A commonly accepted truth is that to understand, one should not manipulate or be manipulated.

Wrong.

Making sense of science

Why should we make sense of science as, so far, the ultimate human intellectual achievement? Why duplicate the sense that science is apparently making on its own? Should we make sense because only a few understand cutting-edge scientific discoveries in each particular science? But if only a few understand, surely those few could make sense of it for the rest of the world? But then, why didn’t they make sense in the first place? Are there two senses (at least)?

According to post-enlightenment ideology, when science talks, all the rest should keep quiet. The Enlightenment, with its praise of human rationality and the science that followed, led us to believe that there is no truth other than scientific truth. Accordingly, sense for humans can only come directly from scientific truths. All pre-scientific explanations of reality, both inside and outside us, became obsolete, good only for fiction and religion. Brains began to be seen as a primary tool for getting closer to the truth. Even though we have somehow accepted that we can never reach the final truth, the truth delivered through science has become THE goal for post-enlightenment humans. Socrates or Aristotle, as pre-enlightenment figures, might have uttered that “the more you know, the more you know what you do not know” (my paraphrase). Still, it was only when a scientist like Einstein said something similar that the quote became relevant outside the muddy waters of philosophy; ‘muddy’ because philosophy is not science, but more like poetry for the contemporary scientistic mind.

Deception is constructive

Taking brains as mere tools for rationality and science is a misconception so deeply rooted that even neuroscientific discoveries about how brains deceive us all the time cannot change it. It has been proven by so many studies (1) that the more we strive to become rational, the more we force our brains to work rationally, the more they/we fail. Cognitive dissonance in this respect goes so far that, even when all scientific data show that what we get from brains is construction and construction only, we still take minds as tools that allow us to find truth about the world around us, about objectivity. Finito.

Like every other organ, the brain evolved to manipulate the environment, with one and only one aim: to sustain. What is the use of brains that know everything about the lion, but are then eaten by that same lion for pondering too long about his objectivity? Brains were evolved for sustenance. Later cortex brain structures evolved in such a way that they do not obstruct evolutionarily more important limbic structures. Rationality and other newly evolved cortical functions of human brains, indeed, enabled us to enjoy Homer’s Iliad and Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Still, when something significant happens for our sustenance, thank God they are silenced, avoided, bluffed… And, since something important happens or might happen all the time, they are silenced more or less all the time. Our brains deceive us all the time about the truth for a good reason: for our survival.

Manipulation is evolutionarily necessary

As much as brains, language also evolved as a tool for manipulation. The purpose of communication is not communication, but manipulation, as much as the purpose of shaking hands is not hand-shaking, but greeting or paying respect. Mind and rationality evolved tremendously for the same reason. But, for both language and rationality, a curious shift in that alleged purpose occurred during the Enlightenment. “Wise” people began to understand language as a means of communication and the mind as a tool for deciphering reality. Mind, as a result of brain activity (false prediction in itself), was seen as a tool to understand reality per se (objective truth). Even Kant’s concept of impenetrable ding an sich was unable to show how this enlightenment principle leads nowhere.

The end result is an entirely false and misleading concept of science and rationality. The end result is not basic sciences. Nothing is wrong with basic sciences, as long as they “understand” that their role is to make us fitter but not necessarily cleverer.

The relation between being fit and having knowledge and education is thus exciting, but often misunderstood. As a human, one is always intelligent to a certain degree. There are males and females who select based on the perceived intelligence of the potential mating partner. Intelligence thus plays a specific role in genetic progeny. However, where intelligence really plays a role is in memetic progeny. People with higher intelligence spread fitter memes than those with lower intelligence, so they have a higher memetic progeny rate, but might suffer faster genetically, as they are more prone to being eaten by lions.

Rationality emerges post-festum

However, the point about evolutionary importance or unimportance does not lie so much in the coevolution of genes and memes. Still, in that, we can never judge rationality, evolutionarily potent strategy, or fitness for the future. The fitness and rationality of a particular creature, cell, or species can only be established for events that have already happened. It might happen that it is going to be crucial for humans if water is discovered on Mars. But it might not, as well. Evolution cannot tell you in advance what will benefit us and what will not.

Basic research (science) is constantly opening new paths and even new plains in our fitness landscape. This is my definition of what science does; although the arts and all other human activities indeed perform quite the same task, only with different tools. That is why nothing is wrong with basic research and science.

But then, we know that the mere better orientation in the place that we occupy at this moment in the fitness landscape, and even knowledge of the available paths, tells us nothing about which path leads higher and which lower. The fitness landscape, unlike the physical landscape, is constantly reshaped. And since there is no external (objective) view of the fitness landscape, we can only hope that, in the crucial moment in the development of our fitness landscape, we will be lucky in choosing research that will prove beneficial in that specific moment. Water on Mars might be one such. But there is a much higher probability that water on Mars will make no difference to us or that it will reroute our scarce resources from another possible discovery that might be crucial, should we not waste our time with water on Mars.

Here, we come to the difference between wisdom and knowledge. Knowledge implies that there is a final truth, final object, final matter, or fixed background. At the same time, wisdom understands the true nature of evolution: that it has no ultimate goal, no grand plan we could align our lives with. At least, all the social systems of Western societies rely on knowledge. Wisdom comes when you are old and of no use, as poetry comes after some serious scientific work, or at least work based on knowledge, has been done. Wisdom comes like holidays; there is a particular pleasure associated with it, but no useful value.

What a mistake!

Nothing is wrong with knowledge. What’s wrong is to understand knowledge as a final aim. Knowledge is one of the many tools that allow us to work on our fitness, especially memetic fitness, as we have seen above. But, we should never forget that wisdom comes first, not only in our everyday life but also in the history of humankind. There was only wisdom before the Enlightenment period. Wisdom teaches us that we can only “work” on our fitness from the imperfect (subjective) point of view. For that reason, we can only arbitrarily co-decide about what is most likely to be the best strategy, for not only does objectivity play a marginal role in the life power game, but also “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk”, as Hegel poetically described the fundamental law of evolution. One has to survive to be clever afterward.

 

(1) For instance, in Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011),  in Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind (2012), and Antonio Damasio, Descartes’ Error (1994).