Richard Feynman said that "Science is what we have learned about how not to fool ourselves about the way the world is." To the extent that it achieves that goal, science works even without individual self-awareness. That's really quite an accomplishment, to have created a way of being in the world that succeeds reasonably well without having to depend on individual subjective honesty.
For the most part, if we aren't honest with ourselves and with each other, we all suffer negative consequences. Now that I've written that, it seems to me that "honesty with oneself" is not a bad definition of "self-awareness." Another way of putting it is that self-awareness is what keeps us from fooling ourselves about our subjective experience. Contrast this with Feynman's definition.
Science works reasonably well even without individual self-awareness in that it relies on community self-verification. In some ways science is the self-awareness of a community of people about what can be known about the world. Obviously science is not about everything -- in particular inter-personal values. But within its domain I think it does a pretty good job of keeping everyone involved reasonably honest -- and especially keeping the community as a whole reasonably honest. There are failures and detours. But they are usually corrected.
I hadn't intended my original post to be about science. It was about the importance of self-awareness when dealing with political and governance issues. But now that we are talking about science it's an interesting comparison. Perhaps that's why science has been so successful. It's a methodology that isn't ultimately dependent on individual human honesty. Can we say that about anything else?
-- Russ
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:59 PM, Orlando Leibovitz <[hidden email]> wrote:
Hello Russ,
Is your comment below what you what mean by self awareness? If not could you describe it? Sorry if I missed this definition in an earlier email.
O
Russ Abbott wrote:Perhaps so, but for the most part I think of scientists as intellectually honest, as doing as good a job as they know how to do, and as willing to change their minds in the face of contrary evidence.
-- Russ
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:35 AM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:
Russ,
Oh, just that scientists appear to be one of the main violators of your self-awareness principle. Scientists tend to describe the physical world as if they are unaware that science constructs descriptive models of things far too complex to model, that might behave differently from any kind of model we know how to invent. That has us spending a disproportionate amount of time looking into our theories for the behavior of the world around us (under the streetlight for the keys lost in the alley) and letting our skills in watching physical systems atrophy.
Do you see the connection? Is it partly accurate?
Phil Henshaw
From: Russ Abbott [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:04 PM
To: [hidden email]
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Self-awareness
I'm sorry, Phil, I'm missing your point. How does your comment relate to my argument that self-awareness is a primary good and a possible way around the difficulty most people have with critical thinking?
-- RussOn Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 12:53 PM, Phil Henshaw <[hidden email]> wrote:
Well Russ, what if a group of scientists were to acknowledge that science actually just seems to be descriptive after all..., and looking through the holes one seems able to actually see signs of a physical world after all! Than sort of 'emperor's new clothes' moment might be enough to turn everyone's attention to value of self-critical thinking wouldn't it?! ;-)
Phil
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Russ Abbott
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 10:06 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Willfull Ignorance - Satisfies NickCriteria E
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:39 PM, glen e. p. ropella <[hidden email]> wrote:
So the first step is for each individual to accept their responsibility
to think/speak critically at every opportunity. The next step is to
package such critical thinking inside an infectious wrapper so that
it spreads across all humanity.
Yes, if it worked it would be wonderful. I'm cynical enough to doubt that it would succeed. (1) I doubt that we can find a wrapper infectious enough and (2) even if we did, I doubt that the population as a whole is capable of the level of critical thinking that we need. (That's elitism, isn't it.)
Demagoguery almost always seems to succeed. Can anything be done about that? More discouraging is that advertising is cleaned up demagoguery. And advertising will always be with us.
Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about (critical thinking?) I just looked up "demagoguery": "impassioned appeals to the prejudices and emotions of the populace."
Prejudice and emotion will always be with us -- even the least prejudiced and least a prisoner of their emotions. Besides, without emotion, we can't even make decisions. (That's clearly another discussion, but it's worth noting.)
So can we really complain about superficial prejudice and emotion when we are all subject to it at some level?
Perhaps the need is for self-awareness -- and even more for having a high regard for self-awareness -- so that one can learn about one's prejudices and emotions and stand back from them when appropriate. Can we teach that? (It helps to have good role models. Obviously we have had exactly the opposite in our current president.)
Actually, though, a high regard for self-awareness might be easier to teach than critical thinking. So perhaps there is hope. But the danger there is to fall prey to melodrama. It's not easy. I'll nominate Glen as a good role model, though. How can we make your persona more widely visible?
-- Russ
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