J25 - Man and Society (Part I)

The function of the human mind elaborated upon in the previous journal is an aspect of human reason, human reason being man’s characteristic feature. It is reason, the structure of the human mind that allows us to imagine different futures and choose one preferred future and act to attain that future state, that is man’s characteristic feature. Imagination, choice, and action are all one and the same process, the process of human reasoning, a product of man’s quest to survive and thrive in a world of scarcity. This is what sets us apart from all other creatures on the Earth. 

According to Mises, human reason would have never come about if we lived in a world where means were not scarce. “For the primary task of reason is to cope consciously with the limitations imposed upon man by nature, is to fight scarcity.” Of course, it is impossible to imagine a world without scarcity; the human mind, designed as it is to cope with the reality of scarcity, literally cannot understand the concept of infinity or lack of limitations. Even if every external resource was available to all men in abundance, and man was able to move instantaneously about the universe, and had unlimited time to enjoy the goods available to him, still he would have to choose which good to enjoy first. He would still be limited to one experience at a time, and would still have to prioritize his ends, still have to reason and act. Already this hypothetical is difficult to conceive; to hypothesize that man could experience everything, everywhere, and all at once, is beyond human comprehension. We live in a world of scarcity, and our minds have developed thusly.

So, if reason, man’s characteristic feature, has developed to aid man in his struggle against scarcity, and if all action is an external manifestation of man’s reason, and if man is always acting, then man is always reasoning, and his actions are an outcome of reason. We may, therefore, examine man’s actions and attribute them to his reason, i.e., we may seek to understand the purpose behind man’s actions, as they must be purposeful, being the product of human reason. Therefore, all that man is may be traced to human reason and action. But there is something more, if not something separate, that distinguishes man from the rest of the natural world: society. It is indeed true that throughout nature we see many manifestations of organisms working together in vast networks: anthills, beehives, wolfpacks, amoebas, etc. The reason for this is natural selection: animals that worked together tended to survive and pass on their genes to later animals, thus increasingly tending towards a “social” creature. But man is different. There may, indeed, be an evolutionary tendency for man to band together into societies. But, as we have established above, man is different in that he, alone among the creatures of the Earth, chooses. Yes, there are many influences of man’s choices, many of which he may not even be aware of, but still, “to live is for man the outcome of a choice.” An outcome of reason. Therefore, we cannot examine the actions of men and attribute them to raw nature; we must ask what the purpose of those actions are. We see man as the social creature: why? Why does man form societies? 

The answer is the same for every other action of man: to survive and thrive in a world of scarcity. At this point in our evolution, there may be genes which tend to favor cooperation. But, at the beginning, what drew men together was not some “call of the blood.” Cooperation was the reasoned action of men who recognized their own limitations, who recognized the advantages of a division of labor, and who chose to work with other members of their own species in peace to combat scarcity. “Human society...is the outcome of a purposeful utilization of...the higher productivity of the division of labor.” Integration in the social division of labor yields an increased production and utilization of goods and services for every individual; it is therefore in every individual’s interest to join society and so integrate himself into its division of labor. It is no mysterious drive to band together that draws us to each other, but the cold, calculated reasoning necessary to man’s survival. But, given the universal application of the law of association, the universal applicability of the fact that the division of labor results in increased productivity, we may conclude that “human action itself tends toward cooperation and association.” Some form of cooperation is a necessary part of being human.

More than three thousand years ago, Aristotle recognized that man is the “social animal.” Mises confirms this by concluding that “The development of human reason and human society are one and the same process.” This can be seen in the fact that language is a significant aid in the development of conscious thought, and that language cannot be developed in isolation. Additionally, it has often been pointed out by liberal authors, in response to critiques of our hyper-focus on the material benefits of market economies, that concern with more noble pursuits is undeniably more possible and more common where man does not need to worry so much about baser needs and wants. This argument can be broadened to the point where one may argue that the building/changing aspect of man, that distinguishing aspect of our species, would not be possible in a man on his own, who must spend every moment just keeping up with the demands of nature: eating, sheltering, searching for food and shelter. It is the moments of rest that come with the increased productivity of the division of labor that allows man to think of different worlds. It is the confidence that comes with the increased productivity of the division of labor that allows man to take risks and attempt to change the world. It is the lengthened lifespan of a man yielded by the increased productivity of the division of labor that allows enough knowledge to be accumulated and experimentation to be conducted to develop theories of causation necessary to any action. Indeed, it seems that man, so physically insignificant among the creatures of the Earth, would not have survived long in the world without his reason and the human cooperation that it produced. 

The fact that man is not only a creature of reason, but a creature of society, will have great implications for our development of a theory of being human and the projects such a theory will inform.

January Day

While the actual plan for the mid-year partner project (“January Day”) wasn’t developed until October of this year, having some sort of mid-year event had been planned since last year. Part of the reason for this addition to the EMC2 curriculum has been my feeling that a year is too long to be spending on some of these EMC2 projects; I’ve suggested multiple times that we turn the class into a semester-length course, offered in both semesters. Students who have accomplished what they want to accomplish, or who are struggling to go any deeper with their line of inquiry, could then complete their work by the end of January and then be done (or perhaps re-enroll but change topics), while students with larger projects, or who were really interested in going deeper with their line of inquiry, could re-enroll for the next semester and continue their work. The coordinators and I have not decided to pursue that set-up, but I did want to break-up the year into sections with some kind of demarcation event because I think a full year of “exploration” is a little excessive. The first semester is indeed all about exploration: students can bounce around, researching various aspects of their broader topics, and get experience in their field of study. But the second semester we want to be different; the second semester is all about building. Once the students have explored various parts of their topic, they should be in a position to choose one particular aspect and come with an idea of how to advance knowledge of that aspect. Research may of course continue into the second semester, but this research should be much more purposeful, in that it is conducted to patch holes in knowledge needed for the crafting of the student’s final product. 

So, what would this mid-year event look like? Well, first of all, I wanted to showcase the knowledge that students would have gained during the first semester. That is, I wanted to start treating them like quasi-experts in their fields. Such a showcasing usually takes the form of a symposium or a science-fair-type thing. However, EMC2 already has a symposium at the end of the year for all of the students, and many of the students will be participating in the Capital District’s STEAM Exposition, which has a science-fair feel. So, we didn’t want to be unduly repetitive. We did feel, however, that students should experience presenting their topics, and that repeated presentations would increase the benefits of presenting, namely the internalizing of information and the attempt at connecting it to the outside world, of making it matter for people. We also wanted this event to help the students develop skills that they were struggling with. Communication has been a big issue for many of the students, but collaboration was a bigger issue, for all of the students. Therefore, I suggested that we make this a partner project. This way the students would have to work with each other, and explore how their topic connected to other topics. I also suggested that every pair of students be given their own classrooms for January Day and present about their topics to several groups of students. This would give a sense of ownership and pride in their knowledge, and also allow them an opportunity to make the attempt to connect multiple times. There was also discussion of some sort of scavenger hunt, but I think it was ultimately concluded that that would just confuse things too much. 

So, the goal of January Day is simple: Collaborate with your partner to create some sort of product that represents a synthesis of both projects and communicates the importance of the projects to an outside world, and then prepare a 10 minute presentation of that product. Like other assignments in EMC2, the details were left to the students as an opportunity for creativity and necessary freedom for individuality and purposefulness. That is, requirements were left vague so that students could shape their products and presentations as they wished, hopefully in a way that contributed to the continued progress of their projects. To ensure that we weren’t demanding too much from the students, the coordinators decided that January Day would count as the students’ SDAs for the month of December. 

I believe that this project will help all of the students with their goals for their projects and with contribute to the coordinators’ goals of making the students better thinkers and questioners. As discussed in other posts to this site, each one of the students’ projects is a truth claim about the world, an argument. Arguments are tested by fire and thereby improved when they are exposed to the real world, and exposure to the real world helps students focus their efforts on useful applications of their topics. January Day exposes the students’ projects to the real world. More than that, January Day requires that the students explore how their topics are related to each other, which will require them to think about their projects from different perspectives, and I think that this exercise in different-views will prove useful to their overall understanding of their topics. This project should force them to think and to question. Furthermore, as discussed above, it will give them experience working together and speaking publicly and authoritatively about their topics. And, if they’re motivated, it will force them to be creative as they seek to create a shared product that actually contributes to both of their projects. Everyone has something to gain from January Day.

That being said, it must be remembered that January Day. There’s no guarantee that it will be as helpful for everyone as I hope it will be, and even if it is successful, that doesn’t mean that it was the most effective method of achieving those successes. So, I look forward to seeing how January Day works out, and reading the reflections from the students, and assessing whether January Day was as purposeful as it needs to be survive as part of the program. I almost hope it doesn’t so that I can work with some of the students to craft a better alternative.

J24 - What Makes Humans Different?

There’s a game that some of the students like to play, where they bring up the idea of objective value and start talking about different amounts of utils that various things must have, thereby arousing my indignation that such a nonsensical theory could still be being taught in Western schools. I know that they only engage in this conduct because they get a kick out of seeing me get upset. But I really don’t care. The subjective theory of value is one of the greatest intellectual developments of all time. It reveals to us the fact that the human mind is the source of all meaning in the universe. To misunderstand the theory of value is to misunderstand the world and humanity’s place in it. How could I possibly not rise to its defense each and every time the topic is raised? 

Alex Gugie wrote a journal, some time ago, in which he discussed the Las Vegas Shooting and presented a “secular view of the sanctity of human life,” or a scientific method of appreciating other human beings. He claims that understanding the complexity of the human mind, and the millennia of evolution that produced it, should instill a sense of awe in all of us, an emotional response that makes us adverse to terminating the existence of such complexity (killing a human being). Two questions arise when reading this explanation of the value of human life. First, why do we appreciate this complexity; why does a full apprehension of the complexity of the human brain strike us with awe? And second, why is this complexity worthy of this awe? A system of morality, the subject of Alex’s overall project, is a set of norms, a series of “shoulds.” It’s one thing to marvel at the billions of neurons in a human brain, and to feel that the delicate complexity of the network they form should be protected, but the question of whether this complexity should cause such a response in us must be, at some point, considered in a project such as his. 

These questions have simple answers, but answers of incredible significance. First, we are awestruck by the complexity of the human brain because we are builders, and we cannot fathom how such complexity was built. It’s like seeing a stunning piece of art, or walking through New York City. How could this be? It seems impossible. We are impressed by complexity because we aspire to build complex things. The complexity of the human brain is still beyond our understanding, let alone replication, and the fact that this complexity was not the result of any conscious design, leaves us builders feeling rather small, awestruck. Second, this complexity is worthy of awe and sanctity because it has produced builders.

There are many creations of nature that are so incredible and unlikely that a full list would take a lifetime to enumerate. Why is the human brain, in particular, worthy of more respect than any other brain? That is, why is Alex talking about human life, instead of all life (the existence of life, itself, is a wondrous ultimate given)? Yes, the human brain seems to be the most advanced of the primate family, but is this difference in degree really enough to distinguish between the sanctity of the species? What sets humans apart? What makes us different? 

We are builders. And this is not a simple concept. Building is the arrangement and use of means in the pursuit of various chosen ends. But, means and ends and arrangements are themselves products of the human mind. Iron ore is merely an arrangement of chemical elements until the human mind classifies it as otherwise. Moreover, metal hand-tools do not exist in nature. The idea of them originates in the human mind. That alone is a tremendously distinguishing aspect of human beings: we imagine. What other species can see something which does not exist? I believe imagination is a severely unappreciated topic worthy of greater study. Regardless, the human mind gives the chemical elements of iron ore their meaning and significance by connecting them with the idea of a nonexistent metal hand-tool, and then the human mind develops a plan for transforming the chemical elements of iron ore into the metal hand-tool, shaping the world into a version that suits the mind better. No other species does this. No other species looks at the world, imagines a different world, and acts to bring this imaginary world into reality. What makes humans different is that we have created the world as we know it by giving the arrangement of elements around us meaning, and act each day to change this world into a better world, a new world that is even more the product of the human mind. 

This function of the human mind, this is what sets us apart. Whether or not the human mind can be wholly attributed to the human brain (to be discussed in other journals), the human brain is certainly what made this human mind possible. All of evolution has been a series of steps bringing life from 1 to n. The difference between the brain of a toad and the brain of an ape is just one of degree. The human brain is different. The human brain represents something new, a leap from 0 to 1. It represents a singularity in nature, whereby a species is no longer just the product of its environment, but its environment is a product of the species. With the advent of human beings, an element of purpose was introduced into a world of unconscious processes. Humans imagine, they choose, they act to change things, they build. This, this is what is worthy of our awe and respect. The complexity of the human brain makes human life sacred only because this complexity brought us from 0 to 1. Human beings are not special because we have complex brains; our complex brains are special because they have created human beings.