The End of Invisibility

I'm going to stop not doing a thing. Because science.

Good Ol' Science

Back in kindergarten I was already a big fan of science. When I found out we would have science class in first grade, there was instant excitement. I couldn't wait to pull out the old Erlenmeyer flasks and mix together random liquid chemicals. Visions of complicated, twisting glass apparatuses swam in my head.

If I was lucky and mixed the right combination of viles the stuff might even turn green. Or bubble. Or EXPLODE!! All I wanted was to do "science experiments," which to me meant mixing chemicals until a new one was created and then combining that with all the others. Essentially alchemy. To my disappointment, I quickly realized that science was more about filling out the boxes in worksheets labeled with words like procedure, analysis, and conclusion. Only one of the boxes said "experiment" and it was quite underwhelming. The guessing that I thought would be involved was nothing more than hypothesizing on outcomes that anybody could have seen coming. What will happen when I put a nickel in a glass of water? Will it float or sink? Hmmmm...not exactly a mystery.

I don't blame it on school, but for a while, my image of science as a process was even replaced with a body of knowledge (gasp). We were told the types of clouds. Given classifications of species. There were formula sheets and instructions to "plug and chug". I took it in stride as I learned to get really good at these things. In fact, I eventually found the body of knowledge to be captivating and loved the math underlying it all. But there were no explosions. The frowning upon of randomly mixing chemicals is clearly good in terms of the safety hazard, but as a metaphor we need much more serendipitous mixing in complicated, twisting glass apparatuses. And we shouldn't let the safety of schooling make us forget the source of some of the best learning: explosions.

TBOI

I recently read The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch. The book begins by outlining the history of the scientific method, eventually getting to the main point of the book: critical rationalism.

According to this theory of epistemology by Karl Popper, knowledge is generated only through guesses that are then criticized. We can't be 100% sure we know anything, but absolute truth does exist, and this process helps us converge as we disprove ideas and move to less bad ones. As the book continues, Deutsch makes the case that potential scientific progress is unlimited and is to be discovered through this process. He also includes a chapter about the multiverse and another where he makes the bold claim that beauty is objective. So you might think it odd that I interpreted TBOI as a self-help book.

What it helped me realize is that failures are learning opportunities.

Wait.

But, like...

Everyone knows this already?

Yup.

The idea of 'failing fast' had existed in my head for a while, but in usual fashion it swam around ungrasped, invisible. For whatever reason, this book gave me exactly the nudge I needed to connect the scientific process to my personal experience and put it into action. But why, when I'd heard the maxim so many times, did it stubbornly slip away?

Experiential Understanding

"The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling." -Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

It would be nice if we could simply keep an open door for the truth. But with so much information flying around, we naturally have defenses in place to filter visitors. The solution then, is to give the truth no choice but to run into you—go outside.

Think about when your grandpa makes some offhand comment that wouldn't normally seem like anything but is expelled with that edge of highly-condensed wisdom that makes it seem to encapsulate the entirety of his life's experience. And though you have no clue what it might mean, there is obviously some iceberg of emotion and knowledge and memory under the wisecrack that is sticking out above the surface. The problem is that the idea is encoded, so we tell it to go away. I have this theory that as our lives progress, everything we know is reorganized and encrypted into more and more efficient modules in our mind, until we gradually "turn into our parents." But really we have just identified more of the relevant patterns of our lives and packaged them for better use. As these mental models proliferate into great bulks of experience, it is only natural to give unsolicited, pithy lectures to deaf ears. Great wisdom can exist in just a few words, and for the individual it all makes sense. They have the key to decrypt because the system was self-built. But for an outsider, decryption is never so easy. This is the reason for the deafness of the ears, and for the necessity of great teachers (great decoders)—they help each generation pick up where the other left off. Anyways, looks like I'm on a tangent.

Theoretical Understanding is what we gain when we hear pithy statements, along with maybe some examples, but do not fully digest the meaning such that it becomes a part of our psyche. Experiential Understanding is the true revelation that arrives only once personal connections are made. The difference is easy to mistake. Some form of bias leads us to mistake Theoretical for Experiential Understanding and we close our door because we already "know" what we are being told. Many lessons are difficult to be taught vicariously. This for me was the case with failing fast. I had plenty of Theoretical Understanding, but TBOI was the semi-truck driven into the side of my house by the truth in order to lay out the personal relevance to me. It showed me the way outside and I gained Experiential Understanding about the importance of Experiential Understanding.

The End of Invisibility

I don't know how big an audience might connect with my public thinking (I don't like the word blog, maybe I'll explain some other time), but if you are like me you might: a) read a ton, b) analyze anything and everything, or c) simulate...a lot. And you definitely enjoy knowing increasingly more things. While those three are all awesome ways to learn from the safety and comfort of your own home/iPhone/book/space-cadet brain, much of what you read in a book simply isn't relevant to your life. It is likely entertaining, or mind-broadening, or informative, but is ultimately diluted in their similarity to your life. And thus doesn't highlight the exact lessons that matter for you. Simulation and analysis have limitations as well: though they might occasionally help you discover something, the information was all from your head. Much more than incremental changes in understanding are difficult to come by. Regardless of career, there are lessons to be learned that cannot be conveyed reliably through theory or gleaned from introspection. At some point, a leap of faith is necessary.

All of this is why I am making my thinking public. Without leaving the safety of my own head there is plenty to contemplate. The organ between the ears can muse on anything from the birth and death of the universe to the discreetness of space. And yet there is something missing. Luckily it can ocassionaly consider its own limitations. By making myself visible, I hope to not just refine my thinking but to discover its holes. Of course not all ideas will be recieved with standing ovation, but the engine of discovery doesn't run on confirmation, it runs on guesses.

So I'm exiting my own simulation. And stepping one layer closer to base reality in order to speed up the rendering of feedback. If it makes me feel any better, everything is still in my head. It's time to embrace the fact that the real world is messy and learn to deal with uncertainty. The first step isn’t to work tirelessly on multiple projects, but to do a single, highly uncomfortable, real thing—allow vulnerability. This is not action vs. knowledge. This is action for knowledge's sake. This is The End of Invisibility.

At the end of each chapter in TBOI, Deutsch lists new meanings of the title of the book. I would like to add my own: public thinking.