Jonathan Swift once said: “Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” It is a caution to all of us; a reminder that we are all motivated by things other than the discovery of truth. We see things through eyes colored in our favor, and often fail to see that which we do not wish to see. And, perhaps, we should not put too much trust for guidance in a vessel with such a biased rudder.
I do not wish to challenge so great a genius as Swift; and I heartily agree with him. And yet…there is a sense that I want to throw his reasonable caution to the wind. Or at least, set it to one side, for a minute, and consider the epistemological value of the one rudder in the universe that we actually have some small control over: Our own.
Principle #2: Trust Your Own Eyes…With Caution
The informational source I trust the most is…myself. I don’t mean that quite as arrogantly as it sounds, and making it sound a little less arrogant will take some explanation.
Let’s start with the Great Chain of Bias. Everyone is biased; that is, no one person is a perfect source of information. If my grandmother tells me that she saw an alien, then she might have really seen one; but maybe she just really wants to believe in aliens, and this desire made her think that the dog dragging a tire in her backyard at night was an alien. Maybe I can use the fact that she has collected copies of the magazine Believe in UFOs or Die going on near fifty years to discredit her story (see Principle #1 from last week).
But notice something else. If my grandmother tells me that she saw an alien, I have little reason to at least doubt the fact that she believes she saw an alien. In other words, I may not believe her story, but I can be pretty sure that she in fact believes her story.
But now imagine that, instead of my grandmother telling me that story, my friend Curt claims his grandmother told him that she saw an alien. Now I have a completely different problem. Not only do I have to evaluate his grandmother as a source of information, but I also have to evaluate Curt. I mean, maybe he is a chronic liar who likes to make up stories for entertainment, or maybe he is a subscriber to UFO Daily. If my own grandmother tells me about the UFO, I know she at least believes the story. But if my friend Curt tells me about his grandmother, not only is it possible that some lonely grandmother is mistaken, it’s actually possible that Curt’s grandmother never even told him that story. Maybe he made it up, or exaggerated it, or twisted it to some biased purpose of his own.
So, be aware with some tadalafil 20mg uk very helpful foods to maintain good circulation. Inexpensive, cialis sample drug can be bought from any internet or local pharmacy at discounted prices. To expand penis, heart pumps more blood and then dilate. cheap cialis 100mg Penile Implant- In this treatment two cialis tadalafil tablets roads are inserted by the surgical processes. And so we’ve entered the Great Chain of Bias, where the more links that exist between my own eyes and the thing I am expected to believe, the harder (epistemologically speaking) it ought to be for me to believe it. You can further imagine that instead of my friend Curt telling me about his grandmother, instead he tells me a story that his friend Mark told him about Mark’s grandmother. Now you’ve entered yet another person’s potential bias into the picture; another link in the Great Chain of Bias. We don’t just have to consider Curt’s possible biases, we also have to consider Mark’s biases, and Mark’s grandmother’s biases. So, by the time you start talking about stuff that happened 200 years ago, the potential level of bias is so huge that it is difficult to believe anything with much certainty.
Why do I trust my own eyes more than I trust most other things? Because my own eyes cut across the Great Chain of Bias. With my own eyes, I have to deal with only one set of biases: My own. And, unlike everything else in the Great Chain of Bias, I have some control over myself. It is possible for me to be aware of my own biases and to at least partially overcome them.
But there’s the rub. We must be cautious in trusting ourselves too much, not only because we too are biased, but also because we only see a small part of the truth, or at least see it from only one angle. Your perception of what the “earth” is like would be different if you lived your whole life in Tahiti than it would if you lived your whole life in Montana.
Also, we’re kinda lazy, and often don’t truly seek out the whole truth. We tend to trust whatever happens to be in front of us. Maybe I could find out more about Tahitian life by visiting there and seeing it with my own eyes, but, hey, that would require too much work, so I’m just gonna assume Tahiti is kind of like Montana, and that’s what the whole earth is like.
So what are we to make of all this? Here’s what I think. I think everyone should try to be aware of their own biases…but live life with their eyes wide open, seeking out answers, and trusting what they find. One of the reasons I believe in Christ is because I am quite sure I have encountered Him for myself. I trust those encounters more than I trust Richard Dawkins…or Pat Robertson…or my own pastor. Those encounters in a sense cut right through the heart of the Great Chain of Bias.
I would also say this: For those of you who haven’t met Christ, don’t give up seeking Him. There is a lot in the Bible about continuing to seek even when it seems lost. There is an old saying by an atheist which I think captures the issue perfectly. The famous atheist says about God: “Wait, and see. Or wait, and don’t see.” The implication is, of course, that if you wait you will never see. And I think there is a sense in which that is right. I think if all you do is wait then you likely never will see, just like if you waited in Montana you would never see Tahiti. No; Jesus doesn’t say wait and you’ll find…He says seek and you’ll find. In other words, don’t give up pushing towards the truth and trying to find Him.
I’m cognizant of the fact that many decent atheists have truly sought and not found…yet. I just want to be clear: If you are an atheist, I’m not in any way saying that your attempts at seeking were insincere. I have no answer except…your life isn’t over yet, and I honestly believe that eventually you will find Him, if you keep seeking Him with an open mind. I’m not asking you to believe in something you can’t believe in…only to continue to seek Him and trust what you see.
As far as your broad epistemological claim that we ought to trust, with caution, our own observations, experiences, and conclusions, I’m inclined simply to agree: after all, what choice does any of us have? Even if I defer to someone else’s observations, experiences, authority, wisdom, or conclusions: that deference is itself my own choice (however grudging), and in making it, I’m trusting my judgment that I should, in the specific case, trust someone else. I’m also trusting my choice of who that “someone” should be; I won’t, after all, defer to just anyone. There is no way, as any good existentialist will tell you (at tedious length and in baffling, incomprehensible jargon), to avoid personal responsibility: we are condemned, as it were, to trust ourselves. “Even a blind man must see the world for himself” is a maxim I’m making up on the spot.
That said: I have a friend who, a few years ago, became convinced that her house was infested with bugs. She called an exterminator, who came to the house and said that she was mistaken; he couldn’t find any bugs. My friend wasn’t satisfied, so she called another exterminator, with the same result: no bugs. She then had her sister and brother-in-law come over, and they told her, after searching the house, that what she was seeing wasn’t bugs but simply stray pieces of dirt and lint in various places. My friend couldn’t figure out why no one else could see what was so obvious to her: bugs all over her house. She called me and asked me for my opinion; I told her that I couldn’t say for sure, since I hadn’t inspected her house, but it seemed to me that if two exterminators and two people she trusted had told her there were no bugs, then probably there were no bugs. Regardless, my friend couldn’t stop believing she was seeing bugs and that her house was infested. Eventually she became so distraught over the situation that her doctor had her hospitalized; she spent a few days in a psychiatric unit where her anti-psychotic medications –which she had been taking for years, having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder–were “adjusted”. She hasn’t had a problem with bugs since then (though she gets very upset if you even mention them in her presence).
I worked in the mental health system for years and saw many similar episodes. What our clients took to be “reality” was often, sadly, not the case, though they had no way of understanding that for themselves; they either took our word for it (the word of the “sane” and epistemologically reliable staff members) or they didn’t, and in either case they managed their lives as best they could. Perhaps that’s what makes me skeptical of “self-reports,” however sincere, of experiences that can’t be confirmed by disinterested observers.
I’m not suggesting that belief in Jesus, or belief in any religion, is a psychotic delusion. I’m simply pointing out that even though “trust yourself” is inescapably the epistemological default position, it doesn’t necessarily lead to the truth. It’s all we’ve got, and we’re stuck with it, but it has some definite limitations. I’ve heard “reality” defined as “that which, even when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”; conversely, we might also say that reality is neither defined, created nor confirmed by belief, however sincere–even belief in one’s own experience.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go check my house for bugs…
Jack,
Fantastic comment! Witty, funny, thoughtful, and…I agree completely (right down to the comical parenthesis about existentialists), with no qualifications.
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