The Human Mind
as an Error-Checking Mechanism
@12 April 1998"High on a hill truth stands
And he that would reach her
About and about must go
And what the hill's suddenness resists
Win so"
[John Donne, 1572-1631]
It is time somebody invented the electron theory of truth. Perhaps it could go something like this. Human minds come with a variety of different valencies, although no one has yet devised a periodic table of their range. The simplest fellow, like a hydrogen atom with its single shell electron, holds that one truth stands for all worldly and other-worldly experiences. More complex souls have a varying number of truth (electron) shells, and although their consciousness may habitually dwell at a fairly intimate level, say the behaviour of a spouse, with sufficient heat and agitation, their attention (hence their judgement) may jump to an outer shell of national affairs, or to the dizzy distance of humankind. A few relatively eccentric human types may scarcely ever access their inner shells of intimacy with the laser light of mind.I am encouraged in these speculations by the stunning lack of interest most people evince in evidential proof which does not relate to their normal attention levels and perceived immediate interests. For example, nowadays I pay the rent (barely) by working as an evening telesalesperson, flogging a pen set at an outrageous price and fraudulently in the name of a charity (which actually receives 6%). This is the world of the salesman, where truth is contracted to the immediate goal of securing a sale. I hear from the booths all around me the insouciant lies of a sales contest. They are earnest, genuine, and wholly promiscuous. Once won, the customer like a fallen woman, loses all respect. I hear myself lying, and try to rationalize by securing the largest number of cash donations, which do actually go to the charity (and are little valued by the employer and "team leaders").
Is the sales team so different from TAFE managements in so-called educational institutions? I think not. I have seen and heard them lying shamelessly about "competency", and "quality", and nonexistent specialist staff skills in order to secure contracts and tenders. "Yep, we can do that. ISO9000 certified". They don't see themselves as lying at the time. The presentations are also earnest, genuine and wholly promiscuous. Once the tender is won they lose all serious interest in meeting educational commitments.
A mere professional teacher who analyses the situation, identifies flaws, opportunities and actual skill levels -- as I have done -- is labeled as a troublemaker and sooner or later disposed of (since teachers no longer have genuine professional status in these places). The professional can write well-researched proposals for improvement, even secure the support of peers, and he will be ignored. He is not within the appropriate circumference of the manager's electron shell of truth. Then a half-baked political instruction, perhaps palely reflecting the professional's original critique will come from above. Suddenly the manager is perspicuous in finding the flaws of the "old" method that was only yesterday at the "cutting edge". Yesterday's heresy is today's "latest research", albeit without acknowledgment. Their consciousness has found incentive to kick to a higher level of "truth".
Universities are the citadels of genuine research, aren't they? Home of the search for powerful truths? No, actually they are not. Now there are indeed individuals who do ground breaking, innovative work in universities. It is against the prevailing odds of institutional encouragement and work commitments. They are often unpopular (although at least they have a better chance of defending their approach than benighted teachers in TAFEs and secondary schools). When you look at research in any field, you invariably find that it operates within strict parameters, not only of accepted methodology, but of focus. This latter is a matter of fashion, career-positioning, and bureaucratic approval.
What is fashionable amongst a group of cardiac researchers, or field linguists might not of course make the evening news, but the same forces are at work. Within such parameters much of the work is diligent, and even clever in a narrow way. Yet when you question it through another prism, or from the imperatives of a wider perspective, you see the eyes of your listener go out of focus. You have lost him, jumped the electron shell of his truth boundary, become irrelevant.
The wider truth of course is that the largest percentage of supposed research papers contribute nothing to human understanding, are never studied by anyone but the referees, and scanned only by an occasional postgraduate student seeking to flesh out a bibliography. They are mere props for someone's resume. All this means that the genuinely interesting researchers are tarred by the same brush.
Further down the cleverness scale, teachers (TAFE and otherwise) with their 50% undergraduate degrees, passed on a mush of selected readings which are barely comprehended, are certified to transmit our culture, yet in the main lack even a glimmering of insight into what critical thought and the processes of innovation really mean. The psychological mechanisms at work in their minds are, after all, those of the telesalesperson.
All opinions expressed in Thor's Unwise Ideas and The Passionate Skeptic are entirely those of the author, who has no aim to influence, proselytize or persuade others to a point of view. He is pleased if his writing generates reflection in readers, either for or against the sentiment of the argument.
"The Human Mind as an Error Checking Mechanism" © copyrighted to Thor May; all rights reserved 2000