Epistemic Life

Deceptive Categories

2011-12-10T10:49:00.015-05:00

The ability to categorize has obvious advantages for survival: At the most basic level, creatures need to know what food and water are and who their predators are. At higher levels, the ability to classify affords us a tool for both deductive and inductive reasoning. Much of the time, this works well. Things become a bit more troublesome, though, when attempting to make deductions based on impure sets.

In my last post, I explored some of the problems in attempted syllogisms such as the following. (I'm certainly making no claims regarding the veracity of the statements.)

1. Alvin is black.

2. Neal is white.

3. Black people have lower test scores than whites, on average.

4. Therefore, Alvin probably has lower average test scores than Neal.

In modern American society, many of us instinctively know that there is something wrong with this. (I imagine that if someone is a racist, he or she is less likely to detect the problem in this particular example.) The problem is, by one interpretation, one of categories.

We have defined, some would say arbitrarily, a category of "black" and a category of "white" and used that to determine premises. Since Alvin and Neal are members of those categories, we may be tempted to make such an inference. Such an inference is fine when there are no probabilities involved, but as soon as we define a non-uniform group, we're in trouble.

When referring to individuals, as we are here, of course, there is more to a person than the arbitrary category of either "black" and "white." I don't doubt that there are correlations between hair color and career success, just as there are between height and success, but one would never, I hope, assert the following:

1. Jane is blonde; Tim is not.

2. People with blonde hair are more likely to make more than $30,000 per year.

3. Therefore, Jane is more likely to make $30,000 per year than Tim.

This is absurd, and one of the culprits of the absurdity is again the use of the word "probably," which has multiple meanings. Another, perhaps more obvious, issue concerns what we are using to determine the prior -- that is, what our assumptions are. My own view is that the most relevant data when determining the likelihood of an individual's actions or abilities is the individual's history, not statistics of an arbitrary group to which we've assigned such a person. There's a word for the latter: stereotyping.

A scientist would likely say that we need more information about Jane and Tim to make a reasonable assessment. From a probabilistic standpoint, one might ask: To what other categories do Jane and Tim belong? Jane is female, and Tim male, both of which are facts which should probably be factored into our assessment. How tall is Jane? From what region or country is she? Does Tim play videogames? Which ones? How many brothers or sisters do they have?

The list could literally be endless, and this is precisely the point.

Jane is blonde. Alvin is black. Tim is short.

They're arbitrary. In general, a society agrees, culturally and linguistically, on basic meanings of its terms. We all have an idea of what it means to be blonde or what it means (more-or-less, but probably less) to be black. Some people become uncomfortable when these categories are challenged. The point here, though, is that, even if the categories are mutually agreed upon, the selection thereof for making probabilistic inferences is based on the someone's (or, recently, something's) predilections.

The convenience of the abstract worlds of (non-probabilistic) mathematics and logic is that, being purely abstract, in a world of pure categories, deduction is always valid. There is a seductive allure to the absolutism offered in this line of inquiry. In the real, non-abstract world, however, we don't have pure squares or triangles; we have something like them, which fits a mental template that we've created. The key here, I think, is that there my be consequential artifacts of these variations from the ideal.

I think it no accident that the West has historically been so inclined to categorize. If I am correct, this has been both to its scientific advancement and to its historical detriment. The scientific method, in all of its fruitfulness, would not exist if not for the tendency to categorize. Darwin would likely not have made his discoveries if not for exposure to such an intellectual environment. But we are still living with another, much more unfortunate legacy: things like racism, imperialism (us vs. them), cultural imperialism (e.g., a very western take on things that did not originate in the West), and perhaps some particularly unproductive areas of analytic philosophy.

Consider music. In terms of notation, it makes perfect sense to have categories and names for things such as eighth notes, sixteenth notes, vibrato, legato, time signatures, etc. But the open-minded composer and musician probably realizes that music is not so easily categorized: some music doesn't have a time signature, or a key, or even identifiable rhythms. European music has historically been very principled and orderly. The history thereof is one of a rather rigid definition of what constitutes appropriate and good music, particularly when contrasted with the "savage" music of the "pagans." From the time when slaves were brought to America, many records survive of the colonists' being confounded by the "vocal undulations" for which they had no notation. Perhaps tellingly, we still don't have notation for it, though this may be for the best. We've shoehorned it into a notational system designed for European music.

Today, with the worldwide musical and cultural proliferation on all levels, it is perhaps more apparent than ever that our categories, far from being absolute, are often cultural constructs created as a way for helping us to understand (or think that we understand) the world. But they are not absolute. They aren't necessarily wrong, but, if there is a lesson here, perhaps it is that two views of the world can be incompatible and yet both correct, as far as they go.

It's a bit like someone who has blurry vision. If two people look at a tree, and neither has perfect vision, they cannot see the true reality of the tree. But they will find some commonalities and probably different ways of resolving what they do see in some way that is more-or-less coherent. They may produce wildly different explanations (or models) for what they see. But since they don't have enough detail to be wrong about what they don't know, their explanations for what they see may actually be compatible.

Our categories -- or at least many of them -- are not necessarily Forms floating around in some ideal abstract world. As Adam named the animals, we, often in our cultural alcoves, define the taxonomies as we see fit. This is not a bad thing in itself, but we need to be open-minded, realizing that this is inductive.

To use a sacrosanct example, most of the world is clearly male or female; some are not. This does not mean that male and female are meaningful categories. It merely makes apparent that our categories rarely cover 100% of real-world phenomena. We create them to facilitate our understanding of the world, but we cannot assume that they apply to everything.

As usual, the key lesson is epistemological humility, I think.

Probabilistic Inferences, Individuality, and Intentionality

2011-09-25T01:17:00.020-04:00

There is a phenomenon in the probability semantics of English which bothers me. Assume that all of the probability judgments are based on a 100% sample.

Consider the sentence:

(1) Blue horses are more likely to die than red ones.

Let b be a blue horse and r be a red horse.

For convenience, let's translate this into a logical form:

∀b,r Pr(Db) > Pr(Dr)

That is, for all blue horses and red horses, the probability that a blue horse will die is greater than the probability that the red horse will die. This seems reasonable (at first glance).

Consider a one-word change:

For all blue horses and red horses, the probability that a blue horse will die is always greater than the probability that the red horse will die.

Is this redundant? Under one interpretation, no, because this precludes the possibility of new information causing a re-evaluation of the initial probability assessment. The word, always, appears to mean that, no matter what, a blue horse is always more likely to die than a red one, even if the blue one is starved and the red one is healthy. Strictly speaking, our original statement, (1), is ambiguous in this regard.

Pick a blue horse and a red horse at random. There is a greater probability that the blue one will die than the red one. This still seems reasonable to me. But let's change the verb to something involving intentionality, making our hoofed friends a bit more sadistic.

(2) Blue horses are more likely to kill you than red horses.

∀b,r Pr(Kb) > Pr(Kr)

That is, for all blue and red horses, the probability that blue horses will kill you is greater than the probability than the probability that red horses will.

Consider the following preliminary inference:

(3) #I have a blue horse and a red horse (and I have no other information about them). The blue horse is more likely to kill me than the red one.

Is this valid? Something strange is going on here, and it seems to be a deeper issue than simply updating probabilities to account for new information.

From (3), we could straightforwardly make the following entailment:

(4) Azula is a blue horse, and Rufus is a red horse. Therefore, Azula is more likely to kill me than Rufus.

Somehow, it's easier to say that Azula is more likely to die (from (1)) than it is that Azula is more likely to kill me, but it isn't quite so jarring just yet. This is, in fact, similar to a number of inductive fallacies (in particular, cherry picking), but, as we shall see, if this is cherry picking, then cherry picking is unavoidable in almost any statistics at all. I'm confident that the following examples will make my point a bit more clear.

Consider:

(5) Blue horses tend to die more than do red ones.

(6) ??I have a blue horse and a red horse (and know nothing else about them). From (5), the blue horse is more likely to die than the red one.

The inference of (6) from (5) seems passable to me, though there are some questions about it. Now, let's change the verb from die to kill.

(7) Blue horses tend to kill people more than red ones.

(I.e., Pr(blue horse kills a person) > Pr(red horse kills a person))

To me, tend to makes the intentionality extremely palpable.

Consider the following preliminary inference:

(8) # There is a blue horse and a red horse (and I know nothing else about them). From (7), the blue one is more likely to kill me than the red one.

It should also be noted that the semantics of tend to are already ambiguous.

For example: Blue horses tend to kill people simply means that blue horses are likely to kill people (whatever likely means): it could mean that each horse kills people often, or some high ratio of blue horses are likely to kill at least once.

The point for now, though, is that something seems very wrong with the inference from (7) to (8), and it seems to depend only on the verb that I've chosen.

Let's look at some other intentional vs. non-intentional inferences:

People who use computers every day tend to get carpal tunnel more than people who don't. Blevin uses a computer every day. Therefore, Blevin is more likely to get carpal tunnel than people who don't use computers.

??People who use computers every day tend to drive poorly more than people who don't. Blevin uses a computer every day. Therefore, Blevin is more likely to drive poorly than people who don't use computers every day.

??People from Podunk tend to be less bright than people from Austin. Blevin is from Podunk, and Lave is from Austin. Therefore, Blevin is probably less bright than Lave.

#70% of people from Podunk steal cars. Blevin is from Podunk, and Lave isn't. Therefore, Blevin is more likely to steal than Lave.

#Neil is black, and Daniel is Asian. Average math scores of Asian-Americans are higher than average math scores of African-Americans. Therefore, Daniel's math scores are probably higher than Neil's.

These naive inferences seem to be less bothersome (and, in some instances, less stomach-turning) when there is no intentionality. It's as though we intuitively know that probabilities are generally not accurate ways of describing individuals.

Perhaps most troubling is that we (including scientists and social scientists) tend to reason in this way, using this kind language. Probability semantics are non-trivial. We seem to intuitively know that referring to human beings as objects is inadequate when pressed to make judgments about these inferences. While, strictly speaking, when starting with a lack of information, each of these troubling inferences seems to have a valid interpretation, they are just that: interpretations. Even probability must be interpreted, and using probabilities to categorize people can be a demeaning, dehumanizing thing to do. This is done in both science and politics.

One might say that this is just a case of a lack of information. If we were to have more information, the probabilities would be more reasonable. This is exactly right, but what probabilities would we use for an individual? The probabilities most relevant, in my estimation, are the probabilities in that individual's history, at least insofar as intentionality is concerned, which permeates nearly every aspect of human existence. Human beings are incredibly complex individuals, and the probability of the group subsumes the probability of the individual in statistical reasoning. Put another way, the complex snowflake that is the individual falls into some lukewarm water and the complexity thereof is altogether missing from the sloppy probabilistic reasoning.

It's more reasonable (though still problematic) to say:

Blevin has made excellent scores on all of this tests. Therefore, his next score will probably be excellent.

It is not acceptable to say: Blevin is a member of a group known for low test scores. Therefore, Blevin's test scores will probably be low.

The most troubling fact of all is that both of these are theoretically valid statistical inferences, depending on the starting point and the paucity of information. We update the probabilities as we gather more information, but the point is, with individuals that have intentionality (i.e., human beings), we create artificial categories as a necessity for making generalizations -- and, as we've seen, the English used when describing the situation has various pragmatic consequences.

In actuality, an individual is a category unto himself or herself. There is always a lack of information, because we must always choose probabilities from a group (an arbitrary category) and apply them to the individual to create the categories by which to use our (flawed) reasoning. This doesn't mean that probability assessments about groups are useless. That would be a ridiculous assertion. It does seem to show some inherently difficulties with attempting to apply Modus Ponens to individuals based on data from a group to which such an individual happens to belong.

Cynicism, False Equivalences, and Politics

2011-07-08T11:56:00.024-04:00

Facebook has an option to list one's political preference. People on my friends' list claim associations that run the gamut, from Libertarian, to Conservative, to Very Liberal. Some people, though, list "Apathetic." I must admit that, while I'm no fan of most American conservatism, I understand conservatism. But apathy -- when people list "apathetic," I am forced to conclude that they either are not paying attention or have not engaged with people who are adversely (or positively, for that matter) affected by someone's policies, but probably both. Or perhaps such persons have simply been burned so many times that cynicism was a natural course.

To attempt to see an issue from both, or multiple, perspectives is a laudable goal. I believe that it is something for which we should all strive, and I believe that an inability to do so, or an inability to do so with any degree of empathy, is the source of many of the world's greatest tragedies throughout history. Seeing this trend, some take the natural step of attempting to stay their judgments to avoid narrow-mindedness. This has its own potential pitfalls, and I have come against this rather insidious kind of vacuous relativism many times.

Consider politics. This is one area that is especially relevant to me currently, as I am disgusted by being held hostage, along with every American and most of the world's economies, by Republicans in the House of Representatives, a fact which played no small part in prompting me to write this post. Some people do not follow politics. Usually, the reason given is that "they're all liars" or "they're all the same." Now, I possess a healthy bit of cynicism concerning politics and related things, but to recuse oneself from understanding anything, based on such a flimsy, naive cynicism is simply lazy. Politicians decide how our society functions, they decide what is legal, they decide whether we bomb and who we can imprison. Our politics affects real people's lives, and to simply say, generally with a certain smugness, that one is beyond all of it, is to simply slip into an indolent non-engagement.

Typically, the "naive" are considered those who are unabashedly optimistic. Often, this certainly is a hallmark of a kind naivete. But there another kind of naivete -- the kind which drives one to make simplistic, unrealistic statements such as, "All politicians are the same." Generally, in my experience, those who say such things are simply ignorant of the relevant issues and seek to hide this fact by asserting that they are above politics in general. Or they are disillusioned, having been led astray in the past, and thus overgeneralize to everyone who seems to fit within a certain category. So, for instance, someone who had a bad experience in college might say, "College is useless" (as is in vogue these days), and someone who has had a bad experience studying philosophy might conclude the same about that entire field. In most cases, this is an expression of frustration: frustration with the complexity of the relevant issues, and the difficulty of sifting through the nonsense to find something genuine. The assumption is that all cynicism is the opposite of naivete, but, in fact, there is substantial overlap. Sometimes, these generalizations are more-or-less accurate, but, more often than not, I think, they are manifestations of resignation: a capitulation to a powerlessness in an arena.

Recently, some Republicans have threatened to throw the world economy into chaos if their policies are not implemented, and others outright lie (or are disturbingly ignorant) about the effects. Now, it is not particularly relevant at this point what I think of Republican policies, in general. The point is that they threatened to throw us all off a cliff. As others have noted, this is a hostage situation. Some have tried to say that "the Democrats do the same thing." Without dwelling too much on the fact that this is obviously false to anyone even remotely paying attention, there are two possibilities: the person's view is so influenced by his partisanship that he does not recognize that government officials' holding our economy hostage is morally offensive, or he is so unengaged and ignorant of the situation that he is blissfully ignorant, resting upon his assumptions of the moral equivalency of all political antics.

This is intellectually unhealthy, and, for someone who has been paying attention, possibly dishonest. It may be a fascinating way in which people psychologically cope with a frustrating, complex world, but it brings us no closer to understanding what is actually happening or how to appropriately respond. In politics, there is often the implicit assumption that what one's politicians do does not actually affect him. Typically, these people come from relatively secure backgrounds, in which they have not felt the pain of badly implemented policies. They certainly have not gotten to know commonly disenfranchised minorities. They probably are only vaguely cognizant of the fact that missiles kill people. Presumably, they do not know any poor and sick people whose lives are directly affected by domestic policies. They likely do not realize that there are two wildly different philosophies currently battling over where to take our country, opting for the easy, lazy copout that they're all crooks.

Again, regardless of one's position on this or that issue, one should have a position on something, or at least be committed to understanding the issues involved, beyond simply restating, often shallowly, the positions of all sides. In politics, specifically, the point of a representative democracy is not that we elect people that we can trust; it is that we elect people who will work for us, because they know that we are watching them, and that if they don't, we can and will elect someone else. When this ceases to be the case, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

I do not pretend to be objective. I do not suppose that anyone is objective. We all have opinions, experiences, and beliefs which shape our worldview. We owe it to ourselves to understand, as much of possible, the worldview of those whose views differ from our own (and not simply the caricatures thereof which allow us to smugly confirm our own). Sometimes, we find them infuriating. I certainly do. But at least we find the real thing, or something close to it, infuriating and not a shallow misconception, a straw man to be beaten. If we are not willing to take this first, basic step, we will never engage with the world and those in it. I do not see how someone can interact with real people, in the real world, and not care about politics. But perhaps the problem is that many of us need not do so.

Annoyingly, this, too, can lead to the same unrealistic relativism. We do not want to be judgmental, but we do want to see clearly. We do not want to caricature, but sometimes certain philosophies, and the people implementing them, truly are as crazy and/or misguided as they seem. (Say, Republicans who think that explicitly threatening the fragile financial stability of the US and the world is an appropriate way of governing.)

Some of us forget that politics takes people to war, politics decides who is free and who is a slave, politics decides who lives, politics decides whether our water is clean, politics decides who goes to school and what students learn. Frustrating as the fact may be, politics is everywhere and always has been.

Thoughts on Competitiveness

2011-06-10T09:51:00.007-04:00

At times, I wonder what to think of competition and competitiveness. It exists in every culture of which I'm aware. In the west, especially in the US, and even more so in the right wing, competitiveness is seen as the progenitor of prosperity. I wonder, though, what to think about this.

When I was younger, I wasn't much interested in sports, because I was not at all invested in the teams. I once said, "If one team wins, the other one loses, so someone is going to be unhappy either way." Of course, if one views his own success, or that of his circle of colleagues, as the ultimate goal, then wanting to win is entirely consistent. If one, however, has a broader scope of empathy, it seems to me that things begin to break down and there is no advantage to winning.

Being competitive is, in some ways, a very natural thing, I think. The world is a hostile place, and one wants to survive. But its naturalness does not imply its goodness, in a moral sense. While, in reality, competition is unavoidable, I suppose that it is competitiveness that makes me wonder; that is, the kind of one-upmanship which drives us to outdo those around us just for the sake of doing so. Some might say that it is pure pride, and not the good kind.

Would there be competitiveness in an ideal world? I am inclined to say not. I think that, in such a world, the empathy of humans would be greatly expanded, such that the Golden Rule would come as a matter of course, and if my neighbor's loss is my loss, then there is no advantage to "winning" against him. I have no need to try to outshine my neighbor, because we are all on the same team. If I do outshine my neighbor, perhaps it is for other reasons; perhaps I use my neighbor as a benchmark, or perhaps I simply want to do well for the sake of doing well.

So, I don't know. I see conversations that become more about saving face than about gaining insight, I see politicians engaging in brinkmanship to the detriment of the country they claim to serve, I see countries go to war over their so-called national interests, I see students and career people pursue certain ill-suited versions of success while miserable, and I see institutions investing in being "competitive" everywhere I go, sometimes to the detriment of their effectiveness. I've been to many schools, for various reasons. The most positive experiences I've had were the ones in which the goal was not to one-up the next school for the sake of doing so, but to best serve its students and faculty as much as possible. The most unpleasant environments have been those in which the competitive atmosphere made everything a contest, and vaporized any sense of trust in the community.

I think about the current economic situation. The standard models of economics of course glorify competition, but when competition becomes aggressive competitiveness, to the extent that one desires to stamp out one's competitor, this seems sub-optimal and un-virtuous. Suddenly, we can justify anything, for the sake of winning, even destroying the planet, communities, people's health, or engaging in malfeasance. (This is why we need laws for this sort of thing.)

I suspect that, to truly do away with destructive competitiveness, most people would need a worldview change, at least in cultures similar to my own. I have been encouraged by exposure to pockets wherein competitiveness is not so entrenched. I suppose that this has influenced my worldview. In a hostile world, though, it seems that competitiveness is unavoidable, until at least most parties come to view their neighbors' interests as the same as its own. This, I think, is true among cultures, countries, companies, universities, families, and of course individuals.

I suppose that, for now, we can try to live by example, and try to build environments that are supportive, and which have a vision and purpose which exceeds that of one's own notoriety.

My Evolving Postmodernism

2011-04-21T02:32:00.005-04:00

More and more, I have come to see myself as a bit of a postmodernist. Of course, postmodernism is a vague term, and my identification therewith is likewise vague -- but it is fairly consistent. In general, though, my affinity for this point of view springs from a recognition that most, if not all, systems which humans create can be viewed as a power play for a particular worldview.

This belief is most easily defensible in the artistic realm. In the west, that which constitutes high music has traditionally been associated with the genre and artistic preferences of whoever happens to be in a position to make such proclamations at the time. Often, then, one might speak of the genius of Mozart or of an eminent concert pianist, but dismiss the often more complex and original work of others.

There is a recognition of this phenomenon in the current artistic communities, of course, and the result is a kind of extreme postmodernism with which I do not identify: a lack of grounding so pronounced that there are far too many geniuses and there is not nearly enough vapidity -- or, at least, recognition of such. The problem with an extremely postmodern view is that everything is legitimate and everything is potentially high art. This strikes me as counterintuitive, at best, and a farce, at worst. The same can be said about philosophical systems and epistemology.

I rather like using the term "toy epistemology" to refer to that in which humans typically engage. As with art, often our epistemological systems have been used to give ourselves what I believe to be a false sense of certainty regarding the way things are; and, also as with art, we cannot so retreat from the notion of some standard that we say that we know nothing. More and more, I come to imagine that the fruitfulness of an epistemology betrays the degree to which one should care about it. Science, in general, for example, is one of the most productive epistemological systems ever devised. It certainly is not perfect. At best, science yields statistical knowledge, and, when drawing conclusions, data must be interpreted by fallible humans, which brings us back into the postmodern quandary even more so than other systems. Even the kinds of questions which are asked, how those questions are interpreted, and the kinds of answers which one finds acceptable -- all of these are, in fact, highly variegated. And this is fine, but it does not, in principle, yield certainty. Or take, for instance, logic. Logic (or, at least, some kinds of logic, for there are as many kinds of logic as one cares to devise) has also been supremely productive. But even the most robust logics are limited in their descriptive and deductive potential (c.f. Godel), and describe only those things in the world which are conducive to logical analysis -- and there are many which are not. The closely related field of mathematics, I think, takes us further, due to the fact that mathematicians create their own world which, in some almost mystical way, seems to correspond to our own. (I am thinking here of the more abstract notions, which have no obvious analogues in the real world, but nevertheless can more-or-less accurately model it.)

All of this I say to emphasize the point, made earlier, that we have a number of systems, many of which are useful, but none of which are the Truth. Studying mathematics all day long will not (I think) aid one in further apprehending the truth of love (if one believes in such a notion, which I do). This is important, since I suspect the love is the most productive epistemology of them all.

I suppose that I am saying that, while postmodernism has something to teach us about our current limitations as humans, it cannot be the final answer, lest we retreat into solipsism, perhaps the most unproductive system of all. It is simply lazy to say that, if I sweep my foot across a piano, I have created a masterpiece, in the same way that it is lazy to assert that Mozart is irrelevant because plenty of other people have talent. No, we need something, but determining what this is seems to be a difficult problem.

I've had my feet in various communities, intellectual and cultural, for my entire life, and I've come to appreciate the various art forms in many of them. I've also grown frustrated with the snobbish tendency of self-styled judges of cultural relevance deriding cultural and artistic traditions which they do not understand. (The same could be said in the academic realm about intellectual traditions which do not meld well with one's own.) I suspect that, at least in the realm of art, brilliance is at least partially a function of community: that is to say, Mozart is brilliant, in part, because he was able to speak to a community of people with his music, in subtle and complex ways, through his form. The same can be said of Michael Jackson or Hideaki Kobayashi (both of whom I am a huge fan of, the latter heavily influencing my own work). At the same time, I think not that we must say that every cheap pop song which sells millions of copies is in the same league of brilliance. Maybe it is, but we need not say this as a matter of course. What we can say, I think, is that we must constantly wrestle with the ineffability of what makes art brilliant. Can we use the same criteria of productivity that I have proposed for epistemology? That would be nice. But as with science, perhaps we have to look for the brilliance, keeping an open mind.

I believe that once one understands the tradition behind Michael Jackson's music and dance, for example, one will start to grasp his brilliance. But there is something universal about at least some brilliance. It is hard to identify what this is, and this brings us back to postmodernism. I suspect that it is related to a sense of authenticity, much in the same way that the fruitfulness of a system depends on its correspondence to reality. While it is difficult to justify, I believe that authenticity in art leads to a more universal brilliance, and I think that those of us sufficiently engrossed therein, e.g., those of us who engross ourselves in the authentic act of creation, can tell the difference. Often this fact is clouded by an arrogance and overcommitment to one's preferences, but I believe the potential is there. In the same way, I suspect, we can apply this to epistemic endeavors.

In sum, we, as humans, often do not possess the ability to make absolute claims about reality or art with certainty. At our best, we can typically make such statements as a matter of degree. There is always the possibility, as in art, that I simply do not understand someone else's brilliance, or, as in epistemic systems, that my system is inadequate. In the realm of art, rather than overcomitting oneself to a particular form, one should remain open to others. This is especially important in a global society. In the realm of philosophy, science, mathematics, and the like, we must likewise not become so trapped within our own frameworks that we fail to appreciate others. At that point, our systems become simply ad hoc religions.

Matthew 10:28 in Universalism, Part 2

2010-11-02T02:52:00.005-04:00

In my previous post, I explored some possible universalist interpretations of this puzzling passage. To review, for the universalist, the issue at hand regards the nature of the "destruction of the ψυχή (5590), life/soul", in Gehenna, referenced in Matthew 10:28.

While re-reading a passage from Thomas Talbott's amazing book, The Inescapable Love of God, I happened upon a relevant point concerning what destruction of ψυχή may mean in the context of the New Testament generally. The insight concerns the nature of 1 Corinthians 5:5, and, in particular, the proper interpretation of "destruction of the flesh" in this passage. In this chapter, Paul is chastening the Corinthians. He says regarding certain kinds of unrepentant sinners the following:

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

Leaving aside for the moment the issue of what the phrase "deliver such an one unto Satan might mean,"Talbott makes the point that, in this context, "flesh" refers not to one's physical body, but to that person's sinful nature. We have, then, the destruction of that which is sinful within that person. Of course, this makes perfect sense of what Paul says here; he clearly has in mind the eventual remediation of the sinner, not merely retribution.

Now, if we return to the passage in Matthew, assuming that God is "the one" who is punishing -- something of which I am by no means convinced -- we have another alternate interpretation. The destruction of the ψυχή of the person may be understood as the destruction of that which is false: that person's "flesh": his very being, if he is consumed with sin.

While this seems more plausible than the traditional view, I have my reservations about it. As mentioned I in the Part I, I believe the justification for believing that God is "the one" to be quite slim, especially given other interpretations which cohere with the dialogue. Jesus, moreover, is speaking with his disciples. Why would he interject this notion? No, it seems most likely to me, even in light of the possible interpretation mentioned here, that "the one" is someone else: someone who has the ability to cast one into Gehenna.

Furthermore, in many of those instances in which God is active in either a life-giving or destruction-inducing capacity, the word αἰώνιος is employed -- but here that is not the case. The cause of the destruction carries with it not necessity of the eternal or age-during quality, at least grammatically.

What I think I've shown in the past two exploratory posts is simply that (1) the traditional interpretation is extremely flawed and leave the false impression that God obliterates the consciousness of individuals, and (2) there are many other possible interpretations of this passage which are both more reasonable and pose no problems for a universalistic theology.

Matthew 10:28 and Luke 12:5 in Universalism

2010-10-30T03:45:00.020-04:00

I've had the privilege of engaging in dialogues with various other Christians regarding my Christian Universalism. Invariably, many of the same objections are raised, and I have the privilege of attempting to make a case. As it is, I have what I believe to be a plausible alternate interpretation for nearly every place in the New Testament which appears to support a view of hell as a place of eternal torment or annihilation, but I have not taken the time to address every conceivable passage. For me, this is unnecessary, as I don't have an explanation for quite a few biblical passages which are completely unrelated to universalism. That is simply the nature of reading a collection of documents from thousands of years ago. The following is no attempt at a rigorous study; it is more so a catalog of my own exploration into a particular passage.

Of the many passages in the New Testament which seem troublesome for universalists, this one, on the surface, appears nearly insurmountable. I attempted to find an adequate universalist interpretation of this passage, but it is almost as though it is being avoided Even some fairly shallow analysis, however, can be revealing. In any case, I do not believe that any one or two verses could possibly be strong enough to blunt what I believe to be the strong biblical evidence for a universalist view among the apostles themselves, not least Paul.

(1) And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

(2) But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. (Luke 12:5)

Here, we have what sounds like annihilation in the English translations of Matthew 10:28. The Lukan version is not especially problematic: due to its lack of mention of the "soul," it can easily be analyzed in a way that coheres other Gehenna passages. In Matthew 10:28, though, we have Jesus's apparently offering an account of one's consciousness being somehow utterly destroyed. Some universalists have analyzed this passage as an empty threat, saying, in effect, that the fact that God can do this does not mean that he will. I am not sure that this is satisfactory. The rhetoric of the passage does seem to imply some sort of real threat: a real threat that warrants real fear -- but the fact that Jesus immediately proceeds to instruct the disciples not to fear, since they are worth so much to God, I think, gives this dodge at least as much weight as the traditional interpretation.

Context is key here. Regardless of whether we are immediately successful in deducing a better translation, there are many reasons to suspect the assumed one to be faulty, independent of any universalist predispositions.

Problems with the Traditional Interpretation

The threat of annihilation is spontaneous and does not appear to cohere with the overall passage. In fact, Jesus's very next sentence conveys exactly the point, mentioned above, that our value to God is such that every one of our hairs is numbered. This would seem to weaken Jesus's immediately-preceding presumed threat of annihilation or even eternal punishment. It seems odd that Jesus, while instructing his disciples on how to proceed and of which dangers they must be wary, would interject a reason to be afraid of God. Every time he mentions God in the vicinity of this passage, it is encouraging. An interpretation which encourages fear of God would not, it seems, fit the mood or the theme.

It is not at all obvious that "the one" to which the passage refers is God. This is as ambiguous in Greek as it is in English. There are some legitimate reasons to believe that it is not God, but some evil person or class of people with special authority. Jesus has been instructing the disciples that they are to speak openly of what Jesus has kept concealed through his parables, which he often only explained to them in secret. The disciples are no doubt nervous about this dangerous endeavor. In the verses preceeding Matt. 10:28, Jesus is prophesying -- warning them of things to come, while yet proclaiming, incredibly, that they should not fear (v.26), except in the case of "the one" able to throw them into Gehenna. He then tells them not to fear again, because of their worth to God, in vs. 31. Additionally, it would be idiosyncratic for Jesus to refer to God, whom he usually referred to as "Father," in such an indirect manner. Further still, in the verses immediately following, Jesus uses the word "Father" again to speak of humans' value.

In Greek, there are several pertinent observations that I made immediately. The first is that the word translated "soul" in nearly every English Bible translation, (5590) ψυχή, is translated as "life" nearly everywhere else -- and appropriately so -- in modern translations. Literally, it means "breath," but does appear to refer to some more abstract notion of life or heart/soul in various contexts, especially the former. Additionally, the same verb, (615) ἀποκτείνω, is applied to (5590) and (4983) σῶμα, body, in the first conjunct, and a different verb, (622) ἀπόλλυμι, is applied to them in the second conjunct. Both of them mean something akin to "kill" or "destroy." But why the shift in verbs? It is akin to saying something like this: "Don't fear he who is able to kill your body but not your life*; fear he who is able to destroy both your body and your life* in Gehenna.

(My choice in verbs here was arbitrary to illustrate the rhetorical effect of replacing verbs in a parallel structure.)

*I am not arguing that this is the desirable translation, though I think that it is as likely of a candidate as any at this point.

A Broader Historical and Theological Context

Most universalist Christians have already learned to interpret Gehenna (often insidiously translated as hell) as something other than eternal torment, and there are convincing arguments for this elsewhere; so, I shall assume that the Greek word often translated as hell, gehenna, does not mean this, but refers to the Valley of Hinnom. Now this place does hold much symbolic significance in the New Testament, rooted in the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish history in general. A major theme of Jesus's ministry is his constant exhortations to follow his way, rather than some other way -- in the case of the Jews of the time, the way of violent rebellion, which would lead them, literally, to Gehenna, because they would invariably be crushed by the Romans. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus contrasts the life of the age that comes through him with the punishment of the age, exemplified by Gehenna, which, while symbolic, correlates with events which were actualized quite literally in AD70 with the destruction of Jerusalem. It seems most likely that this is an implicit reference to that, as most, if not all, Gehenna references in the gospels seem to be. (There are only twelve in the entirety of the New Testament, and most are in Matthew.)

There are some reasonable arguments for notion that "the one" is God. What else justifies this extra fear, if it is not God who is inflicting this? That is, after the body has been killed, how would anyone else be able to inflict more harm? There are a couple of ways around this. The first concerns the meaning of (5590). Without certain presuppositions concerning hell, it is unlikely that the word means "soul." Might it refer to the whole life of the person--that person's family, perhaps? "Don't fear those who can just kill your body; fear those who can destroy your whole life in Gehenna." It is at least conceivable, though this interpretation seems strained. It is less strained, though, when we consider that Jesus does not say that his disciples are to fear the deed, but the one capable of doing the deed. The implication is that this is not necessarily a fear based on more suffering; it is a fear of a certain individual or a certain class of individual with a particular authority--the authority not only to kill, but to cast into Gehenna. This would be the Romans and perhaps Caesar himself, who I believe is later identified as the Antichrist in Revelation and alluded to elsewhere. There seems to be some consonance, as well, with Jesus's exhortations to pluck out one's eyes, rather than be thrown into Gehenna, and the like.

Even if "the one" is God and he is actively casting people into Gehenna, there are ways to interpret this within the universalist framework that don't involve straining the grammar (which I believe that English translations have done, in fact.) The life of the age is constantly contrasted directly with Gehenna, and what is often, erroneously or not, translated as eternal destruction, but which may or may not be more appropriately translated destruction of the age. (I'll leave this for another time, as it is not crucial.) What matters is that Gehenna represents the opposite of what Jesus offers: Jesus offers life; Gehenna represents death, destruction, and judgment. So, if God is the one doing this, it still carries no necessary implication of eternal torment or annihilation any more than any of the other passages which prima facie seem to do so.

I will probably revisit this passage in the broader context of Gehenna passages and like kind. I have drawn no conclusions about what the passage actually means; I have found only some interesting facts which indicate that it has been sloppily translated in nearly every English Bible, following the lead of King James Version. Ultimately, I believe that the evidence in the Bible for universalism is so strong that one problematic Scripture is hardly cause to ditch the theory. I chose this one because it is so difficult and seems to have been avoided by universalist Christians as some kind of an outlier. The few verses like this, though, which are so difficult, are exactly the ones that universalists should want to incorporate into the paradigm.

As it is now, the fact that Luke omits this reference to soul/life entirely suggests to me that, whatever the meaning of the extra phrase in Matthew, it is not semantically crucial, else Luke would not have omitted it. Given the cohesiveness of the other Gehenna passages in context, the task, I think, is to integrate this one into those if indeed that is the most reasonable course, which it seems to be. I lean toward the interpretation described above, in which Jesus is informing them of whom they should be afraid, and using a bit of circumlocution to describe the power that these people have-- probably the Roman officials with the power to throw people into Gehenna.

Creation is Often Painful

2010-04-20T03:09:00.011-04:00

At times, one has one of those moments when those big questions, typically foggy at best, seem a bit clearer. I had one those moments tonight when thinking about what it is like when I compose music. Sometimes, things go exactly as I would like, each layer and each conveyance falling into place; other times, especially in some of my more ambitious pieces, it is an exercise in frustration. I will cut and snip different sections, replay and rewrite them multiple times, use various roundabout ways to get the desired effect, often employing tricks which are messy at best. When one looks into Logic or Garageband (or whatever else I might have used in the process), one would see a hodgepodge of unkempt and messy complexity that I probably do not want to touch again -- but I often do, since, as a labor of love, I'm rarely completely satisfied with it. I often stop out of practicality. I'd rather start something new than spend an indeterminate amount of term aiming for elusive perfection. Whether or not this is the best approach for a man with limited time and resources is a matter of opinion. The point is this: to the listener playing my song in his or her music player, all of this is (most likely) obscured. The final product is the piece of music. The messy process necessary to bring it about is of no consequence to most listeners.

We could also use as examples computer programs, a research project, mathematical proofs, or whatever else. Most things that are worthwhile are difficult, messy endeavors that must be started at some point, created, purged, and go through many cycles of refinement before they are what they need to be.

The elegant mathematical proof that we see published may indeed be perfect and beautiful by some standards, but the process of generating it might be called painstaking, even horrendous, by some. The proof bears the fruit of this endeavor, though; and, if we may personify for a moment, the Proof itself, and indeed the Mathematician who wrote it, must have gone through a lot in its creation. The fact that the Proof finally exists, however, shows that it was not an aborted project. Whatever the Proof endured, the Mathematician also endured. It is impossible for the Proof to undergo something in which the Mathematician does not take part. The Mathematician saw it through to the end, and, in the end, they are both satisfied with the efforts of the Mathematician's labor. It may have seemed hopeless, but, ultimately, the Mathematician had it under control and finished the work -- as did the composer, the programmer, and the artist. In the end, it would seem that when something is a labor of love, the laborer sees it through, even if the project must at some point be redone and brought back in a different, more elegant form. But it needed to start somewhere. The process of creation becomes itself part of the unique character of the piece, the proof, the painting, the essay. In the end, we have something utterly beautiful, and the process seems to be not quite as haphazard as it may have appeared at first glance.

When I create music by ear, I feel as though I am in a partnership with the music. While I may not know where the music is going exactly, I still play the notes with care and love, and I create something unique to me -- something worthwhile. I then have something on which I can build a piece. In some sense, each of us is playing by ear. We must play the notes with care and love. We shall then have a solid foundation for the full piece.

Could it be that, when we create, we can learn something about ourselves and our relationship to our Creator? The Human Project is not finished, but when it is -- whenever that is -- it will have been worth it.

Christian Universalism: Often Misunderstood

2010-04-12T03:09:00.004-04:00

Christian Universalism is often terribly misunderstood, sometimes for semantic reasons -- e.g., the verbal similarity to Unitarian Universalism -- and often due to caricatures perpetuated by, among other factors, the relative paucity of universalists in many churches, particularly prominent universalists.

Christian Universalism, or universal reconciliationism, is not a denomination, and many Christian Universalists disagree on various theological issues. As Christian Universalism is not a denomination, there is no "official" universal reconciliationist doctrine. We have different views on the Bible and the authority thereof, the nature of God, and any number of issues. Those of us who refer to ourselves as Christian Universalists very likely do so only to explicitly distance ourselves from what we view to be a distasteful and errant doctrine which has infected much of mainstream Christianity. We would likely prefer to be called, simply, "Christians," or, in some cases, to distance ourselves from the organized churches, "followers of Jesus." As mentioned before, we are a diverse bunch. There are several points that we tend to have in common, however. Among these, are the following, in no particular order:

We believe that, through Jesus, everyone will be (eventually) reconciled to God. Some universalists believe that this is immediate; others believe in some sort of punishment for an indeterminate duration of time, for the purpose of purification, much as a parent would discipline a child to teach a lesson. Universalists, however, tend to reject notion of the punishment's being retributivist, instead believing that the punishment is corrective.

In general, we believe that the places in the Bible which appear to support the notion of eternal damnation have been mistranslated or misinterpreted, and, often, both. Furthermore, we typically believe that none of the New Testament has any concrete evidence for the notion that any of its authors taught of eternal punishment. Many of the places that are typically used by damnationists (to coin a playfully pejorative term) are easily explained with a bit of context and background knowledge. Often, Jesus, for example, speaks of "judgement." It is only if one is predisposed to believe in an eternal hell that one is compelled to force such a notion onto the text. Other places require a bit more explanation, such as when Jesus refers to a place of "wailing and gnashing of teeth." There are several angles at which to approach such passages, but a few key points for these passages are the following: First, the word translated "hell" here is "gehenna," which is an actual place into which bodies were cast. The actual meaning of the word aionos ( a modifier, typically meaning "age," but sometimes meaning "eternal") in Greek is also worthy of discussion.

Universalist Christians tend to take very seriously, in many cases as the first principle, John's claim that "God is love." From this, we deduce that love is an essential property of God, and thus that God cannot stop loving, or act in an unloving way, any more than he can stop being God. While recognizing the almost dualistic approach to love and justice (especially as attributes of God) that the Christian church has taken over the years, we tend to reject this as a misguided attempt to explain a doctrine of eternal torment. I personally find the extreme Calvanistic position of double predestination to be particularly abhorrent. I will, no doubt, write more about this at a later time. It is a doctrine which essentially claims that God, being sovereign, could reconcile everyone to himself, but that he has chosen not to do so, for whatever reason, purposefully damning his supposedly special creatures for eternity. Many universalists believe equally strongly in the sovereignty of God, but, unlike the double predestinationists, they believe that God predestines everyone to be reconciled, rather than merely the "elect." I would very seriously question the notion that a god who purposely decides beforehand that his creatures are to suffer incessantly for eternity is essentially good; such a god is certainly not impartial, as James claims.

In Christian Universalism, the gospel, as it were, is a positive message, not, as the alternative version has often been characterized, a thinly veiled threat of punishment with no hope of escape. If we suppose that God is, in fact, good, as we do, should we not suppose that he is better than we are? If Jesus is, as Christians have always believed, the ultimate revelation of the Creator, why do we suppose that this Creator is so inclined to inflict pain, or even allow it unendingly? This seems not to be the same Creator revealed in the one who said to love one's enemies (even, as with the Jews of the day, when those enemies are ruling over you), to turn the other cheek, to forgive without limit, and to live, first and foremost, by love.

Of course, this merely scratches te surface. What I have outlined here is just that: a brief outline of a few of the ideas in Christian Universalism.

Creationists Finally Disprove Evolutionary Theory

2010-04-10T00:30:00.010-04:00

Today is a day of triumph for the most conservative Christians, as their teams of theological experts and internally-educated science experts have finally disproved the controversial Theory of Evolution, causing widespread disillusionment among the world's scientists. The most conservative Christians have been vying for this since the infamous Scopes v. Tenn, in 1925. Those who interpret the creation stories as positivist history may now rest easily, knowing that their preconceptions have been thoroughly validated, as the whole of biology has acquiesced to this new evidence.

One prominent geneticist, who wished to remain anonymous, declared, "This is a sad day for the field of biology. We should have seen this coming. All of our data since Darwin has to be re-evaluated in light of the Creationists' new evidence. I mean, whoa."

When asked why, as a biologist, she would would defer to the scientific judgments of theologians with no scientific training, she said simply that, "We've been faking this the whole time -- all of us. We simply don't have a shred of hard evidence to support this theory."

A prominent atheist and evolutionary biologist, who wished only to be identified as "Flying Spaghetti," would only say that the new Creationist evidence further supports atheism, arguing that there is no reason to "...suppose that any god powerful and creative enough to create human beings would do it in such a trivial and unimaginative manner, and thus we must believe that this is an inevitable consequence of the universe."

School children in Texas were especially pleased, since the stickers on their biology textbooks had left some unconvinced. Matt Deriks, a student in the Dallas Independent School District, quipped, "I saw the stickers about how evolution was only a theory, and I believed it. It was really the deciding factor for me. I'm glad to see that the people in Texas was really looking out for me, instead of just telling me what the Ph.Ds in biology want me to hear. I mean, what do they know? You know what I mean?" Most of the students, however, were reveling in their practiced disinterest and did not have a comment, aside from the occasional "meh."

Those Christians who are less conservative were also surprised, but most were too busy wallowing in their drunken debauchery to respond to our inquiries.

Most other Christians did not see what the big deal was. Sandra Danes commented, "So, now we have one theory that replaces the other. I'm not a scientist. This isn't going to change how I live my life. I don't get why some people spent so much time and money on this." Upon hearing this, the leader of the Creationists' study was indignant, saying that she obviously hadn't considered that, "...believing in evolution made her feel less special."

Many of the authors of the studies, which for some undisclosed reason appeared only on Christian web sites and were absent from scientific journals, see immediate implications for other issues.

Those involved in this research are now bullish about how this will effect change in the culture. "This has been one of our most important issues for decades," one member said. "But it was worth it. It's nice to be culturally relevant again."

2010-03-29T04:42:00.001-04:00

Dreaming within the shadows,
Looking inward, peering outward.
Truth, I wonder. . .