Of course, by simply trying to articulate this quote, I am betraying the idea.
But I will try unpack it anyway.
First, let’s start with a definition. A philosophy is a set of ideas that can be articulated. A philosophy is symbolic of a deeper reality. But inevitably, any philosophy, no matter how profound, cannot capture the true reality of things. This is true, even if we extend the term “philosophy” to embody ideas that can now be articulated thanks to scientific breakthroughs.
Take a generally accepted discovery within the scientific community: evolution. The discovery of evolution is an elegant explanation for how complex forms of life emerge, but does evolution truly answer more than it asks?
Inevitably, no. But this does not reduce the importance of evolution. The same can be said about any scientific discovery. In fact, the same can be said about any advancement in knowledge.
With each new discovery, we are left with more questions than answers. That is because the underlying reality we are trying to uncover is infinitely more complex than what we can relate with language or symbols.
From neuroscience, we learn that emotions drive our decisions. We do not consciously deliberate before experiencing an emotion. We act first, then rationalize our behavior later. In An Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, we are told that our minds see the contents of its surrounding environment as a tool first, and then later begin to articulate what kinds of objects exist.
The more we try to articulate the essence of nature, whether human or otherwise, the faster we approach domains which we can no longer truly understand (hence quantum physics).
A much simpler example is to try to imagine what a trillion stars would like. As has been observed by behavioral scientists, the best we can do is imagine tens, perhaps hundreds of stars, but we cannot possibly fathom what a “trillion” looks like.
To reiterate, our knowledge is limited because reality is immensely complex. And each new advance in knowledge uncovers a reality we were previously ignorant about. But the second point is that our way of relating what we know is deeply flawed, especially when we do not embody what we talk about.
That is the point of Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb. Without feeling pain, without having something important at stake, it is impossible to truly gain understanding. The experienced (and successful) trader knows more about finance than the finance professor not because the former has an arsenal of fancy definitions, but because over time, he has figured out to survive despite what he does not know. Survival is the end goal, and ultimately, all that matters. As Taleb remarks, you don’t need science to survive, but you need to survive to do science.
That is the difference between episteme and credo. We learn mostly by doing, not by thinking. The best way to understand sports is to play it. The best way to understand a philosophy is to embody it. The best way to understand a belief system is to practice it.
But it is not only that we are bad at understanding how things work, but that the way we understand how things work is truly subjective, and can be expressed in words, only badly.
The deconstructionists, such as Derida, explained that language is a self-referential system, whereby the reader interprets meaning according to his own unique experiences and knowledge. Two people never read the same book because each person sees the text differently. Why? People focus on different things based on what resonates with them and what they know.
But even the same sentences are interpreted differently, because the system of references that one person relies on is completely different from what another person relies on.
For most of us who endured a formal education, we were given the impression that we could understand the world by understanding words and numbers that represent it, but this is only true in a very limited sense. A conscious understanding of how things work is not a complete understanding of they work – it isn’t even the most important understanding.
How We Think
In Decision Science, there is a debate that has been taking place for a while between two opposing schools of thought. The first is headed by the father of behavioral economics and author of Thinking: Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahnman, the other is headed by Gerd Gigerenzer, the progenitor of terrific books about heuristics such as Risk Savvy, Heuristics that Make us Smart, and Gut Feelings.
Kahneman divides the human mind into two parts, that he nicknames “System 1” and “System 2.” System 1 is the instinctive, quick part of the mind, System 2 is the deliberate, slow part of the mind.
Kahnman’s project is to help people avoid falling victim to the biases of System 1, and instead, learn how to use System 2. For example, when you want to pick a stock, hire a secretary, or manage risky behaviors – you are very likely to distort reality because of implicit biases such as The Availability Bias, The Narrative Fallacy, or the Decoy Effect.
But Gigerenzer contends that Kahneman has it all wrong. The part of us that is logical and slow is highly underdeveloped. That we are far more powerful when we rely on our intuitions and automatic behaviors than when we do on conscious deliberations.
Gigerenzer, like Kahnman, devised experiments to prove his point, and one interesting experiment showed that people were able to correctly guess which cities had larger populations than others, and which stocks would do better than others, simply relying on heuristics or shortcuts. Kahneman admits that while System 2 thinks it’s the star of the movie, it’s System 1 that is the true superstar. Kahneman, of course, means that most of our decisions are dictated by System 1 whether we like it or not. But in many cases, this may not be a bad thing.
A great example by Gigerenzer asks us to consider the problem of catching a baseball. The logical, slow way to do it, would be to bring out a pen and paper, and do some very complex calculations to figure out the precise speed and trajectory of the ball, so that we can better position ourselves to catch it. But the fast way is much smarter, simply lock your gaze on the ball and move along with it, ensuring that the ball remains in the center of your vision.
In fact, if you thought a little more while doing this, you have a smaller chance of actually catching the ball.
The economist Herbert Spencer coined the term “bounded rationality.” Gigerenzer’s project is to show that rationality is not only bounded, but that we don’t even know what rationality truly is. What first appears to be irrational, often has deep reasons behind it that are not obvious.
Physiological Responses
When people are in the process of making a mistake, they often encounter a gut feeling that tells them to back down. When something “smells funny”, the unconscious notices that something is off. When something “tastes funny”, it’s probably bad for us.
When someone acts immorally, they feel “sick to their stomach.”
We humans have known since time immemorial something that science is only now discovering: our gut feeling is responsible in no small measure for how we feel. We are “scared shitless” or we can be “shitting ourselves” with fear. If we don’t manage to complete a job, we can’t get our “ass in gear.” We “swallow” our disappointment and need time to “digest” a defeat. A nasty comment leaves a “bad taste in our mouth.” When we fall in love, we get “butterflies in our stomach.” Our self is created in our head and our gut—no longer just in language, but increasingly also in the lab.
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ, Giulia Enders
The gut seems to know more than we do consciously. Often, we encounter the feeling first, and then move on to interpret it. Our philosophies lack wisdom because they inevitably leave so much out. But we cannot say that about our stomach or our body, since there is no event that our bodies don’t have an intelligent response to. Thus, one way of interpreting Nietzsche’s quote is to say that the body, for whatever reason that I cannot explain, has a relationship with a broader reality than a system of ideas that I can articulate with a series of redundant, subjective, and ambiguous symbols.
Consider the fact that up until recently, we had no idea that there was such a thing as useful bacteria.
Think of how many more things we will discover in the future that will negate what we have discovered before. The “science” of nutrition appears more like a pseudoscience with time, not because nutritionists are lazy, but because the body is too complex.
It is good to remember that our bodies have evolved over millions of years of trial and error. Science is only a few hundred years, old, language and philosophy are only a few thousand years old.
In The Longevity Diet, de Longo admits that it’s better to simply follow the habits of our ancestors rather than try to pontificate too much about what to eat.
We are too stupid to reinvent our entire diet from scratch, to know what is truly good for us and what isn’t. It’s far more useful to adhere to practices that have worked (for whatever reason) than to try to articulate precisely why something is good or bad for us.
Our deepest philosophies are at best, imitations of the ideas of other people, and at worst, radical misconceptions about the true state of nature. Our strongest opinions are mere reflections of our emotional preferences, codified into language.
As science continues to unmask how the body works, it is more likely that it will continue to unearth more questions, rather than less. If the human body is a puzzle, and science tried to solve this puzzle, we would notice that over time, while the pieces of the puzzle were indeed coming together, new pieces are constantly being generated with every new connection.
But this is only a cause for despair if you are a hyper rationalist, who is intent on reducing all complexity into simple moving parts. If you, like Nietzsche, acknowledge the futility of the human endeavor to uncover all mystery, then you will revel in the brilliance of mystery itself, which can never be eliminated, but only compounded, not in spite of, but because of our best efforts.
If you enjoy great quotes, check out this book, The Greatest Words They Ever Said, which has recently been released. It is a collection of quotes that span 14 topics from the best authors who have ever lived.