Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Each individual person is the center of their own perceptual universe. Each is a cognitive island, completely separate from all other people: a different physical entity, a discrete collection of molecules or particles. A person’s thoughts have no affect on the thoughts of those around them, nor are they affected by the thoughts of others.
People don’t see themselves this way, of course. In large part we define ourselves through our relations with other people. We are part of a family, a group of friends, or a set of coworkers. We also define ourselves by what we do: our jobs, our membership in groups, our hobbies. Most of the time we act to fulfill the unreal roles we have created for ourselves (“parent,” “salesman,” “churchgoer”). We don’t do things because of the positive consequences (income, praise) or the negative consequences of nonaction (dismissal, discipline.) We do things because we define ourselves according to artificial categories like “nurse,” “construction worker,” “police officer,” and then base our actions on what we think such a role requires. Which we generally learn by watching other people.
We are not aware that we follow a script or a set of artificial rules instead of analyzing everything in terms of gain and loss. That’s a good thing, because if we had to weigh every action based on its likely consequences in terms of material rewards, social standing, the respect of peers, the possibility of punishment, etc. etc., we would spend all our time working all that out and never get anything done. Mostly we act according to the script we have learned from others and from our own observation. We do what we are “supposed to do” given our roles and self-definition.
For example, we usually don’t obey orders just because we know there will be negative consequences if we don’t (i.e. the person giving the orders can also order or advise other people to punish us.) We don’t think it through that much. We understand someone to be our “boss” or “superior” and obey them because it’s natural. We don’t do a cost/benefit analysis every time.
If we considered the consequences of every decision and every possible action we couldn’t function. I don’t have to consider what would happen if I threw my cat out the window because I don’t think of that as a possible “move.” Likewise, people playing their roles do not stop to think of all the possible alternatives to obedience and the corresponding consequences. They just do what they are “supposed to” just like everyone else around them.
This is, in fact, the way “society” functions even when it is dysfunctional (in the sense of not functioning to give good outcomes to everyone.) People learn to accept how things work, how everyone acts, how some people are allowed to command many resources, take the best things for themselves, make other people work to build them houses and cars and to serve them, etc. We get used to thinking this is “normal”–it’s just the way things are. If our lives are okay, we don’t worry about it too much. It’s too much trouble to adjust our thoughts out of what is the norm, off the script that everyone else is more or less following.
And even if we think our social structure is harmful and should be different, what can we do about it? It would take a great deal of clarity, faith, and effort to force our mental plow out of its furrow and begin breaking ground in a different direction.
Black Hole Radiation 