Thought experiment
Jeremy has a maddeningly interesting thought experiment at Talking Philosophy. It’s interesting partly, I think, because it’s full of holes – if that’s a meaningful thing to say about thought experiments, which perhaps it isn’t, since the terms are whatever the experimenter says they are. And yet – some inspire people to say ‘Yes but’ and others don’t. This one seems to inspire a lot of ‘Yes but’ (although I have to admit that a lot of the ‘Yes but’ting is mine). But it’s also interesting partly because of the issues involved. Quick summary (read the original for the details, it’s not long): imaginary world: harmoniously religious, and happy; no real education; renegade group which educates some children about “a new-fangled way of finding out about things called ‘Science’” so “they’re taught all about scientific procedure (you know, hypotheses, evidence, testing, black swans”. After a few years they go back to their world and try to pass on what they’ve learned but can’t, and they alienate everyone; they miss their old life but can’t return to it; “they live lonely, miserable, friendless lives.” Questions: were they brainwashed? And were they victims of child abuse? And are there any implications for our world?
Part of what interests me is the fundamental implausibility of the imagined world, especially as portrayed via the children’s nostalgia for it:
It is a thoroughly and harmoniously religious country (though in fact belief in God is no more rationally justified in this world than it is in our world). People live happily. They sing hymns together. Burn incense. They share the fruits of their labours…The converts’ initial enthusiasm diminishes, and they find themselves longing for the old ways: for the happy singing, the joy of worshipping the God they no long believe to exist, the togetherness engendered by a shared belief.
I try dutifully to imagine such a world for the purposes of thinking about the thought experiment, but it’s hard, because we’re not like that (and, I suppose, because it seems to give religion the credit for being able to do something that in fact can’t be done, so it makes me twitchy). There is no human group (let alone entire country) that is all happy, all joyous, all blissful togetherness. Some of us are temperamentally too damn fond of apartness for that to work, just for one thing, even before beliefs come into play. But more to the point, there is never that much uniformity and agreement. There are always dissenters, doubters, novelty-peddlers, rebels, askers of questions, jokers, teasers, runaways, stirrers up of trouble.
Another part of what interests me is the (delayed) revelation that the point of the experiment is not (as I thought it was) the question whether or not social isolation is too high a price to pay for (say) enlightenment, or education, or scientific education, but that scientific education is indoctrination. I dispute that, but to no avail. (Well, say not the struggle naught availeth; I think I’m right, so that will have to do.
I’m interested in the first question though. I think the answer is much more mixed and patchy than it can be in this experiment. Social isolation is a higher price for some people than it is for others, and enlightenment or education is worth more to some than to others. It is simply an assertion that “they live lonely, miserable, friendless lives” – that is the thought experiment; but in reality, people in such a situation would have a more mixed experience. Some might be lonely and miserable but others might be a little lonely and not miserable and excited about the new mental horizons they’d discovered, and others still might be actually happy. Education can cut people off from others, that’s well known, but it can also unite them with different others, and/or give them other and very satisfying rewards. It’s the same with religious belief – not having it can cut people off from others, but so can having it. It’s never a matter of X plus all good things on one side and Y plus misery on the other (well, almost never). So the experiment is interesting in being irritatingly oversimplified, so that it provokes thought.
What makes indoctrination “indoctrination” instead of “education” is DOCTRINE! Teaching science is teaching a method of inquiry, and perhaps more broadly (if the science education is very good and unusually successful) inculcating the habit and inclination to inquire for oneself instead of simply believing what you’re told. To call that “doctrine” is to twist the word beyond any use consistent with its other uses – sheer Humpty Dumpty-ism at its worst.
—
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”
Thank you, G.
It’s just amazing how many people don’t realize that science is primarily a *method*.
It’s even more amazing how many people don’t realize that they use scientific method most of the time in practically all areas of their lives – except that some choose to stop using it in areas where it would yield undesirable or discomforting answers.
Well Jeremy does know that, I hasten to say. And he may mean that science is taught as a doctrine in the thought experiment world rather than in this one. I’m not quite sure because the rules seem to change a little each time he replies.
I am a bit confused because even though Jery says leave aside the kidnaping! you cant,because they didnt give their consent the kids were brainwashed and abused,the answer to both a and b has to be yes.
If science is taught as a doctrine, then what is taught is not science. Using the Humpty Dumpty definition at a different level of the thought experiment doesn’t avoid the problem.
Richard, tell Jerry he’s confusing us all on purpose and that he should pull his socks up.
“If science is taught as a doctrine, then what is taught is not science.”
Just so; and the details (testing, black swans) undercut the doctrine claim.
Q: What goes ‘clip clop clip clop clip clop BANG!!!’ ?
A: Amish drive-by
This is less a thought experiment than a plot hook for a pulp sci fi magazine short story from the 60s.
It does outline why I don’t like thought experiments though. It seems like they have a secondary purpose sometimes. A secondary purpose of making you feel that the underlying presumptions of the thought experiment are more plausible than they really are. Because afterall, its “cheating” in a thought experiment to point out that its not real life. That’s not the point, its an experiment in *thought.* But once the experimentor has you pretending that his presumptions are plausible, he’s got you treating the ridiculous seriously.
Look at Baggini’s thought experiment about a religious Darwin in a Lamarkian society. Same problem.
Wouldn’t it be more valid (given the ‘no certainty of Gd’ premiss) to say the whole society there is the brainwashed bit and the others have been liberated from that brainwashing? Surely brainwashing is defined relative to reality, not relative to majority beliefs?
I don’t know why Jeremy suggests the most likely conclusion is ‘brainwashed but not abused’ (as he seems to do in question c) – to me the reverse looks by far the more logical conclusion to draw (glossing over the broad objections to the scenario itself).
Yeah, what Patrick said. I always seem to have this problem with thought experiments – at least with the ones Jeremy does! I always do want to ‘cheat,’ to separate the plausible parts from the implausible ones – but it seems too hand-waving and useless to just assert a whole string of unlikelihoods and then draw conclusions from them. A few initial necessary unlikelihoods, okay, but when they start to pile up, I think the thought experiment stops working, or at least stops telling us anything interesting.
Ah, apparently that’s not cheating after all, at least not according to Julian (who should know something about thought experiments).
“But seriously, a decent thought experiment has to control its variables. Ideally it should change just one or two things from the way the world is – if we want to use it to think better about the way the world is, of course.”
That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking, but without any confidence that that’s an ought in thought experiments. Useful; from now on I can just say ‘too many variables’ when there are too many variables. That’ll save time.
Maybe Jery is deliberately winding us up note his absence!if he is serious he would at least hang around to defend his position.
Well Jerry does love to wind people up, as I’m sure you know, but actually he might just not have time to defend his position. I’ve told him myself that he’s not actually required to answer blog comments (then regretted it when he doesn’t answer my cogent objections!). Anyway he did defend his position on Talking Philos.
But you should just tell him to pull his socks up on general principle.
I love thought experiments, I have several books of them on my shelf, including of course ‘The Pig…’. They are rather like optical illusions; the really good ones draw you back time and again, the great ones have an elegance and skill that makes them classics. They provide a valuable insight into how the mind interprets the rest of the stuff out there, and can set you off on fascinating by-ways.
Or they can just give you a headache.
Jerry is like a skinhead. All forehead and know-how.
x
“They know that their way of finding out about the world is the right way, but they wish it were otherwise”.
Yeah, but in the heel of the hunt is it is not better to be made aware that their world is right even at the expense of the unhappiness OF WISHING IT WERE OTHERWISE..
Truth should matter more, it can be painful having to learn about the truth. IT IS STILL BETTER, BECAUSE IT IS REAL
Ignorance is bliss,they say. And would it not be wonderfully blissful living in an ignorant world. NO! NO! NO!
As who in their trained scientific mind would want to live in an ignorant world having found out about its ignorance. That would be pure HELL.
Gosh, I hope this makes sense.
Dont forget Marie T the children in this instance were kidnaped!ends dont justify means.
The experimenter told us – to thus, leave KIDNAPPING aside. Maybe it was by him put there to prick ones moral, subliminal conscience. I do not know. Am just posting this off the top of my unlearned unscientific philosophical head! Have never done a Thought Experiment so would not be familiar.
“The children are closeted away for a few years and they’re taught all about scientific procedure”
Had the children not also been closeted in their sheltered, harmonious, religious and nice undemanding lives before the “put aside — kidnapping?” At least the children by their scientific training were enormously enriched. Despite all the later loneliness/isolation that followed At least they have the wherewithal to analyse the world in which they live. That would not have occurred in their former lives. Hope this does not sound too convoluted?
“Despite all the later loneliness/isolation that followed At least they have the wherewithal to analyse the world in which they live.”
Well that’s exactly what I think – and that’s why I think it’s a bit of a cheat just to say their lives were miserable (even though when one makes up a thought experiment one can say whatever one likes – but then one risks doing a thought experiment that doesn’t have any relevance to the real world). It would have made more sense, I think, to say they had few friends and felt lonely; it would have made even more sense to say that but also point out that their lives were enriched by their scientific training.
Surely if you take the position that the childrens lives were enriched by their experience you are basicly saying that ends justify means if the cause is rightous?
No, because 1) Jeremy later said the abduction of the children isn’t the point and 2) I’m not saying that their lives were enriched and that’s all there is to it, I’m just saying that the enrichment would be part of their lives afterward and that Jeremy left that out, which I think makes a mess of his experiment.
“No, because 1) Jeremy later said the abduction of the children isn’t the point”
If the abduction, [implied child abuse} of the children was not a point of the issue, in the first place, why say they were kidnapped at all? Why not just say the children voluntarily, with the permission of their wonderfully religious parents went with the radical group!?! Because seemingly, from an emotional nurturing standpoint they were “would be” – high achievers. Their stable, but as yet, undeveloped minds would surely stand them in good stead to open themselves confidently up to new challenging scientific horizons. Still hope this makes sense?
Well, good question! I guess I let him get away with too much if I accept that later comment, especially since you’re right: the kidnapping is part of the point because the subject is brainwashing; the kidnapping makes it much more like brainwashing than it would be if the children just happily went along to Science School.
Right, cancel item 1 there.
If the kidnapping of Children has to one side be placed – is Jeremy not hoodwinking one by telling one to leave that point to one side? Knowing that readers will not, put point aside – without further questioning – due to its seriousness. It is like telling a precocious child not to touch the pretty doll that is – before their pretty eyes. If I am rehashing, like the “kidnapping point” please ignore.
Well, yeah. [snicker] It’s hard to deny that Jeremy has done a lot of attempted hoodwinking with this one.
“Were these children brainwashed?”
From the standpoint of the world they initially lived in and the fact that they were taken away without “their prior consent” by the renegade group from their respective sheltered environment, I would say in that sense that they were brainwashed.
would it not be simpler (for the thought experiment at least) to simply take the children from the distant past and then return them to that past?
Or would that simply expose the fact that we’ve never lived in the Utopia that the experiment seems to require to make any kind of a coherent point?
Or to have the scientists go to the distant past and then leave again – to do a version of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, in short. But yes, that would make the Utopian aspect difficult to rule in, wouldn’t it.
Imagining time travel is of course a very interesting kind of thought experiment. We all ought to do more of it.