Picking up the Thinking in the 21st Century thread again… I’m nearing the end of the most philosophical stuff. It all turns on this one… Just a reminder to read this as a proposal — a basis for refinement and elaboration (not to mention citations and evidence), not presuming finality.
A few weeks ago I wrote about how we’re motivated by a feeling of efficacy, a sense that we’re accomplishing something. That can occur via challenging yet doable activities that inspire a feeling of “flow,” but it can also occur on a bigger scale and over a longer term, generating a sense of identity and crystalizing in the form of personal and professional goals.
To understand the bigger picture we have to look at an even smaller one.
We don’t just experience efficacy and relevance in the physical world, we experience it in the mental world as well, in the way we interpret events and attribute cause, purpose, and intentionality where it may or may not have actually occurred.
At the very least this is simply a result of the fact we must always be thinking something. Validity is secondary.
The stream of thought does not stop flowing as long as we’re awake (and hardly slows down when we’re asleep). When a single idea seems to stick in our mind, it isn’t just sitting there like an inert stone; persistent and “stable” ideas are actually refreshed and held in place by thoughts streaming around it. Even meditating “on nothing” is not a cessation of thinking but rather a channelling of consciousness into recurrent and regulated patterns (e.g. by focusing on the breath).
In itself, thinking can be a way to experience efficacy and relevance — specifically when opportunities in the physical environment aren’t as accessible or fruitful, i.e. when there is nothing around, or when circumstances are too difficult to engage in, or when some insight has just occurred that generates an interesting sequence of thoughts.
On another level, there seems to be a natural tendency for people to interpret events as being more relevant to oneself than what might actually be the case (especially if outcomes are positive, not so much if they’re negative).
Such “self-centredness” is perfectly understandable, given that we’re each irremovably placed, essentially at the centre of one’s own unique world (or frame, or horizon, or whatever you want to call it). Most of what you experience does have something to do with you because you’re the one factor that’s constantly there.
You’re the “usual suspect” who’s always at the scene.
But we learn to appreciate that even though we’re always at the centre of what we experience, our world doesn’t revolve around us. We understand that things happen for other reasons that don’t necessarily relate to us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean our explanations become completely accurate.
Subjective factors like availability, salience and vividness are what determine our immediate explanations (at least until we’ve learned to make more objective thinking more available, salient, and vivid).
(See Jonathan Haidt’s on how “moral reasoning is usually a post-hoc construction, generated after a judgment has been reached” in “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment.” Pages 10 and 11 specifically describe “relatedness and coherence motives” that roughly corroborate my general thesis. Also, I’m fairly indebted to Haidt’s Happiness Hypothesis as a kind of bibliographical hub.)
Here’s where the concept of “will to relevance” gets even more useful (and where my claims become more original, speculative, and controversial).
At any given moment, you aren’t the only factor motivated by relevance; your ideas are all trying to make themselves more relevant too (note I’m anthropomorphizing as a provisional heuristic).
The way your long-term explanations, beliefs, and intentions take shape is largely determined by which ideas manage to achieve the most efficacy and relevance in your mind — the ones that consistently manage to “fit” circumstances and sustain themselves by making themselves useful (most basically by helping you survive and succeed).
[Note: I use efficacy and relevance somewhat interchangeably. In some cases it's more useful and accurate to say "relevance"; in others it's better to say "efficacy" or "effect." I think I'm moving towards a concept that synthesizes both but I don't have the means (or the need) to make it precise yet... Another thing, because I rely on the concept of effectiveness so heavily, note that where I use "affect" it is not in the technical psychological sense but in the more mainstream sense, "to have an effect upon."]
It’s as if our ideas are literally “attracted” to the kinds of causal roles they’re qualified for. When we observe things happening in the world, specific ideas step forward to nominate themselves for attribution.
Think about some of the theories and stories you habitually invoke when you see things you like or don’t like. Pay attention to what comes to mind when you see these headlines:
- Obama says bomb attempt an intelligence “screw-up”
- Shutting down Parliament ‘routine’: Harper
- Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs pocketed an of average $7.3 million in 2008
- Apple hits three billion App Store downloads
- Sun, wind and wave-powered: Europe unites to build renewable energy ’supergrid’
- How to protect your privacy on Facebook
- Half-Naked Tiger Woods Revealed on Magazine Cover
Maybe all of those resonated with you in some way; at least a few must have naturally accommodated themselves into some narratives you have going on in your mind.
For example, a left winger reading the first headline might naturally start thinking about how Obama is getting tangled up in “Bush’s mess,” a right winger might read it and naturally think here’s yet another example of the Obama’s shine wearing off, and a frequent traveller might read it and think of miserable airport experiences in the past and how they’re going to become worse.
Or maybe your reaction is simply “I don’t care” or “this is over my head,” etc.
Even those kinds of reactions are still largely determined by theories and stories that have been developed through past experience, inherited, or absorbed from social influences.
(See Dan McAdams on “The Psychology of Life Stories“; shorter article here.)
Other ideas on that level are stories and theories about truth, God, good and bad karma, peace, evil, love, justice, honour, corruption, greed, work ethic, “meaninglessness,” personal competence, blessedness… among many others.
(See the idea of “world view” or Weltanshauung.)
We each allow concepts like those to address the most general, complex, and ambiguous events and aspects of life.
Even to say “I don’t trust theories” is itself a kind of theory — a very superficial and evasive one that people use to cope with complexity by diverting attention to more familiar activities (by doing so it can actually be a very effective idea most of the time; in some situations it can be ruinous).
But it isn’t just that people invoke ideas to explain events; the motivation goes both ways: it’s as if ideas want to be relevant and useful.
Our ideas even affect what we notice and what we ignore — as if they’re working covertly to increase their chances of being called-upon.
Keep in mind that no special motivation (or definite end) is required. Ideas, like everything else, are temporal and so must happen.
Consciousness streams forward and makes use of whatever perceptions and concepts are available for specific direction, but direction is secondary to the necessity of action.
It isn’t easy to describe this process because of how fluid and complex it is. We haven’t had good models or metaphors to use.
Here is where we can learn a lot from the web — specifically the way systems organize according to relevance — the way they’re always changing, merging together, and splitting off into new threads.
We can learn to manage this process more or less effectively. It means first of all becoming more aware of what stories and theories we use.
Second, it means assessing which way the favours flow from particular explanations: i.e. Did your response to the Obama headline merely exercise and reinforce your pre-existing ideas? Or did it help you look at new facts more honestly and customize your conclusions to fit the particular circumstances?
It also means routinely reflecting on the ways in which our past experiences have informed our stories and theories. Where did your ideas come from? Do you remember when you articulated them or do they just seem to have been “there” all along? When have your ideas changed — if at all? Which of your ideas and beliefs are most in need of improvement? If you had to change your ideas, how would you do it?…
Finally, what are your thoughts about all of this? What do you think of what I’ve written here? What ideas and experiences from your past informed your response? Have they helped or hindered your ability to make sense of it (or point out mistakes, or improve it), apply it, and build on it?
The most important question is, how will it affect your thinking for next time? Will it make you more or less effective — more or less relevant?
