Today I encouraged my Mu to write a letter to the owners of a house she loves.

size the RAK

Like Myths to Light

Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.

-- Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy

As much as four millennia before the more familiar Greco-Roman or “classical” mythology, for example of Homer around 8^th CE BC, it is hypothesized that there existed mythologies of the Proto-Indo-European peoples.  Carvings that depict the sun being drawn by horse and carriage, or the belief that thunder and lightning resulted from the wielding of Thor’s hammer, are some such examples.  But by the time of Xenophanes and the pre-Socratic philosophers of Greece in 570 BC, these and similar mythological explanations for events of the natural world had been dispelled.  What is it that myths previously offered that no longer served any useful purpose?

A myth serves as, among other things, an explanation.  For us to understand why some explanations may be better or worse than others, it may help to imagine the role explanations might have played, and how the need for them may have emerged, among our early ancestors.

Take your first “Homo”.  It's about 2.4 million years ago and she's the earliest to emerge from the australopithecine genus.  To see her is to gaze with wonder - forget Sports Illustrated SE - upon the product of the next logical step in bipedal evolution: greater encephalization.  Consider yourself immediately enraptured; you're a truly sophisticated Sir Mix-A-Lot, "I like big brains and I cannot lie..."  (She may at this point think highly of herself, too; but alas, that is probably all she can do.  And with that booty-licious brain, she should hope it reminds her to run when she sees pretty much anything).

Now thanks to that big melon, she begins interacting with the world around her in a markedly different way than her australopithecine ancestors.  Things need to be categorized – into "dangerous", “edible”, and “mateable”, to start – and, as the categories become increasingly sophisticated and sensitive to the world, eventually (oh, say about 2.39 million years down the road) the thought occurs, “Someone’s got some explaining to do.”

What needs to be explained?  Those things that sustain us might be a likely place to begin.  Looking closely, we see that our crops, and most things of nature like water and sunlight, are resources that behave in certain ways.  Our edibles grow either on trees or from the ground – they do not spontaneously generate themselves in midair, for instance.  It is noticed that during prolonged periods of time where that vital clear liquid does not fall from the sky (i.e., during “drought”), these edibles are less prone to grow.  Water seems important, and we observe that it often follows behind bright streaks of light that crackle and roar.  In short, we notice there is a precarious balance of elements, each with their own respective governing conditions, that appears to directly affect the proliferation of our units of sustenance.

We could stop here.  But we don’t; something is left to be explained.  Sure enough, it may very well be the sun and water affect our crops, but what is it that affects (i.e., causes) them?  If at this point we cannot identify any further significant correlations to explain these more prior causes, then perhaps we ought to just make something up.  At least, now our imagination may access the stage previously reserved for our senses (literal and literal).

What I suggest, however, is that here imagination is invoked not out of freedom but of necessity.  After all, you’d have to be pretty desperate to reach the conclusion that it is a giant scarab – a beetle, one known for rolling balls of its dung to prepare a suitable Jesus basket for the female to deposit her eggs – named Khepri, who rolls the sun across the sky each day. 

The man often referred to as the founder of modern Darwinism, J. B. S. Haldane (1892-1964), may have offered something to help us connect the dots.  The story goes that a group of theologians, considering Haldane's noted observance of life's various creations, asked him for any conclusions that could be drawn about the Creator.  Haldane's response: “An inordinate fondness for beetles.” (Gould, Dinosaur in a Haystack, “A Special Fondness for Beetles”).  And drawn to the light is the myth. 

The first question to ask is why the previous explanations for nature’s conditions were insufficient.  There must have been a period prior to mythology in which distinctly non-mythological explanations were employed, and such explanations must have been in some important way insufficient – as exemplified by the turning then to distinctly non-natural explanations for the natural world.  Had the mythological explanations not been satisfactory this pattern would have persisted; myths would have done little more than push back the buck.  We would have inquired as to whether the beetle has wings, its origin, its “stunt-beetle” who rolls its dung when it’s busy playing with Sisyphusian fire, etc.  But what we observe is that no further logical back steps are required.

No, the buck stops here.  And I would like to suggest (at least) the following two reasons why.  First, myths made the highly impersonal “mother” nature personal, human even; and second, they brought mother’s chaotic spontaneity in some sense under our control.

As to the personification of nature, we should see that despite those natural explanations’ demonstrably strong correlations – say, between sunlight and plant growth – little is offered in the way of comfort.  Drought is a terrible and, for the time, even fatal thing – would it suffice simply to know that clouds had been scarce lately?  No, of course not; natural mechanisms are distant and impersonal forces.  Employing myths, however, we deify nature in our image.  The result is that we gain access to this otherwise impersonal, non-human force (hence the cultural relativity demonstrated by these myths – i.e., it made for better relating). 

As to the control of nature, myths offer control in two ways.  The first is simply conceptual, to make chaos tangible.  The randomness and unreasonableness of unfavorable natural events can now be made sense of: the gods are unhappy.  The second is actual, in providing an opportunity to direct our efforts: there are things we can do to make the gods once again happy.  It is interesting to speculate as to whatever parallels may be found between the extreme, literal sacrifices to appease the gods, and our current “sacrifices” – I’m thinking of family, friends, hygiene – to learn something of the world in our respective field.  Is it merely the object of worship that has changed?  We should also note that to whatever extent mythological explanation borders on the religious, the “good” and “evil” of this ancient time is notably practical or literal; not yet infused with possibilities of inherent morality, good and evil are considerations of what is either good or evil for someone.

Eventually with critical reflection, however, mythological explanation is swiftly disposed of.  Two new developments increase the capacity to reflect critically on these explanations; the advent of written record, and the use of slaves in agrarian society.  The former provides a mirror for one’s thoughts, while the latter provides the time for gazing.  What resulted was a societal awareness of myth not only as being made in man’s image, but also as being highly relative.  Xenophanes, most notably, criticizes the deities on these grounds.  And with this criticism becoming widespread, we have the mythological mode of thought dispelled and the observation- and reason-based mode takes its place.  And with it come the natural philosophers.

i-Matter 2.010: The App for Ruling Your World

[E]verything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence... Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. 

-- David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College commencement 

What have we learned from our education?  Being twenty-something involves a lot of figuring out what really matters; so if we’ve learned anything, here’s our chance to prove it.  Do I know how to prioritize my commitments?  Do I work to support my ideal lifestyle, or find work that is my ideal lifestyle?  Do I merely keep-up by "correspondence" the longstanding friendships of old, or seek new friendships in the more substantive here and now?  Do I still have to listen to my parents, or if not what do I now owe them for the times I did(n’t)?  Is there anything more important than being ridiculously good-looking? 

Beginning his extremely worthwhile and well-received commencement address at Kenyon College, the late David Foster Wallace offers his take on the purpose of higher education.  It “isn’t really about the capacity to think,” he explains, “but rather about the choice of what to think about.”  He elaborates: “learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think.”  Suppose for a moment he’s right – we’ve learned how to think.  How does it work?  How can we put this tool to use?

To start, note that the twenty-something's concerns are not only difficult, but real.  From the perspective of an educator these might be reducible to mere “practical” issues, but they are certainly not so in the sense of being "mundane" or "ordinary" (sorry Plato).  Their practicality, more accurately speaking, consists in their being entirely unavoidable in and relevant to the practice of living.  So attempting their resolution, you’d imagine the experience-based wisdom of life lived is most important – at least, it takes precedent over what can be achieved from the proverbial recliner.  After all, what would Plato know about having a good e-friendship?  [Future post: What does Technology do for our Relationships?]  To some of us it might come as a surprise, then, that Wallace was onto something; i.e., that some insight into such practical matters can be gleaned with out feet up.

What that is, I propose, consists in identifying the kind of questions being asked.  Whereas our ordinary stance on matters such as those above involves resolving them as best as possible - answering them so we can take action - the philosopher's stance requires a pause.  We turn from examining those things that matter to examining the question “What matters?” itself.  And before long, we notice something implicit in the question surfaces - that I'm in fact asking, "What matters to me?"  It’s all about my job; my lifestyle; my friends; my parents; etc.  Wallace demonstrates this for us using his own case; “…what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean,” he begins, is

To be just a little less arrogant.  To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties.  Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded… 

Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.  We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive.  But it's pretty much the same for all of us.  It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth.  Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of.  The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor.  And so on.  Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

Wallace has identified something of the fabric of my experience - and, I take it, of yours as well - upon which my deliberations about what really matters are grounded.  Something has been taken for granted in beginning with the default setting, I matter (2.010).  Observing that each concern begins from this default it would seem that, according to me at least, I matter most.  And since when?  Considering all the back-and-forth, ask-the-elders, Google-and-Wiki-it, return-o’-teen-angst involved in prioritizing the important things in my life currently, it seems curious that this most fundamental deliberation as to what matters most was decided without me, so to speak.  Ought I to have spent a little time consciously deciding whether, and if so how much, I matter?  If you answered ‘yes’, try a thought-experiment.  [Future post: The Value in Experimental Thought].

Suppose we “zoom out” from our current perspective and imagine something like a bird’s-eye View of ourselves (see Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere).  From this View of the world, we may see ourselves each as merely one entity among billions of persons, and trillions of other living things, all of them mattering.  To be sure, the aerial View does not trivialize our life or that of any other being; rather, it reveals that our privileging of our own lives over others was dependent on the immediacy of our experience.  From up high, if I still care most about Pasha it is more akin to "feeling for" some fictional character - as I might identify with just anyone in pre-Republican Egypt in virtue of their honorific title "Pasha" - as opposed to my concerning over his life, back on the ground, out of unquestioned necessity.

Now we ask ourselves again, from up here, What really matters?  (Philosophers – hush!  Admittedly, in asking this question again from the new POV, we may now only be deferring our egocentricity to our imagined Bird’s Eye.  But purely logical issues like "threats" of ad infinitum aside, I take it for granted that an impersonal view of oneself – and that objectivity in general – can at least be approached, even if never reached in full).  Sure enough, even from this View I may prefer some living things to others.  But the point is that now my framework for evaluating what matters has shifted.  Since I am (as imagined) no longer an active participant in the world's affairs, absent is any impetus for discerning value solely in terms of what matters to me.

Consider this View analogous to how we might look upon an anthill currently: we have no special attachment to any one ant and thus no reason to privilege one ant over another, so we simply hope the system as a whole does well.  And with our sights set on what is best for the entire community we can then decide where each ant - ourselves included - belongs to serve those ends.  From this View, then, otherwise special concern for oneself is rendered equally as impersonal as that for anyone else (see: Mark Johnston, Surviving Death).  Not that we need endorse this nonpartisan attitude - but we should recognize that it illuminates a range of possible attitudes, and that the adoption of one or another is up to us.

And that’s exactly what afternoon tea and crumpets – or “philosophy” – is all about.  By examining what we think, we enable ourselves to consider our options more fully and make conscious decisions about our attitudes.  Each of us has the opportunity, as Wallace reminds us, to “choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.” And if we can, we must; to not attempt self-examination, as Wallace points out, entails the twofold failing of squandering our intentionality and inviting closed-minded imprisonment - the proverbial ostrich head in the sand.     

i-matter 2.010 is a default setting.  And it likely made sense for our ancestors; question i-matter and activate i-eaten, or i-starved.  [Future post: What is Evolution?]  But we live in a different world now, thanks to the advents of (among other things) gunpowder, indoor plumbing, and stoves.  Relieved of duty to basic necessities, the function of I-matter is non-essential.  At bottom, armed with our education – however “high” – we are faced not only with the usual myriad of candidates for things that matter, but also with a more fundamental decision about how much we ourselves do (and ought to) matter.

That fundamental decision looks like real, worthwhile freedom.  Our current freedoms offered by our time and place – spinning classes, the choice to be vegetarian, free speech – are undoubtedly fortunate opportunities for self-betterment.  (Some of them, like vegetarianism, may arguably even benefit others, too).  But if these freedoms are still running on I-matter 2.010, what results is little more than, as Wallace laments, “The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation.”  Must we so slavishly better (only) ourselves?  Nothing against vanity, here - but this is a question we can ask.

I want to leave you considering the (clandestine) struggling of the old lady at the grocery store.  Lording over only myself, her shopping cart's wheel stuck in the drain grate looks like the most absurd nuisance.  Why does she have to be so...old?  All I can see is there's some thing in my way - because I matter.  But now having seen, perhaps from the View above, that compared to myself she is equally (if not more so) in need of groceries - and of not wasting precious time, of herself feeling competent, efficient, etc. - she becomes an opportunity for my aid.  This alternative is markedly less glamorous than my private "thriving" at the store, but in the end it seems more worthwhile; either way, I should know it can be my choice.