I spent the last couple of days in Brussels. I have always liked travelling, especially those parts where you drink in the strangeness of a city – not especially the fragile chain of arrangements required to get you there. I have wandered the streets of Rome at night, Munich in the snow, Chicago, Berlin… and what I like best is the vertigo, the visceral fairground-like feeling of so much strangeness.
But I am not sure that I have really fully understood the appeal until now: it is not the city that is strange but me. Walking aimlessly around whatever part of a city you find yourself in is something which happens in dead time – time which is not part of the ‘itinerary’, which is perhaps after the conference and before the dinner. Time which is not part of the plan. And for this time there is no routine, no familiarity – not like home where all time has its routines, its well-worn shape. Loose in a strange place in smooth space: time with no particular purpose, where you have no role to play or script to guide you, like the actor who leaves the stage and comes face-to-face with their own dizzying unfamiliarity and shapelessness. At such times you see that you are almost nobody, undefined and undifferentiated.
I had been reading William Boyd’s ‘Ordinary Thunderstorms’ on the plane: the story of a man who finds his life suddenly disrupted, and falls from the coherent career of a climatologist into a shapeless, homeless struggle for existence, all within the space of a few hours. Around me in the twilight of an elegant European street it is clear that people are busy about their business – it is only me that has no direction. And so it is – as I say – smooth: no slot into which you fit, no rut for your wheels, a world of ice and the vulnerable uncoordinated creature that you have suddenly become.
I realise that the experience is a little sadder and a little less exhilarating now that I am older – Heidegger used the expression ‘fallen’ to refer to the human condition, fallen into a concern with the things around us – constantly and deliberately distracted. As I ride the train to work I am surrounded by the fallen – fallen into their books, blackberries, iphones, laptops and schedules. And I am one of them. But my grip on reality is, I think, less secure. I doubt that many would be troubled by an unfamiliar street – or venture out of the Hotel in search of it. What is a little sad about us is that we shall remain unacquainted with ourselves in all likelihood, and that we have lost the childlike in our everyday lives.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Digital Obesity
Digital Obesity
The US and UK seem to have a well-reported problem with obesity - I remember hearing that one in four kids is now clinically obese. Many of the rest are fairly fat. Why have people become obese? Because they have far more choice than they used to, and given a choice people prefer things that are bad for them. This might sound a little counter-intuitive, but our taste systems are designed for a rougher, tougher environment - one in which fatty, calorific foods are the best sources of energy. It's a biological system that we just can't 'switch off'.
But more interesting perhaps is 'digital obesity'. Go to the top of YouTube and you will see exactly the same phenomenon reflected psychologically - people are consuming stuff that is bad for them - stuff which their psychological systems crave but which is damaging in large amounts: sex, violence, freakishness, sensationalism, the amazing, the bizarre. The enormous choice that the internet offers is not entirely a good thing - it exposes our most basic instincts and feeds them. The whole thing has moved with a speed that hasn't allowed for long-term studies into the effects - instead we will see the effects over time. If I had to take a guess at what these might be I would suggest the following: poor attention span, nervous distractability, poor memory, depression, aggressiveness, reduced self-control.
I suppose this might sounds a little puritanical - don't get me wrong, I like pizza as much as the next guy - it just strikes me that we are in an era not unlike the early years of smoking, when people didn't fully understand the risks.
The answer to all this is pretty predictable, I suppose - I guess there is such a thing as a psychologically 'balanced diet' and the occasional mental workout. The responsibility for guarding their mental fitness will rest largely with the individual, whilst the government picks up the tab for increased crime and mental health costs and runs awareness campaigns.
The US and UK seem to have a well-reported problem with obesity - I remember hearing that one in four kids is now clinically obese. Many of the rest are fairly fat. Why have people become obese? Because they have far more choice than they used to, and given a choice people prefer things that are bad for them. This might sound a little counter-intuitive, but our taste systems are designed for a rougher, tougher environment - one in which fatty, calorific foods are the best sources of energy. It's a biological system that we just can't 'switch off'.
But more interesting perhaps is 'digital obesity'. Go to the top of YouTube and you will see exactly the same phenomenon reflected psychologically - people are consuming stuff that is bad for them - stuff which their psychological systems crave but which is damaging in large amounts: sex, violence, freakishness, sensationalism, the amazing, the bizarre. The enormous choice that the internet offers is not entirely a good thing - it exposes our most basic instincts and feeds them. The whole thing has moved with a speed that hasn't allowed for long-term studies into the effects - instead we will see the effects over time. If I had to take a guess at what these might be I would suggest the following: poor attention span, nervous distractability, poor memory, depression, aggressiveness, reduced self-control.
I suppose this might sounds a little puritanical - don't get me wrong, I like pizza as much as the next guy - it just strikes me that we are in an era not unlike the early years of smoking, when people didn't fully understand the risks.
The answer to all this is pretty predictable, I suppose - I guess there is such a thing as a psychologically 'balanced diet' and the occasional mental workout. The responsibility for guarding their mental fitness will rest largely with the individual, whilst the government picks up the tab for increased crime and mental health costs and runs awareness campaigns.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
The end is in sight...
The end is in sight...
The other day an adult told me, in all seriousness, that they believe in heaven.
These days, when one encounters people who profess a belief in heaven, they get a similar reaction to that if they were to express a sincere belief in Father Christmas: it hardly seems sporting to argue, there are so many obvious objections. Here is a simple reductio ad absurdam, that occurred to me: each of us is imperfect, sins, and has a propensity to evil. Do we carry these imperfections with us to heaven? If so, do people occasionally get mugged or deceived in heaven? If not, are we somehow ‘cleansed’ of our imperfections? In what sense would we then be the same person – I suspect I would be unrecognisable without mine.
In the World of Warcraft there is no heaven – you die and are returned to where you left off. This might seem unrealistic – but the world has features which make it very realistic - hyper-real in fact. What is real? There is considerable consensus in the philosophical community that we know the world to be real (as opposed to, say, a dream) because it ‘kicks back’. The world may not be what we perceive it to be (as in the Matrix) – but we know that it is real because it does not always do what we want it to do and often responds in unexpected or frustrating ways.
In this sense Warcraft is at least as real as my daily routine: it is peopled with other players and computer-generated characters and environments which challenge me, which ‘kick back’. In fact, the virtual world presents far more immediate challenges than does my physical world.
And there is another related sense in which Warcraft is hyper-real: it has a point. In fact it has many points. In Warcraft one is not working towards heaven, one is gradually working towards level 70 - and self perfection. With every few hours there is tangible progression; new skills, talents to acquire. You see exactly how your every action contributes to the sum of your experience, and with each new level there are new abilities, new areas to explore and items to purchase. Our digital settlers devote vast amounts of time to their virtual selves – some will spend more hours per day in the digital world than the real world. And who can blame them: their digital lives are so much more rewarding than their physical lives – no need for a heaven, then. In their digital worlds settlers are finally able to achieve what they could not achieve in the real world: the creation of themselves in their own image.
It is not surprising then that for many millions of adults Warcraft is the real world – their meaningless daily grind a poor second, a shadow by comparison. Those people who see this as simply an ‘addiction’ have not the faintest idea: such feelings are not comparable to the physiological or psychological dependencies that one might have on drugs. The closest comparison I can imagine is that of a work-colleague who simply does not return from their holiday, deciding instead to remain in the sunshine albeit with a very different role. It is a Nietzschean ‘No’ to the world – a turning of one’s back on things. You probably assume that settlers are ‘geeks’ and low-self esteem types – on the contrary, some of the brightest and best people I know have already relocated. In short virtual worlds expose much about how we, as human beings, find our worlds meaningful. How paradoxical, how very post-modern then that something as ultimately ‘meaningless’ as an online world should surpass our historical world in meaning: but ‘explanations have to end somewhere’ and, after all, there are still people who believe in heaven.
There are two practical implications that interest me: why are most organisations so utterly inept at creating anything like a sense of progression or reward for their employees and, secondly, if Warcraft – probably merely a precursor of worlds to come – has such compelling appeal how much longer before the bright and successful depart the physical world altogether?
On the former point – how about adding a ‘rating’ bar to emails in which one could rate the usefulness of colleagues’ responses: we accumulate points according to our useful responses – and points are linked to holidays, progression or financial bonuses. We might also be allocated an annual quota of ‘recognition points’ – which we could distribute to those people who have been helpful or delivered projects on time. Would it rob our daily activity of its intrinsic appeal? For some, perhaps, but for the vast majority I suspect it would make it more meaningful.
The other day an adult told me, in all seriousness, that they believe in heaven.
These days, when one encounters people who profess a belief in heaven, they get a similar reaction to that if they were to express a sincere belief in Father Christmas: it hardly seems sporting to argue, there are so many obvious objections. Here is a simple reductio ad absurdam, that occurred to me: each of us is imperfect, sins, and has a propensity to evil. Do we carry these imperfections with us to heaven? If so, do people occasionally get mugged or deceived in heaven? If not, are we somehow ‘cleansed’ of our imperfections? In what sense would we then be the same person – I suspect I would be unrecognisable without mine.
In the World of Warcraft there is no heaven – you die and are returned to where you left off. This might seem unrealistic – but the world has features which make it very realistic - hyper-real in fact. What is real? There is considerable consensus in the philosophical community that we know the world to be real (as opposed to, say, a dream) because it ‘kicks back’. The world may not be what we perceive it to be (as in the Matrix) – but we know that it is real because it does not always do what we want it to do and often responds in unexpected or frustrating ways.
In this sense Warcraft is at least as real as my daily routine: it is peopled with other players and computer-generated characters and environments which challenge me, which ‘kick back’. In fact, the virtual world presents far more immediate challenges than does my physical world.
And there is another related sense in which Warcraft is hyper-real: it has a point. In fact it has many points. In Warcraft one is not working towards heaven, one is gradually working towards level 70 - and self perfection. With every few hours there is tangible progression; new skills, talents to acquire. You see exactly how your every action contributes to the sum of your experience, and with each new level there are new abilities, new areas to explore and items to purchase. Our digital settlers devote vast amounts of time to their virtual selves – some will spend more hours per day in the digital world than the real world. And who can blame them: their digital lives are so much more rewarding than their physical lives – no need for a heaven, then. In their digital worlds settlers are finally able to achieve what they could not achieve in the real world: the creation of themselves in their own image.
It is not surprising then that for many millions of adults Warcraft is the real world – their meaningless daily grind a poor second, a shadow by comparison. Those people who see this as simply an ‘addiction’ have not the faintest idea: such feelings are not comparable to the physiological or psychological dependencies that one might have on drugs. The closest comparison I can imagine is that of a work-colleague who simply does not return from their holiday, deciding instead to remain in the sunshine albeit with a very different role. It is a Nietzschean ‘No’ to the world – a turning of one’s back on things. You probably assume that settlers are ‘geeks’ and low-self esteem types – on the contrary, some of the brightest and best people I know have already relocated. In short virtual worlds expose much about how we, as human beings, find our worlds meaningful. How paradoxical, how very post-modern then that something as ultimately ‘meaningless’ as an online world should surpass our historical world in meaning: but ‘explanations have to end somewhere’ and, after all, there are still people who believe in heaven.
There are two practical implications that interest me: why are most organisations so utterly inept at creating anything like a sense of progression or reward for their employees and, secondly, if Warcraft – probably merely a precursor of worlds to come – has such compelling appeal how much longer before the bright and successful depart the physical world altogether?
On the former point – how about adding a ‘rating’ bar to emails in which one could rate the usefulness of colleagues’ responses: we accumulate points according to our useful responses – and points are linked to holidays, progression or financial bonuses. We might also be allocated an annual quota of ‘recognition points’ – which we could distribute to those people who have been helpful or delivered projects on time. Would it rob our daily activity of its intrinsic appeal? For some, perhaps, but for the vast majority I suspect it would make it more meaningful.
Attention
Attention
A meeting with Dr Peter Scott from the OU's Knowledge Media Institute and Nic Price two days ago. I'm keen to introduce two technologies - flashmeeting and hexagon - to the BBC.
We chatted on the return trip to Milton Keynes about media use generally. I have a question: when you attend a meeting or seminar, do you give your undivided attention to the proceedings or do you allocate your attention as you see fit?
One of the applications of Peter's technology - flashmeeting - effectively enables you to turn up late to virtual meetings and quickly skim through what has happened so far. He referred to such people as 'power users'. In a not dissimilar vein, I feel it is perfectly appropriate to deliberately dip in and out of meetings or seminars, using a blackberry or laptop, when the topics drift in terms of relevance.
However, I am aware that many people still frown on this - probably sharing the same sentiments as teachers monitoring texting by students during their classes. But aren't the two situations different? Aren't we simply dealing with an overextended norm? As a 'responsible adult' my attention is a precious resource - it equates to cognitive effort. Quite apart from the fact that I do, indeed, seem to be getting bored more and more easily, I feel uncomfortable if I am devoting my attention to something which has no discernible relevance to my role.
On the other hand are issues of respect, normality and listening skills: one could take the view that if we are sufficintly attentive to those around us we are bound to learn something of value, and at a bare minimum develop our relationship with them. Where information is not pertinent then, my decision appears to come down to whether I will spend my attention developing a relationship or working on tasks.
It is symptomatic of the changes in our experiential environment that I think this way: the way in which we are presented with quick-fire, time-compressed, over-exaggerated information all points to the primacy of attention. We live in an 'attention-grabbing' age. One of the more successful learning solutions I have seen in recent years - executve summaries - takes popular management tomes and converts them to one page summaries - or five minute audio files.
A few years ago I remember attending a training session delivered by an ex-Cisco trainer to a group of Siemens Communications employees. The trainer remarked on how few of the trainees had laptops open 'that's the difference between you and Cisco people' he remarked 'if this was Cisco, they'd all be emailing like mad during the training - that's why you're getting beaten up in the market'.
For the benefit of those of us suffering from AADD (Adult Attention Defecit Disorder) I have compiled a list of useful phrases:
- Stop! Only say it if it is going to take less than 30 seconds. (This is best accompanied by the classic raised outward palm gesture)- Hey, that sounds interesting. Can you podcast it and email me the RSS feed?- Talk faster. I don't listen to slow-talking people.- What you were about to say - can you summarise it and give me the summary?- It's ok, carry on talking - I'm just checking my email.- Hmmm. Yes. Hmmm. Yeah....right. Hmmm. (with practice this will become an automatic process and will not require any attention whatsoever).
A meeting with Dr Peter Scott from the OU's Knowledge Media Institute and Nic Price two days ago. I'm keen to introduce two technologies - flashmeeting and hexagon - to the BBC.
We chatted on the return trip to Milton Keynes about media use generally. I have a question: when you attend a meeting or seminar, do you give your undivided attention to the proceedings or do you allocate your attention as you see fit?
One of the applications of Peter's technology - flashmeeting - effectively enables you to turn up late to virtual meetings and quickly skim through what has happened so far. He referred to such people as 'power users'. In a not dissimilar vein, I feel it is perfectly appropriate to deliberately dip in and out of meetings or seminars, using a blackberry or laptop, when the topics drift in terms of relevance.
However, I am aware that many people still frown on this - probably sharing the same sentiments as teachers monitoring texting by students during their classes. But aren't the two situations different? Aren't we simply dealing with an overextended norm? As a 'responsible adult' my attention is a precious resource - it equates to cognitive effort. Quite apart from the fact that I do, indeed, seem to be getting bored more and more easily, I feel uncomfortable if I am devoting my attention to something which has no discernible relevance to my role.
On the other hand are issues of respect, normality and listening skills: one could take the view that if we are sufficintly attentive to those around us we are bound to learn something of value, and at a bare minimum develop our relationship with them. Where information is not pertinent then, my decision appears to come down to whether I will spend my attention developing a relationship or working on tasks.
It is symptomatic of the changes in our experiential environment that I think this way: the way in which we are presented with quick-fire, time-compressed, over-exaggerated information all points to the primacy of attention. We live in an 'attention-grabbing' age. One of the more successful learning solutions I have seen in recent years - executve summaries - takes popular management tomes and converts them to one page summaries - or five minute audio files.
A few years ago I remember attending a training session delivered by an ex-Cisco trainer to a group of Siemens Communications employees. The trainer remarked on how few of the trainees had laptops open 'that's the difference between you and Cisco people' he remarked 'if this was Cisco, they'd all be emailing like mad during the training - that's why you're getting beaten up in the market'.
For the benefit of those of us suffering from AADD (Adult Attention Defecit Disorder) I have compiled a list of useful phrases:
- Stop! Only say it if it is going to take less than 30 seconds. (This is best accompanied by the classic raised outward palm gesture)- Hey, that sounds interesting. Can you podcast it and email me the RSS feed?- Talk faster. I don't listen to slow-talking people.- What you were about to say - can you summarise it and give me the summary?- It's ok, carry on talking - I'm just checking my email.- Hmmm. Yes. Hmmm. Yeah....right. Hmmm. (with practice this will become an automatic process and will not require any attention whatsoever).
aphysicality
Trees are edges. Sundays I spend with my two daughters. A favourite ritual (of mine) is the trip to Tesco's cafe where we each choose breakfast from the array of things on offer, modelling all kinds of interesting decision-making challenges.
Last Sunday I found myself waiting in line behind a large number of people at varying stages of terminal obesity. I watched them taking turns handing the plates back and forth until they were literally piled high with fried food: suasages, fried eggs, fried bread, bacon, hash browns, beans, black pudding...
Uncharacteristically, I felt a wave of fury washing over me. I stood there, wondering why. Perhaps I was getting old.
The most likely explanation seemed to be that I was experiencing that detestable form of sanctimonious rationalisation that affects people whose self-belief rests on the pride they take in their 'life decisions' - non-smokers, for example (you know the type: 'how dare you force me to breathe your smoke, etc.).
Another possibility was that this was simply a transference of my impatience, in turn a symptom of AADD (adult attention deficit disorder) brought on by a lifestyle in which every second wasted is time lost keeping pace with emails.
Moving upwards on the scale of self-acceptability, it was just possible the image of gross over-consumption and avarice triggered those sentiments towards everything that is bad about Western culture - compounded by the complicity of large corporations - such as Tesco's - acting without a hint of social responsibility. I toyed with the idea of suggesting to the cafeteria that they introduce a policy of limiting the number of fried foodstuffs to two for people who are clearly eating themselves into an early grave.
This morning I considered another explanation: I have been reading John Gray's philosophical work 'Straw Dogs' (nothing to do with the movie). It occurred to me that obesity is merely symptomatic of a more profound turn in human progress - namely that the body is becoming obsolete; we are becoming increasingly aphysical creatures. It seemed to me that we are essentially striving (and succeeding) to sever our links with the physical world - mirroring a familiar religious denial of the physical world of sin and suffering. If this sounds implausible, consider how many people now spend their time: they drive to work, at work they immediately interface directly with the world of information via email and the web and the phone. All they do is sit. They drive home. At home the virtual worlds of hollywood and video games are piped into their houses. Perhaps they now also work from home. A body is merely baggage. They play golf on their phones.
For Western societies it seems clear that we are indeed striving to marginalise the physical and to migrate to the virtual (so much more amenable) leaving the needy, cumbersome physical form behind. Who cares what happens to our bodies? 'Give us a pill that keeps it all in shape and let us get on with our lives'. The movement is a triumphant one - a transmigration, almost an ascension to heaven - finally we leave the physical world behind. Obesity is symptomatic of a curious kind of liberation, a dark departure and victory.
But trees are edges, and they will remain.
Trees are edges. Sundays I spend with my two daughters. A favourite ritual (of mine) is the trip to Tesco's cafe where we each choose breakfast from the array of things on offer, modelling all kinds of interesting decision-making challenges.
Last Sunday I found myself waiting in line behind a large number of people at varying stages of terminal obesity. I watched them taking turns handing the plates back and forth until they were literally piled high with fried food: suasages, fried eggs, fried bread, bacon, hash browns, beans, black pudding...
Uncharacteristically, I felt a wave of fury washing over me. I stood there, wondering why. Perhaps I was getting old.
The most likely explanation seemed to be that I was experiencing that detestable form of sanctimonious rationalisation that affects people whose self-belief rests on the pride they take in their 'life decisions' - non-smokers, for example (you know the type: 'how dare you force me to breathe your smoke, etc.).
Another possibility was that this was simply a transference of my impatience, in turn a symptom of AADD (adult attention deficit disorder) brought on by a lifestyle in which every second wasted is time lost keeping pace with emails.
Moving upwards on the scale of self-acceptability, it was just possible the image of gross over-consumption and avarice triggered those sentiments towards everything that is bad about Western culture - compounded by the complicity of large corporations - such as Tesco's - acting without a hint of social responsibility. I toyed with the idea of suggesting to the cafeteria that they introduce a policy of limiting the number of fried foodstuffs to two for people who are clearly eating themselves into an early grave.
This morning I considered another explanation: I have been reading John Gray's philosophical work 'Straw Dogs' (nothing to do with the movie). It occurred to me that obesity is merely symptomatic of a more profound turn in human progress - namely that the body is becoming obsolete; we are becoming increasingly aphysical creatures. It seemed to me that we are essentially striving (and succeeding) to sever our links with the physical world - mirroring a familiar religious denial of the physical world of sin and suffering. If this sounds implausible, consider how many people now spend their time: they drive to work, at work they immediately interface directly with the world of information via email and the web and the phone. All they do is sit. They drive home. At home the virtual worlds of hollywood and video games are piped into their houses. Perhaps they now also work from home. A body is merely baggage. They play golf on their phones.
For Western societies it seems clear that we are indeed striving to marginalise the physical and to migrate to the virtual (so much more amenable) leaving the needy, cumbersome physical form behind. Who cares what happens to our bodies? 'Give us a pill that keeps it all in shape and let us get on with our lives'. The movement is a triumphant one - a transmigration, almost an ascension to heaven - finally we leave the physical world behind. Obesity is symptomatic of a curious kind of liberation, a dark departure and victory.
But trees are edges, and they will remain.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Honesty, Integrity
Honesty, Integrity – dooya luv it?
Honesty can be a difficult thing because truth can be a difficult thing. Consider, if you will, the various perspectives of the scientist, psychologist and philosopher. The perspective of the scientist is perhaps most interesting because journalists are so often criticised for misrepresenting or misreporting science – as indeed, they do. But the scientist is often curiously complicit in the deception: the basic model of science – the so-called ‘hypothetico-deductive’ model – is beautiful in its naïve optimism. Broadly, it takes us from the specific to the general and back to the specific, using induction and deduction to bridge the two respective gaps. So, for example, if we see a white swan (and then another) we can use induction from these specific observations to arrive at the general theory that all swans are white. Once we have a general statement (‘all swans are white’) we can deduce the specific prediction ‘the next 10 swans I see will be white’. Of course scientists know that the first part is (logically) flawed – no matter how many white swans you see you can never be entirely sure that the next one won’t be black – but hey, get real, it’s the best you can do if you are not God. That’s why scientists are so coy about truth – because they are conscious that all they have are theories that haven’t been disproved yet. At best they might talk about their theories being ‘approximations’ to the truth – but what, exactly, is the status of an ‘approximation’ to the truth? So, scientists – good guys, defenders of truth and objectivity? Sadly, no, because scientists actually turn out to be a lot like journalists: the hidden presumption is that a scientist’s observations of the world – those specific pieces of data that lead to general theories – are accurate and unbiased, turns out to be flawed. Scientists are only human – they tend to look for the things that they want to see, and interpret them in ways which fit with what they already want to believe. Much like a journalist the scientist will tend to make the facts fit the story. This is what is meant, for example, by the term ‘experimenter bias’.
Psychologists also have a name for this general phenomenon – ‘perceptual set’ – the tendency to see what we expect to see. Or what we want to see. Truth, at a personal level, is a valuable commodity. When Charlie left the Big Brother house (albeit temporarily) she heard people cheering. Really? Everybody else heard people boo-ing. The ‘truth’ is that people will distort the world to an extraordinary extent in order to fit their version of the facts with what they believe. Elisabeth Loftus discovered that memory is almost completely malleable if it means protecting belief – witnesses to a crime can be made to ‘remember’ things that didn’t happen or forget things that did if it means fitting in with a belief about what ‘really’ happened. On a personal, day-to-day level though there is a rule of thumb that holds good: the more deeply held the belief, the more central it is to our sense of self, the more determinedly we distort reality and abuse truth. As a specific example of this general theory you find that people with very demanding images of themselves devote the most time to distorting the world around them – wanting to be a big success can make you a big liar.
Philosophers to the rescue. Actually, philosophers have been experiencing some problems with truth for a while now. The last time it looked in good shape was a long time ago, and the general consensus these days is that it is dead. The first person to notice that truth was dead (although the observation is, to some extent open to interpretation) was Nietzsche. It seems that, rather like a cold-war era Russian leader, truth may have been dead for a while before anyone noticed and despite the fact that it was supposedly in charge.
But who cares what philosophers think, anyway? The problem seems to be that news of the death of truth has been leaked and has since percolated throughout society in various guises, such as cultural & moral relativism, and the Die Hard series of movies. The upshot is that the boundaries between right and wrong, significant and insignificant, possible and impossible, true and false are far more negotiable than ever. And not just because Jade Goody became a celebrity.
In a massively interconnected world it is increasingly possible to construct a channel – a dawn-to-dusk multimedia experience – that pretty much says exactly what you want to hear: that you are good, that you are right, that you are successful. And that is the job of the entertainer, I suppose – to figure out what your audiences want to hear, want to see, and tell the stories. Of course, it is not always enough to tell stories as stories – I don’t want my personal beliefs to be insulted – I want to feel like I am really right, authentically right, righter than all those people who just think they are right. So my stories must be real stories – must be news - Like Big Brother – which is not just a bunch of actors but real people. That’s why I watch it.
Cue Baudrillard-like anxiety at this point as you notice that ‘real’ people are increasingly adopting stereotypical Hollywood-ish behaviours and thinking patterns. Reality, it seems, must now copy the movies. News must diversify and prepare itself to cover all the angles without fussing about the internal contradictions (except, of course, for appearances sake). News, entertainment – whatever. And who said that truth had to be consistent – jeesus, man, get with the program…
Personally, I think the RDF episode makes for a great story. Please can we have it as a docu-drama with a title like ‘Faking Faking It – The True Story’. Perhaps RDF could redeem themselves by producing it…
Honesty can be a difficult thing because truth can be a difficult thing. Consider, if you will, the various perspectives of the scientist, psychologist and philosopher. The perspective of the scientist is perhaps most interesting because journalists are so often criticised for misrepresenting or misreporting science – as indeed, they do. But the scientist is often curiously complicit in the deception: the basic model of science – the so-called ‘hypothetico-deductive’ model – is beautiful in its naïve optimism. Broadly, it takes us from the specific to the general and back to the specific, using induction and deduction to bridge the two respective gaps. So, for example, if we see a white swan (and then another) we can use induction from these specific observations to arrive at the general theory that all swans are white. Once we have a general statement (‘all swans are white’) we can deduce the specific prediction ‘the next 10 swans I see will be white’. Of course scientists know that the first part is (logically) flawed – no matter how many white swans you see you can never be entirely sure that the next one won’t be black – but hey, get real, it’s the best you can do if you are not God. That’s why scientists are so coy about truth – because they are conscious that all they have are theories that haven’t been disproved yet. At best they might talk about their theories being ‘approximations’ to the truth – but what, exactly, is the status of an ‘approximation’ to the truth? So, scientists – good guys, defenders of truth and objectivity? Sadly, no, because scientists actually turn out to be a lot like journalists: the hidden presumption is that a scientist’s observations of the world – those specific pieces of data that lead to general theories – are accurate and unbiased, turns out to be flawed. Scientists are only human – they tend to look for the things that they want to see, and interpret them in ways which fit with what they already want to believe. Much like a journalist the scientist will tend to make the facts fit the story. This is what is meant, for example, by the term ‘experimenter bias’.
Psychologists also have a name for this general phenomenon – ‘perceptual set’ – the tendency to see what we expect to see. Or what we want to see. Truth, at a personal level, is a valuable commodity. When Charlie left the Big Brother house (albeit temporarily) she heard people cheering. Really? Everybody else heard people boo-ing. The ‘truth’ is that people will distort the world to an extraordinary extent in order to fit their version of the facts with what they believe. Elisabeth Loftus discovered that memory is almost completely malleable if it means protecting belief – witnesses to a crime can be made to ‘remember’ things that didn’t happen or forget things that did if it means fitting in with a belief about what ‘really’ happened. On a personal, day-to-day level though there is a rule of thumb that holds good: the more deeply held the belief, the more central it is to our sense of self, the more determinedly we distort reality and abuse truth. As a specific example of this general theory you find that people with very demanding images of themselves devote the most time to distorting the world around them – wanting to be a big success can make you a big liar.
Philosophers to the rescue. Actually, philosophers have been experiencing some problems with truth for a while now. The last time it looked in good shape was a long time ago, and the general consensus these days is that it is dead. The first person to notice that truth was dead (although the observation is, to some extent open to interpretation) was Nietzsche. It seems that, rather like a cold-war era Russian leader, truth may have been dead for a while before anyone noticed and despite the fact that it was supposedly in charge.
But who cares what philosophers think, anyway? The problem seems to be that news of the death of truth has been leaked and has since percolated throughout society in various guises, such as cultural & moral relativism, and the Die Hard series of movies. The upshot is that the boundaries between right and wrong, significant and insignificant, possible and impossible, true and false are far more negotiable than ever. And not just because Jade Goody became a celebrity.
In a massively interconnected world it is increasingly possible to construct a channel – a dawn-to-dusk multimedia experience – that pretty much says exactly what you want to hear: that you are good, that you are right, that you are successful. And that is the job of the entertainer, I suppose – to figure out what your audiences want to hear, want to see, and tell the stories. Of course, it is not always enough to tell stories as stories – I don’t want my personal beliefs to be insulted – I want to feel like I am really right, authentically right, righter than all those people who just think they are right. So my stories must be real stories – must be news - Like Big Brother – which is not just a bunch of actors but real people. That’s why I watch it.
Cue Baudrillard-like anxiety at this point as you notice that ‘real’ people are increasingly adopting stereotypical Hollywood-ish behaviours and thinking patterns. Reality, it seems, must now copy the movies. News must diversify and prepare itself to cover all the angles without fussing about the internal contradictions (except, of course, for appearances sake). News, entertainment – whatever. And who said that truth had to be consistent – jeesus, man, get with the program…
Personally, I think the RDF episode makes for a great story. Please can we have it as a docu-drama with a title like ‘Faking Faking It – The True Story’. Perhaps RDF could redeem themselves by producing it…
Friday, March 30, 2007
Truth & Darkness
Truth and darkness
On Wednesday night I had dinner in the dark, at dans la noir, courtesy of the mind gym. It was an interesting evening.
There was a lot of preliminary claptrap to the effect that we would gain some insight into how it is to be a blind person: I suspect that sitting in the dark for two hours whilst waited on by blind waiters does not really compare in any way to life as a blind person. There is the obvious point that we were all sighted people, experiencing sightlessness as bourgeois experimentation, but more importantly I knew all the people around me were in the same position. My companions included editors from the daily mail, the times, assorted journalists and significant learning people (if that isn't a contradiction in terms).
It was utterly, completely pitch dark in there. We were guided through a series of curtains with hands on each others' shoulders, finding ourselves suddenly and disconcertingly seated in an undefined space, populated by voices to which we could not assign a face. I felt sick and thought I might have to leave.
Superficially the challenge was to figure out what we were eating - there was a quiz to this effect following the meal and lots of trepidatious patting of sticky foodstuffs. But for me the real discovery was existential: relating to people in the dark changed my perception of myself and of our relationships quite profoundly.
Firstly there was the question of identity: our space was no longer three dimensional - not even two dimensional. There was only the interplay of voices, and in this exchange it was possible to doubt which of the voices one 'was' - or even what this meant. Really, to doubt which voice I was. You and I incorporate more than one voice in our own everyday thinking, but in the darkness what was clear to me was how arbitrary the sense of identification with one voice rather than another was. Which was my voice? There were simply voices - I'm not sure I really 'owned' any of them - the only remaining clue to identity was the physical sensation of utterance.
And then there was the question of closeness - that sense of oneself as both discrete and related in physical space. In the darkness some of us felt pitifully close, achieving something that our miserably elucidated lives prohibited. There was no space between us, no personal space to be defended or intruded upon. It was a dream-like intimacy, almost a feeling of immortality - each of us rendered as warm voices, all too human, in a shared opening - not the discrete clearings, the Dasein of Heidegger - but a directness of contact mediated by absence; absence of the space that separates us.
And the darkness was truly revealing: the absolute absence of light seemed to give our voices a poetic quality - a beauty brought about by the lack of distractions - in just the same way that simple words spaced carefully on a page, like a Larkin poem, may take on a fresh charm our voices traced rich forms in the warm air. Voices variously crisp like a dry white wine, or smooth and rich like Chianti.
It was easier to talk, I felt - people attended so much more carefully, and I could devote more of my mind to what I was saying rather than how I was appearing - those tedious negotiations with eye-contact, personal space, gestures etc.
Overall, then, a point that I will not be the first to remark upon: that light plays a central role in our understanding of truth - of who we are, who others are and how it is with the world.
Not everybody felt the same way. I am a radio listener - I don't watch television. But I wondered if there was something of a spectrum of attitudes along these lines: how addicted are we to visual stimulation? People's ability to converse, to follow a train of thought has certainly been eroded in recent years - perhaps these are the people who are most afraid of the dark.
On Wednesday night I had dinner in the dark, at dans la noir, courtesy of the mind gym. It was an interesting evening.
There was a lot of preliminary claptrap to the effect that we would gain some insight into how it is to be a blind person: I suspect that sitting in the dark for two hours whilst waited on by blind waiters does not really compare in any way to life as a blind person. There is the obvious point that we were all sighted people, experiencing sightlessness as bourgeois experimentation, but more importantly I knew all the people around me were in the same position. My companions included editors from the daily mail, the times, assorted journalists and significant learning people (if that isn't a contradiction in terms).
It was utterly, completely pitch dark in there. We were guided through a series of curtains with hands on each others' shoulders, finding ourselves suddenly and disconcertingly seated in an undefined space, populated by voices to which we could not assign a face. I felt sick and thought I might have to leave.
Superficially the challenge was to figure out what we were eating - there was a quiz to this effect following the meal and lots of trepidatious patting of sticky foodstuffs. But for me the real discovery was existential: relating to people in the dark changed my perception of myself and of our relationships quite profoundly.
Firstly there was the question of identity: our space was no longer three dimensional - not even two dimensional. There was only the interplay of voices, and in this exchange it was possible to doubt which of the voices one 'was' - or even what this meant. Really, to doubt which voice I was. You and I incorporate more than one voice in our own everyday thinking, but in the darkness what was clear to me was how arbitrary the sense of identification with one voice rather than another was. Which was my voice? There were simply voices - I'm not sure I really 'owned' any of them - the only remaining clue to identity was the physical sensation of utterance.
And then there was the question of closeness - that sense of oneself as both discrete and related in physical space. In the darkness some of us felt pitifully close, achieving something that our miserably elucidated lives prohibited. There was no space between us, no personal space to be defended or intruded upon. It was a dream-like intimacy, almost a feeling of immortality - each of us rendered as warm voices, all too human, in a shared opening - not the discrete clearings, the Dasein of Heidegger - but a directness of contact mediated by absence; absence of the space that separates us.
And the darkness was truly revealing: the absolute absence of light seemed to give our voices a poetic quality - a beauty brought about by the lack of distractions - in just the same way that simple words spaced carefully on a page, like a Larkin poem, may take on a fresh charm our voices traced rich forms in the warm air. Voices variously crisp like a dry white wine, or smooth and rich like Chianti.
It was easier to talk, I felt - people attended so much more carefully, and I could devote more of my mind to what I was saying rather than how I was appearing - those tedious negotiations with eye-contact, personal space, gestures etc.
Overall, then, a point that I will not be the first to remark upon: that light plays a central role in our understanding of truth - of who we are, who others are and how it is with the world.
Not everybody felt the same way. I am a radio listener - I don't watch television. But I wondered if there was something of a spectrum of attitudes along these lines: how addicted are we to visual stimulation? People's ability to converse, to follow a train of thought has certainly been eroded in recent years - perhaps these are the people who are most afraid of the dark.
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