| Apr. 27th, 2005 @ 10:22 am What the (bleep) does anyone know? |
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Current Mood: adaptive
[EDIT: My brain's dictionary plugin wasn't working this morning. I mean, "confirmation" not really "affirmation"]
My physicist friend J has posted an interesting article about his experiences being a panellist for the movie "What the (bleep) do we know?"
On one hand, the story has a nice core: people want to be helpful and positive. On the other hand, they fall too hard on the confirmation side of the spectrum.
Let me explain. With any belief or opinion, we have two opposing sides: Confirmation and Adaptation. Take for example, if I wrote a story. I show it to people and if they say, "Wow! That's a great story!" then I'm chuffed. This is confirmation and is the best side of things, from where I'm standing. I've got it right and I don't need to do anything further. On the other hand, if I show my story to people and they say, "Well, yeah... But this is weak, and fix this, and what's the go with that thing?" I feel a little disappointed but the realist in me accepts that things aren't perfect, and so I Adapt or modify my story.
The same thing with goes with beliefs. A Christian may hang around with his Christian friends and they'll all agree that Jesus is great and Christianity is where it's at. A non-believer may come along and say, "Now hang on... What about this? And how do you deal with that?" It is at this point where faith and belief are at its most critical.
If the guy stubbornly says, "Away with you, non-believer. What good are you?" then he has killed his belief. Once you set your belief in stone, it is dead. If the guy allows some debate and reflects on what is said, then his belief adapts and lives. This phenomenon is the same regardless of your beliefs; whether you're Christian or Buddhist or New Age or a scientist or an atheist or a politician or a writer or a vegetarian or a feminist or a sports star. In fact, this whole idea of confirmation vs adaptation is analogous to the Scientific Method. You have an idea and test it with experiment. If it agrees, you are happy for your theory to be confirmed. If it disagrees, then you go back and change your theory.
Taking this a step further, we can adapt an idea of Karl Popper's. He claimed that a theory could only be scientific if it had the possibility of being falsified. Proof for a theory is a nebulous thing, and proof against is the only real benchmark. Thus a belief worth holding onto is one you could possibly let go of.
Relating back to J's story, some filmmakers have created a film explaining their beliefs and have set up shows where people who agree with them come along and nod their heads sagely. This is confirmation. They set up panellists to discuss the film, which is an attempt at adaptation by way of friendly debate. Well, it would be if the audience participated in the adaptation. To contradict their beliefs (as J began to) makes you irrelevant in the discussion, which thus means that debate is irrelevant in the discussion. In other words, this was a meeting of Yes men.
Waltzing in and bluntly contradicting someone's belief ends up being too strong on the adaptation side of the spectrum. People hold onto their beliefs with some strength and aren't ready to have it all whisked away from them. But J's initial attempt was understandable from his perspective: they were using unjustified and mistaken approaches (as far as science goes) to stake a claim in Truth. When someone says, "2+2=5" you say, "Now hang on!" because it's patently wrong. The mistakes in What the (bleep) aren't as obvious as that, but there is a higher benchmark to attend to if you want to start talking science.
The theologist had the right idea. He spoke in a universal sense, such that someone stuck in the confirmation mindset wouldn't deny his approach, but they could reinterpret it as confirmation of their ideas. Someone with at least some room for adaptation could take it on (possibly in the theologist's original intent) and reconfigure their ideas around something stronger.
There is nothing wrong in holding a belief like the filmmakers'. It's just to be taken with any respect, you must submit yourself to the standards your belief requires. If it is a scientific belief, then submit your beliefs to the standards of science. If it's a metaphysical belief, then submit your beliefs to the standard of reality. If you're a nihilist, well, good luck to you. |
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