Ignorance, Doubt, Uncertainty

I've just finished Richard Feynman's book What do You Care What Other People Think: Further Adventures of a Curious Character. The last chapter is his lecture, "The Value of Science". In it, one of the very important things he says is this:

The scientist has a lot of experience with ignorance and doubt and uncertainty, and this experience is of very great importance, I think. When a scientist doesn't know the answer to a problem, he is ignorant. When he has a hunch as to what the result is, he is uncertain. And when he is pretty darn sure of what the result is going to be, he is in some doubt. We have found it of paramount importance that in order to progress we must recognize the ignorance and leave room for doubt. Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.

... What, then, is the meaning of it all? What can we say to dispel the mystery of experience? If we take everything into account, not only what the ancients knew, but all of what we know today that they didn't know, then I think that we must frankly admit that we do not know. But in admitting this, we have probably found the open channel.

And there is a difference between speculation and uncertainty, and between ignorance and humility. Science knows this. So do all philosophers after Kant, and if not by then, then certainly after Mill (if they bothered to read On Liberty with even one eye open). What drives me up a wall is when people think that uncertainty - the kind of doubt that Feynman talks about - is a bad thing, and a discredit to a good idea.

I do not know anything with certainty, but only because there is no such thing as certainty (though of course, I suppose I can't be certain that's the case). But I do know that suggestions that are worth it - and we can line up a whole slew of criteria for each area of thought - deserve the limelight. We can indeed be more sure of one thing than another.

Talking to a friend recently, she seemed to indict the suggestion that we try on (and I say buy in 10 colors!) gender equality in Judaism, due to the fact that we don't entirely know what the future of Judaism will look like under those conditions. Besides the fact that I do have a fairly good picture of it (since at least in my personal life I already live it), why would such uncertainty be a problem? We never know what the future will look like; everything is an experiment - a theory that we take on until some new data confounds it.

The gender equality thing is a no-brainer, to me at least. But Feynman's point that the embrace of inevitable uncertainty is a social value that we cannot do without is terribly under-appreciated in our culture(s). I don't valorize doubt (I once heard an entire High Holy Days sermon, and have heard of many others, about how doubt is a fantastic thing - to me that's all nonsensical apologetics); but I do embrace its inevitability and the humility that inevitability engenders. And the calm. And the sense of equality among human beings, and religions, and lovers.

I think.

The Obvious

A lot of my dissertation work right now seems superficial, because it all seems so obvious.  But nobody has said these things yet, so they haven't entered into the front-of-the-mind pool of things we draw on.  

Rabbinic epistemology is not very hard to plumb.  Part of my dissertation does this.  

Stating the obvious is underrated.  Scholarship - or important thought of whatever kind - is not always about making profound observations; sometimes it's about bringing to the fore what might otherwise be overlooked.  We overlook great things sometimes, so how much the more so do we overlook small things.  

Either that, or these are self-serving thoughts to justify a not-so-impressive dissertation.  Well, at least I'll have something to say at job interviews if I'm called out on this.

Wisdom Entails Consistency

A professor at the University of Oklahoma has written a brilliant book about Socrates' epistemological theory.  He might be all wrong, but he's a damn good writer and it's a well thought out and compelling book.  

One things he tries to prove is that part (or maybe most - I didn't get to the end yet) of Socrates' epistemology is that wisdom entails consistency.  That is, a person who has true wisdom will not have inconsistent beliefs.  That's why in the Socratic dialogues, essentially all he has to do is show that some of the interlocutor's own beliefs contradict some other belief (namely, the belief in question that is the topic of the dialogue).

This sounds pretty familiar.  The rabbis of the Talmud (early and late) had much the same epistemological theory!  That's why it bothered them so much if the Bible seemed to contradict itself, or if one rabbi seemed to contradict another.  If the Bible as a whole, and the rabbinic project as a whole, are to bear wisdom and truth, they cannot bear inconsistencies.  

It is a sound epistemological theory.  I shall write about it in my dissertation.

But.

It does not apply to emotional or practical life.  I feel two contradictory things at once -  nothing's wrong.  (Actually, something's right: I am not forcing one to acquiesce to the other.)  I make a decision today that does not accord with my decisions yesterday -  nothing's wrong.  (Actually, something's right: I'm able to live a full and experimental and adventurous life.)  

Epistemology is great.  But it should not confused with anything other than epistemology.  

Back to dissertation work.... Later alligators.  

Names

I've just read the first chapter of what appears to be a very cool book of essays: What do You Care What Other People Think: Further Adventures of a Curious Character,  by (and about) Richard P. Feynman.  In this first chapter he writes about how his father instilled in him a love for all things science (he was a Nobel Prize winning physicist - apparently a pretty important scientist).

At one point he explains the special kind of scientific thinking his father taught him by contrasting another child's experience of a nature walk with dad, with Feynman's own.  The other kid learned the name of the bird over there.  Feynman learned to notice what it's doing, and why it does it.  (It's picking at its feathers because of lice, or something like that.)  He says that his father taught him early on to distinguish knowing the name of something, and knowing something.

Yes and yes.  This resonated quite deeply.

But the more I think about it the more I also appreciate the other side.  Names do matter.  Sure, knowing the name and going no deeper than its pronunciation probably doesn't matter all that much.  Unless of course the pronunciation itself tells you something about it.  The name "Zalman" is a Russification of "Solomon," so I know something about this person's ancestry, or the people his parents admired, just by hearing his name.  Or when I meet someone named "David," I can learn a bit from how he says his own name: Duh-vid, Day-vid, Dah-VEED, Dah-weed."

And if it's a made-up name, say, in a book, I can learn something about what the author wants me to know about this person.  Like the two sons in the book of Ruth, Machlon and Kilyon (literally, disease and destruction), who die young and quite early in story.

And then there's context.  If a man buying chicken and rice from a street vendor is addressed right then and there as "Yossi," this might mean something to bystanders.  Perhaps he'll choose to go by "Joey" for the moment.  

I was once in a store with a guy named Shalom, who needed to give his name for an order.  "What's your name?"  "Shalom."  "Wow!  Talk about a Jewish name!"  "Yeah, and I'm not even Jewish."  "Really???"  "Just kidding, I'm Jewish."  "Hahahahah!" 

And then there's my name.  On the one hand, it's kind of a cheerleader name.  Jenny.  Once in college a friend said it was kind of a funny name for me.  I like the irony.  And on the other hand,  it's the name of my grandmother's beloved sister, whom my grandmother adored, and talked about as having such deep wisdom and such a gentle manner.  I hear both resonances when my name is spoken.

I suppose Feynman's right.  Just knowing a name is not enough, and it's certainly a far cry from knowing the thing, or the person.  But knowing why the name is the name, what it means and how it's pronounced, actually can be a big part of knowing a thing, or a person.

Shoot - I should be working on my dissertation.  

Dissertation.  Just the name makes it sound so....  Oy.