Quick comment to Colligo readers: I have re-written this post many times, so if you read it earlier today, you might notice it's now somewhat different. The differences aren't substantive per se, but of course I wouldn't have made them at all if they didn't do any work for the end product. My apologies for this. I'll try to review the post in edit mode more thoroughly moving forward.
To a non-native speaker, English language is a language of synonyms. It was interesting to think about the differences between puzzles and mysteries. Perhaps, sometimes we are trying to see a mystery when there is none because it is more noble to imagine a mystery than the ugly truth. Looking forward to the next post - why did we have Cold War? Who wanted it? After the horrors of the WWII? Allies suddenly couldn’t agree on what exactly? (Being labelled communists even after the fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the biggest insults of my existence. We used to joke “No one wanted to be a communist, not even Russians.”Das Capital wasn’t written by Russians. But these days - we see some people from big tech community who want to live in their special communes - in penthouses and guarded estates - drawing similarities with the core communist ideal - final stage of communism.) That’s not a mystery - that’s just a common conflict over money - wrapped in an ideological wrapper. Looking back at the hysteria we fell into during this prolonged “cold” conflict - is insane. Perhaps that’s a mystery - how could we collectively fall into such a hysteria? I think most people in the know realised that to quote from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy “don’t you think it is time to recognise that there is as little worth on your side as is on mine?” How did these intelligent people get sucked into this ideological front for a conflict over money? Is being lied to and believing the lie - the mystery?
I found your writing through Matthew B. Crawford and have quickly consumed everything you've posted thus far. The distinction you draw between puzzles and mysteries reminds me of Jacques Ellul and his concept of 'Technique'. Our increasing reliance on digitization has produced a worldview that replaces the actual with the theoretical, the reality for the image, and in the process reduces the magic (or mystery) of human experience to a series of mechanical actions rather than the dizzying gestalt that it truly is.
Thanks, Devin. Ellul had much of interest in his writing. I think the problem of "technique" is at the core of our challenges today, as you put it here.
Ah, and another quick comment, because I find it really hard to convey this in my field of climate science. (I'm a climate scientist trying to communicate something that would help approach something like the real nature of the problem.)
The way the climate crisis (and the nature crisis) are approached nowadays by academia, the IPCC, and all the assembled intelligentsia is exact that, puzzle solving. That's why there is nowhere the necessary humility necessarily to get down to the depth of the problem. I tend to call it a "crisis of cleverness".
When you mentioned Kahnemann and noise, I stopped and thought: my own perception and experience with "data driven methods" is that they tend to over fit data, or in other words, fetishize "noise". It seems to me that Kahnemann is brilliant at the exact thing he does, but he gets it the wrong way round.
Quick comment to Colligo readers: I have re-written this post many times, so if you read it earlier today, you might notice it's now somewhat different. The differences aren't substantive per se, but of course I wouldn't have made them at all if they didn't do any work for the end product. My apologies for this. I'll try to review the post in edit mode more thoroughly moving forward.
To a non-native speaker, English language is a language of synonyms. It was interesting to think about the differences between puzzles and mysteries. Perhaps, sometimes we are trying to see a mystery when there is none because it is more noble to imagine a mystery than the ugly truth. Looking forward to the next post - why did we have Cold War? Who wanted it? After the horrors of the WWII? Allies suddenly couldn’t agree on what exactly? (Being labelled communists even after the fall of the Berlin Wall was one of the biggest insults of my existence. We used to joke “No one wanted to be a communist, not even Russians.”Das Capital wasn’t written by Russians. But these days - we see some people from big tech community who want to live in their special communes - in penthouses and guarded estates - drawing similarities with the core communist ideal - final stage of communism.) That’s not a mystery - that’s just a common conflict over money - wrapped in an ideological wrapper. Looking back at the hysteria we fell into during this prolonged “cold” conflict - is insane. Perhaps that’s a mystery - how could we collectively fall into such a hysteria? I think most people in the know realised that to quote from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy “don’t you think it is time to recognise that there is as little worth on your side as is on mine?” How did these intelligent people get sucked into this ideological front for a conflict over money? Is being lied to and believing the lie - the mystery?
I found your writing through Matthew B. Crawford and have quickly consumed everything you've posted thus far. The distinction you draw between puzzles and mysteries reminds me of Jacques Ellul and his concept of 'Technique'. Our increasing reliance on digitization has produced a worldview that replaces the actual with the theoretical, the reality for the image, and in the process reduces the magic (or mystery) of human experience to a series of mechanical actions rather than the dizzying gestalt that it truly is.
Hey Devin, thanks for your comment. Matt is a very rare and special voice today. I'm so glad you find his writing helpful! All my best, Erik
Thanks, Devin. Ellul had much of interest in his writing. I think the problem of "technique" is at the core of our challenges today, as you put it here.
Ah, and another quick comment, because I find it really hard to convey this in my field of climate science. (I'm a climate scientist trying to communicate something that would help approach something like the real nature of the problem.)
The way the climate crisis (and the nature crisis) are approached nowadays by academia, the IPCC, and all the assembled intelligentsia is exact that, puzzle solving. That's why there is nowhere the necessary humility necessarily to get down to the depth of the problem. I tend to call it a "crisis of cleverness".
When you mentioned Kahnemann and noise, I stopped and thought: my own perception and experience with "data driven methods" is that they tend to over fit data, or in other words, fetishize "noise". It seems to me that Kahnemann is brilliant at the exact thing he does, but he gets it the wrong way round.
JFK peace speech https://youtu.be/0fkKnfk4k40?si=vWL_KxiKePfhtd4T