On the Varieties of Styles of Thinking

Styles of thinking occur along a continuum. At the center of the two extremes are top-down and bottom-up thinking. In fact, these are not the most extreme forms of thinking, but we have to first establish the norm of each before we can understand the extremes of each.

Top-down thinkers tend to see the big picture first. They start with the answer. The end goal is identified, and then ways to get there are investigated. To flip the old cliché, you see the forest, but not the trees. In developing ideas, theories, hypotheses, a top-down thinker will get a handful of data before developing the ideas, theory, hypothesis, then proceed to try to find ways to prove that theory, as proving the theory is the end goal. Of course, data may not prove the theory, in which case one then posits a different theory. The more top-down a thinker is, the less data is needed to develop an idea, etc., or to prove (or, indeed, disprove) a theory to them, which makes the process faster; however, this means they are more likely they are to engage in confirmation bias. Such thinkers are strategic thinkers.

Bottom-up thinkers tend to see the parts first. There is no clear end goal identified; the process itself is sufficient, and the end will be reached when you get there. These are the people who sometimes cannot see the forest for the trees. Or, specifically, they need to have a sufficient number of trees in order to agree that what we have here is in fact a forest. In developing ideas, theories, hypotheses, a bottom-up thinker will collect copious amounts of data, work out the patterns within the data set, then develop the idea, etc. from the identified patterns. The more bottom-up a thinker is, the more data is needed before they are comfortable developing an idea, etc., but as a result they are very likely to be quite confident in their idea, etc. However, sufficient contradictory data will in fact change their minds, especially after they figure out how to fit the new data in with the old data. Such thinkers are analytical thinkers.

Now please note that these are general patterns. The fact that one is generally a bottom-up thinker does not mean they cannot engage (or learn to engage) in top-down thinking. Or vice versa. However, the more extreme one's natural thinking process is, the less likely one is going to learn (or learn well) how to engage in the other kind of thinking.

Also, one may note that there are strengths and weaknesses in each of these approaches. If you need to strategize, you need to engage in top-down thinking. If you need to come up with a solution quickly, you need to engage in top-down thinking. However, if you need to do a careful analysis, you need to engage in bottom-up thinking. If you want to understand patterns, you need to engage in bottom-up thinking.

I will also note that both styles of thinking also match the two general patterns of network architecture: top-down, hierarchical networks and bottom-up, scale-free networks. Top-down networks require step-by-step organization. You start at the top and you add things over time to create the network. The most efficient way is to create a hierarchy. Our organizations, including our firms, are so structured. However, bottom-up networks self-organize as the parts interact with each other. Things aren't added; rather, patterns emerge from the interactions of the parts already there. As a result, you get a scale-free architecture following power law distributions of links.

I would further argue that those who primarily engage in top-down thinking are going to be more comfortable with, and more likely to identify and identify with, top-down hierarchical networks, or organizations. Those who primarily engage in bottom-up thinking are, thus, going to be more comfortable with, and more likely to identify and identify with, bottom-up hierarchical networks, or spontaneous orders. As a result, one would predict that the more top-down a thinker you are, the more likely you are to support policies that support that world view -- you will be more likely to support policies that will create more hierarchical organizations and which will organize the world from the top-down. Equally, one would predict that the more bottom-up a thinker you are, the more likely you are to support policies that support that world view -- you will be more likely to support policies that will create decentralized networks and reduce hierarchy.

Those who are most typically bottom-up thinkers, though, have been pathologized by the majority, who are primarily top-down thinkers, into Asperger's and Autism. But what if things are more complex than that? Although there are certainly problems -- from a neurotypical's standpoint, anyway -- with those in the autism spectrum, one ought to acknowledge that if the most extreme end of bottom-up thinking is problematic, then the most extreme end of top-down thinking is problematic as well.

What would you expect from an extreme bottom-up thinker? That the -up part is gone, that the world remains fragmented and that the pieces can therefore not be brought together at all. I think this would go a long way to explaining the behavioral situation of those with the most extreme forms of autism. Equally, then, one would expect from an extreme top-down thinker that the -down part is gone, that the world remains an undifferentiated whole. This would mean there is no difference between the person and the rest of the world -- which is solipsism. The solipsist, however, can function in the social world, whereas the extreme autistic cannot. However, the solipsist believes he has the answer to everything, that everyone is the same as him, and that to question his ideas is to insult him personally, as there is no differentiation between him and his ideas. The extreme autistic sees infinite variety; the solipsist sees infinite sameness. The solipsist would then be expected to support egalitarianism, to think wealth disparities are terrible, that differences in opinions from his own are terrible, and thus would seek to create a society that conformed to him and his ideals. The extreme autistic is a problem only to himself (and those who have to take care of him); the solipsist is a problem to society.

Let me now relate all of this to Spiral Dynamics. It seems to me that the more collectivist levels -- purple (tribal), blue (authoritative), green (egalitarian), and turquoise (holistic) -- are going to develop out of and in turn encourage more top-down thinking. Individualistic levels -- red (heroic), orange (entrepreneurial), and yellow (integrationist) -- are going to develop out of and in turn encourage more bottom-up thinking. The more one is able to switch from one style of thinking to another, the easier it will be to move through the levels; extremes of either side will find such emergence more difficult, since switching styles is more difficult. Difficult does not mean impossible, of course; life conditions can certainly give one a strong nudge, to say the least. But if we take the fact that most people are in fact predominantly top-down thinkers, while those with a more balanced style of thinking are relatively rare, we can perhaps make sense of the fact that there are relatively few of the most complex psychologies, even within even the most complex societies.

We would also expect top-down thinkers to prefer to "settle in" in the more collectivist levels, where they are comforted by top-down organization of society, whereas we would expect bottom-up thinkers to prefer to "settle in" in the more individualistic levels, where they are comforted by less hierarchical, more scale free social orders. At the same time, we would expect many business owners to be top-down, strategic thinkers, while we would expect analysts and scholars to be more bottom-up, analytic thinkers. All of which clearly problematizes any simple political divisions. Still, it would probably not be surprising if one were to learn that there is a positive correlation between dominance of bottom-up thinking and support for libertarianism.

All of this points to the fact that when it comes to understanding any social order of any sort, you are dealing with very complex situations. The dominance of a style of thinking is going to affect the structure of society and of the culture as well. It also suggests that we need to be careful pathologizing ways of thinking. As a style of thinking comes to dominate in a society, that society will itself shift into being a society more open to that style of thinking, but not to another. Today's pathology might be tomorrow's norm. But if we pathologize, we don't really have to even try to understand; we can simply get such uncomfortable thoughts such as that there are people out there who do not in fact think like us well away from us so we won't have to worry about it or even deal with it. But that impoverishes both ourselves as individuals and society itself as a whole.

How My Thinking Affects My Social Views

My research into my son's autism has resulted in my coming to understand myself as well, since one of the results of that research is to learn that I have Asperger's, a form of autism. The result is I now have a causal explanation for why I think as I think.

For example, with the Intense World Theory of autism, one would predict I would have very strong emotional reactions and strong feelings of empathy. However, expressing these strong emotions and feelings of empathy in the intensity in which I feel them is considered to be socially inappropriate. As a result, I engage in suppression, to keep in control. That doesn't mean I don't feel deeply or that I don't empathize deeply -- quite the contrary -- but it does mean that if I don't want to be an emotional nightmare to everyone around me, I have to keep continuous conscious control over it. The overwhelming bombardment of empathy for others can also make one shut down when one is in a crowd. Imagine intensely empathizing with a room full of people! It's often too much. Thus, I appear socially awkward at parties.

People with Asperger's and autism (hereon out, simply "autism") also are more bottom-up thinkers, while neurotypicals are top-down thinkers. What this means is that autistics collect lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of data before creating a hypothesis or theory, whereas neurotypicals will form a theory after collecting a much smaller amount of data. A consequence of this is that neurotypicals will then typically engage in confirmation bias, searching for confirming data for their theories. Autistics, on the other hand, are not so attached to their theories that they won't change their minds if there is enough data to disconfirm their ideas. For my own part, I in fact seek out disconfirming data and ideas. I have changed my ideas quite a bit over time, adjusting my world view as new data becomes available.

Bottom-up thinking also tends to lead to pattern thinking. I am very good as seeing patterns -- especially complex patterns that are not obvious to others. Much economic thinking is based on the ability to see exactly these kinds of patterns. It also means that I can see similarities among ideas that others may miss. I see the commonalities among information theory, self-organization, evolution, emergence, network theory, and Austrian economics -- to such a degree that I quite often interchange them and their vocabularies. This sometimes leads to confusion when I am conversing with someone -- but very often I get them to see that I am really saying the same thing they are, just using a different language from a different model. I can do that because the patterns of each of these theories are actually identical.

Having laid the groundwork, I can now explain how the way I experience the world leads to my social views. I have extreme empathy for those who are poor and who suffer. It deeply bothers me to see suffering. As a result, I have tried to learn the best ways to alleviate suffering on as large a scale as possible. I have collected data over the decades, and come to the conclusion -- based on historical, social, cultural, and economic data -- that free markets in the economy, and other kinds of spontaneous orders in other social spheres. Spontaneous orders are bottom-up orders -- not unlike my thinking. And seeing the patterns in common among the various social systems helps me to see how if one spontaneous order benefits people the most the freer it is, then the same is true of other orders as well. Since I do not have an emotional connection to ideas, as neurotypicals seem to do, but only care about whether what I propose actually has the effects I seek, I do tend to come across as, at best, incredulous when I come across people who will not see the incredible damage their ideas have done, continue to do, and will do.

I will also note that the fact that neurotypicals are top-down thinkers might explain the preponderance of top-down ideas. More than that, if we are looking at thinking as occurring along a continuum, one would expect a few extremes of top-down and bottom-up thinkers. The most extreme bottom-up thinker would never be able to synthesize everything into a theory (they could not see the unity), while the most extreme top-down thinker would never be able to see the pieces, but would have a theory and stick to it no matter what evidence (they could not see the diversity). For the hyper-autistic thinker, everything would be outside of them; for the opposite, there would be nothing outside of them (that is, they would be purely solipsistic). It seems odd that the autistic thinker is seen as pathological, but not the solipsistic thinker, though as I have demonstrated, they are equally pathological. More, their thinking is necessarily going to make them more defensive of their ideas, since their ideas are them, and an attack on their ideas is an attack on them. It would also explain why they care more about their ideas than the outcomes, even at the expense of human lives. It would also explain why so many people think that top-down organizations are preferable to bottom-up spontaneous orders.

Microaggressions Article at The Pope Center -- and More Musings

My latest at The Pope Center is on the UCLA debacle regarding microaggressions and correcting students' writing. The discussion going on at the end is particularly interesting.

Aria Razfar, whose paper I cite and link, comes by to comment. He and I are actually not all that far off from each other. For example, I agree with him that, "language itself can not be separated from values, identities, and culture." But the problem is that many people (not Razfar, though, I believe) think that one's values, identity, and culture are and ought to be completely unchanging over time. The fact of the matter is, though, that one's values, identity, and culture do change over time. And when you go to a university, you either adapt to the university's values, identity, and culture, or you end up dropping out. Is that wrong? Or is that as it should be?

Humans are social, and social identity comes about in no small part from shared values, identity, and culture. If you want to join my group, you have to conform to my group's values, identity, and culture. Does that mean you will have to give up some of your own values, modify your identity, and adapt to a different culture? Yes. Necessarily so. I did it with each university I attended, I did it with each city to which I moved, and I did it when I married. We all do.

Thus, when a professor corrects you, that professor is attempting to help you adapt to the new values, identity, and culture inherent in university life. If you want to attend a university, that is what you are doing and what you must do. It is no different than if you decided to go live in Saudi Arabia for four years -- you cannot run around in a bikini or say aloud whatever negative opinions you may have about Islam there. Fortunately, the cultural differences are such that the ramifications for not fitting in well in a university are far less personally dangerous, but the general principle is the same. So if you attend a university, you need to understand that you need to adapt to that culture -- and that means, adapt your language to the university and the professors' expectations as well.

Daniel, Language, Handedness

Today Daniel picked up a pen and wrote with his left hand. I am left-handed, so there is a certain heightened probability each of my children would be left-handed, meaning this shouldn't be all that surprising. Except for the fact that until recently, Daniel had been writing with his right hand.

Daniel is also autistic, and there is increasing evidence that many of the neural wiring differences are located in the left hemisphere, where language and social processing is typically located. An MRI of Temple Grandin's brain also shows the extent of this difference, as discussed in an article in Discover Magazine. Among the differences is a larger corpus collosum, which allows for increased communication across the hemispheres.

At may be possible that Daniel's brain is rewiring the right hemisphere for language and, as it is doing so, causing Daniel's dominant hand to switch from right to left. Certainly nobody is encouraging him to switch hands from right to left. If his brain is rewiring his language onto the right hemisphere, that would explain his language delay and why his language seems to be developing much better now.

The Autistic Brain and Thinking About Spontaneous Orders

I am currently reading The Autistic Brain by Temple Grandin. It is a fascinating book that really draws your attention to what is known and what is unknown about autism -- and some of the problems with autism research that are caused by the fact that most researchers into autism are not themselves autistic, and the fact that there is a strong bias against self-reports, meaning there is too much focus on external expressions and not enough on what someone with autism is experiencing. It seems odd that autism research is, in this sense, a final holdout of behaviorism.

It should not be surprising that Grandin, being autistic herself, focuses on how autistics experience the world. But she also points out that autistics think about the world in a different way. Specifically, she notes that neurotypicals think in a top-down fashion (big picture before details), while autistics think in a bottom-up fashion (details before big picture). This has an interesting result. This means that neurotypicals tend to develop ideas from fewer sources, then take that theory and go back to the facts, where as autistics collect far more details and develop a theory from the details, from the facts. This also, coincidentally, is what allows autistics to see and understand patterns better and in more detail.

Also, this bottom-up thinking might help autistics to understand bottom-up processes better. I am learning that there are a large number of people with Asperger's and autism among libertarians. I could point to the fact that autistics base their decisions on facts and information and are dispassionate in their conclusions, which is no doubt one of the main reasons why they would tend to support free markets. A more cynical view would be that autistics just want to be left alone to do their work, and extrapolate this out to government (just leave me alone and everything will be fine!). I'm not even going to argue that this isn't perhaps a part of it. However, it is also likely true that a more bottom-up, pattern-based thinker is going to see and understand bottom-up processes with complex patterns better than neurotypicals, meaning they will tend to understand spontaneous orders in general better than neurotypicals. Seeing social processes for what they are surely has to help one to come to certain kinds of libertarian conclusions when it comes to social orders.

Learning vs. Acquiring. Reading and Writing vs. Speech

One of the reasons humans can learn so much so quickly is because of the presence of adaptive modules -- really, instincts -- that both result in the creation of social knowledge and are developed from that social knowledge. Language is a good example of this. Without an instinct to language, humans could not use or make language. The notion that someone came along and decided, one day, to create language is utterly ridiculous. You cannot create language without a notion of language. It is thus an evolved instinct. However, the details of any given language are learned.

I say, "learned," but in fact the details of any given native language are actually acquired, not learned. There is a huge difference between acquiring something and learning it. You acquire your native language and any other language you encounter pre-puberty, but you learn any second language you have learned post-puberty. You can only learn how to read and write -- they are not acquired. But morals are acquired, not learned.

What, then, is the difference between something learned and something acquired? You acquire something for which you have the neural modules. You thus acquire the language you speak, the morals you practice, the aesthetics with which you judge works as beautiful. On the other hand, when you learn something, there are no naturally evolved modules to speed things along; more, the modules available in the brain have to be adapted to the task. For example, parts of the brain modules for recognizing shapes and for recognizing faces, which are right next to each other, are used for reading and writing in the creation and recognition of letters. Other modules are no doubt adapted for other uses as well. For example, we acquire music, but we learn to play a musical instrument.

Unfortunately, we use the same term -- learn -- when we talk about language acquisition and learning to read and write. However, the former is natural and acquired, while the latter two are learned technologies. The fact that reading and writing are learned technologies explains how it is that a person can speak more eloquently than they write, or write more eloquently than they speak. Yet, there is this expectation that, because someone can speak, that they should be able to learn how to read and write just as easily. However, our brains are not designed to read and write -- our brains merely adapt to learn to read and write. And that adaptation comes at a cost: literate peoples are less able to recognize faces than are illiterate peoples. Educators need to recognize these facts in teaching students how to read and write, and in our expectations about our students' willingness to read and write.

Think about it. We may think a person impractical given contemporary circumstances, but we wouldn't wail and gnash our teeth if someone were to say they didn't like using computers and/or the Internet. There are people who don't like cars and don't like to drive, and drive as little as possible. I resisted getting a cell phone for the longest time, and since my son put my phone in a glass of water, I honestly haven't missed it. Yet, we (overeducated elites) are appalled when we come across people who (horror of horrors!) hate to read and are happy going through life not doing so.

At the same time, communication is increasingly written. We write tweets and emails and on Facebook and on blogs and send memos and have to write reports. How much more reading do people do because of the existence of the Internet? Of course, much of that reading is the tweets, emails, etc. of their friends, meaning common errors in composition make their rounds and build within textual communities. But I would venture to guess that even this is not the real problem with college students' writing.

The real problem is that the percentage of people attending college has been steadily increasing over time. Once, universities were primarily full of people who loved to read and had read a great deal. Those same people are going to college, but they are being joined by an increasing number of people who not only do not read, but actually hate to read. You simply cannot teach adult students who do not like to read, and thus have not been exposed to literally thousands of hours of good sentences, how to write well. The hours of reading and writing (and corrected writing) have to be put in well before college. There is no getting around this fact. Student writing is getting worse not just because our high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools are complete disasters at teaching these two technologies -- but because most of the students attending college are now non-readers.

Ontology of Information -- Deriving Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness

In my book Diaphysics, I propose an ontology of information, that the universe is, fundamentally information.

Two articles support this. The first argues that you can derive quantum mechanics from information theory. The other argues that by using information theory, one can come to understand consciousness as another state of matter.

In less rigorously mathematical terms, I essentially make these arguments in Diaphysics.

Consciousness needs to be further understood as an emergent process. Further, consciousness is really consciousness of something. I am conscious of the cup to my left because I have vision. What they mean in the paper on consciousness is of course mind-consciousness, the kind of consciousness that allows for a fully integrated world to be created through neural interactions and social interactions. Michael Gazzaniga in Who's In Charge? essentially argues that the mind is necessarily social, that it emerges in the interactions among human beings. Perhaps that is where all the missing bits the authors are worried about lie.

Taking Personal Responsibility for Our Fated Lives

At the end of Oedipus the King, Oedipus takes full responsibility for everything he has done, even though by modern standards he is in no way responsible for any of his actions, not knowing he was doing anything wrong. The play is a play of discovery, and when he discovers all that he has done, he takes full responsibility for those actions, and punishes himself for those actions. All, despite the fact that he was fated to do what he did.

Today, we argue that you are not responsible for the things with which you're born, that you're not responsible for the environment within which you're born. But these are fates in the same way Oedipus was fated. You cannot get away from them -- but does that mean you should not be responsible for your actions? If I have behaved a certain way in the past, because I have Asperger's, say, and I later learn I have Asperger's and that that was why I behaved the way I behaved, should I own that behavior and take responsibility for it and apologize for that behavior, or just chalk it up to fate and declare I was not responsible for my actions?

The tragic choice, the choice Oedipus made, is to take responsibility for those things you did, that you were fated to do. That is the soul of tragic morals.

Theory of Mind and the Austim Spectrum

One of the theories of autism -- including Asperger's -- is that those on the spectrum do not have a Theory of Mind. However, as I have read more and more examples of the evidence that supposedly supports that view, I have to come to the conclusion that it is the neurotypicals who believe this who don't have a proper Theory of Mind.

Those who have Theory of Mind (ToM) believe that others have a mind like theirs. Please note that those who have ToM believe others have a mind like THEIRS. Neurotypicals believe others have a mind like their mind, and  those with ASD believe others have a mind like their mind. However, both are wrong. Both are overgeneralizing.

One can view the human ToM as an evolving history of ToM. Those in our tribe have minds, but others do not. Those in our extended culture have minds, but others do not -- or theirs is not as developed. Read some of the work by European scholars prior to the 20th century, and you will see a great deal of ink spilled on the "fact" that primitive peoples do not have minds like the more advanced Europeans. This, of course, is false. But it took a long time for humans to come to realize this -- and there are those who still do not believe it.

More recently, we have come to understand that animals have minds as well, even if they are not as complex -- or at least the same -- as human minds. We moved from treating animals as automata to being vaguely aware to having varying kinds of consciousness.

It seems that with the theory that ASD in a problem in ToM we have another version of the above. The problem is that it's working both ways. Since those with ASD are treating everyone else as though everyone else has the same kinds of minds as them, and neurotypicals don't recognize themselves in the way they are being treated by those with ASD, the theory (developed by neurotypicals studying ASD) that ASD is a ToM deficit emerges. The problem is that each side is looking at the other and thinking, "What's wrong with them?" The problem is that both are wrong to think that way.

What I am suggesting, then, is that we have two different groups -- neurotypicals and autistics (including AS) -- with two different kinds of minds, each theorizing everyone has the same kind of mind they have, and coming into conflict. Many of the comments made by autistics that are interpreted by neurotypicals as rude or arrogant are perfectly well understood for exactly what they are by fellow autistics. In the same way, things that seem bizarre or a waste of time to autistics (like small talk) are perfectly well understood by neurotypicals for what they are by other neurotypcials.

Given that neurotypicals far outnumber autistics, it is the latter who have had to do most of the adjusting. However, as the number of people with autism seems to be rising, the adjustments might soon have to be more mutual. And if neurotypcials don't want to miss out on all of the benefits that come with hiring autistics, the adjustments will have to become more mutual. Those neuroptypicals who figure this out will be the ones profiting most.

Learning to Act Human, Part 2

When I learned my son had autism, I went out and learned as much about autism as possible. I did this to try to help my son as much as possible. Little did I know I would be discovering a great deal about myself as well.

I have been writing about this for almost a month now, both about my son and about myself. But since I learned that I probably have Asperger's Syndrome (according to someone who has AS who read my post about learning to act human, in contradiction to my first -- chronologically - posting on myself), I have actually taken it upon myself to read some things that might help me.

One book I have come across is the Asperger's Syndrome Workplaces Survival Guide. The first page and a half pretty much described my work history: problems keeping a job over the long term, problems with the fact that I actually want to get my work done and don't want to be bothered with all this nonsense that seems to fill the work day and prevent me from getting anything done, problems with the fact that I'm not all that social, problems with the fact that (until I became aware of it) I would sometimes say inappropriate things. The author asks the question all with AS or outright autism ask: "What is more important: chatting in the lunch room or getting your work done?" People with AS and autism (apparently mistakenly) think it is the latter. Worse, those with AS can appear to be rude, hard to get along with, or bullheaded, when in fact none of these are true. Those with AS don't have the same internal censors -- we have to learn those. We are easy to get along with; we may just not understand social cues we haven't consciously learned yet. We aren't bullheaded; we are open-minded and adjust what we believe based on facts and information -- we just insist you provide facts and information.

The book is all about helping those with AS understand what is expected of them, to learn how to navigate the workplace. One could ask, "Why is it I have to do all the adjusting?" Well, because the neurotypicals offer most of the jobs available. More, even if you are entrepreneurial, you will still have to interact with neurotypical people. At the same time, a very high percentage of people with AS have college degrees, including graduate degrees. Businesses are missing out on a huge pool of talent because they are excluding a lot of people just because they "don't get along" with others -- when in fact it's not that they don't get along, but rather that they just want to get their work done. Businesses are too often getting second best people because the first best don't have great social skills. And -- as I can certainly attest -- those with AS are as a result misallocated human resources.

Another book I ran across is The Partner's Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. I read the Foreword, and (though I subscribe to the Intense World Theory of AS and autism -- at least for my son and I -- rather than the less-competent Theory of Mind model presented in the book) I recognized a great deal about me as a husband and father there. In short, everything I read about AS behavior and the social consequences of those behaviors has been a mirror. There is practically no doubt in my mind now that I have AS. It explains many of my actions, my thinking, my social interactions, my attitudes, etc. The good thing is that in knowing this about me, I can actually know what to do to fit in better. I have done so over time as it is, without knowing I have AS. When people are bold enough (or asshole enough, depending on their attitudes) to point out my eyes won't focus on them or that I primarily look at their mouths when I talk to them (leading me to working on looking people in the eyes -- a real cognitive effort, I assure you) or that I cannot engage in small talk or that I sometimes say inappropriate things (which I have gotten much better about, being made conscious of it), I can change those things.

So now you know why I've acted weird around you, if you've ever gotten to interact with me personally. Just remember: if I'm working, for the love of God, don't interrupt me! :-)

Learning to Act Human

In my research into my son's autism, I have recently come to realize a great many things about myself. If autism requires one to have (or have had) a speech delay, then I'm not autistic; if language precociousness is allowed, then perhaps I am.

In any case, the thing I have come to realize about myself is that I have in many ways spent a great deal of my time "learning to become human" -- or learning to "fit in" with normal human beings.

Most of the time, when I talk to a person, I am either looking all over the place or looking at the person's mouth. I have had enough people complain about these things that I have trained myself to look at a person in the eye. However, to do so takes quite a bit of concentration to maintain. If I think it is important to keep eye contact with you, I can, but it requires mental work to do so. Maintaining eye contact is, of course, natural for most people.

In one of his stand-up routines, Chris Rock observes that when you first start dating someone, you are not actually dating that person, you are dating their representative. This is not true of just dating, but of any initial social interactions. Again, this comes natural to people. Everyone understands you are supposed to present an edited version of yourself to others. This is innate. But not for me. I literally had to read somewhere that you should not put forward all aspects of who you are when you first meet someone, because it's off-putting. This was something that was seriously news to me. I saw the validity of what the person was saying, and put it into practice. My dating life improved considerably -- as evidenced by the fact I am married. That this took a while is evidenced by the fact that I am 42 and I only got married less than 8 years ago. My first actual girlfriend? When I was 26. Who knew that you shouldn't present yourself exactly as you are when you first meet someone? Well, most people, apparently.

I am sure there are many more, but these are the ones that stand out to me. I still haven't figured out how to engage in small talk, though economist Peter Boetkke's observation that in order to get tenure you have to subtract what he calls the "lunch tax" -- which is any off-putting (typically, political) discussion -- has benefited me greatly of late (keep all political views on the down-low, at least until you feel out the person to whom you are talking; keep any controversial beliefs to oneself; etc.). This is really a variation of the previous observation, just applied to work. But, again, I had to have it explicitly pointed out to me.

What this suggests to me is that there are a set of behaviors that are more natural for others that simply have to be learned by me (and, I would guess, others like me). I have often not even realized there is something atypical in my behaviors until they are pointed out to me -- either directly, by friends (or people who don't like me), or indirectly, by reading. Or perhaps, these behaviors are all learned by others, only my tendency to separate myself from other people resulted in my missing those lessons from life. This would be consistent with the intense world theory of autism.

Indeed, one of the reasons I separate myself from others is precisely because I feel them so intensely. Imagine having extremely strong feelings of empathy for others, then going to a party full of people. Worse, you cannot focus it on one or two people immediately in front of you, but feel it for everyone there equally. If you shut down socially, that intense feeling subsides. Imagine that every sad story makes you want to cry, that even slightly sad commercials or songs make you cry -- if you let down your guard. So you don't let down your guard so you don't spend the whole day weeping. Imagine that you had these feelings of empathy for every emotion. Wouldn't you want to avoid such situations? Or hope you had a mechanism to generally shut it all out? As a result, you are either on or off most of the time. Mostly off, so you can get through your day.

Given such sensitive empathy, one can perhaps understand my political views. They are a consequence of my great empathy for the poor such that I am motivated to learn what will in fact help them rather than just settle for feel-good proposals that end up harming the poor instead. Thus my support for free markets, as my research demonstrates free markets to be maximally beneficial to the poor compared to every other system.

The Consequence of Absence in Stories

When Stanley Fish developed Reader Response theory, I bet he never thought of this. For my money, discovering patterns of how people read things into a story is a reader response theory worth having. We need to explore these sorts of patterns more often, in no small part to discover how we think and why we think that way. From a storytelling perspective, we may discover why there are patterns of details -- both those present and absent. Indeed, postmodern approaches to texts were interested in what was left out. With this approach, we may discover why some details are left out, and why some are put in. Why say how tall a risk-taker is if the author sees the risk-taker as tall and if the listeners are likely to imagine him as tall? The only reason you might want to mention height is if you wanted to go against expectations and describe the risk-taker as short. More research needs to happen along these lines, so we can learn more both about our patterns of thinking and about the patterns we create within our stories.

How to Destroy Education

If I wanted to destroy education, here is what I'd do.

1. I would try to get as many people going to college as possible.

College was originally designed for those who wished to pursue academic and professional positions -- to become scientists, scholars, theologians, lawyers, doctors -- not to teach people how to be an employee for a business. While it is true that businesses are increasingly dependent on scientific knowledge and those who understand the law (the last is a problem having nothing to do with change in the economy per se), many of these people could be trained in a few years, often on the job, for many of these positions. Even a technician in a science lab needs to know very little beyond a few techniques that could easily be taught in a year or two at most.

Those who argue college is the only worthwhile pursuit are elitists of the worst kind, who hold those who would do "manual labor" in contempt. But the world needs plumbers, mechanics, electricians, etc. As much as it costs to hire one, we could stand to have more of them. By shaming more and more people out of jobs they could do well and into college, we are creating a situation where universities are having to adapt to a population of people with average intelligence. This means making classes easier and easier, making the students who were historically university students (high intelligence) increasingly bored. I have even been told that "the best and brightest will just have to be bored" by a department chair (no one I have worked with in the past several years).

Recent pushes to increase graduation rates at colleges is only going to make things worse, because universities will have to make classes even easier to ensure the influx of average I.Q. students will be able to pass. This means few will learn much of anything. And it will continue to take pressure off of our high schools to teach anything at all.

Indeed, the reduction of standards at the college level trickles down to the high schools, which do not have to teach students as much for them to get into college, since colleges are less and less competitive and have lower and lower requirements. Lower high school standards then result in lower middle school standards, and lower middle school standards result in lower grade schools standards. Thus, by merely pushing for more and more people to go to college, I could destroy standards down the entire chain.

2. I would emphasize process over content.

If you want to destroy education, you have to make sure nobody actually learns anything. That means destroying content. A great way of doing this is saying that students need to learn the process of learning rather than content. Rather than teaching facts and logic, teach "critical thinking." Rather than teaching grammar, spelling, and vocabulary, teach the writing process. Rather than providing a foundation, teach "higher order" thinking. By switching from content-based education to process-based education, you can guarantee that nobody knows anything. They will know how to look things up, but they won't know what is even out there to look up in the first place. There is no knowledge without content, so a contentless education would destroy all true education.

3. I would make it illegal for parents to bring anything they cooked themselves and require them to only bring bought goods.

Now, this seems like a strange one, but you may rest assured that this is a brilliant way to destroy education. In addition to being able to profit from the obvious cronyism involved in such a law -- thanks for the political donations, Hostess! -- you could destroy any community involvement in local schools. By requiring parents to buy, say, cakes for the cake walk rather than letting them make cakes to bring, you will get far less parent participation in school functions. Parents are less likely to buy a cake than to make one -- especially your poorer parents. Of course, poorer parents are exactly who you want to target if you want to destroy your education system. It is easier to discourage your poorer parents, and anything that will make their lives worse, especially in regards to their children's educations, will result in less participation from those parents. Your middle class and wealthier parents have more money than time, so will participate with purchases and paying for their children to be in clubs and programs. Your poorer parents have more time than money, and are willing to put in that time by baking cakes and cookies, etc. By banning home-baked goods, you eliminate these parents' participation in the schools. Thus, you cause them to demonstrate to their children that school is unimportant. And a sense of community is destroyed because people participate less in school functions, meaning they don't meet and interact with as many people in their communities. People who know each other are closer and are more likely to help each other. Thus, by destroying participation in school functions, you make parents less involved, meaning government has to take up the slack, and you weaken the bonds of the community, meaning government has to take up the slack. With this approach, you can not only weaken education in particular, you can specifically target the poor and ensure they remain poor, but you can weaken the communities around those schools. All of this has the side effect of ever-increasing dependence on government. So not only have you gotten money from your cronies for passing laws making home-baked goods illegal to bring to school functions, but you have created the conditions to argue for more political power to be concentrated in your own hands. Brilliant!

4. I would argue that any sort of criticism of a student is offensive to that student's culture/race/gender/sex/etc., and constitutes a microaggression.

Argue that students have a "right to their own language," and you will be well on your way to not only destroying education, but to ensuring minorities across the board will remain poor and dependent on government. First, you have to create the completely false impression that cultures never change, and therefore any change is evidence of an insidious incursion by racists. Further, you have to argue that you should never criticize anyone for anything ever because to criticize someone harms their self-esteem. This will keep people in their place, socially, and ensure that the cultural elites are protected from incursion from among the ranks of the poor. It will also keep all those of other races in their place -- except for a few tokens to demonstrate you are anything but a racist, since after all, you have a representative from each race in your group. But by ensuring that you cannot criticize African-Americans or Hispanics on issue of grammar and pronunciation, you can ensure that they will remain in their place in society, and destroy education to boot! Because if you cannot criticize minorities for their grammar and pronunciation, it makes little sense to correct anybody of any race. This means there is little use for teaching grammar, or even having students read or write much. Of course, you can still keep your job as a writing teacher by teaching the writing process -- ensuring you will keep your job while teaching nothing whatsoever.

5. I would create as many scapegoats as possible, to keep people blaming others rather than taking responsibility for their own actions.

If racial minorities can blame others for their situation, they won't take it upon themselves to do anything about their own situations. More, they will see any criticism as a confirmation of racism. Criticism will therefore have the opposite effect, making sure racial minorities engage in behaviors detrimental to their educations and economic well-being. Doing poorly in school? It's because of others' racism. Poor? It's because of others' racism. Abusing your spouse and children? It's because of the social conditions created by racism. And guess what? The guilt of the majority helps ensure these things continue. If it is racist to criticize, we'll have to stop criticizing anyone. Thus, nobody learns anything. Apply this to the school system, and what you have is a situation where nobody can learn, because correcting anyone when they are wrong is racism. If you stick to your message that any criticism is racist, you can even create what ought to be recognized as the absurd situation of members of one's own race being called racist when they criticize the actions of members of their own race. When you have accomplished this, you will have done your job of creating the cultural conditions where education is completely devalued by significant portions of your society.

If I wanted to destroy education in a country, I would do all of the above. Sadly, you don't have to be an evil genius to accomplish this. An egalitarian culture is sufficient to accomplish it all.

Novel Reading Affects Human Action

The evidence for reading literature having a significant effect on the brain keeps pouring in. The authors discovered that reading novels not only has an effect on our language centers over time, but that it has an effect on those neurons activated when we actually act -- or think about acting. Thus, novel reading causes our brains to react as though we are acting. This, of course, is going to affect our future actions. Thus, novel reading affects our actions. In a science of human actions (catallactics), we should perhaps spend more time understanding the effects of novel reading. Perhaps of storytelling overall, since most people get their stories not from novels, but from T.V. and film. This would seem like important follow up -- seeing the effect of watching plays, televised fiction, and films.

Am I a Kind of Unrecognized Autistic?

You have a child.

He learns to speak very early. He can read Dr. Seuss books by 2.5 years of age. He learns things very quickly. He begins writing at a very early age, and being very imaginative, begins writing stories. He has a fascination with nature. He loves to read everything on every topic, from nonfiction to fiction. He is generally well-behaved, though sometimes argumentative.

He cannot look you in the eye when he talks with you, but rather looks at your mouth or his eyes are darting all over the place (making him hyperaware of his surroundings). He is socially awkward and has difficulty making friends. He prefers to spend time alone, whether in his room or walking in the woods. He obsessively makes lists -- lists of dinosaurs, then lists of sharks, then lists of plants. Everyone agrees he is highly intelligent, but the standardized tests at school suggest he is average. He is exceptionally good at seeing patterns.

I think most people would be pleased to have the first child. That child is obviously intelligent, but otherwise quite normal. The second child, on the other hand, is obviously autistic. More, the two children seem opposites. Autistic children aren't imaginative, and they have speech delays. Even if you combine the two, you don't get a child with Asperger's, as children with Asperger's have difficulty communicating, even though they don't have the speech delay, and they also have coordination problems.

Yet, if you do combine those two lists, you have me.

Since we learned Daniel is autistic, I have read a lot about autism. I recently discovered the Intense World Theory (IWT) of autism, which describes my son almost perfectly. And though the researchers don't say, the theory also allows for a kind of autism wherein the child is also creative. Which also describes Daniel. His creativity would make one wonder about his being autistic, given the fact that autistic children are not supposed to be creative/inventive. More, from the description of autism from the IWT, the two people who know me best -- my wife and my brother -- have each independently concluded that I probably "have that."

However, I did not have the language delay. More, my language was quite accelerated. Yet, this might not be inconsistent with IWT autism. If one is raised in a generally quite, calm environment, might it not be that a child might learn language more quickly, given his neurological structures. This would suggest that there might be a kind of high-functioning IWT autism that is completely undiagnosed, since nobody would have thought there was a thing wrong with me growing up. What is wrong with a child who speaks early and reads by two and a half? Clearly nothing is wrong with that child. And later, when he spends his time in his room reading books and making lists, it's because he's just a little peculiar, because he's so smart. He likes to spend time in the woods because he likes nature. And he does have friends, even if he doesn't really spend that much time playing with them.

The difference between Daniel and me is that he has the speech delay. And he hasn't learned to read yet. I suspect he will learn to read when most other children learn to read, though. His language is improving quite a bit, too. But I am beginning to see much more of a continuation between him and me. His world might be a bit more intense, is all. But I am beginning to think that there might be a kind of autism that remains undiagnosed, precisely because nobody would think a child learning language early and reading early has any kind of significant mental difference, other than perhaps being a bit smarter than average. But it might be more.

Indeed, the fact that IWT autism is dominated by positive feedback also explains much. It explains why I swing between high and low energy -- one would typically consider me to be mildly bipolar. It explains why I am sensitive to food textures and to things touching my wrists and neck -- and general touch-hypersensitivity at times (high energy times). And it explains my extreme empathy -- which makes me socially uncomfortable at times, yet allows me too to really hone in on people's problems. And it makes me particularly interested in stories. I love fiction, and I love to write fiction.

Indeed, IWT does seem to explain so much about me. It is a fascinating insight.

The Intense World Theory of Autism and Daniel

Since learning my older son, Daniel, has autism, I have spent a great deal of time reading about it. With my undergraduate degree and two years of graduate school in molecular biology, the things I typically read are on the molecular biology and neurobiology of autism. Since I can understand the most recent research, that's what I prefer to read.

Of course, my interest in the brain precedes my even having children, as my dissertation, Evolutionary Aesthetics, shows. In my dissertation I review some of the neurological underpinnings of artistic production and creation, with a focus on language and literature. Since then, I have mostly published, though, on self-organizing scale-free network processes -- including spontaneous orders -- in which negative and positive feedback is present. When such a system is dominated by negative feedback, the system tends toward equilibrium. When such a system is dominated by positive feedback, you get regular cycles -- booms and busts, in economic terms. When such a system has both positive and negative feedback present at the same time, you have what is called a biotic system -- such systems are complex and creative. Spontaneous orders are biotic systems -- especially in combination with other spontaneous orders, other scale free networks, etc.

All of this leads me to something I read recently on the Intense World Theory of autism. Among the complaints about this theory, though, is that it does not explain all forms of autism. Given a recent metastudy suggesting there are at least three different kinds of autism, though, this is hardly a problem. In fact, this is good news, since we will begin to understand more clearly why some things work for some autistic children, but not for others. If they don't actually have the same syndrome, you wouldn't expect the same things to work for everyone. That being said, the Intense World Theory, as described in the above linked article, makes a lot of sense to me -- in no small part because of what it says about the parents.

But first, the similarities between Kai Markram (the son of the neuroscientist who developed IWT) and Daniel are remarkable. Both were precocious babies. Daniel is a bundle of energy. Daniel also alternates between social anxiety around strangers and just running up and hugging strangers. There are the tantrums -- which in Daniel's case, are fortunately getting better over time, as we continue to expose him to social situations. Daniel also on occasion lines things up. And he is sometimes very sensitive to sounds -- he will sometimes turn off the radio, he is bothered by applause. We also noticed that if we hugged Daniel when he is most upset, he has calmed down. In no small part, I came up with this idea after I read that autistic children who are given nasal injections of oxytocin became more social for a while. Since oxytocin is made naturally in response to skin-on-skin touch, I began making sure I held and hugged him more -- which has had a remarkably positive effect. We have been fortunate that Daniel is apparently better with the food than Kai was, though. He'll try most foods, but when he's made up his mind he likes or dislikes something, that's the end of it.

Given these similarities, what Henry Markram concluded was very interesting to me. Their conclusion that "autistic people take in too much and learn too fast" fits well what I know about Daniel. For example, Daniel, though only age 4, understands cause-and-effect and can therefore engage in deductive reasoning. In fact, just the other day, as we were driving to the local grocery store, we drove by a restaurant with a large number of cars in the parking lot, and Daniel said, "Look, Daddy! They have lots of customers!" We then went to the grocery store, and when we came out, as I was putting Daniel in his car seat, he said to me, "Daddy, we were customers, weren't we?" My wife, who teaches 1st grade, says her students cannot do that.

But this is what really spoke to me, what made me understand that, at least in the case of Daniel, IWT explains a great deal:

The more he [Henry Markram] investigated the idea of autism not as a deficit of memory, emotion and sensation, but an excess, the more he realized how much he himself had in common with his seemingly alien son.

Like Henry Markram, as a small child I wanted to know everything (that hasn't changed). I did a little better in high school than he did, but it was not until my Senior year that I turned things around. And one of the main predictors of someone having a child with autism? Having a Ph.D.

Henry Markram and his wife discovered that in the mouse models they were studying, the inhibitory cells (negative feedback) worked normally, but the excitatory cell (positive feedback) "responded nearly twice as strongly as normal—and they were hyper-connected," and "were hyperactive, which isn’t necessarily a defect: A more responsive, better-connected network learns faster." In other words, autistic people with hyper-connected, hyperactive excitatory cells learn too quickly, and they learn irreversibly. Which can be a problem -- especially when what they are learning is a fear response.
Also, they discovered that autistic brains have more minicolumns, "which can be seen as the brain’s microprocessors." Coincidentally, "extra minicolumns have been found in autopsies of scientists who were not known to be autistic, suggesting that this brain organization can appear without social problems and alongside exceptional intelligence." This suggests a kind of continuum. It seems that your "average" extremely smart person has enough extra minicolumns, enough of a ramped-up brain, to become a scientists (and, likely, an artist, inventor, etc.). Slightly more, and you might develop Asperger's Syndrome. Slightly more, and you develop autism. This would suggest, as the article does, that brilliance in those autistics who are also savants is a feature, not a bug. Many autistics develop very advanced cognitive abilities, including those necessary to be good at math, music, and science. In fact, "Mathematics, musical virtuosity, and scientific achievement all require understanding and playing with systems, patterns, and structure. Both autistic people and their family members are over-represented in these fields, which suggests genetic influences." My own proclivities are in "understanding and playing with systems, patterns, and structure" in my scholarly work (on complex network processes) and poetry (formal verse -- patterns and structure).

What this suggests is that Daniel is an even more intense version of me. I have many social difficulties precisely because I "feel too much and sense too much." I am deeply empathetic, and my intensity of feeling is what led to my becoming an artist. I am sensitive to fabrics, to anything touching my wrists or neck, to the textures of foods (spaghetti and fettuccini both taste very different to me because of their very different textures). I experience the world very intensely, and it can be too much at times. If this is my experience, and Daniel is (if Asperger's is one level, and autism is two) two levels more intense in his feelings and senses, his behaviors make a great deal of sense to me.

More than this, the fact that it is excitatory neurons that are working more also explains quite a bit, if we take a complex systems view. As I mention above, complex systems like the brain have both positive and negative feedback working simultaneously. That is a normal brain. In a brain in which the inhibitory neurons were more active, we would expect to see a brain moving more toward equilibrium -- low activity. In a brain in which the excitatory neurons were more active, though, we would expect to see cyclical activity -- periods of hyperactivity and mania followed by low energy and depression. Many autistics are also diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Though undiagnosed, I am almost certainly at least mildly bipolar. I have seen Daniel have very low energy and cry and "be sad" for no reason at all; at other times, Daniel is extremely hyper. Fortunately, Daniel rarely crashes into the really sad depressive mode, but he does cycle between low and high energy. This would make perfect sense if his brain were dominated by positive feedback, as the Intense World Theory suggests.

However, this aspect is nowhere mentioned in the article. It seems an important thing to consider, though. However, to understand this means one has to take a complex systems perspective. Perhaps further research will show others have in fact made this connection -- but if not, I think it's an important insight that needs to be investigated further.

The good news is that many of Daniel's social anxieties and repetitive behaviors seem to have been decreasing over time. And his language skills have been improving. Fortunately, while he is clearly autistic, his symptoms could have been much worse. From the sounds of the article, his social anxieties are not even as bad as Kai's, whose symptoms do not sound all that bad compared to others I have read about. And Daniel is more likely in recent months to look at you when you talk to him. Much of this improvement has been since I read about how autistic children have low oxytocin levels and that increased levels of oxytocin help with these behaviors. Since skin-on-skin touch increases oxytocin, I have made sure to hug Daniel more and to make sure there is skin-on-skin contact. I am convinced this has helped. I have seen the behavioral changes. He will always have them to a certain degree, but if Daniel can overcome some of these social issues, while retaining the benefits of autism, Daniel should have a great life.

Inclusivist Morality as Spontaneous Order Morals

In the wake of the Renaissance, we saw the emergence of several distinct spontaneous orders, which we could identify as the liberal orders -- free markets, science, and democracy. In the Renaissance itself we saw the emergence of the artistic orders as free and independent spontaneous orders -- free and independent of the religious order, that is. With the Enlightenment, we saw the economy, science, and governments become increasingly free and independent of religion. No doubt part of this was the fact that religion itself -- in the Reformation -- became free and independent of the overarching hierarchical organization of the Catholic church.

In addition, though, we also see another spontaneous order emerging and coming into its own -- the moral order. The distinctive feature of the moral order is inclusive morality -- one extends fellow humanity, meaning moral standing is separated from group membership. As Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell argue in "Beyond the Paleo":

According to this inclusivist moral outlook, moral standing depends on the cognitive capacities of the individual, not the ability of the individual to reciprocate or otherwise contribute to co-operative goods. Even if non-human animals, or young children, or persons with disabilities lack strategic capacities, this does not deprive them of moral status. Likewise, if a minority group or weaker nation can safely be exploited without risk of retaliation, we nonetheless deem such behaviour morally unacceptable.

As with the other orders, once morality was able to develop into its own free and independent spontaneous order, it followed its own evolutionary logic independent of many of the elements of its foundations. As Hayek observed, though, this results in our living in "two worlds at once." The conservative moral philosophers discussed by Buchanan and Powell are not wrong about their observations and their concerns; neither, too, are Buchanan and Powell wrong about the existence of recently developed moral order. However, there is necessarily a tension between the two, as we will all too often feel the pull of each -- our evolved moral psychologies as well as the results of the moral order's inclusivist morality. That is the tragic tension present in each and every person participating in a spontaneous order.

Yes, Libertarianism Now!

As the author of a book chapter in Basic Income and the Free Market, in which I make an argument in favor of adopting either a negative income tax or, better, a basic income guarantee as a replacement for all of our current set of welfare programs (which would include the welfare programs we call subsidies), one may be surprised to learn that I disagree with Matt Zwolinski on this very topic.

The reasons I disagree with Zwolinski are expressed quite well by David Friedman, as quoted by David Henderson, with whose criticism I also agree. I do not buy into the argument that we must redress past grievances precisely for the reasons Friedman gives -- many of the descendants of past wrongdoers are themselves poorer than the descendants of those who had had the wrong done to them -- but also because there is absolutely no foundation in either morals or justice for punishing the children for the sins of their parents.

That, after all, is the logic of "reparations," no matter how they are laid out.

Suppose that there was a man who raped and murdered 20 women. He died before the police could catch him, but all of the evidence showed him to be the culprit. This man also happens to have a son who is over 18. Should the police go and arrest the son, try him for his father's crimes, and put him in prison for them (in Texas, he would get the death penalty as well)? We would rightly decry this as a horrible act of injustice. The son did not commit the crimes, and he is not responsible for his father's actions.

The same is true of the descendants of any crime. It is perhaps particularly true of something we consider a crime today that was not considered a crime in the past. You cannot even try someone for committing an act that was not a crime when they committed the act, but is a crime now. How, then, can one possibly justify then punishing this person's descendants?

I see the same argument against those with luck or those who "got there first" when it comes to property.

The first seems almost as bizarre, given the subjective nature of values and the fact that what can seem like bad luck can turn out to have good consequences later, and vice versa. Yes, it was probably luck that allowed Alexander Graham Bell to patent his telephone a day before that other guy who also invented the phone, and whose name nobody knows because of it. But so what? One might make an argument against intellectual property on that basis -- but still, what's luck got to do with it? The issue of luck is utter nonsense -- it requires a level of knowledge impossible for real human beings to have. Further, it points back to the point Friedman made about the African slave traders. The ones selling the slaves were the lucky ones, while the ones sold into slavery were the unlucky ones. The descendants of the former, though, are financially much worse off than the descendants of the latter. Would anyone like to defend the argument that the African-American descendants of slaves are the lucky ones?

Then there is the "got there first" complaint. Yes, as people moved around the globe, there were inevitably people who "got there first." But this is true of those who invent something as well. Is it "fair" that the Wright brothers "got there first" with the invention of the airplane? I'm not sure how to reasonably answer that. Fair to whom? To whoever else might have invented it later? How on earth would we be able to determine that? And never mind all the people who benefited from the airplane's invention, I suppose. But even then, it was early adopters who benefited most. Of course, they also spent the most early on. Should their descendants be paid back, since it was their willingness to spend a lot of money to be the first to fly that made it cheaper for others later? How convoluted this nonsense becomes!

Of course, when it comes to land, sometimes people got there second, and did away with the ones who got there first. Such is nature. But it is not justice -- at least, by our current definitions of justice. Perhaps there is a claim here?

I think not. The issue is precisely that these considerations are based on our current, prevailing ideas on what is just, on what is moral. Our ideas of what is moral and just evolve, and will continue to evolve. Yet it seems unjust to argue that someone should be held criminally responsible for actions not considered unjust, no matter when it happened. And more so the descendants of those who actually are responsible for those actions.

Judging past actions with today's morals is sloppy thinking. It's lazy and simplistic. It denies the evolutionary nature of morals. Yes, morals are rooted in our sentiments, as Adam Smith rightly observed, but at the same time, those morals evolve. Murder is and has always been immoral, if we define murder as the purposeful taking of a fellow human life -- what has evolved is the kinds of people we consider fellow human beings.

Political libertarianism is a view of justice, and views of justice evolve the same as do our morals. We cannot fix what we as libertarians perceive to have been past injustices, using our current ideas on justice, by imposing even more injustices upon the innocent descendants of those who committed the acts in question. But we can move forward. We can try to encourage social evolution toward greater justice. Over time, social evolution will create the more just outcomes we desire. That is why we need libertarianism, now!

Predicting Protein Functions from Primary Structure -- a 20 yr old idea of mine

Once upon a time, in the early 1990's, I was in graduate school studying molecular biology. I developed a thesis project, which I never pursued and which, to my knowledge, no one has ever pursued.

The project would have been one of the first forays into bioinformatics. The idea was to use an artificial neural net (ANN) to predict protein function from primary structure. Basically, one would create inputs of known proteins' amino acid sequences and the qualities of each of those amino acids, including whether they were:

1. Polar / hydrophilic
2. Non-polar / hydrophobic
3. H-bonding
4. Sulfur containing
5. Charged at Neutral pH Negative / acidic
6. Charged at Neutral pH Positive / basic
7. Ionizable
8. Aromatic (and potentially stacking)
9. Aliphatic
10. Forms covalent cross-link (disulfide bond)
11. Cyclic
12. C-Beta branching
13. pK values
14. pI values
15. Ka values

One might also use secondary and tertiary structures when known as inputs. This would certainly contribute to more accurate outputs.

The outputs of the ANN would of course be the protein function, though it is perhaps not impossible that some structural predictions -- of alpha helices or beta sheets, for example -- could not be an output for such a system.

As for discovering the best ANN architecture, perhaps genetic algorithms could be used. There is no telling what is the optimal architecture, so some sort of evolution and selection process would likely be most efficient.

Of course, it may  be possible that there are programs other than ANNs that could do this better/more efficiently. I suggest ANNs because they are able to conceptualize and therefore make pattern predictions, which is what a program like this, with the outputs desired, require.

If anyone thinks this worth pursuing, I encourage you to do so. I just ask for a courtesy 10% of any profits. :-)

Leiter's Theocracy

Brian Leiter is right. Rule of law means equality under the law, meaning there should not be special exceptions and exemptions for any given group. This includes religion.

But that point is as far as Leiter is right. And he is right that America is not a theocracy. And that last point he makes is why he could not be more wrong in the rest of his piece.

If rule of law means no one can be exempt, then if there is a case where law violates someone's religious liberty (which I do believe is law in this country), then that means the law itself should not be in place, as it inherently violates the rule of law. Any law that forces someone to choose between it and their conscience is no law.

Now, we are not talking about those laws that are protective in nature. You should not be allowed to murder, rape, steal, or assault in the name of God(s). What we are talking about are those laws that are not inherently protective in nature, but simply reflect someone's particular moral code. That would include laws against drugs and prostitution, many of the provisions in the ACA -- in fact, many of the laws currently on the books. Each of those laws are expressions of some group or groups' moral code. It is thus fundamentally theocratic, since the point of theocracy is to impose one particular moral code (God's, of course) on everyone. Thus, every single example Leiter gave is a theocratic law intended to impose one set of morals on everyone else, even those who do not subscribe to that religion.

A great example of this is the law against polygamy, which members of other Christian religions imposed on Mormons through the power of the federal government. The impetus behind prohibiting polygamy was purely religious, and was used to violate the consciences of those in another religion. If Leiter wants a good example of theocracy, that law would be it.

In fact, if we do not want a theocratic government, we would get rid of all laws that violate the consciences of all religious believers, and do not impose any one religion's views on the rest. That would in fact be rule of law -- not what Leiter supports, which is the establishment of his own theocracy.

Evolution in Music, Genes, and Language

Music seems to coevolve with genes, whereas language evolves more quickly. Which only makes me wonder about how this affects the evolution of songs and poetry. Might this more ancientness of music be one of the things that stranges language when it's made more musical?

And why does music evolve more slowly, at the rate of genes? Might it be because music is so much more connected to our emotions, which equally evolve at a glacial pace? Language is liberated from pure emotivity, able to express in logical structures as well. And sentiments give rise to emotions and moral responses equally, suggesting music (and language) are connected to sentiments. Logos, pathos. ethos.

And music, then, brings language back to being more sentimental -- expressing emotions and moral content more strongly, bringing them back in balance with the logical content of language. And yet, one cannot escape the logic and reason inherent in language, even in poetry.

The Secret of Educational Reform

My latest at The Pope Center is The Secret of Educational Reform.

Is it top-down reform? No. Impossible to do.

Is it argumentation? No. People are in fact practically unpersuadable.

Then what is it? Hint: how do you create empathy and persuade unconsciously?

Moral Layers in Literature

As the evidence rolls in that literature has an effect on an individual's moral development simply through the act of reading, we need to remind ourselves that literature also has a content, and authors, and that one cannot escape the fact that each contribute a moral element as well.

While it is true that just the act of reading literature makes us more empathetic, improves our theory of mind, and complexifies our minds, but works of literature have authors of varying morals and content of equally varying morals (with many in the 20th century varying toward the immoral). Despite declarations of the death of the author, we remain interested in them. And surely (author-created) content has an effect on readers.

Certainly it does. And it does so on several levels.

Since we started with the broadest discussion of literature qua literature and the effect on our improved empathy, let us start broad and consider the sense of life of given genres and works.

Reading tragedies allow us to understand and perhaps develop a tragic sense of life. What is the tragic sense of life? It is a realization that everything you do has unintended consequences, that the smallest things can have the biggest effects. The more Oedipus runs away, the closer he gets to his destiny. An accidentally dropped handkerchief leads to the murder of Desdemona at the hands of her husband, Othello. A conflict between duties for Orestes (one must avenge one's father's death; one must never murder one's own parents) results in the establishment of the Athenian system of justice through trial by jury. Those who deny life is tragic want to condemn the past, cut society from it, and recreate it in their own image. The results would be comic if it weren't for the lives ruined and even lost in such efforts.

Reading comedies allow us to develop our specific moral sense -- but does so at the expense of others (though sometimes at our own expense, in self-deprecating humor). It in many ways reinforces the Us-Them dichotomy, but does so along moral lines. Comedy invites us to laugh at our own shortcomings -- often moral, but sometimes perceptual and/or cognitive (as in the case of mistaken identity in twins in a variety of plays, including the Amphitryons of both Plautus and Moliere, and Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors) -- as well as the shortcomings of others (which may have turned out to be our own without the lessons of comedy).

Romanticism, realism, neoclassicism, naturalism, existentialism -- all are going to have an effect on our world views and sense of life, and thus affect our morals. To find joy in things, or sorrow in them -- each affects our moral development. The more things we find beautiful, the more moral we become -- for virtue aims at the beautiful (Aristotle). And insofar as art shows us truths we may not have understood before, the more moral we are -- for beauty is truth, truth beauty (Keats), meaning virtue aims at truth. This may then equally suggest that artistic efforts to undermine our sense of beauty equally undermine our morals. The less beauty there is in the world, the fewer things at which we can aim, and the more restricted our moral spheres will become.

But these are all broad senses in which literature can affect our moral development. What about specific content? Is not Nabakov's Lolita an immoral tale of an immoral narrator? And if we grant the incredible artistic merit of Lolita, surely there is nothing but moral repugnance in the world of the Marquis de Sade. The moral atrocities in Philosophy in the Bedroom are seemingly endless. Though we do get the words "sadism" and "sadistic" from Sade's name, it doesn't seem that we saw an actual increase in sadistic behavior since the publication of Sade's works. In fact, Gad Saad points out in The Consuming Instinct that exposure to pornography does not result in an increase in rape, promiscuity, cheating, or misogyny; it rather has the opposite effect. Perhaps through a kind of cathartic effect, or perhaps through a kind of passive Freudian bringing-to-the-surface of the contents of one's id in the safe dream/play space of the work of literature, the works of Sade will likely have a similar moralizing effect. Equally with Lolita. The specific  (dream) content, in these cases, are what drive the moralizing effect.

It is the safe play space of the work of literature (or of the amusement park, for physical dangers, etc.) that allows one to morally develop. While in the real world, actually doing immoral things makes doing those immoral things easier to do over time, when we experience such things in the dream/play space of literature, we see the opposite effect. Literature makes us more moral, because of the content. Violent video games make us less violent in real life. Amusement parks make us more brave in the face of physical dangers because we faces simulated danger in the form of roller coasters, etc.

Does this mean there are no dangers to literature? Was Cervantes being silly by having Don Quixote go mad from reading so many romances? If so, what are we to make of the fact that there were a string of suicides in the wake of the publication of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther? The young men who killed themselves after reading Goethe's novel did so in emulation of the book's hero. Did they empathize overly much? Is there a danger in that with great literature?

And yet, who today commits suicide after reading Werther today? Were we perhaps seeing a rash of suicides that would have taken place anyway? Would Lennon's assassin and Reagan's attempted assassin have gone through life, perfectly normal, had it not been for the publication of Catcher in the Rye? Or are we seeing cases where the readers could not themselves differentiate between dream and reality, between fiction and the real world? How is that the fault of the work itself, that there are such readers out there? And does this not in fact prove my thesis?

These are all questions which need to be more fully investigated. But I think it is clear that literature has a major effect on our moral development, primarily through the development of empathy. This in turn is going to affect our various moral orders, including politics, philanthropy, religion, philosophy, and the social sciences. That being the case, it is vital we come to understand how we interact with literature, and what the consequences of those interactions are for ourselves as individuals, for those we know, and for the spontaneous orders in which we interact.

Progressives Are Nothing But Jerks and Ought to be Taken Out and Shot; Or, Group Dynamics: Problems and Solutions

One of the more helpful contributions of postmodernism and postcolonialism is the development of the concept of the Other. What were once thought of as separate issues -- sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. -- can be seen in this light as deeply structurally related. This is important in no small part because it can help us overcome the utter nonsense of the claim that sexism, racism, etc. are entirely socially constructed and help us realize that what we are in fact dealing with are particular expressions of an evolved psychological tendency.

Humans naturally engage in "othering." We see it in children. Put a group of children together, and they will form smaller groups, and those smaller groups will in no small part create an identity based on the fact that they are not the other group(s) that formed. The formation of the group can be as arbitrary as mere proximity; yet, when the groups are formed, they are quite clear about who is "good" and who is "not as good as us." From an outside perspective, each group may be essentially the same, with the same mixture of race and sex and ages, but if you were to ask each group about themselves and the other group(s), you would find each providing many good attributes about their own group, and finding all kinds of flaws with the other group(s). Anyone who has seen children in a classroom and/or on a playground knows this to be true.

In the past, group membership was something you were born into. Your tribe was US, and other tribes were THEM. And the name of your tribe typically was the same word you had for Human Being; others in other tribes were not fellow human beings. Out of this we see the old patterns of racism, ethnic divisions, religious divisions, etc. As divisive as religion often is, it has nevertheless acted as a way to overcome racial and ethnic divisions. Race does not matter so long as you are a fellow Christian, Muslim, etc. A shared Other can make for a larger group of Us.

However, the world is seeing greater and greater heterogeneity. Especially in places like the United States. We send our children to school with children of other races, ethnicities, religions, etc. We see them playing together and getting along, and come to the conclusion that racism is socially constructed -- after all, look at our children playing, showing no racial animosity at all. But this actually exposes our own racism, in thinking that what children are looking for are deep, inherent racial differences that are, in fact, not really there. However, if we understand what we are really looking at, we can see that our children are no better than any other human being that ever lived -- they just Other different groups.

And sometimes they do the same old Us vs Them groups. Your children will fight like cats and dogs -- until and unless someone else comes along, in which case there will be a united family front against the other. Outsiders cannot attack the family.

It is more obvious when we look at how our children divide themselves up now. It is less and less along racial/ethnic lines and more and more along lines of interest, etc. Cliques are the new "racism." The nerds are certain they are superior to the jocks, who are equally certain they are superior to the nerds. You have nerds, geeks, stoners, punks, gangstas, jocks, etc. It is Our School vs the Other School(s). My college vs. other colleges. My sports team vs. other sports teams. Science vs. the Humanities. Proletariat vs. Bourgeois. Right vs. Left. As we get older, we simply change group membership -- we don't abandon group membership itself.

Political divisions are a good example of this. The Right is convinced the Left are immoral, arrogant dictator-wannabes. The Left is equally convinced the Right are immoral, arrogant dictator-wannabes.  Libertarians agree with both of them, and both of them agree that the libertarians are out of touch with reality (and arrogant and immoral). The divisions become deeper and deeper the more there is at stake -- and the more power the government has, the more there is at stake, meaning divisions are only going to become deeper and deeper.

The divisions humans create may be arbitrary in many ways, but the fact that we want to divide ourselves into Us and Them is an evolved drive. That drive is not socially constructed, though the qualities of the divisions may be. We are naturally xenophobic. However, we are naturally xenophilic as well (making us paradoxical in nature -- meaning we have to engage in complex behaviors to negotiate both drives). We are naturally competitive, but naturally cooperative as well. And the latter drives the former. We cooperate to compete. We get together in groups to cooperate, but that means we identify other groups with which we are in competition. So long as the stakes are relatively low (power and wealth relatively decentralized and spread out, as one finds in market economies), the groups will not engage in violent competition. Violent competition is costly, and the benefits have to outweigh the costs. This means that if the stakes get to be high enough, violence becomes worth engaging in. This is the great danger in governments having too much power over peoples' lives, whether in the economy or in other aspects of civil society. The more power a government has, the more there is at stake. The more there is at stake, the more likely it is that the groups in a given civil society will treat each other with increasing hostility.

We are never going to get rid of the human tendency to want to live together in cooperative groups. Nor would we want to do so. It is what allows us to live in cities and work together in firms. But that same tendency has a dark side. Depending on what institutions are in place, that dark side can be greatly minimized, or it can be greatly emphasized. If we centralize wealth and power, we can expect greater hostility among groups. If we decentralize wealth and power, we can expect decreased hostility among groups. But we will never get rid of the natural human tendency to get into groups and to think our own group superior to others. We can only create the conditions to mitigate those effects.

Poetry, Music, and the Brain

New research has demonstrated that reading poetry stimulates not just the areas of the brain dedicated to reading, but also those areas related to introspection and the emotion areas that are also stimulated by music. In other words, rhythmic poetry stimulates not just the language portions of the brain, but the music portions as well. This may imply that all of the positive attributes of music are equally applicable to poetry.

I have discussed before how music improves vocabulary. Imagine, then, how much more poetry would improve vocabulary over music, given that it actually has words in it. And I have discussed how music improves our ability to interpret emotions. Music is emotional training. Is poetry stimulates the same areas, so too is poetry emotional training. And of course, I have recently noted the discovery that literature improves theory of mind and, thus, empathy. And of course increasing empathy means increasing morality.

The connection to emotions -- suggesting poetry, like music, results in a kind of emotional training -- also suggests a further connection to moral development, given the work of Jonathan Haidt. Haidt demonstrates the emotional underpinnings to morals (developing further Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments); this in turn suggests that if we develop and train our emotions, we will develop and train our morals as well.

The poet who wants to have the most impact on his readers will thus be the poet who simultaneously creates the most musical poetry and challenges his readers with a certain degree of difficulty, requiring them to interpret the work to at least some degree. And the teacher who wants literature to have the strongest impact on his students will have them read precisely such works.
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Update: The supramarginal gyrus, associated with time perception and language (including reading), has been discovered to be involved in empathy. Yet another connection between literature -- especially poetry -- and empathy.

From Good and Bad to Good and Evil -- On Moral Emergence

One of the most famous stories is that of Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and being thrown out of the garden. Most interpretations of this story argue that Adam and Eve rebelled against God in doing so. However, we have to face a real problem in the fact that Adam and Eve could not have known that what they were doing was evil before they ate from the Tree, given the fact that they were in fact in a state of ignorance. If you do something out of ignorance, you are not rebelling. Your actions may be bad, but they are bad insofar as they will not gain what you think your actions will gain you. You are simply wrong, ignorant.

This understanding of the fact that there is a difference between bad and evil, and that the bad is done out of ignorance, while the evil is done out of knowledge and is thus an act of rebellion, should in fact help us understand the meaning of the story.

If, as Plato argued, people do bad things out of ignorance of the good, we can begin to see what happened in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve are in a state of ignorance about good and evil. This is necessarily true, as they have yet to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If you are without knowledge, you are ignorant, by definition. Now, God told them the consequences of eating from the Tree -- that they would die. However, the serpent told them that if they ate from the Tree, they would not die. They are given two pieces of information, but do not have the knowledge of which is in fact true. They made a choice out of their ignorance, listening first to the first Being to tell them something, then listening to the second to tell them something, acting on that information each time. When they eat of the Tree, that is when they in fact gain knowledge. From here on out, they have knowledge, meaning ignoring what they know and acting against that knowledge is an act of evil. Adam and Eve have thus moved from good vs bad to good vs evil.

What we see in this story is a metaphor for the process of moral growth. We go through life doing things that are bad out of ignorance that what we are doing is bad. Then a moral teacher comes along and teaches us that what we are doing is bad. Once we agree that what we were doing was bad, we move from the state of good vs bad to the state of good vs evil. A person who is a racist because of ignorance and residual tribalist ethics is a bad person; a person who is a racist even though he knows racism is bad is an evil person. A person who advocates a minimum wage out of ignorance of the economic effects is someone advocating a bad policy; a person who advocates a minimum wage even though he knows the economic effects is someone advocating an evil policy.

From this we can see that moral teachers come from a variety of places: religion, philosophy, the social sciences, perhaps even on occasion government. The social scientist is included because the social scientist discovers what are good and bad institutions, structures, and policies. They thus educate us out of ignorance (the realm of good and bad) and into knowledge (the realm of good and evil). These ethical orders do not create ethics in a clean, clear-cut fashion. It is a complex, messy process. And it takes time for a society to fully adopt new morals. This should suggest to us that we need to be a little more patient with people who are still in a state of ignorance, as they have yet to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for the particular virtue we wish to actively promote. At the same time, we do have to encourage them to eat. For innocence, ignorance, and simplicity is not virtue. It is painful to be thrown out of the Garden, but we are better (more interesting and more complex) people for it when it happens.

Literature Improves Theory of Mind

I have argued previously and elsewhere that literature makes us more empathetic. This is supported by the work of Jonathan Gottschall. This is important because empathy underlies certain moral judgments. If you want to be more moral, more empathetic, and thus more able to live in an increasingly connected, highly pluralist world, read more literature.

But wait! There's more!

There is now evidence that reading specifically literary fiction improves the reader's theory of mind. This is tied to the complexity of the texts. Literature exercises our minds. Of course, if one's theory of mind is improved, one's empathy must of necessity be improved as well. The more mind I attribute to you, the more empathy I feel toward you.

If we combine this with the fact that poetry moralizes by weirding and the fact that surrealist literature makes our thinking more complex, and we can begin to see how important literature of all kinds is to our moral development.

And theater, because it draws people together, makes us want to work more together to solve social problems, according to Russell Berman.

Combine all of this with my arguments in The Spontaneous Orders of the Arts, and we can see that literature makes us more moral by complexifying our thinking in general, fine-tuning our theory of mind and expanding our empathy, and even moving us to act.

Imagine what literature classes would be like if we taught them using this knowledge.