by our heritage, race, social class, personal relationships, or geographical location. For example, I grew up in a Christian household because I was born white and in America. By default of having white, Christian parents, I accepted Christianity and the teachings of the Bible. However, the chances of this same thing happening decrease substantially if I was born in, say, the Middle East — or even the Far East. Whether I was born in America, Pakistan, Russia, China, or Azerbaijan, chances are good that my ideologies would conform to the ones most common in those geographical locations. I would believe — and I would believe I was right. My beliefs would be bestowed upon me by the culture in my little part of the world. It would not be because of intense scrutiny, questioning, and analysis that I believed these things — it would be by default. When you get right down to it, we have very few choices when it comes to deciding who we are — at least until we can take a step back and look at things objectively.
Reflection is much more than just “thinking about stuff.” It’s about thinking about thinking. It’s about questioning not what we believe, but why we believe it. It’s about being objective in our questioning. Do we believe in something because there exists an abundance of proof? Or, do we believe it because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside? Do we believe in something because we have explored all the possibilities and settled on the most logical of them all? Or, do we believe it because we were raised a certain way, in a certain part of the world, at a certain time? Honest reflection is about having the courage to ask objective questions that we may not like the answers to. This type of questioning forms the basis of critical thinking.
Before I wander too far, I want talk about the cave. More precisely, Plato’s Allegory of The Cave. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, you can find a brief video below:
I don’t claim to have escaped the cave, but I do know that I don’t want to be a prisoner there any longer. I want to escape the cave and see the trees and the sun and the birds and the flowers. I don’t want to be restricted to watching illusions and believing they are the whole of reality. I want my view of the world to be informed by the evidence of reality. The key to unlocking our shackles lies with critical thinking.
Critical thinking is best embodied by science. Science builds and organizes knowledge with objective and testable explanations and predictions about the physical world. This body of knowledge can be used to make accurate predictions about the world itself. The aim of science is to discover the truth about the world we live in. And while scientific discoveries are often subject to change as we become able to see and test new ideas and observations, an approach is being made toward the truth (even if that approach is asymptotic). Science provides truth about the world without certainty.
The other main approach to “discovering” truth is much more dogmatic in nature and fundamentally opposed to questioning. Questioning the existence or reality of your Default God is considered blasphemy and sacrilege — something punishable by both terrestrial and eternal suffering. For those who subscribe to its teachings, religion (in any of its forms) provides certainty without truth — almost like staring at a wall of shadows and insisting that what you’re seeing is reality. The religious view doesn’t (cannot) change, no matter what new evidence arises.
Again, I’m not claiming to have the answers. I’m not claiming to have escaped the cave and seen the truth of reality. Maybe I’ve just taken a step backwards into an even bigger cave. I’m just thinking and asking questions and doing my best and, regardless of who said it first, I will always prefer questions that can’t be answered over answers that can’t be questioned.
It is in that spirit that I choose to start this blog. The point is simple: Be skeptical. Be critical. Be logical. Be bold. Ask questions, and above all, just think…
Join me, won’t you?
