Peter Emmerson

7. Habituses and absolute-truth (a-t) heuristics.

Our difficulty to live without certainties distorts our perceptions promoting a view that absolute truths govern earthly mundane functioning – this is what I call a scientific approach.  Such a model dominates British intellectual thactivities.  Correspondingly, engineered solutions are seen as dependent on deploying pure mathematical absolute-truth technology.  This is a serious mistake because such technologies of certainty can never fully engage with comparatively uncertain mundane experiences and correspondingly can at best merely mimic them.  Absolute truths are not in evidence anywhere other than people’s minds: God’s Ten Commandments are a matter of faith not fact; logical technique as a means of establishing absolute truths breaks down when the facts have to be taken into account – real triangles are merely modelled by Pythagoras’ theorem as there are no straight lines or perfect 90⁰ angles.  Absolute truths are mental tools or what Tversky & Kahneman (1974) call ‘heuristics’, which do not constitute mundane realities as so many influential people believe.  Techniques for formulating absolute-truth (a-t) heuristics were developed by ancient people to deal with their specific fears and anxieties so that they could function effectively.  We have inherited their words and conventions and continue to apply them uncritically even when they have outlived their usefulness; because like ancient Greeks, absolute truths make us feel safe.

Safety is experienced in various ways, one being self-belief.  By deploying a-t heuristics we are safe in knowing that we can thact with conviction, even when confronted by serious resistance from people with far more influence than ourselves.  Belief in absolute truth will sustain us even during periods of severe social isolation when all seems lost.  Orwell (1989, pp. 92-3) explains this process in his book 1984 when describing what strengthens and motivates Winston Smith to live with desperate isolation and resist Big Brother:

“His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in the debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer.  And yet he was in the right!  They were wrong and he was right.  The obvious, the silly and the true had got to be defended.  Truisms are true, hold on to that! ……. Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four.  If that is granted all else follows”.

Ideals can fortify us to take a stand, by providing us with something that is worth fighting and dying for in absolute certainty that we are right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong and should be resisted if not stopped.  Such certainty provides a platform from which we can manage our fear and anxiety so that we can be assertive and live rather than just existing in dissonant apathy as per Mathieu in Sartre’s The Roads to Freedom.  In giving us a definite reason to die a-t heuristics motivate us to live!

However, our factual, mundane experience suggests that such beliefs are illusory as pointed out some 300 years ago by philosopher David Hume.  As far as I can see, certainty is nothing more than a habit learned from previous generations fostered by centuries of commitment to a-t heuristics.  Such a-t heuristical dominance has only recently been seriously challenged as engineers developed more successful yet realistic methods for dealing with human problems.  I want to look at ‘socialism’ as a modern a-t heuristic developed by 18^th and 19^th century theometaphysicians committed to ideals that defend, celebrate and proselytize virtues such as togetherness and limited personal autonomy.  As with other ideals socialism is an ideological weapon, which in grand Socratic dialectical fashion can be used to win an argument and if necessary mobilize an army of people with reason to fight and die in battle with capitalists, who are without doubt wrong.  From a socialist point of view, capitalists are bullies and cheats, who busy themselves exploiting their potential for greater personal autonomy through commercial thactivities.  From an engineering perspective socialism, and capitalism for that matter, are a-t heuristics manufactured by theometaphysicians to help us manage our engagement with comparatively uncertain experiences.