Sign Changes

This is has been a thing (at least in my Facebook feed) for all of three hours, but I am finding it absolutely fascinating. Oh no, most of us aren't actually whatever zodiac sign we've always thought we were! How shall we ever live knowing that the past however-many years of our lives were a lie? (What about all the horoscopes that were perfectly suited to the situations of our days?! All lies!) This is apparently the article that started it all.

I mean, right, it's astrology, so its real-life impact is nonexistent, but people's reactions are really interesting. Most people are some variation of "What, so I'm an X now? No way am I an X!" (I for one find what I hastily learned from one random website about Aquariuses to be much more accurately descriptive of my personality than the wishy-washy touchy-feely dreamy fish I was previously purported to be, not that that matters.) I really hope people's reactions to just staying what they've always been are due to this all just being fun and games and changing exactly nothing about the real world; otherwise, these attitudes of "What I've always 'known' above all else!" are rather terrifying.

For someone who took astrological claims seriously and truly believed the positions of the stars in the sky at one's birth actually influenced or outright determined their personality, fate, and compatibility with others, there would be no choice but to accept this new knowledge immediately, switch to the "new" sign, and live as that which they always were, despite having been misled in the past. I'm not terribly familiar with astrological claims, but I assume there is supposed to be some mechanism by which these positions affects people above and beyond their knowledge thereof. So, pretending this was somehow scientifically valid, it doesn't matter what you think you are or what you've always been, the only thing that matters is which constellation the sun was in at your birth. Denying, then, the "new" (actually it seems to have been known since before the Common Era that the alignment of constellations and dates were drifting through an epic cycle) and apparently earthshattering news that you've been wrong your entire life about something so important would be counterproductive and the worst possible response. The only reasonable response would be to adopt your real sign as quickly as possible and try to make up for years of living your life a little out of sync thanks to heeding advice meant for others. But no: "I've always been an X!" "Screw you, I was born a Y and I'll die a Y!" "Z forever!"

Obviously in this case there are two levels of truth. "I was born a Leo" means either (or, until today, presumably both) that one was born when the sun was in the constellation Leo or that one was born on a date that was considered to belong to the sign of Leo. We're learning that the former expression is now untrue for many of us, but people's vehement responses are obviously because the latter expression turns out to be the most important to them in a visceral sense. And I suppose that's reasonable, since we do live in a society in a time period that (at least I assume I'm not extrapolating terribly, though as it tuns out, 25 percent of Americans believe in astrology) is too sophisticated to believe in such primitive nonsense. So of course cultural categories matter more than "reality" in this case, since the reality is impotent either way. Not that the cultural categories aren't, but as far as spending your life half-heartedly identifying with some set of characteristics or reading horoscopes in the hopes they'll have something useful to say about your day, I suppose there's no more reason to disrupt that for these scientific reasons than for the scientific reasons of oh wait, they're stars, exactly how are they supposed to affect your life?

Regardless, I certainly hope if, in the future, we are presented with new scientific knowledge that asserts what we've been thinking or doing our entire lives and/or history is incorrect in some area where it might actually matter, we'll be a bit more open to it and not cling to our past beliefs so tenaciously. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem terribly likely. I'm reminded of the Pluto debacle, although that was less about new information and more about consistency in categorization (also it probably doesn't make any difference to anything real how it's categorized). But there's the babies-on-their-tummies versus babies-on-their-backs vacillation and the fat-is-bad—no-wait-carbs-are-bad debate, and I'm sure there are plenty of other life-changing discoveries to come. (Though in both of these cases I think we've held each position more than once over our history, so the problem seems to be either in changes in how we measure outcomes or in properly designing and analyzing studies. I guess when scientific consensus changes that much (or doesn't actually reach consensus) in one's lifetime, it's harder to feel certain that this time it's right, so personal choice and preference does actually seem to be (and may be, for all I know) a valid way of making decisions above and beyond the evidence.) I think these habits of disregarding evidence and relying on our intuitions, wishes, or anecdotal evidence bode ill for our nation as a whole and the state of ourselves and our minds as human beings.

Reality, or What's Really Real?

A Facebook friend posted a note about how relativism denies individuality today that seemed to me like a bunch of gobbledygook (or I may just be out of practice with my philosophy), but it prompted some general thought about relativism and subjective experience.

Surprisingly enough, I don't think I'm a relativist, or at least not in the strict sense. I do think there is absolute truth, that there is an actual reality out there. Obviously reality cannot differ from person to person: either the sun revolves around the earth, or the earth around the sun, or they both stand still, or they both revolve around something else entirely, or they both just vibrate up and down, or the sun is really a collective hallucination, or...something else. There is a way the universe works. The problem is, however, that none of us actually directly experiences reality, so we don't necessarily all agree on what that is. It's impossible. That's exactly what perception is—the attempt of our brains to interpret signals and form a coherent view of reality. I mean, it's not like reality is in bright, living color. Color is entirely a product of living brains translating wavelengths into visual impressions because, for some reason, sight is the sense we use the most to gain information about our environment. Obviously things do reflect whatever wavelength of light they do whether or not we were looking at them, and if you wanted to, you could define that as color, but the qualia of, say, yellow, requires a human (or some animals, I suppose) brain.

(Incidentally, is this the point people are getting at when they say God can see/experience things much more clearly than us because he isn't limited by our senses? I mean, I assume he still has senses, but that they're different ones, because I don't understand how you can, um, sense reality without senses, unless, of course, you are reality, but that's going a little too out there for my tastes at the moment.)

Anyway, I think it's pretty well established that different people do perceive the physical aspects of reality differently. People have passionate arguments about whether something is navy or black (or maybe it's really dark purple?) or whether a particular shade of blue-green is more blue or more green. Some people hear that noise TVs make, while others of us can't hear that wavelength. Some people think cucumbers have a strong taste while the rest of us don't have the kind of taste bud or the chemical or whatever that makes the bitterness stand out. So obviously in the most fundamental ways, we all perceive reality slightly differently. And at least in most of these examples, it's nonsensical to say that one person is perceiving reality accurately and something's wrong with the other person. (It's much easier to say that if, for example, someone is colorblind, though I would still say that to that person, light at wavelengths of 510 and 650 nanometers are gray, just as they are green or red, respectively, to others.) Does the reality of cucumber have a strong bitter taste or a very mild, nearly flavorless taste? Neither. Obviously it does contain a chemical that makes it bitter to some people and to those of us who can't taste that chemical, it's not bitter. It's not that it is bitter but we're not tasting it or it's not bitter and some people are just making something up; it actually is bitter to some and not to others. Voila, subjective experience.

Now that's all well and good; we already knew we feel temperatures slightly differently and see colors slightly differently and taste and hear things slightly differently and that some smells that are foul to some are fair to others (gas, Sharpies). All that doesn't really matter, though, as you can pretty much average it all out and assume that's close to the truth. And really, what does it matter if some people can hear a sound that others can't? None of this is very important to everyday life (as long as you're not the colorblind one who can't tell what color the traffic light is) and epic truths. We can all be pretty sure that where one of us sees a brown cow, someone else doesn't see a bolt of lightning or a bicycle or a scarf, so as long as we both see a large animal with dark fur, we can be pretty confident that it has some connection to reality, and that's enough for now. (Of course, we could just all be sitting in cold tanks of water in the bowels of the earth with machines activating the parts of our brains that tell us we're seeing large, dark mammals, à la The Matrix, so I suppose agreement doesn't necessitate accuracy, but for simplicity's sake, let's go with it for now.)

So, on to things less immediately tied to direct perception of reality: religion. If there is one real reality, is there any sense in which beliefs can be true for some people and not true for others? I think here, it depends on what kind of truths you're trying to get out of religion.

Can there be one god, and also be many gods, and also be no gods? Can Jesus have died for our sins 2000 years ago, and the Messiah not yet have come, and if there's going to be anyone to save us it's going to be us ourselves? Can God have created the earth and everything on it in seven literal days, and life on earth have evolved over millennia, and us all be perched on the back of a turtle? Um, I can't see how. Some things (particularly specific events) directly conflict and thus cannot all be true.

But can it be true that God's plan for their life gives some people meaning and purpose while others would feel their lives less purposeful if they thought their lives were being controlled by a god? Can the route to communion with God be through traditional rituals for some, through unrestrained emotional expression for others, and be impossible or not to be desired by yet others? I certainly would say so.

Contradictory? I think not. Certain factual claims either have to be true or false. Either God is an old white bearded man or has blue skin or is Jewish-looking or is a plate of flying spaghetti or is something else; he certainly cannot be blue-skinned and white and Jewish and pasta. You can certainly argue, and I think most people do, that God is none of these things and that these are all our representations, which can differ according to what best suits us and what we are best able to worship without affecting the actual nature or existence of God. This nicely removes this entire problem. But to remain in the realm of factual questions of what God actually is or how the earth came into being or whether our consciousnesses will live on after death—when there are contradictions, some options must be right and others wrong. (Of course, my personal feeling is that it's highly unlikely any one religious tradition has it all right. Nevertheless, there is a right that it is theoretically possible to be.)

Pointing to the physical realm as proof of one belief or another often fails, and this goes back to the perception issue. One person looking at nature sees evidence of God's handiwork in creation, while another sees evidence of a struggle for survival resulting in evolution by selection. One person sees healing through prayer where another sees healing through modern medicine with prayer just happening to coincide. One person sees God's hand at work in their life, guiding them to the right decision about a job or relationship where another sees their own decision-making process with different aspects of their consciousness trying to hash it all out. One person sees God bringing a person into their life for a reason while another sees a chance encounter that they may or may not learn from. Each of these could be a reasonable interpretation of the data, but obviously the mindset, belief structure, and past personal history they are being filtered through affect which interpretation is decided on.

Other claims are less coupled to an absolute reality and depend yet more on a person. For example, it is obviously true (at least if people's claims are to be believed) that believing in God makes some people feel as though their lives have meaning, since they are all a part of God's great plan. Equally as true to others, though, is that the only meaning that could comfort them is one devised by themselves rather than imposed from outside; they have no desire to be a cog in some great unknown plan, the devising of which they had nothing to do with. For many atheists, the thought of living under God's thumb is terrifying. Now, obviously these feelings do not change the reality of whether there is or is not a God who has a great plan we are all a part of, but the 'reality' of whether God is nice or good or whether God comforts people can certainly and legitimately vary from person to person. Religion (or God) can give meaning or sap meaning, soothe or agitate, inspire or depress.

Since to me it seems rather difficult to prove any given claim (even God's existence, much less his color or age or gender or habits of creation) to everyone's satisfaction, I feel we're left with relativism. Of course you have to believe what you believe, what your perception of reality causes you to believe, and it's only reasonable that you should accept that others only believe what their perceptions of reality lead them to believe, whether or not you accept the validity of that belief. And really, to a certain extent, if you can't perceive the true reality and have no way to know who is closest, it almost doesn't matter. I mean, if more evidence comes to light that would push you one way or another, you should take it into account, for the truth does matter, but if the truth is actually unknowable, what you believe doesn't.


NB: I know most people who are religious (and, for that matter, most who aren't, I suppose) do say you can know, but since various groups admit as evidence that which other groups aren't disposed to admit as evidence, we seem to be at an impasse. Yes, the Bible says, but to believe what it says, you have to believe it was inspired, so you have to believe in the God who inspired it, which is what the Bible was supposed to be convincing you of. Likewise, I assume to believe in what scientists have to say about origins of life and such, you have to be convinced nothing exists which cannot be measured or sensed, but isn't God exactly such a thing? Presumably one wouldn't want to rule out God at the very beginning of a process one was hoping would reveal evidence for the very same.