Unintended Consequences

Part 2 - What Harm Is There?

In Part 1 I discussed the idea of questioning and coming to terms with the limits of our knowledge. Volumes more can be written on this topic. In fact, stay tuned -- in future posts I'll be revisiting some of the latest research on the brain and how we think and make some reading recommendations if such things tickle your fancy.

Today, though, I'd like to continue the conversation about wrong beliefs and why we need to rigorously protect ourselves as much as we can from them.

One of the questions unasked in my last post was "How does one discern which questions have value?" I'd like to offer these guidelines for sorting out the worthwhile questions from the worthless:

(1) Is the question answerable?
Beyond nonsense questions (for example -- with apologies to Noam Chomsky -- "Do colorless green ideas sleep furiously?"), there are some questions that simply can not be answered, for they are unverifiable and unfalsifiable. For example, "What is at the end of infinity?" "Does God exist?" "Are there gremlins in my head telling me what to do?"

There is no way that one can provide a definitive answer to these questions. (This, however, does not necessarily mean that the possibilities suggested by them can not be reasonably ascertained -- see the section in the previous post on Occam's Razor. Elaborate and sophisticated belief systems, whether theological or philosophical, are often the equivalent of "justification overkill.")

(2) Is the question structured so as to allow an honest answer?
If I ask you, "Why did you rape your sister?" I'm assuming a lot. That may seem like an extreme example but we frame questions like this all the time without thinking about it. For instance, any time we preface a question with "Wouldn't you agree ..." or "Do you agree ..." we anticipate the answer, expecting that there is one true answer. Similarly, the question "Why is popcorn better than celery?" contains an indirect assertion, that popcorn is in fact better than celery, when, in a shared reality, it is merely a preference.

Many of the conspiracy theory questions presume an underlying assumption. "Why does the government deny that chemtrails exist?" "How can we be sure that the mercury in street lights is safe?" "Why do Democrats want to take our guns?" "Why do Republicans always fall on the side of self-interest instead of the common good?" (I can assure you that the answer to each of the last two questions is "They don't.") Framing the question in such a way as to disort or influence the answer defeats the purpose of asking the question.

(3) What is the purpose of the question?
This is perhaps the most important aspect of discerning good questions from bad. Are you attempting to find out a fact or conclusion? Are you evaluating a fact or conclusion? Are you asking for an opinion? Are you inquiring about an individual experience or about a general perception? Are you sussing out a suspected principle? Are you interested in how a person feels or what they think? Are you trying to understand an abstract idea?

If you're not sure why you're asking the question, you can't reasonably expect the answer to satisfy.

The Socratic Approach

When we formulate a question, a good habit to get into is to stop and think about what we're asking. "Why do I think that?" "Is this always the case?" Questions about the question we ask help us to clarify our thinking and pinpoint what it is we're actually wanting to know.

"Am I asking to support an idea?" (or "What are my presuppositions in asking this question?") is an important question that can signal a bias in the question (such as a confirmation bias, which is a tendency to seek out and favor information that confirms our beliefs or hypotheses; or worse, it can be an indicator of motivated reasoning*.) It's important to know and challenge our own assumptions.

"What are the implications of this assumption?" Seeking out the consequences of a belief or a hypothesis will often point up logical fallacies or other errors in thinking. For instance, in the Gambler's Fallacy, a man believes that his run of bad luck must cease sometime; so if he just sticks it out, his luck will change for the good. In reality, the next game he plays is a completely separate and uncorrelated event (like a coin toss). There is no such thing as a "streak" of either good or bad luck when it comes to games of chance.

"Am I doubting evidence provided?" "Am I using lack of evidence as a reason for not accepting the premise?" If either, the questioner is exhibiting an argument from ignorance, assuming that a claim is true because it has not been proven false, or assuming it's false because it's not been proven true.

"Is there a counter argument that I would accept?" If the answer to this question is "No", then most likely the question is not concerned with fact-finding but with persuading, and typifies a baiting of the person asked. We must take into consideration that other perspectives are possible and attempt to see things from a different viewpoint.

There are dozens of errors we make in our thinking and reasoning. Still, thinking critically about a subject and the questions we ask about it is the best tool we have for sorting out truth from fiction.

The Unintended Consequences

What, you may ask, as my friend did, is the harm in asking any question?

I'll tell you.

Any amateur magician knows the value of misdirection, the "smoke and mirrors" that focus the audience's attention on the wrong things. This is necessary for the trick to work, for the audience to buy the illusion, even for them to enjoy the magic show.

The insidious consequence of asking the wrong questions is a similar misdirection. If something seemingly immediate demands our attention, it becomes a threat to be dealt with. (As tribal peoples, we are constantly on the lookout for foreign and out-of-the-ordinary circumstances. And it is not a far stretch for us to make up imagined enemies to combat in the absence of real ones, even if it's our own government.)

In this day and age, it's easy for our attention to be diverted from issues that should demand out attention -- water quality, mitigating climate change, widespread unemployment, poverty and hunger in these United States -- As long as an electorate can be preoccupied by non-existent threats, imagined boogie-men, and invented distractions, they can remain ignorant of the important issues that truly can affect the health of the populace, the well-being of the planet, and our time on this pale blue dot.

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* Motivated reasoning occurs when people cling to false beliefs despite overwhelming evidence. Such cognitive dissonance motivates them to search, not for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, but to search for information that confirms what they already believe.