Living with all of our capacities

I have realised that this blog has, at times, taken a markedly spiritual bent. I have realised that in my efforts to try to tread more lightly on this planet, in my conversations with people about environmentalism and being, it is not that only the planet is being transformed, but ourselves. Not in any superficial way, not in a consumerist "Oh, I will buy this instead of that" way, but rather a deeper, more durable way. This durability, this inner reflection, I believe can allow us to live more consciously no matter where we are, to be more open to experience, to be more open to the present, to a be a more satisfied people.

As an engineer, I am taught the ways of western scientific traditions. Data are obtained, and they can be reproduced, given the same conditions, elsewhere on Earth. Of course, these data are reproduceable given the right conditions, given an understanding of the methodologies of "science," given the so-called "laws" of nature. But then again, we are stuck with a culture that is destroying this Earth's capacity for life. There is no doubt about that. And in this secularisation of our worldly experience, we seem to lose track of what makes us human. I am in no way differentiating humans from non-humans, but rather speaking to what makes us human regardless of what the rest of the natural world is like. 

From an evolutionary standpoint, yes, we are "animals," we compete, we fight, we try to pass on our genes. One may think of everything that we partake in, culture, capitalism, industrialisation, education, as just a manifestation of evolution. We want to dominate so that we can survive. But, as linguistics pioneer Jean Berko Gleason says, we also have consciousness. We contemplate, we have an understanding of presence, and it is this consciousness that allows us to reflect on our experiences. I believe then that we temper the evolutionary forces at play, our biological urges, with this consciousness.

So then what is it about this secularised culture and worldview that allows such destruction? Physicist Arthur Zajonc, a contemplative of the Western tradition influenced by Rudolf Steiner, believes that we are not fully engaging ourselves when we try to face the challenges before us. Indeed he says, there are various levels of experience. And these various levels affect what we bring to the table. The only level we deem fit right now is that of secularism and science, devoid of emotion, emotion that is brought up through observing the world in different ways. How do we get to different levels of experience, then? Well, we must calm ourselves, direct attention, sustain that attention, and open up to what is normally invisible. Things then show themselves to you, deepening our human experience. Zajonc says profoundly, that

"[i]f we are committed to knowledge, then we ought to be committed also to exploring the world with these lenses, with this method in mind and heart. And otherwise, we are kind of doing it half way...when we go to solve the problems of our world, whether they are educational or environmental we are bringing only half of our intelligence to bear...we have left the other half idle, or relegated it to religious philosophers. But if we are going to be integral ourselves, from a perspective that is whole, then we need to bring all of our capacities to the issues that we confront."

My mum has always talked to me about such spirituality. A few years ago, I didn't really think twice about it. I had a full faith in science and its secularism when conducting myself. But I have now realised, through this journey, that in any action that takes a stand for something other than oneself, that tries to make a durable change in the world, more must be brought to the table. that our consciousness, our capacities for compassion and empathy play as much, if not a bigger role than science, data, and numbers.

Every decision is moral

When one thinks of morality, generally one thinks of conduct with friends and family, and conduct within social constructs. One might think that the decision to steal something or not is a moral issue. It is; it is a deeply moral issue. But when it comes to buying fruit sprayed with pesticides, or deciding to invest in a car, or flicking on the light switch, are these decisions moral? I would argue that these decisions are as much about morality as they are about anything else. Indeed, most every decision we make in this world is a reflection of our morality and our values. Unfortunately, we've been told constantly (probably subconsciously) that when it comes to every day living and every day choices, morality can take a back seat. And given all we know about the massive problems that face us, it is this behaviour - a dichotomy between what we think is moral and our daily choices - that has perpetuated these problems. I want to write today a little bit about supposedly amoral or neutral aspects of our life - science and technology.

Many scientists and technologists practice their trade thinking that the results produced of their work are amoral or neutral - there is no moral baggage associated with the findings. Just because F = ma doesn't mean the result has moral implications. This is decidedly untrue. There are four reasons that come to my mind (and there are likely more):

• First, because we know, we can use. Laws of science can be used to do many tasteful and distasteful things (like cook a nice meal, or develop a chemical for war). 
• Second, data have import for people's lives, especially in cases like climate change. 
• Third, the processes of scientific and technological development rely on what is available. Technology is not possible without science, but science is also not possible without technology. Where does technology come from? Technology is not made out of thin air, but is rather constructed through the same violent processes that we like to blame for causing ecological and social degradation, like mining and burning fossil fuels. And is this technological development that further allows us to investigate science, and so on, and so on...
• Fourth, just because we cannot see or immediately feel the effects of many of our choices does not mean that the effects are not present. This culture has done a wonderful job of separating ends and means, with technology playing a key role. As Aidan Davison has written about in Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability, the flipping of a light switch just to illuminate a room invokes massive technological and social infrastructures that we cannot see, and therefore, it is difficult to assign a moral value to the action.

In the end, there is no way one can deny the interconnectedness of oneself. It is true now that every choice one makes has had the hand of others in it, and will (unwillingly, at times) affect others, although unwillingly.

What does that mean for our daily lives? It means that we must try to take as much accountability as possible for our choices. It means that decisions cannot be made in isolation, but ought to be made with a full respect for forces at play. It means that we must question what is thrown at us, regardless of how "neutral" something may seem. Assigning moral values to our choices and decisions may allow us a much needed introspection.

Further thoughts on activism in science

The philosophy of science, and of the technologies stemming from that science, assume that science is dispassionate, that there are irreducible laws of nature, and that science in itself has no morality. What this has come to mean is that in order to practice science and have any credibility in the community of science, the scientist should generally not speak out about the application of science to society (unless, of course, the science or technology has positive implications for the economy, which technology at least always seems to have).

Unfortunately, this view is flawed - science and technology are deeply moral. They both have massive implications for human thought and behaviour. Technologies are applied within the context of communities and the environment those communities exist in. Therefore, it is fallacious to think that the job of the scientist is done with the discovery of a theory, or the provision of data. In fact, that is where the job of the scientist begins. As I have mentioned in previous post, data do not speak for themselves, but are interpreted and internalised by different people differently. It is up to the scientists to maintain the integrity of the data, and to make sure that only the well-intentioned outcomes resulting from those data are pursued.

And so I wonder why I hear of only a few prominent scientists speaking up about what should be done socially given the data we have (1, 2).

Through irreducibility, science has come to distance itself from the context within which is it pursued. Distractions such as human emotion must be left far away from science. But once we know what the data can say, there must be an emotional response to the data. If this were a different time, I could maybe respect the role of the scientist as a dispassionate provider of data and theory. But things need to change here and now. So why not it begin with those that know the outcomes of human behaviour?

The data don't speak for themselves

One thing I have constantly thought about is, How do I get my message across? Over the past year, it has been interesting to observe how people react to the trashlessness. With something like trash, a visceral action and outcome, one would think that it would be easy to convince people about the impacts and tolls of their choices on society and the environment. Yet, it is never easy to convince people that their choices have an impact for several reasons. One, of course, is that people feel that their choices, in the grander scheme of things, are inconsequential. Two, they might agree with you, and choose not to act out of indifference. Three, they might agree with you, but choose not to act because changing their behaviour goes against everything they have been taught. There may be a resistance to change because that behaviour is deep-rooted culturally, and because people may see that everyone else is doing what they are doing...so that can't be wrong, right? This last reason is particularly challenging to address because true environmental activism does fly in the face of most all cultural norms and how we've structured our interactions amongst ourselves and the environment. In that light, Katie recently sent out an interview of Professor Andy Hoffman in The New York Times. He has worked for a while now with a dear friend of mine on climate skepticism. (I recommend you read this interview; it's really, really fascinating.) One thing Professor Hoffman said that struck me was, "So when I hear scientists say, 'The data speak for themselves,' I cringe. Data never speak. And data generally and most often are politically and socially inflected. They have import for people’s lives. To ignore that is to ignore the social and cultural dimensions within which this science is taking place."

Climate change is something we all have to face. But for the reasons described above, people may not want to change their behaviour, which directly contributes to the problem. The verdict on the veracity of climate change, or global warming, has been out for decades now, and yet, many people just don't believe in it. Thousands of papers and much effort has been invested in international assessments. But, it just is so damn hard to convince people (Act II) that have made up their minds. What is particularly interesting is how people choose to believe some things, and act on them or use that beliefs, and choose not to believe other things. For example, let's take the jet engine. Many decades, people are still trying to figure out how to get those things to work better. Most times, we don't even know the complex fluid mechanics going on in the engine. Yet, the understanding about the combustion and fluid mechanics and control of engines has come, not surprisingly, from the same process, social and political, that has proven that climate change is real and human induced. (I am talking about the "scientific, peer-review process.") But people will very readily put themselves on a plane, and "trust that the engineers and scientists did their job in assuring their safety," while at the same time not believe that those very planes are ecologically impactful. This is exactly what Professor Hoffman is getting at. Traveling on a plane to visit a foreign land or see relatives is important to people, but anything that will change or take away the ability to do so will be fought till the very end.

Limits of the mind, science and society

Why is it we feel that we can "solve" all of the problems before us? I am sure you know about Einstein's saying that basically states that we can't solve problems with the same mindset and capacities that have created those very problems. How much and what do we need to know before we have all of our problems solved? We continue to feel that by just gathering more data, by investing just a few hundred million dollars in some technology, we will see breakthroughs that will allow us to continue our lifestyles, and will encourage others to change how they live so they can be more like us. Unfortunately, we cannot "solve" all of our problems through research.

Most problems are created because, given our limited capacities to envision and know what effects and side-effects, we just have no way of knowing how something that is being implemented or introduced into our world (consumer products, for example) will necessarily change and affect it. The scales of complexity explode when we start to factor in how a certain chemical will not only affect humans, but also how that might affect the fish and algae downstream, or the bear that eats the fish.

There was a wonderful episode of Radiolab (actually, they are all wonderful. Listen to them all.) on limits - limits of the body, mind and science. One segment of the show talks about a computer program developed by a couple of people from Cornell (Dr. Hod Lipson and Michael Schmidt) that can deduce mathematical relationships in nature, through simple observation. But the answers to the problems we tell it to evaluate are to questions that we haven't even asked yet, or don't have the mental capacity to understand.

I contend that we know all we need to know to address the issues facing us. What are needed, more importantly, are the humility and responsibility to accept that we are wrong, and that we are letting precious time slip by in trying to find "solutions," which will introduce their own problems. We must reduce our dependence on data and live with an understanding that the data don't help, that what is needed is more compassion for everything around us (for example, we've known all we needed to know about issues like climate change many years ago; but we can wave goodbye to Mauritius.), that we live with an understanding that whatever we do given our current ways of living has a negative impact on our air, water, relationships, land, sentient beings and non-sentient beings.