Notes: Alternatives to Religion, the Astonishing Implications of Convexity Bias, and Technology Ascendant

I'm reading a lot of other things in addition to feeding my recent "Dostoevsky obsession."  I have finished several other printed books that I might comment on later.  I also completed a couple of books on kindle and am in the process of reading two more (with several more in my digital library waiting to be read).  So, there is no shortage of material to entertain, inform and provoke contemplation.  In addition to all this, I still manage my Flipboard magazines every day and in doing so I came across a few articles that seem noteworthy. 

I have posted before that humanity can be divided into several "stages" of psychological development.  In that regard, a recent study found that "individuals who accept human evolution tend to exhibit reduced levels of prejudice compared to those who reject the scientific theory."  I interpret this to mean a person with a more contemporary set of psychological tools (flex-brain) is more accepting of human diversity than those who rely purely on their unchallenged hard-brain.  This is because their brains are geared to cultivate neuroplasticity.

This is also exemplified in another recent study which found that the brains of religious believers and non-believers are literally wired differently.  "Not believing in a God is due to the activation of distinct higher-order brain networks. The results demonstrated that religious believers are more likely to use more intuitive and heuristic reasoning and that religious non-believers are more likely to use more deliberative and analytic reasoning."  That's not particularly surprising and it is in line with what I have previously blogged about.

It is also no surprise that religion is a form of "psychological conditioning" upon those who practice an organized faith.  The article in the link suggests three ways this works.  There are no shortage of articles about how effective religion is in making your life easier.  "A growing body of research shows that religious people seem to enjoy more psychological well-being compared to others."  So, it seems a reasonable inquiry to ask, if the hard-brain religious persons experience "well-being" through their religion, why would a non-believer want to take that away from them?  Further, why would the non-believer discard a tool that obviously helps so many others, even if it is through psychological conditioning?

I am reminded of something Nietzsche wrote in Beyond Good and Evil. "Something could well be true, although it is at the same time harmful and dangerous to the highest degree. In fact, it could even be part of the fundamental composition of existence that people are destroyed when they fully recognize this point - so that the strength of a spirit might be measured by how much it could still endure of the 'truth,' or put more clearly, by the degree it would have to have the truth diluted, sweetened, muffled, or falsified." (Aphorism 39) More than likely, religious people "can't handle the truth," to the extent it is knowable.  Religion is "truth diluted, sweetened..."  Nevertheless, it is obviously "needed" by most humans.

The problem, of course, is that a lot of other stuff comes with "religion" other than well-being.  The plethora of diverse religions are among the oldest and, consequently, most divisive cultural institutions we have.  Even within each major religion there is massive fragmentation between all the sects or denominations.  Religions are filled with bigoted, uncompassionate people, who in many cases are willing to act violently against rival religions or interpretations.  Religion (mainly Christianity) is, at bottom, the reason abortion will probably be banned in many US states in the near future.  Religion fosters a type of well-being that is ill-suited for the emerging modern technological reality.  

The seduction of religion (I hope to write an essay with that title) may make life easier but that does not make it relevant to the emergent world.  What this suggests to me is that, unfortunately, the emergence of modernity will continue to frustrate those of us who cling to their pre-wired (hard-brain) psychological tools.  I fear this frustration will continue to grow and will manifest in more radical ways including violence by the religious toward the world.  Of course, religious violence is nothing new.  But it can still be amplified.  At the same time, it is naive to think that believers are going to voluntarily choose new psychological tools.  Adoption of new tools will happen over the course of generations, with Gen Z and Alpha likely to adopt new tools of a flex-brain moreso than any other generations so far in human history.  In the meantime, the increasingly frustrated behavior of religious people and others who are predominantly hard-brained (those most likely to be prejudiced and religious) will play out however it plays out.

It is not like there is no alternative to religion.  There clearly is. It is already possible to directly "hack" our brains neurologically to make us basically more "moral" (ethical might be a better term) people.  Of course, this is part of the enframing process of technology, but it is potentially a great benefit to humanity.  This article discusses neuromodulation which, naturally, would be highly controversial to the religious population at large.  Probably the younger generations (persons being born right now) will be more accepting of this.  Meanwhile, there are more widely accepted techniques for, say, fostering compassion and well-being.  Meditation, Tai Chi, Qi Gong and other such disciplines are tools to develop the neuroplasticity necessary to maximize the flex-brain (called "Dynamic Brain" in some psychological circles).  

Beyond this, neuroscience is also discovering non-invasive skills or tools for maximizing flex-brain.  This includes developing a play-practice in your life.  "Adventurous play" has been shown to reduce levels of anxiety and depression among children.  Being playful is equally effective in adults., particularly "sociodramatic play." Engaging in various aspects of play has been shown to promote neuroplasticity, which, in turn, makes you more accepting of change and willing to consider new possibilities.  

This is essential if we are going to weather the apparently fast approaching cultural storm between the strangeness of cultural emergence coupled with technology's exponential development against the friction presented by religion and prejudices and "the way it has always been."  Considering the spectrum of human consciousness, the vast majority of us are pre-modern, working with ancient psychological tools.  The problem with the world today is not change.  The problem is resistance to change.

Resistance is nowhere more clearly manifested in America than with the cultural force of Planet Trump.  Recently, the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science reported that an meta-analysis of language used in social media found: "...conservatives are more rigid in their thinking than liberals, while also supporting the theory that political extremists are more close-minded than moderates."  This is clearly an example of hard-brain resistance that Trump taps in to (the frustrations of most of the people within our techno-reality).  Ironically, perhaps, the study also revealed that Trump supporters are happier than Biden supporters, who are mostly sad.  But that's likely because they just won control of the Supreme Court and are ready to flex their power upon American culture.  They believe they can reverse America culturally, something most Biden supporters do not want.  There's the fact that Biden has been, with few exceptions, a colossal screw-up as president.

Here's a great example of karma.  It's called the "convexity bias," which is normally used as a financial term.  Oversimplifying, this bias is about the extent to which something develops through trial and error compared with it occurring randomly.  Both forces are in-play.  So it is not about either-or.  It is about which and when.  This article by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is one of the most insightful reads I've experienced so far this year.  In part it reads: "Textbooks tend to show technology flowing from science, when it is more often the opposite case...In such developments as the industrial revolution (and more generally outside linear domains such as physics), there is very little historical evidence for the contribution of fundamental research compared to that of tinkering by hobbyists...a random process characterized by 'skills' and 'luck', and some opacity, antifragility —the convexity bias— can be shown to severely outperform 'skills'. And convexity is missed in histories of technologies, replaced with ex post narratives."

This is astonishing to me.  As the author says, "understanding is a poor substitute for convexity."  Convexity, as used here, is the "antifragility" (the ability to accommodate the chaos of gain versus pain) beyond human planning (skill and luck).  This accommodation is an unintended consequence, it is not planned for or even anticipated.  Gain is simply where you find it, as is pain.  The greater the gain (which can't usually be planned for) the greater the force of change.  This force is precisely how karma works and also how technology can "control" (or at least "influence") its own course by emerging out of the asymmetry between gain over error (or pain).  I will continue to ponder this in the coming days.  Is this the hand of God?  It is Tao?

In "Only a God Can Save Us," an article about the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, it reads: "Heidegger’s suggestion that humans should begin to reconsider their instrumental attitudes towards objects, and his criticism of the extractive practices which follow from these attitudes, have made him popular among contemporary ecological thinkers. In particular, Heidegger’s interest in inanimate objects and non-human organisms as beings with the capacity to reveal themselves in ways other than those that are purely instrumental has prompted his uptake among proponents of “deep ecology”, a school of thought that argues for the value of non-human organisms, and even objects, as separate from their use-value to humans. Heidegger presents a critique of anthropocentric thinking, a critique that focuses not so much on the specific environmental harm caused by human technology but on the near-ubiquitous structures of thought which robs natural objects of their existential autonomy.

"It should be noted that Heidegger does not straightforwardly blame humanity for transforming objects into standing reserves. The origin of this kind of “unconcealment” is more mystical for Heidegger than for most contemporary ecological theorists. Though Heidegger is unambiguous in recommending that we strive against the rapid ascendancy of the technological, human agency is — as in many other parts of Heidegger’s philosophy — called into question as the instigator of instrumental thinking. This gesture, too, serves as a rejection of dominant anthropocentrism: it throws off the presumed primacy of the human will and human power in favor of a world-picture of complex joint agency between people and things. Though humans certainly manufacture tools, mine the earth, and build hydroelectric plants, Heidegger identifies this process with an extra-human temptation, a revelation of the stuff of the world as the means by which to build the world."

Where the article states: "...inanimate objects and non-human organisms as beings with the capacity to reveal themselves in ways other than those that are purely instrumental..." I see an extension of convexity - and karma in non-human things.  Where it states: "...it throws off the presumed primacy of the human will and human power in favor of a world-picture of complex joint agency between people and things" I see enframing as a "joint agency nested in convexity."  Where the article mentions: "The ascendancy of the technological," I see the enframing force dialed-in to karmic automatic mode, apart from human agency, as Heidegger did using his own vocabulary.  

This article on philosopher Günther Anders, offers a slightly different perspective on the same enframing phenomena.  It reflects the same post-Atomic Bomb intellectual malaise that Heidegger wrestled with in the 1950's.  Anders saw that the inevitable consequence (karma, in my view) of technology was a massive consumerist state, where our freedom is engulfed by "ready-made worlds" created by technology.  He spoke against the advent of consumerism and argued that it was possible for human beings to oppose "morally irresponsible production and consumerism."  About 70 years later it seems that opportunity, if it ever existed, is gone.  My contention is that Anders's critique is valid.  Nevertheless, the convenience and consumption offered by ready-made worlds is precisely what humanity, even the vast, bigoted pre-moderners, has freely, unwittingly, chosen.  It seems unlikely to stop this now.

Who are we anyway?  Current neuroscience confirms the existence of what Nietzsche termed "necessary fictions."  We are a fiction, we create ourselves.  God did not make Man in His image.  Humans make themselves in their image.  This article discusses the fact that: "Data suggests that the stories we tell ourselves about our motives, beliefs, and values are not merely unreliable but entirely fictitious. Our brains are such master storytellers that they even are able to justify choices that we never made. Introspection is not some strange inner perception; it is the human imagination turned upon itself."

As it turns out, this is hopeful.  It is by the ability and, indeed, habit of self-creation that Gen Z and Alpha will build a new world, the birth of the Modern.  It is the imagination of flex-brain that will allow some of us to revision ourselves, as agents enframed yet wondrous.  We can be anything we want.  We just need to tell ourselves a new story.  The introspection of narrative is perhaps the answer to Heidegger's enframing problem.  Maybe we don't need a God to save us.  Maybe imagination and innovation will allow us to save ourselves, but probably not as Anders hoped.