Blind spots and misplaced human arrogance

Blind spots - not so fun while driving, and also not so fun while thinking.

In the first case, you know that the blind spot exists and you may work to acquire information about what may be contained within it (e.g., other cars). Or you just dart in and out of lanes haphazardly, denying that any blind spot exists, or at the least denying that you have any reason to check it. Spend a little time on the I-95 corridor in Northern Virginia if you somehow don't know what I mean.

The second case looks much like the first. You can accept that you have intellectual blind spots and work to illuminate the contents therein, thus becoming a more-informed and thoughtful person. Or you just deny that you have any blind spots at all, and dangerously traverse life's highways without ever feeling that you need to improve your view of your surroundings.

The primary differences between these two cases are thus: 1) There are many fewer blind drivers out there than blind thinkers, and 2) The negative consequences of blind driving are much more obvious to people. You might say that for a lot of people, their blind spots are their blind spot.

Credit: www.xkcd.com

Over the last few months, I have been doing a fair bit of reading on the topics of evolution, learning, cognition, consciousness, free will, and the philosophy of science. Some of it has been interesting and fruitful with respect to spurring my own work. However, I am dumbstruck at the amount of poor scholarship out there that is taken very seriously. Here, I largely do not mean original empirical work (though there's much room here to criticize, depending on the field in question), but instead I refer to the shaky logic and faulty premises that underlie scholars' interpretations and philosophies with respect to empirical work. A classic example is Chomsky's (1959) scathing review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior. This review is credited as a major step forward in psychology. This review is credited with spurring, in part, the advancement of modern cognitive science and the exposure of behaviorism as a fraud. This review is positively referenced in many introductory psychology textbooks.

This review is also terrible. Not terrible in the sense of a great monster rising from the ocean depths to wreak havoc on Tokyo, but terrible in the sense of someone spreading grape jelly on a tuna fish sandwich. Frankly, it is an embarrassment that anyone has ever taken it seriously. MacCorquadale (1970) provided a thorough and devastating analysis of Chomsky's (1959) review, but fewer people know about it. For my part, it always seemed to me that Chomsky was making the following argument: "I do not see how B.F. Skinner could be right about this. I would like to introduce a better idea: I propose magic!"

Noam Chomsky in his usual Sunday attire.

This post is not about Chomsky and his incoherent bumbling about verbal behavior, though. There will be a time and place for all that. This is about blind spots.

Actually, this is about a particular blind spot. Here, I refer to human beings' fervent desire to be something special. People do not simply wish to be a part of the natural world. People want to be more. People want to have choice. They want to have free will. Unlike almost every other known item in the entire universe, they want to be in control of their own destiny. They want to matter in a way that nothing else does. This clouds their judgment, to the point where they cannot possibly accept the alternative: That they are just a piece of the clockwork. And I get it. At least, I think I get it, in the sense that I "get" the appeal of soccer. I do not love soccer, but I think I can appreciate the reasons why some people do. But like the sight of a group of drunk soccer hooligans outside a British pub during the World Cup, I find the collective misunderstanding of our rightful place in the universe to be profoundly alien.

Millions of pages have been written by philosophers and scientists on the nature of free will, of choice, of decision-making, of cognitive control. And I think that those millions of pages have been wasted describing phantoms. I have read no convincing arguments that we have anything approaching anything similar to such freedom. I think that those who would suggest we do need to more carefully examine their premises. Because too often, it smacks of wishful thinking (hat tip to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal).

The impetus for this post comes from a recent experience I had when reading a portion of a highly-regarded textbook on artificial intelligence: Artificial Intelligence (3rd ed.) by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig. The former author is a professor at Berkeley, and the latter is a Director of Research at Google. The text seems thorough and a valuable resource, but I cannot help but be irritated by the following point:

“One problem with a purely physical conception of the mind is that it seems to leave little room for free will: if the mind is governed entirely by physical laws, then it has no more free will than a rock “deciding” to fall toward the center of the earth.” (emphasis added)

They do not go on to satisfactorily clarify what exactly the problem is, nor what the "mind" is.

Personally, I do not see the problem. What is the problem with leaving little (or no) room for free will? Physical laws appear to govern everything else in the universe, so why not human behavior? What, other than wishful thinking, allows us to believe that we are somehow fundamentally different from everything else by which we are surrounded? Incidentally, I think they absolutely nail the truth here, even though it was inadvertent. I think it is correct that we have no more free will than a rock falling to the earth.

I would dearly love for someone to demonstrate to me otherwise. But I am rapidly growing convinced that no one has an answer that does not appeal to the supernatural.

Contingencies and appalling behavior

Slate recently ran a piece that reported on some interesting behavior by some drivers in China. It seems that there have been a number of incidents where drivers have struck a pedestrian, stopped, and then reversed their car to strike them again. In some cases, this exercise may have been repeated several times, ensuring the death of the pedestrian.

Your reaction when reading the Slate article.

This strikes us as horrible. As it should. But to be horrible is not to mean senseless - there must be an explanation for this behavior. Even the worst behavior happens for a reason.

First, let us make an assumption. For the purposes of this exercise, let's assume that this behavior is not as common the world over as it is in China. For what it's worth, this story strikes me as rather alien. That is not to say that this kind of behavior doesn't happen in the United States, but let's assume it does not. If new data come about that show this to be as common elsewhere as in China, then we can worry about it later.

We have something to explain. Some commenters merely throw their hands up in the air in utter confusion. One user writes:

"What kind of monster is capable of casually and deliberately using their vehicle to slaughter someone with as  much regard as one would give to stepping on an ant? How do these murderers sleep at night??  What is wrong with this society? "

Others wander off into topics as far-reaching as abortion rights, Usain Bolt, communism, and the 2016 Republican platform - and that's just within the first thirty comments out of more than 1200. Oof. Never, ever, ever read the comments. Ever.

The true explanation for this behavior is found within the contingencies between it and the consequences that follow. It is truly not that difficult to understand, despite the feeling of horror we might have, that making sure that a victim is dead may be the best course of action for a driver. All it takes for that to be true are certain kinds of effects to come after the behavior. Behold.

Most people agree that the hit-to-kill phenomenon stems at least in part from perverse laws on victim compensation. In China the compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is relatively small - amounts typically range from $30,000 to $50,000 - and once payment is made, the matter is over. By contrast, paying for lifetime care for a disabled survivor can run into the millions. The Chinese press recently described how one disabled man received about $400,000 for the first 23 years of his care. Drivers who decide to hit-and-kill do so because killing is far more economical. (emphasis added)

As it happens, this explanation is almost perfect. The only thing I would ask of the author is this: Where is there a decision here? The contingencies explain the behavior adequately. No doubt, if the contingencies were changed, the behavior would change as well. Let's say that the courts started cracking down harder on vehicular manslaughter - this would reduce the "hit-to-kill" phenomenon. Imagine that the Chinese government began offering cash prizes for those who hit and kill pedestrians - this would increase the number of dead pedestrians, assuming, of course, that people would be as likely to walk under such circumstances as they are now (which they wouldn't, of course).

In a slightly different world, all the bicyclists would soon be dead.

If people think that they are moral because they possess some wonderful, innate quality that prevent them from doing bad things in the world, they are deluded. Your morality, and the morality of everyone you know, is a direct reflection of the interaction between the environment and the behavior in question. There are no decisions.

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Small edits to the original post were made to correct a grammatical mistake and to use different photographs.

Racism and true causes for behavior

This article was originally published a while back at The Daily Banter, a left-leaning political blog worth checking out. They have some reasonable people over there, and are good writers to boot. 

In the following piece, I highlight a case example of a type of entirely-useless assertion that is made far too often in the wake of tragedy. The broad assertion: A person's beliefs cause them to behave in certain ways. The specific example here is someone who murdered nine innocent black Americans in a South Carolina church in June 2015. Many asserted in the aftermath that the killer's racism motivated him to murder - I think this explanation is insufficient and incorrect.

Why Dylann Roof's Racism Did Not Cause the Massacre in Charleston

Last weekend, neuroscientist and popular author Sam Harris tweeted, “Is there anyone who doubts that the odious Dylann Storm Roof was motivated by his (racist) beliefs?” To which I reply: Yes, I doubt this very much. I do not believe that Roof murdered those people because he is racist. In fact, I consider it actively harmful to posit this as an explanation for the tragedy that took the lives of nine innocent black Americans.

Before I get drowned in a flood of hate mail, let me clarify things a bit. First, I think it is very clear that Roof is a virulent racist. A huge amount of evidence indicates that he holds truly repugnant views on race, especially with respect to black people. His crime was an act of domestic terrorism, and unless something truly unexpected emerges during the legal process, he should be thrown in prison for the rest of his life. However, his racism did not cause him to murder those people. Like his crime, his racism is not a cause, but an effect. At this time, we should be asking about the nature of the shared cause for both, and considering how this analysis may help prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future.

Human behavior can seem extraordinarily complex. However, in a scientific analysis, we can simplify the relevant general processes that govern behavior to less than a handful of items. For our purposes here, let us consider “Behavior and Belief” as the middle link in a three-link chain. The first link is “Environment and Culture,” and the last is “Consequences.”

Now I know my A, B, C's...

Just like with a physical chain, when you move a single link, you also tend to move the others. Reward (or reinforcement) and punishment are examples of consequences that change behavior. Rewards are offered for good behavior as a way to increase the likelihood of similar good behavior happening in the future; punishments are threatened to reduce the chances of unwanted behavior occurring. On the other hand, environments serve to provide a context for the kinds of behavior that will be reinforced or punished. If you have cheered at the top of your lungs while attending a raucous sporting event, but would never dream of doing so at a somber funeral, you recognize the importance of environments in controlling your behavior. When we talk about a culture, we are merely describing a social environment that serves to set the stage for the reinforcement of particular sorts of human behavior. For example, someone invoking “gun culture” in America is really talking about the vast web of human interaction that provides cover and, ultimately, reinforcement for those who would buy, sell, collect, discuss, and shoot guns.

That our behavior is a necessary product of both its consequences and its antecedent environmental conditions is critically important to remember when we want to improve our lot in this world, because it is only by manipulating these links that we can change human behavior.

The consequences for Dylann Roof’s actions could not be more dire for him. By murdering those people, he has probably ensured that he will spend his remaining years in prison, and may even face execution. It is difficult to imagine harsher consequences for one’s actions, and yet the behavior still happened. Roof is not insane – there can be little doubt that he knew that he would probably be caught, and knew that his life was effectively coming to an end with his actions. In fact, that many terrorists (e.g., suicide bombers, mass shooters) kill themselves in their attacks could be seen as an acknowledgment that their lives are effectively over, that only terrible things await them. We probably cannot and definitely should not design punishments that are harsher than death. So, to reduce violent crime and terrorism, what are we to do?

Our only option is to change the environments that give rise to violent crime. Cultures that encourage profligate use of firearms, distrust of education, and hatred of minorities will be much more likely to have a Dylann Roof emerge from them than cultures where any of those pillars is missing. If you remove the antecedent conditions that would give rise to objectionable behavior, you prevent that behavior from ever occurring. Roof’s beliefs did not and do not matter in a causal analysis. At most, his racism is an indicator, a symptom of a sick world from which he emerged. Arguing about beliefs is unproductive. Instead, we should talk about the conditions that caused Roof to behave as he did and believe as he does.

It is perverse that so many people would deny or obfuscate the role of culture in causing tragic events like the Charleston massacre. When we see Fox News talking heads blatantly ignore the topic of race relations in America as a determining factor in this tragedy, we are watching people essentially trying to prevent cultural change with respect to race. When pundits claim that crimes like Charleston are acts of the mentally ill, or are “isolated” or “senseless” incidents, they work to prevent clarity on the causes for the crimes. Guns rights advocates often go a step further, suggesting that culture is important, but arguing that an expansion of their culture is needed. Simplistic aphorisms like, “an armed society is a polite society,” and “guns don’t kill people, people do” are intonations of a culture that is working to preserve itself. That platitudes like these are demonstrably untrue is of little consequence to the group’s members, as what really matters is that the words are effective at perpetuating a cultural message beneficial to their aims.

Behold: A necessary product of a particular kind of environment.

If we can blame a man for a crime, if we can fully blame a person’s mental state or mental illness, it absolves a culture from responsibility. It is easy to see why we tend to blame the individual. If a crime is the sole responsibility of a person, we have many ways to deal with the issue – an individual may be fined, shamed, institutionalized, imprisoned, or executed, any of which is usually easy enough to implement. After punishing the criminal, we can heartily congratulate ourselves on effectively addressing the problem. However, if a person’s criminal actions are the necessary product of a larger causal force, the problem we are looking to fix becomes much, much more challenging. Punishing the criminal may help prevent some unlawful actions in the future (see chain link #3), but a maximally effective technique must also address the issue of the complex environment that gave rise to the behavior in the first place. Humans tend to prefer simple answers to complex ones. Some of us have a stronger preference than others.

Saints and monsters do not emerge from nothingness, but instead are built by their environments. By building a better world, we can banish monsters like Dylann Roof from the human experience. To do so, we must not be distracted by those who would muddy the waters. We must not be confused by fervent appeals to a kind of freedom that none of us has. We must not talk of beliefs in causing behavior, but instead talk about how beliefs are built. By understanding and accepting our necessary, intermediate role between culture and consequences, we understand how we might change human behavior for the better.
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P.S. I got some feedback regarding this post when it was first published suggesting that I had, perhaps, a too-narrow view on what constitutes causality in a behavioral analysis. I have thought about it, and I don't think that the criticism is valid. At a later date, I will attempt to explain why Aristotle was wrong about causality and again explain why teleology (i.e., final causes) have no place in a proper understanding of the universe.

The abandonment of humility

Self-help "guru" Wayne Dyer died last week at the age of 75, victim of a heart attack. I had not known of him before now, but apparently he was an important force in the lives of many millions of people. He wrote a number of books, including Your Erroneous Zones*, which sold over 30 million copies. Online, there is an outpouring of affection, grief, and respect for the man. To the extent that his work made people feel more free and spurred positive developments in their lives, I tip my proverbial cap. But only a little.

If you feel personally invested in Dr. Dyer and his work, if he has helped you, if you just want to feel good in this moment, you might as well stop reading this right now.

Dyer may have been a force for good in the world. That said, his central position was and is full-on lunacy. Seriously, it is completely divorced from reality. The following picture was posted to Dyer's Facebook page. It appears to be a position for which he strenuously advocated. 

Oh, is that so? Fascinating.

A cursory examination of his cited work online reveals many similarly moldy chestnuts, every piece thereof an absolutely brazen, easily exposed lie. Doesn't it just make you want to laugh at a homeless person and vote for Ron Paul?

In seriousness, words like the above might have some positive consequences. They might serve to motivate good behavior from individuals that otherwise would not have done so. It is possible that appealing to a person's personal power, their freedom, their absolute independence from the universe... it is possible that doing these things will result in that person having a better, healthier life in some important way. I can, though, point to a clearer effect of writing this trite nonsense: there is good evidence that it sells a ton of books.

Cynicism aside, just because someone spins a pleasant yarn and another person buys into it does not mean anything about its truth. And the truth of the matter is that your domain of personal responsibility is a constantly eroding island in the vast rising sea of the cosmos, growing smaller all the time. The life sciences have conclusively shown the following to be true:

Your parents' identities matter a great deal.

Your past relationships have an enormous effect on your life.

Your job and the broader economy are both important to your health and happiness.

Your age, no matter whether young or old, places restrictions on your behavior.

Aside from those painfully clear truths, the following related point is also probably true (though this idea does not enjoy wide acceptance yet):

"Choice" isn't real. You don't make decisions. The world makes them for you.

This is a controversial position and I cannot hope to do it full justice in the context of this post. I think my view will become fully clear over time. Suffice it to say, the idea that one has any real control over their life in any way is not an a priori truth, nor has it been adequately shown in evidence. I find it absurd to think that a person causes their own behavior in much the same way that it is absurd to believe that a baseball throws itself. Just like the ball's trajectory through space, a person's trajectory can always be traced back to external causes. This is perhaps an uncomfortable position to contemplate, but the degree of discomfort one feels regarding it has nothing to do with whether it is true.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. No matter how comfortable or useful an inspirational lie may be, it is still a damnable, dirty lie, and should not be held up as possessing any virtue when the truth can instead be known. I want to know the truth, and I want other people to want the same. Unraveling the fabric of reality is a challenging endeavor, and the history of science reveals many hard-fought and well-earned victories in the face of significant pressure from those that would rather embrace the comfortable lie. We now know the world is not flat. We now know that Ptolemy was wrong in positing a geocentric universe. We now know that demon possession and humours have nothing to do with human health, but germs do. Some wars - climate change, evolution, vaccination - have been over for a long time, but the opposition of the comfortably ignorant continues to struggle, like Japanese soldiers that continued to fight long after World War II had concluded. 

Apologies to the Japanese soldiers for the unflattering comparison.

That probably sounds sanctimonious. It is not intended to be. All I want is to learn about how the world works, generally (but not entirely) through the lens of understanding organismal behavior. I want answers, but they have to be true, and not necessarily comforting. I resent that so many people want to cling to the reassuring lies. And the lie that we are in control does nothing to advance our understanding of human behavior, does nothing to point to real solutions to our environmental problems, and does nothing to suggest a way forward for human culture. All it does is falsely raise the individual to a godlike state, where he can create independently of the world which s/he inhabits.

As Mark Twain wrote, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."