Objective Uncertainty and the Philosophy of Kitty Litter
“The many varieties of “objective reason,” for example, however brilliantly they perform in their own quarters – in mathematics and scholarship, in theoretical biology or chess matches – are often profoundly inept at dealing with life….But this much is clear, that pure theoretical reason is as intimately related to the day-to-day problems of life as good taste in wine to the task of cleaning out the cat litter.” is a somewhat humorous synopsis of the philosopher Robert Solomon thesis. (p.63 Passions) The apparent preference and predisposition of philosophers for “propositional statements” and strict rational analysis has come under recent attack. In a more serious tone, the philosopher Matthew Ratcliffe points out, “The emphasis on propositional content is associated with a rather impoverished conception of experience.” (p. 149 Rat) In normal everyday life intuition, metaphor, paradigmatic thinking, model-creation, narrative thinking as well as other nonconscious processes are used much more extensively by the human mind than strict “propositional statements.”
It is interesting that Albert Einstein, who is one of the most iconic scientist of our times, clearly realized the limits of rational and scientific analysis. He states unequivocally that after all the rational and scientific explanations of the world and of the universe have been set forth and made, “there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable.” Abraham Heschel, the Jewish theologian, observes, “Essential to human thought is not only the technique of symbolization but also the awareness of the ineffable. In every mind there is an enormous store of not-knowing, of being puzzled, of wonder, of radical amazement.” He goes on to say, “It is the sense of the ineffable that we have to regard as the root of man’s activities in art, thought and noble living.” (Quest p. 139) In other words, it is something of a paradox - that which would seem impossible to express is what, in the end, drives people to expend efforts in expressing that which seems beyond us.
Relatively early in Einstein's career, in a short article titled, The World As I See It, included in Living Philosophies (1931), Einstein stated, “The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery---even if mixed with fear---that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds---it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity…..” Over two thousand years ago, Socrates, the man who the Delphic Oracle declared the wisest man in the world, said, “Wisdom begins in wonder!" I would be remiss if I didn’t also point out that Lao Tzu said, “From wonder into wonder existence opens.”
There are three points here. The first point is that rational thought and logical analysis have limits, even in the physical world and within the domain of science. It should be remembered that rational analysis and logical deduction are processes and have no substance. In the end, much of the truth of arguments rest more on the validity of the assumptions upon which arguments are based more than the arguments themselves. After all, rational analysis is, in fact, the “analysis” - not the assumptions which provides the starting point and foundation for the rational arguments. The Nazis based the Holocaust on the rational argument that they were improving German society and life by exterminating the Jews. The assumption was that Jews were “evil” and a “sickness” that needed to be eliminated. That is a rational argument, in essence. The second point is that the universe, reality, or the all is essentially beyond the limited comprehension of the human mind. The third point is that there are all sorts of processes for understanding and grasping the reality of things and people. Metaphors are common in everyday life as several philosophers have pointed out. There is intuition, and Einstein valued imagination more than rational analysis and logical deduction. It was largely the imagination displayed in Einstein’s famous thought experiments that led Einstein to the Theory of Relativity.
Objective Uncertainty and Absolutes
Historically, several great thinkers have rejected rationalism and philosophy. It is interesting that the great philosopher, Kant, argued that, in the end, humans deal actually with the representations of things and not the things themselves. Heschel observes, “Kant has demonstrated that it is utterly impossible to attain knowledge of the world as it is because knowledge is always in the forms of categories and these, in the last analysis, are only representational constructions for the purpose of apperceiving what is given.” (p.129 H-quest) In his book, Finite Transcendence, Steven Burr emphasizes that Kant, Kierkegaard, and the other philosophers rejected the existence of an Absolute Objective Truth (at least a truth achievable by man).
Steven Burr argues that the end product is “objective uncertainty,” and further argues forcefully in such a state since it isn’t possible to make a definitive determination of meaning or purpose that faith is necessarily involved. Burr summarizes Kierkegaard’s position, stating, “The reason, Kierkegaard explains, that such clarity is elusive to humanity may be found in human finitude: the meaning one seeks is only to be found in the infinite, or, as Kierkegaard specifies, in God. The logic and reason of the finite individual cannot comprehend the infinite, and only by sacrificing logic and reason and replacing them with faith and commitment to the Absolute is one able to accomplish such understanding.” (p.101)
It is interesting that the lives of Lev Tolstoy and Al Ghazzali bore uncanny resemblances. Both men had an extremely powerful drive to understand the world and to ‘know’ the Truth. Both, at first, pursued arriving at the Truth through rational analysis and intense studies of the humanities, history, and philosophy. Both had severe personal and spiritual crises at the very peak of success and the pinnacle of their careers. The philosopher, Robert Solomon, observes that it is the striving that generates emotions and meaning, and the achievement of a goal can be a let-down. It may be that after striving all this time, people expect the sky to open up and angels descend to thank you. Is this all there is to it? A psychologist who interviewed professionals like doctors found that there was frequently a sense of dissatisfaction with their lives, and they had a lower sense of meaning. Both ended up rejecting rationalism as a method for arriving at the Truth. In their own ways, both men finally concluded that faith was the way to the Truth and God, though reason still influential in their writings.
Lev Tolstoy, the brilliant Russian writer and novelist, was one of the world’s great thinkers, as well as a radical Christian and extreme pacifist. Throughout his writing, Lev Tolstoy expressed some inspirational insights into the heart and soul of the human being as well as the hidden workings of politics and history. Tolstoy, who was a contemporary of Gandhi, greatly influenced Gandhi and firmly set Gandhi on the course of nonviolent protest, a strategy which eventually successfully led to the liberation of India from British control. Gandhi named a commune in South Africa “Tolstoy Farm” in Tolstoy’s honor and they exchanged letters. Tolstoy also was also an influence in Martin Luther King Jr choosing a path of pacifism during the turbulent protests for social reform in America.
What many people fail to grasp about Tolstoy was that he was, during his time, the equivalent of a rock star. Novels in Russia were, well…., novel (I couldn’t resist). There was nothing to compete with novels as far as entertainment went and Tolstoy was very good at writing novels. His skills and talent were incredible, and several authors note he had developed an almost ‘cinematic’ way of described landscapes, actions, or battles. So, naturally he became quite famous. After his spiritual crisis, Tolstoy turned to writing about religion and his views were rather radical, which alienated the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox Church finally excommunicated Tolstoy. When it was announced the Russian peasants went out and celebrated for Tolstoy!
At the pinnacle of his writing career, after he had completed the novel War and Peace, Tolstoy descended into a severe emotional and spiritual crisis. He became despondent and suicidal. He concluded that the petty desires of greed, lust, and fame were reprehensible and meaningless. All of a sudden what he had been doing no longer made sense to him. Life had become bereft of meaning. He simply felt there was no meaning in life – no reason to live. Tolstoy was an avid hunter but for fear that he might take his own life, Tolstoy didn’t carry a gun with him when he went out riding horses. Tolstoy’s life is testimony to the drive to understand and the need for meaning in life. His life was an intense spiritual struggle in which meaning was the front line. The spiritual struggles and development of the characters in his novels reflected and mirrored in many ways his own spiritual battle. Art imitating life, and life imitating art both happening simultaneously. Tolstoy’s thinking seemed to evolve with the evolution of the character’s world-views.
In any case, Lev Tolstoy desperately sought the True meaning of life. Being a very rational and logical person, he methodically studied and researched all the sciences, the humanities, as well as philosophy and religion for the real meaning of life and Truth. In the end, he reached the conclusion that, rationally, there simply is no meaning of life. Tolstoy, being a noble, owned serfs and after considering their situation, came to the conclusion that the Russian peasants accepted life as an act of faith. He came to regard his personal ‘complexity’ as a distinct part of his problem, and consciously tried to emulate the Russian peasant both in clothing, form, and simplicity, as well as in thought and belief. In his book, Confessions, which is an account of his personal spiritual struggles, Tolstoy observes, “Thus in addition to rational knowledge, which I had hitherto thought to be the only knowledge, I was inevitably led to acknowledge that there does exist another kind of knowledge – an irrational one – possessed by humanity as a whole: faith, which affords the possibility of living.” (Conf p. 53) It would seem life itself possesses its own mysterious logic and self-generating raison d'être.
Link to my website: https://www.spirittruthandmeaning.com/
Reflections and Commentary:
Deepak Chopra observed that “Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.” Personally, I believe this is true not only for "leadership" but for everyday spirituality as well - that in an analogy to neuroscience "awareness and orientation are integral to the neural substrate of spirituality. Einstein makes that important point when he said, "He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed." At other times he would say there are two ways of looking at the world – Either seeing the world as a wondrous miracle alive with wonder – or as a materialist un-alive world. The neural substrate of spirituality, then, would be the implicit attitude of seeing the world as enchanted and miraculous and vibrantly alive.
As we have seen from religion teachings in human history, spiritual and religious beliefs do contribute to the creation of social ideals and thereby social structure.
Clifford Geertz ’s reputation as a brilliant anthropologist is well deserved. He takes complex conceptual frameworks and expresses them in easily understood comprehensive statements. A pivotal argument in his writing is that symbolism and meaning are both essential and critical for both culture and religion. As Ira Chernus emphasized Geertz’s five-part definition of religion published in the mid 1960’ has become universally accepted in the social sciences. The pivotal concept of religion as a 'realistic' "system of symbols" in which emotions and "long lasting moods and motivations" play a pivotal role is central.
“The view of man as a symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking animal, which has become increasingly popular both in the social sciences and in philosophy over the past several years, opens up a whole new approach not only to the analysis of religion as such, but to the understanding of the relations between religion and values. The drive to make sense out of experience, to give it form and order, is evidently as real and pressing as the more familiar biological needs. And, this being so, it seems unnecessary to continue to interpret symbolic activities --- religion, art, ideology – as nothing but thinly disguised expressions of something other than what they seem to be: attempts to provide orientation to an organism which cannot live in a world it is unable to understand.” (p.140)
Geertz never explains why he used the word “orientation” as a pivotal concept in his description of religious beliefs. William James in the chapter Perception of Reality in his iconic treatise Principles of Psychology “makes the still startling assertion that “Will and Belief….are two names for one and the same phenomenon.” Even more fundamental and challenging is the formula he put in the note, saying “belief and attention are the same fact.”” (P. 46 Heart of William James) The contemporary psychologist, Eric Klinger, whose expertise is in personality psychology and motivation theory, focuses on the influences of motivation and emotion on cognition. Klinger suggests a “primary function of several emotions is to direct attention to concern-related stimuli. (p.42) Neuroscientists also focus on attention – especially in the parietal complex and emphasize the intimate interconnections between attention-Intention and motivation. I feel it important to comment that this simple and basic function of emotions explains a pivotal function of the spiritual beliefs in animal spirits during the hunter-gatherer stage – to direct attention to animals being that at that stage animals were the source of the human species sustenance at that time [an argument I haven’t yet found in google-scholar search of anthropology and sociology]!
Post-script: Understanding Meaning should help the Ability to Envision – an important process in reaching goals
Sebastian Wallace, in the article, Psycho Cybernetics and Law Of Attraction, states that “Maxwell Maltz the author of psycho-cybernetics explains we have a self-image that keeps our behavior consistent. Any deviations are soon snapped back home to the self-image. Cybernetics means in Greek "the art of steering" or taking a course of action to attain a goal. The most popular method [of change via psycho-cybernetic change] is visualization. This method is also popular in the law of attraction practice. Visualize having new habits such as being loving will have to include mentally rehearsing yourself being loving. Repeating the visualization over and over conditions it into the mind and nervous system.”
“Envisioning” goals and reaching goals is basic to both psycho-cybernetics and the Law of Attraction. Having a basic idea or model of the “meaning” processes in the mind and understanding some of the emotional and cognitive forces involved in shaping the self should help people more easily reach their goals.
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