X-From_: jmiller@well.com Sun Nov 19 18:51:03
2000
From: Jeff Miller <jmiller@well.com>
Subject: One choice
To: patri@izzy.com
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 2000 15:50:26 -0800 (PST)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Status: RO
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X-UID: 31
Hi Patri,
This message is totally out of the blue, but
I was just cruising your web site and was motivated to drop you
a line about your essay "It Only Takes One Choice."
I'm normally not the type to join in with comments of the "Oh
my god, you like that TV show? I like that TV show, too!"
variety, but the personal revelation you describe in your
piece is precisely one that I have had before, and I found myself
nodding at your words so much that I thought I'd offer some unsolicited
thoughts of my own.
Taking a logical, rational view of the world has always seemed so basically necessary to me that I used to be continually surprised at how often people would express contradictory beliefs or patently unsupportable assertions in their daily life. After leaving the insular world of Mudd and after being a member of society-at-large for a couple of years going now, it no longer surprises me. I've come to accept it as the way most people are. Placing emotion over reason (or being unwilling to take reason to its necessary ends) seems to fulfill some kind of innate human need, and for a long time I felt that I was just missing a gene, or something. Of course, like you, I realized eventually that the single choice to seek truth by rational means is that gene itself; from it (or the absence of it, whatever), many things follow. It's almost mathematical.
I say "almost" because it's not like a whole set of beliefs automatically spring from this one choice. You and I may agree that logic and reason is the best way to pursue truth, but we may still reach conclusions that are not identical. There's some leeway in there that is dependent on a lot of things, maybe experience, or background, or the influence of one's parents. And I don't know about you, but this really confuses me. Actually, it bothers me, that there's this inconsistency. So many things that seem like no-brainers -- atheism, for example, or the absurdity of racism -- are still disagreed upon by many other people who consider themselves to be rationalists. (People that profess to be scientists and yet hope to solve personal problems through prayer... what is up with that?) The best I can understand is that it's just human nature again, something inherent about the brain and the way emotion permeates everything. Maybe this gives a glimpse into the way the rest of society functions. Take these little permutations that exist and magnify them a million times through the lens of personal experience and that's how you get the divisive blocs that occur in society, Protestants vs. Catholics and so on.
By the way, I wonder exactly what you mean when you say "not normal" (or when you refer to yourself as a superfreak). I assume you mean that you are in the minority of the population in being a rationalist -- not, for example, that you have a purple mohawk. I would doubt that one's adhering to rational principles leads to abnormal social behaviors. I imagine that has more to do with personal expression, and who knows how that comes about.
Well, it strikes me that this might all be too much on the personal tip for an email that's so out of the blue, but it probably doesn't bother you since you post your diary on the web. Anyway, cool article; talk to you later.
Jeff Miller
Read my response to this email.
Last Modified: September, 2000
Patri
Friedman / patri@izzy.com