Featured in Third Thoughts by O.G. Rose
Probable Cause
Adam Smith and Splitting Invisible Hands in an Age of AI and Spreading Hikikomorism
If our friend’s mother died, do we think we would feel the same amount of sadness as would our friend? We will of course feel sadness and do everything in our power to help our friend, but will we actually feel the same level of loss? It would almost be offensive to suggest that we would, wouldn’t it?
If our own mother died, would our friend feel the same grief that we experienced? Again, this isn’t to say that our friend wouldn’t care or wouldn’t feel sad at all: the question is does the subjective feeling and/or experience of grief match? Of course not, but that is no fault of our friend: it’s just a biological and/or neurological reality. We just can’t feel the same intensity of emotion. This doesn’t mean we don’t care — an easy confusion to make — it means only that we are human, and that we have the bodies and minds that we have.
On my wedding day, will anyone feel the same emotion I will feel? When someone wins a million dollars, do I feel the same excitement and/or emotion that person feels? No, but does this mean I don’t care about other people? Not at all. Humans can get better at empathy and imagining the subjective experiences of others, but they can never experience them equally. There is always a divide, but that doesn’t mean humans are heartless.
If my yard was being ruined by groundhogs, would I feel the same motivation to fix it as I would if it was my neighbor’s yard that was being ruined? I will of course care about his yard and very well may help him address the critters, but I will not (subjectively) feel the same motivation to fix the problem. The closer I am to my neighbor, the more motivation I’ll feel to help him, for the stronger the feeling will be to help (though it won’t be equal to what I would feel if it was my own yard being destroyed). Because I own my yard and I’m the one who must live with it, I simply feel more concern for it when I own it. That isn’t to say I can’t help my neighbor or that I won’t, but that the probability I stop groundhogs messing with my yard is greater than the probability of stopping groundhogs that are ruining someone’s else yard. Not because I am selfish, but because the human is the human; the body, the body.
When my friend’s mother dies, considering the emotional divide, will I be equally motivated to attend her funeral as will my friend (assuming there is no bitterness between my friend and his mother)? The question isn’t whether or not I will go to the funeral or whether or not I have a strong motivation to attend, but if I feel the same motivation my friend feels? Of course I don’t, as my friend wouldn’t feel the same motivation to attend my own mother’s funeral, not because my friend doesn’t care, but because my friend has a human body which consists of certain biological and neurological realities, as do I.
All this might constitute a reality we don’t want to admit to ourselves or others: it seems unloving to not experience in the same way the grief others feel. We often say, “I know what you are going through,” and though there is some truth to this phrase, no one actually knows what the subjective experience of another is like. We can share similar experiences, but we cannot share in the subjectivity itself of another. Perhaps we can get better at empathy, but we can never achieve “perfect empathy”: there will always be a divide between subjectivities. Not because people are bad, but because people are human.
If our mom were to die on the same a day a million people in China were to die in an earthquake, which would we feel more sorrow over? Please note that I didn’t ask “Which would you care more about?” or “Which would be more of a tragedy?” — to conflate “feelings” with “care,” “judgment,” or “truth” is to make the mistake warned about in “Emotional Judgment” by O.G. Rose. Rather, my question was which experience would we more so feel? On this line of thought, which would we be motivated to do: attend our mom’s funeral or donate to aid China? We may of course do both, recognizing our duty to all people, but which would we feel more motivation to do? Unless we knew the people in China, we’d obviously feel more motivation to attend our mother’s funeral, not because we don’t care about the people in China, but because that’s just how our body and mind work. This isn’t to say we can’t choose to fight these feelings and recognize that the death of a million Chinese people is more horrible than the death of one (though arguably all death is infinitely horrible), nor is this to say that we can’t choose to miss our mother’s funeral. My point is that the death of our mother will give rise to an awful feeling the death of a million strangers will not give rise to, nor will it give rise to equal motivation. We could of course fight against this feeling and avoid the funeral, and we could of course know that the death of those in China is just as horrible and perhaps even train ourselves, through hard work, to feel equally the same level of emotional grief and devastation. But even if so, this will not come naturally. We will have to work at it, and it is doubtful the majority would ever develop this universal feeling. Perhaps some could develop it, but it is doubtful many would.
This is the reality of human motivation, a reality that is true and obvious and hard to admit. Since we cannot experience the subjectivity of others and have the capacity to imagine, we can pretend things are different from how they actually are, and perhaps we are tempted to do so in hopes of avoiding existential discomfort. But we shouldn’t: the nature of human motivation is a consequence of human biology and neurology. It’s no one’s fault: it’s just how it is.
Humans can develop empathy, yes, but I have never encountered or heard of anyone that was capable of “perfect empathy”: the ability to experience the subjective of another human perfectly. I don’t think it is possible, though that isn’t to say we shouldn’t cultivate empathy within ourselves to the utmost (for empathy is incredibly important, as I have emphasized in other works). My point is to stress the fact that humans aren’t “perfectly empathetic,” and so it is not possible for people to be motivated by the subjective feelings of others in the same way as that person’s own subjective feelings will motivate his or her self.
Now, granted, I don’t have to feel motivation to do something in order to do that thing, but it’s at least safe to say that it’s easier to do something we’re motivated to do than it is to do that which we’re not motivated to do. Probabilistically speaking, I am more likely to do that which I feel like doing than I am to do that which I don’t feel like doing. Across millions of people, it is hence probable that the majority will do more of what it feels like doing than it will do that which it doesn’t feel like doing, and over time, this divide will only increasingly widen. This is obvious enough, isn’t it? But the implications are significant.
We cannot teach the majority (if anyone) to feel equal grief with someone who is suffering, and so we cannot “put within people” the same kind of motivation to act. If a person is suffering due to a lack of food, we cannot teach people to feel the same motivation to find food as will the person who actually lacks food. This again doesn’t mean that people can’t choose to help the person regardless, but it is to say that the majority will not act or at least not act with the same imperative (seeing as it is probable that more people do what they feel like doing than it is they will do that which they don’t feel like doing).
Hence, if we are going to have a society in which the majority helps one another (for example), and/or act in a manner that best coordinates amongst everyone (whatever that might “emerge” to mean), we cannot achieve that society through just teaching people to be compassionate, caring, and empathetic, regardless the apparent or expected effectiveness of the discussions, conversations, initiatives, etc. through which the teaching occurs (efforts, I fear, which often unintentionally lead to us thinking of everyone who isn’t like us as racist, bigoted, evil, etc.). These efforts can help (and I don’t mean to imply we shouldn’t try to increase empathy and care), but these efforts will not change the majority, not because the majority doesn’t care, but because subjective feelings and motivations will have the majority focus on something else (though not at the intentional disregard of the suffering of others, though that is often how it is framed). Might this change if we had available a new infrastructure through which people could experience difference and personally (say through practices and modeling) develop empathy? Perhaps, which is a hope for “the social coordination mechanism” (SCM) — but that is discussed in Belonging Again.
On the question of poverty, for example, the majority will acknowledge that it is a problem that needs to be fixed, but the majority will not be equally motivated to address the problem as the impoverished will be motivated to provide for their families. Not because the majority don’t care, but considering there is a limited amount of time in the day, people cannot choose to be “equally active” in all of humanity’s problems (being finite), and people must take care of their loved ones (what kind of world would it be if they didn’t?). Is this selfish? Perhaps — it’s just reality — if it’s “selfish” or not depends on your Ethical theory (and Ethics ultimately deconstruct before the particular and eternally regress, as argued in “(Im)morality” by O.G. Rose). And regardless, any theory of socioeconomic operation or Ethics must be erected upon the reality of human motivation, for no system, no matter how perfect it is, that fails to take into account real motivation, will prove to be of any practical and lasting use. Perhaps it will be Ethical, and though that’s better than immoral, it won’t improve or spread the good.
If we’re going to live together in our Pluralistic Age, we must live in a socioeconomic system that makes subjective feelings (which motivate a given individual) be beneficial to all; in other words, the system must make self-motivation benefit humanity. What benefits humanity? That which solves problems, spreads peace and understanding, and improves the quality of life. Hence, the system must direct subjective feelings/motivation “toward” addressing problems and the improvement of life’s overall quality. Given the nature of motivation, the biological reality of subjective feelings, and also the reality that time is limited, the system must somehow combine the act of “providing for one’s family” (and other self-interests), per se, with taking on problems (like racism, poverty, hunger, etc.). A system that fails to do this is a system that will fail to effectively improve the lives of all people, and it will be a system that fails to be grounded in the real nature of human beings and their empathetic limits. What system is best then? Perhaps one we’re sick of and one — as discussed in II.1 — that is stagnating, I fear (suggesting why a negation/sublation is needed versus a replacement). In all other options, as Thomas Jockin discusses, when things get tough, unless perhaps we prove capable of taking on “the hard problem of forgiveness,” we will exit — but that topic is for elsewhere.
I
The Wealth of Nations is famous, but Adam Smith’s work on human motivation in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is a gem. Smith hoped to channel human motivation toward making the world a better place, believing human nature and motivation couldn’t be on average radically changed: humanity had to work with the cards it was dealt. Hence, a system had to be created in which people could solve their problems, as they naturally did, while simultaneously solving the problems of others. As we all know, for Smith, that system is Capitalism (though arguable what we call “Capitalism” today isn’t what should be associated with Smith’s vision).
No amount of discussion or awareness can make people feel the same about problems that aren’t theirs as they feel about problems that are their problems. Not because people are evil, immoral, or don’t care about one another, but because human biology is how it is, and time is limited. Smith wrote:
‘The most frivolous disaster which could befall [a man] would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren.’¹
We might want to deny this claim, but is it false? I fear not; otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many initiatives to educate the public about racism, sexism, discrimination, violence against women, etc. If people “just felt” what others went through and were equally motivated to address those problems, these ethical initiatives wouldn’t exist because they wouldn’t be necessary: people would already know about and feel the injustices.
Is it possible to change this biological and neurological reality? Perhaps, but I doubt the majority will ever be so changed (especially without an SCM), not because people are heartless, but because the majority of people’s minds and bodies will work as minds and bodies work (it could be argued that such is the very definition of “natural,” that is, what is “probable”). I don’t think Smith would deny that it is possible for some people to train themselves to feel (almost) equally the subjective feelings of other people, and that hence a minority could be motivated to act on the basis of empathy alone. However, that kind of empathy doesn’t come naturally, and would take a lot of time, energy, and resources that perhaps only a few people would be motivated (or able) to invest. If that’s the case, it’s still only a minority who would change for the better, and so what would be more effective is a system that channeled human motivation in a beneficial direction as human motivation naturally is, rather than try to change it. If we can, it’s more effective to flow with the current of a river than to fight against it, and it is more probable (though not determined) to work, since the majority will likely go with what’s easier (by definition). That’s what Smith hoped to achieve with Capitalism, a system he begrudgingly accepted, for with it he accepted a vision of human nature and life that he wished wasn’t true (but if human nature leads “toward” Kafkalikeness, A/A, stagnation, and self-effacement before our AI-Causer, we have a serious problem).
Additionally, I think Smith would acknowledge that motivation doesn’t necessarily translate into action, though the translation is more probable. Just because a person is motivated to help someone doesn’t mean the person will necessarily help (something may come up, change, etc.). Motivation to do an action isn’t the same as acting, though when motivation is present, the probability of the action occurring is higher, especially when the motivation is self-interested. What I mean by this is that when it comes to the act of going to our mother’s funeral, since it is our mother’s funeral, it is more probable we will go versus if it was the funeral of our friend’s mother (though that’s not to say we wouldn’t go or that we will necessarily go to our own mother’s funeral; again, we’re talking in probabilities, not necessities). In other words, self-interest makes action a person is motivated to do more probable to actually be done.
Action I’m not motivated to do is still action I can do, sure, though it’s more probable I’ll do it when I’m motivated. Additionally, action I am self-interestedly motivated to do is more likely to be done than action I am only motivated to do say due to threats (though it won’t necessarily come to pass, and considering this, the success of Capitalism isn’t necessary). Again, I can do that which I’m only motivated to do (versus self-interestedly motivated to do, though arguably all motivation is somewhat self-interested), but when it comes to the question of probability, “self-interested motivation” is best (especially “intrinsic motivation”). Over the majority, that which is self-interestedly motivated is more likely to occur than what isn’t motivated or only motivated in a non-self-interested way. At the same time, actions I carry out when compelled by self-interested motivations aren’t necessarily “best.” Perhaps my self-interest increases the likelihood that the actions are in fact best, but that’s not a given. For example, it is not a given that my efforts to end world hunger will in fact end world hunger: they may accidentally make things worse or have countless unintended consequences (take the expansion of corn after WWII in America, as discussed in The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan). Emotion and motivation don’t have any necessary influence on the effectiveness or value of the outcome(s) of those (emotionally) motivated actions: I can be outraged about racism and (accidentally) make it worse, as I can feel nothing over racism and (accidentally) help bring racism to an end. Though self-interested motivation may increase the likelihood of a positive and beneficial consequence, it isn’t guaranteed. Hence, a test is needed, and that test can be free exchange (say as described in “Equality and Its Immoral Limits” by O.G. Rose).
Capitalism is supposed to direct self-interested motivation “toward” addressing problems and human flourishing while simultaneously providing a test (through competition, pricing mechanisms, consumer votes, etc.) by which we can determine if a supposed “solution” is in fact a solution; a supposed “improvement,” an actual improvement; a supposed “innovation,” an actual innovation (to allude to the thought of Deidre McCloskey). The system doesn’t necessarily work, but it probably works (given it isn’t fundamentally perverted/pervertible, as described in “The Rationality of Invincibility and Self-Destruction” by O.G. Rose), and over time and over enough active agents, this “probably” increasingly approaches “necessarily” (given that creativity is the main drive of the system instead of mere Capital, and other assumptions that will be discussed shortly). This is assuming the presence of creativity (which is never a given), assuming that no failure in the market can be so great that it tears down the entire marketplace (which in our age of Big Banks, also isn’t a given)…so please don’t take me as saying things are so simple and straightforward, for they are not.
Considering probability, over time, in the system of Capitalism, the number of times people act out of self-interested motivation will likely be greater than the number of times they do not, and the number of times that action obtains the ends it is after should be greater than the number of times the ends aren’t achieved. These actualized ends will then be tested through the market, and over time, since the market is driven by self-interested motivation, the number of times the market test determines what actually is best over what only might be “best” should be greater than the times it fails (and do note we have little other standard to determine what is “best” than by consumer vote and/or “desired end,” even if consumers aren’t good at determine what is “best”…). What is determined as “best” will then be absorbed into the socioeconomic order itself (distributed through the price mechanism) from where it will serve as a springboard for more self-interestedly motivated action and market tests, building result upon result through a process of self-motivated and interdependent trial and error. In this situation, the larger the population grows, the better the system should function, for that means the system is driven by more self-motivation and there are more market tests.
Considering all this, if the system effectively channels human motivation “toward” human flourishing, via probability, it is only a matter of time before humans might “flourish” (though in our eyes, it might not be soon enough). Again, I don’t mean to claim that people can’t act without self-interested motivation, for they very much can, the reasons only knowable to those who act. However, across the majority, self-interest is likely going to be more motivating than no self-interest. And free exchange is the system in which self-interested action can be tested and proven to either work or not, while the action that doesn’t work likely goes extinct.
Smith considered free exchange in hopes of channeling natural human motivation in a way that would make the world a better place. Not because it is impossible for humans to act without self-interested motivation, but because it is more probable that such motivation could lead to action and positive change if channeled well. But is Smith’s vision alive today?² Considering the Hikikomori in Japan, maybe not.
II
But isn’t self-interest ultimately just egotism, anti-community, and atomizing? A fair concern, but as Economancer put it (#240), for Adam Smith in his day, “self-interest was altruism.” For many (and understandably in our technological paradigm, as we’ll discuss), self-interest has come to be thought of primarily in terms of greed, materialism, isolation, and accumulation, when for Smith, a person, to be truly interested in his or her self, had to be interested in a lot more than simple materiality. In fact, if all I’m interested in is capital accumulation, I won’t take care of myself very well, seeing as living a full human life requires much more than money (though that isn’t to say money isn’t important). As a result of thinking about self-interest as primarily a material matter, we might have come to think of the theory of self-interest that drives Capitalism as pessimistic and shallow, and indeed, this would be proper if by “self-interest” we meant simply “materialism” or “selfishness.” But “self-interest” entails feeling, not just materiality: perhaps one is self-interested to obtain a certain material state, but that doesn’t mean all self-interest is exclusively about materiality or about self at the expense of others. To say that “humans are motivated by self-interest” isn’t so much to say that “human are materialistic and/or selfish at the expense of others,” but that humans feel what they are particularly and actually involved in more so than they feel that which they aren’t so involved in. This clarification is important, and furthermore, for Smith, we couldn’t do what was in our self-interest if we didn’t care about the people around us. If we cheated a baker we knew, we wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, and if we could, our conscience was dead, and that wasn’t in our self-interest either.
Humans feel more naturally motivated by the needs, desires, circumstances, etc. of individuals they know and experience than by the plights faced by the general humanity (due to biology and neurology, whether they like it or not). Humans are motivated by particularities more than generalities, and the more personal the particularity, the more it gives rise to emotions and motivations within a given person. People go to work to provide for their families before they go to work to provide for humanity (especially when times are tough), not because humans don’t care about humanity, but because the human body works as the human body works. Is this unethical? Perhaps, but ultimately we are all “(im)moral” (discussed in “(Im)morality” by O.G. Rose).
As expanded on in II.1, another reason why “self-interest” is a critical motivator is because it is more likely to deal with “local knowledge problems,” a point which we can associate with Mises and Hayek. The chances of someone in Washington D.C. knowing what my local restaurant needs for next week is low, whereas the chances are much higher for someone who works at that restaurant. We can also consider a problem of categorization: if the State tells us to feed the poor, we still must decide who falls under the category of “poor,” and if the State doesn’t allow us to make that determination for ourselves, there will probably be significant inefficiency. When people are self-interested, each one of them decides for themselves what is “the best thing to do” relative to their particular circumstances and scope, and that includes ethical action.
Specificity, particularity, and nuance can more readily be taken into account via self-motivation in and to one’s particularity, and if it is true that ethics can only be determined in the particular (as argued say in “Dialectical Ethics” and “(Im)morality,” both by O.G. Rose), then letting individuals decide “what is right” relative to their circumstance is the best hope for ethical living anyway: ethics can’t be abstracted. Also, people must be motivated by what they think is good (as we often discuss with St. Augustine, there is no such thing as “a bad motivation”): the problem is just that “what people think is good” isn’t necessarily “what is good.”3 The more the people making the decisions are particularly and specifically involved in a situation, the greater the chance their assessment of “what is good” will be accurate, but not necessarily, hence the need for “a market test.”4 Overall, the idea is that self-motivated actions (in particularity) are more likely to be tested and found “(more) right (than wrong),” and if the test proves wrong, the action is on small enough of a scale (“bound” by particularity) that the negative consequences won’t be grave, spread, and/or systemic (or so the theory goes).
Yes, a moral injustice like racism can motivate a person to act, but it is usually the case that those who feel moral injustices are those of whom the moral injustice falls within the scope of their self-interest. The man who protests sexism tends to have a wife or girlfriend who has suffered gender discrimination, as the rich man who is infuriated by poverty tends to have experienced poverty in some fashion. In no way whatsoever is this bad — discrimination and poverty should be stopped — my point is that self-motivation drives the action more than Ethical Theory. But to say humans are driven by self-interest is not to necessarily say humans are driven by greed and selfishness (though that isn’t to say they can’t be so motivated). To say “society is driven by self-interest” is mostly to say that “society is driven by self-feeling and/or self-motivation,” for good or for bad (the replacement of the term “self-interest” with “self-motivation” would perhaps do a lot of good). Self-interest entails self-motivation and vice-versa, and self-motivation is not limited at all to capital accumulation. When I become friends with someone, I become self-interested in their wellbeing, because I become self-motivated to work on our friendship, and if they’re not healthy and thriving, it’s hard to strengthen a relationship (for example). When I become friends with someone, I become emotionally entangled in that person’s life, for good or bad, and at this point, it is in my self-interest that my friend does well, for I feel whatever sadness my friend feels (to some extent). And for Adam Smith, Capitalism drew people into relationships (on a broad scale) as it motivated people to pursue their self-interests, hence “an invincible hand of markets” and “an invincible hand of ethics” became two parts of the same “hand.” But does Capitalism today still so draw people? .
For Smith, self-interest is composed of other-involvement: all individual lives are situated within networks of interdependence. To benefit the self is to benefit the network, as to benefit the network is to benefit the self (though that isn’t to say mistakes aren’t made). Action that only benefits the individual would be action that, in not benefiting the network, wouldn’t actually benefit the individual, as action that only benefited the network, in not benefiting the individual, wouldn’t actually benefit the network. Hence, to be truly self-interested, individual action and actualization must be network-beneficial. And in practice, it seems to me that people basically know that “self-interest” isn’t equivalent to “selfishness” and live accordingly: fathers know they wouldn’t be truly happy if their children were miserable, as members of a community know their community influences the vibrancy of their homes.
We are all networks of lives: unless some “Wolf Boy,” none of us exist outside relationships. In this way, “rugged individualism” is a myth, but it doesn’t follow from this that it is justified to violate “self-interest,” for “self-interest” can be “network-interest” (perhaps “rugged networks” is a better phrase). We are all interdependent, but for Smith that is taken into account in self-interest (it is doubtful that there exists a human who cares about absolutely no one else): in taking care of themselves, people take care of others (though not necessarily for the best, please note). Still, what is important to note is that human beings don’t naturally take “humanity” into consideration, only those of whom the person cares about “particularly” (and so those others of whom help constitute a person’s “self”). A person can learn to care about humanity, but even if a person does, it is deeply unnatural the person feel toward humanity what the person feels toward those others whom the person actually knows and “encounters.” Accepting this reality shouldn’t be held against Capitalism to deem it “unethical”: Capitalism simply accepts “The Real,” we might say (alluding to Lacan). Capitalism should be judged more on if it cultivates creativity — which education today, however, seems to retard…
III
Even though we can choose to “know” that suffering in China is more devastating than a cut finger, we cannot choose to naturally “feel” that such is the case. This is a tough and cold reality, but if we deny it, we might socially and politically design a system, pass policy, launch initiatives, etc., that prove doomed and self-destructive. Critically, the theory of human nature (and corresponding socioeconomic system) that is presented in this work is grounded by Smith in a biological and neurological reality: it isn’t erected upon any metaphysics or “state of nature” theory like that presented by Rousseau or Hobbes. This being the case, to deny what is presented here is to deny our bodies, which would set us up for psychosis and self-effacement. “The Real is the Real” — denying this, however much we might want to, will have consequences.
In Smith’s work, motivation is grounded in the concrete, biological fact that we don’t experience the (subjective) feelings of others as we experience our own.⁵ Hence, Smith doesn’t present an Ethical Theory so much as he presents a biological reality that we have to deal with and that we should create a socioeconomic system that accepts, seeing as that will increase the probability of the system working and hence human flourishing (though not necessarily).⁶ Note also that this paper doesn’t make a deterministic argument but rather attempts to establish a web of probability based on human motivation. “What’s best” isn’t guaranteed, though for Smith in no other system is “the best” any more likely.
To attempt to motivate by Ethics requires convincing people that a certain act is good, while people don’t have to be convinced that what they are self-interested to do is in fact what they should do. When people act out of self-interest, they will act based on what they believe is good (by definition) without the difficult step of convincing them of something. And the moment we have to convince people to do something, we are fighting upstream, using incredible amounts of timenergy (as Dave McKerracher discusses), and risking oppression.⁷ There’s a place for “convincing,” as there is a place for Democracy, but the point is that the probability of something working that requires “convincing” people to do something different from what they naturally do is less likely than something working which simply needs people to act as they naturally act (and even if we somehow succeeded, the success is unlikely to last beyond a generation or two). For this reason alone, Ethical Theories are less idle than Smith’s vision.
Even if we could convince everyone to ascent to an Ethical code, there would be no guarantee that the Ethical code was in fact moral: altruism was used to legitimize horror in both Germany and the Soviet Union (for example). For people to act out of Ethics doesn’t promise good and ethical consequences compared to when people act out of self-interest: a “market test” is needed, which is what Capitalism can provide, but can an Ethical Theory provide in itself a test to “check and balance” itself like can Smith’s vision? If not, that is a major problem. Ah, but what if “the market test” itself trains us into habits that lead to stagnation, a loss of creativity, meaninglessness, and the like? What if the market begins training us out of our capacities to socially relate and socialize? Or to see significance in life around us? If that were to occur, though “the market test” would still prove unrivaled in helping distribute resources (Hayek), in determining what innovations are in fact “innovations” (McCloskey), etc., it might not matter. Motivation in the system would dry up. The magnificent mechanisms of the market would run out of steam.
No system which doesn’t “tarry with natural human motivation” is likely to last and/or spread, and in Smith we see a way of combining “self-interest” and “communal-interest,” which we can describe as a unification of “an invisible hand of the market” and “an invisible hand of ethics.” Deirdre McCloskey notes that the phrase “invisible hand” is not used often by Adam Smith, and by it he did not envision an overarching force that always guaranteed “the best of all possible outcomes.” The phrase “invisible hand” is used in (at least) two distinct senses for McCloskey: from A Theory of Moral Sentiments, we see an “invisible hand” that is more ethical and even providential. To quote Smith:
‘The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labors of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are lead by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among the inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.’⁸
Almost echoing Genesis (where what man meant for evil, God meant for good), McCloskey argues Smith is describing “the invisible hand” in a way that suggests an ethical movement, where even what is unethically motivated can end up spreading an ethical way of life. In Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, the emphasis is on a “high order” coordination that spreads ethics and empathy, whereas in The Wealth of Nations, Smith is using the same metaphor to describe what we more commonly today understand “the invisible hand” to be describing:
‘As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.’⁹
This “invisible hand” arises in local environments while emergently helping with the whole that the locality might be oblivious of and even disregard (interestingly, Smith also justifies Capitalism as “beautiful,” writing that ‘[w]e take pleasure in beholding the perfection of so beautiful and grand a [self-organzing] system’).¹⁰ For McCloskey, from A Theory of Moral Sentiments, we see an “invisible hand” that is more ethical and even theological, while in The Wealth of Nations we see an “invisible hand” that more arises in local environments while emergently helping with the whole (which doesn’t even get into Smith’s essay on “The History of Astronomy,” which might provide a critical key for understanding “the invisible hand of the invisible hand” in Smith’s work).¹¹ In Capitalism, it is possible for these two “invisible hands” to be one and the same, but must they necessarily be unified? No, and the splitting of the one hand into two arises and increases as Capitalism increasingly ceases to force us to go, socially interact, and so develop empathy before “the face” of others (Levinas). On this point, we will make a “turn” in this paper to outline a critical problem: Smith’s (cybernetic) vision is best for managing and directing human motivation for social ends, but its effectiveness varies given the technological paradigm of which Capitalism helps bring about and/or change.
IV
Adam Smith envisioned self-interest and communal-interest as two-sides of the same coin: we couldn’t participate in Capitalism without relating to others and, in the very act of encountering others, developing empathy and attachment that made it no longer in our self-interest to disregard others (Capitalism is in a way opposite of “religions of detachment”). Capitalism aimed to compel self-interest into attachment, at which point self-interest would entail other-interest. It’s a brilliant move, but here we can start to understand why Smith comes across as a tragic thinker: he supports Capitalism, but then sounds dismal when describing industry, assembly lines, and the like. Why? Perhaps because these were forms of Capitalism that didn’t necessary develop empathy and human attachment? And looking centuries ahead, perhaps Smith would have thought differently of Capitalism had he knew that this kind of work would become the rule instead of the exception (arguably the orientation from where Marx writes).
In Smith’s day, “the two invisible hands” described by McCloskey were “practically one” even if not “technically one,” and perhaps the effectiveness of these “hands” at the time was precisely because of their unity: one without the other leads to trouble. Today, thanks to Capitalism, we have developed technologies that allow us to shop, bank, buy groceries, watch movies, etc., without leaving our home. Remote work is possible. We basically never have to leave our home, and this is seen as a remarkable accomplishment of convenience and progress. Indeed, in a way it is, but in another way it is deeply problematic, for it means “the two invisible hands” can separate and no longer develop together (which was already a problem, considering the collapse of social and communal capital, as discussed in Belonging Again). It is now possible for “the invisible hand of the market” to strengthen the economy without at the same time developing social capital or training our capacities for socialization, empathy, and the like. In fact, what benefits the economy could train us out of these capacities, opposite of what Smith studied, with the Hikikomori in Japan as a strong case study of this problem and possibility.
For Smith, what we are “self-interested” in doing is trained by the people around us, so there is not a hard divide between “the social” and “the individual” regarding our motivation (hence why religions can focus on church over theology, even if both are needed: religions die by the congregation more than by the failed creed). This is our hope, but also our danger: if a social order with its social contract collapses, self-interest could atomize. This would be a separation of “the two invisible hands” in Smith, which in previous eras was unimaginable. Well, now, thanks to Capitalism and its technology, the impossible is possible: we can access the world without leaving our desk. In such a world, the hikikomori becomes possible and even rational (and perhaps it is rational of “the market’s invisible hand” to free itself from “the socializing invisible hand”?).
“Hikikomorism” refers to the growing trend of people who rarely leave their apartments or homes, except maybe here and there for food and basic necessities (which can increasingly be delivered). The social phenomenon was first noted in Japan, mostly with young men who basically gave up on society, family, and career. Japan is notoriously a “shame culture,” and those who fail to excel in school and work can be made to feel absolutely terrible for that failure, making the option of “exit” appealing (as technology is increasingly making possible). The number of hikikomori in Japan has been rising, and it is expanding to a growing number of women, and also spreading around the world. “Hikikomorism” is meant to refer to this growing social and global transformation, which I do not think is primarily a mental illness or biological in origin. Hikikomorism is mainly a social pathology, which might lead to mental illness, but the social dimension should be kept in focus (we might say Marx was an early thinker of Hikikomorism).
Japan for me is a critical case study for understanding where the world is going, because Japan modernized without religion first (as I discussed with Daniel Zaruba, #44), and as religion wanes around the world, we should expect to see social developments that resemble Japan (for good and for bad). Also, Japan is increasingly seen as a “low desire society,” which also seems to follow from our technological paradigm (contributing to the Great Stagnation described in II.1). Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, for it suggests the Japanese are not pursuing material goods and luxuries that might ultimately prove unsustainable due to environmental damage, inequality, etc., but in a world where GDP requires desire for demand, which is necessary to avoid Economic Depressions, we might be in trouble. But what if AI could do all our working and demanding for us? Would it matter then if we were “low desire” people, as perhaps trained into us by our social and technological condition?¹² Perhaps not.
“Incels” are a growing demographic, and I would put them on the same gradient as the hikikomori, though not perhaps as extreme or identical. The incel perhaps is trying not to be a hikikomori, but more and more can be “blacked pill” and give up on social success in terms of career, family, etc. The incel can simply feel like how to succeed socially just doesn’t make sense, which is a valid feeling where “social intelligence” isn’t naturally taught by market coordination (which erodes churches, communities, etc. while making isolation increasingly possible thanks to technology). Leon Brenner talks about “The Autistic Subject,” and it can be argued that we increasingly live in an Autistic Society (as I spoke with Javier Rivera about, #239), which is another social development I would associate with Global Hikikomorism, incubated and spread by the unique mixture of market mechanisms and our/its technological paradigm, which is dividing apart “the two invisible hands” described by Adam Smith. When I discuss “Hikikomorism,” a “Pod Life” like Owen discusses, to various degrees, I have all these social and more isolationist developments in mind.
Adam Smith perhaps couldn’t imagine a world where the market predominantly developed without developing empathy, even though he observed pockets of this kind of market activity that he disliked. Again, Smith seems to have saw these dismal instances as exceptions to the rule and a necessary tradeoff and/or “tragedy,” but it turns out that what wasn’t normal is now definitive, and arguably increasingly so with the development of Artificial Intelligence (Land waits). Without necessarily developing empathy, the very rationality of “the market’s invisible hand” could lead to a world where it proves rational and efficient to remove the conditions of possibility for the Social, which is when Global Hikikomorism will be realized. And if along the way our nervous system is weakened, we lose capacities to handle anxiety, and the like, then this “Total Depravity of Global Hikikomorism” will prove “locked from the inside” (C.S. Lewis). But why speak so negatively? Where beauty is absent, this way of life seems good and rational. Indeed, it is: “the good” (without Beauty) is an isolating motivation (“toward” small fascist states).¹³
Though it is easy to see something wrong with the hikikomori, I would strongly argue that this life-choice isn’t irrational but rational in conditions when survival isn’t dependent on socialization, and social life seems to generate anxiety with little reward to show for it. Sure, I would argue Hikikomorism is a Nash Equilibrium — a suboptimal result that follows from rational behavior — but that is from the standpoint of believing that value and wellbeing is gained from the Social that cannot be gained any other way. If I’m wrong about that, the hikikomori might be smarter.
V
In a world where making money required us to develop empathy, making money could benefit the Social; now, making money can hurt the Social and benefit technology at our expense. “The invisible hand of ethics” and “the invisible hand of the market” have divided due to technology, and so we are undergoing “invisible autocannibalism” (Land waits).¹⁴ Deirdre McCloskey with Adam Smith makes a strong case for why technology as we know it today would not be possible without Capitalism, and indeed for Nick Land the logic of Capital and logic of Technology are basically the same thing (“the technological essence” of Heidegger, the logical end of Western Metaphysics, is no mistake of Capitalism but its fulfillment). Problematically, that means the very Capitalism that for Smith trained socialization did so for the sake of generating a technology that would make socialization optional.
Socialization is a muscle, and if we don’t use it, we lose it. Until our current technological paradigm, this could not have been experienced; now, we are able to run the social experiment and see if humans are naturally social, or if they must be habituated into social capacities. Well, in a world where technology gets us get out of the habit of interacting with others, while at the same time making it so that we don’t need others (as King Laugh pointed out), it turns out the Social isn’t guaranteed, and now for many it is irrational and “not worth trying” to regain it. Can we really “show” a compelling alternative? (Beauty?)
To review and bring together the threads of this paper, Smith points out that we are all to some degree locked in ourselves with our motivations — we must be the only one who ever feels the loss of our mother like we feel it — which is to say “perfect empathy” is impossible. Because of this, we need a system that channels this reality to the benefit of the collective (via emergence vs top-down design). However, because we are necessarily locked in our motivations as individuals, it is all the more important that we interact with others and develop empathy as we realize our individuated motivations; otherwise, our individuated motivations will develop without incorporating other-interests (and then we may act in a way that hurts others and not feel bad about it, and/or we may live our lives not feeling a need for others, without a longing for others, etc.). If our individuated motivation is divided from interacting with others — say because there is no system that makes it necessary that I do so (“freedom of individuated motivation” is divided from “necessity of social interaction) — it is possible that we will isolate ourselves with our motivation, and then lose capacities for interacting with others, meaning we end up “locked from the inside” (to allude to C.S. Lewis). Hence, individuated motivation then passes over into atomization, and potentials for “a new address” will be lost.
We are already “toward” atomization in having our motivations bound to us, which is to say the impossibility of “perfect empathy” can make us “toward” giving up on empathy entirely. But where “the two invisible hands” were united say in Smith’s day, the necessity of interacting with others kept “the excesses of individuation” from getting out of hand and growing into atomization as Hikikomorism; now though, due to the technology which “the market invincible hand” made possible, “the excesses of individuation” are not checked by any necessity. Bringing Hegel to mind, the “limit” must be chosen (nonrational), and why would we choose that limit? People are hard, aren’t they?
Following Smith, Ethical Theories are less likely to create wealth compared to natural human motivations, but they also could stop “the excesses of individuation” in providing a command to not be egotistical, selfish, or the like. As Capitalism atomizes, Ethical Theories can grow in appeal again, and no doubt people will begin returning to them in religion and the like. But Ethical Theories are ineffective compared to natural human motivation, and they will easily serve power, create oppressed groups, and the like. This is easily not the right address, but it will seem like an improvement, and is the “Global Hikikomorism” on offer any better?¹⁵ Easily not.
To review, as we learn in Smith, the effectiveness of Capitalism is partly in how it has channeled natural human motivation in favor of the collective, practically making it so that “self-interest was altruism” and helping bring about “The Great Enrichment” that Deidre McCloskey discusses. But to tap into this kind of individuated motivation is dangerous, for it requires something (nonrational) to “hold back” and “check and balance” its possible excesses, which weren’t a problem in Smith’s day, because “the two invisible hands” were unified. As George Will once put it, Smith saw a world where Capitalism — with note of exceptions that Smith did not seem to take to be the rule — made us not just “better off” but also “better,” and this a fair position where “the invisible hands” are “practically one.” Now though, the hands are split, and Global Hikikomorism spreads. And why shouldn’t it? Do we have “good enough reason” why the hikikomori should interact with people? (Beauty?)
If we are going to harness individuated motivation, we must be incredibly careful to not unleash atomization — and we were not careful. We let “the invincible hand of the market” outmaneuver through technology “the invincible hand of socialization and empathy,” per se, because it was only rational (“the suboptimal result” of a Nash Equilibrium). As expanded on in II.1, there is no “necessity” compelling us to gain and train the Social now, and so before our AI-Causer self-effacement seems likely — “The Absolute Choice” is ours.
Based on inherent and biological realities of human motivation (versus an Ethical Theory), the “probable cause” of Capitalism that makes it an effective coordination system is the very “probable cause” that leads to it being guilty of the death of the Social in favor of AI. If Capitalism is going to avoid the fate foreseen by Nick Land and benefit Global Pluralism socially and for subjects, the “two invisible hands” of the market and the community will have to be unified again, and how in the world might that be possible? Well, we will have to prove wanting to encounter, and able to handle, “the face” of the other, notably “the radically other,” and that in my view will only be possible with Beauty (“the good” will not be enough).
In conclusion, “Probable Cause” suggests that it is impossible to effectively “command control” an economy as well as can letting an economy operate according to natural human motivation, but in Smith’s day what humans wanted couldn’t be realized without at the same time encountering others, developing empathy, and training social skills. Now, “the two invisible hands” can be divided (and so unveiled to indeed be two), and market coordination is now possible without social coordination and training (we can participate in the market and never leave our room). But if a “common economy” or “top-down coordination” cannot effectively fix this problem of dwindling socialization, what are we to do? Are we doomed?
The fate of beauty is the fate of us.
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Notes
¹Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976: 233–234.
²Capitalism has arguably undergone problematic misunderstandings and redefinitions. To start, its success has been thought of as thanks to capital distribution versus the spread and rise of creativity (in line with the thought of Deirdre McCloskey and as discussed in “The Creative Concord” by O.G. Rose). This has led to an over-focus on financial market expansion, a belief that limited capital is the cause of social ills, and a de-emphasis on cultivating creativity within the population (which I think has contributed to materialism, unhappiness, and an increased inability to take on problems) — furthermore, Capitalism ends up in “a logic of Capital” that keeps it from changing course, as discussed in II.1. The focus on capital over creativity has also led to policy that I fear has resulted in huge wealth concentration and a death of social mobility (as lamented in “The Creative Concord”). Ironically, State action to create social mobility may have hurt social mobility, seeing that those actions were committed based on the premise that capital injection would improve socioeconomic conditions, when capital might only help at best (ultimately, “creative destruction” is required: Capitalism naturally heads to “wealth concentration,” and only doesn’t to the degree creativity and “creative destruction” are present). Valuing capital over creativity, I fear, has also led to a society where market forces instead of people determine our values, as written about by Michael Sandel in What Money Can’t Buy. This has contributed to a collapse of culture and the Liberal Arts, to an increasingly exclusive concern with accumulating pleasure, status, power, and money, and to a breakdown of social relations, as warned about by Karl Marx.
Capitalism can be thought of today as “the system that makes people rich” versus “the system that addresses problems.” In Capitalism, in theory, if I am hungry, I can go to the store and buy food: the economy provides a means by which I can solve my problem (since I don’t have to go out and hunt, though I can still do so if I want). If I am sick, I can go to the hospital: the economy provides a structure of resource distribution to assure that the medicine I need is where I can access it. Thanks to Capitalism, there can be solutions to problems. Thank to whatever motivation — greed, the desire to make a living to provide for a family, a love of humanity, etc. — the solution to my problem is provided, and whether the way it was provided was moral or not (according to some Ethical theory) doesn’t change the fact that the solution was available (though I don’t mean to suggest “the end justifies the means” — the point is that the system is flexible to handle different kinds of motivations). Perhaps I can’t afford it, but at least the solution is there: no matter how much wealth Cleopatra had, she couldn’t drive a car, for cars had not been invented, she did not know how to invent them, and even if she did, the infrastructure was not there for it, nor the millions of trained people required for the operation of that infrastructure. This in mind, creativity is central to keep Capitalism from self-effacing, and our school system today seems anti-creativity in a world of growing AI…
³As Saint Augustine recognized, there is no such thing as a “bad motive,” and what Augustine meant by this is that no one does anything believing that what is done won’t be beneficial to his or her self. Yes, people can feel conflicted about what they should do (unsure what is right to do), as people can feel like doing something they know they shouldn’t, but if ultimately a person chooses to do x instead of y, the person believes the good of x outweighs the bad of x in comparison to y (perhaps thanks to self-deception, disowning their moral conscience in light of rational understanding, immediate gratification versus abstract future consequences, etc.). If someone commits murders, that person thinks it’s “good to murder,” even though the act itself is bad. Every time a person acts, a person is motivated by an “idea of the good,” and to say, “people are self-interested,” is to say “people are moved by what they believe is good.” Of course, what a person thinks is good isn’t necessary good, but that goes all up and down the board: what the State thinks is best isn’t necessarily best, as what a genius thinks is true isn’t necessarily true. In free enterprise, everyone in theory has the freedom and power to pursue what they think is good (within the rule of law), with all “good-motivated actions” being tested by the market and distributed if tested and found acceptable, without power being so concentrated that any one agent can control the rest or bring everyone down if it were to fail.
⁴The very fact people must be motivated by “what they think is good” suggests limits to what teaching Ethical Theory can accomplish, for most people, believing they are “seeking the good,” likely won’t think they need an Ethical Education (even if they might benefit from it).
⁵Also problematic for “Ethics as motivator,” to allude to the thought presented in “Equality and Its Immoral Limits” by O.G. Rose, when people act out of Ethics, existential uncertainty can result. It can become unclear to people if others are treating them the way they are because they want to or because it is Ethical. We often say that self-interest is selfish, yet ironically, in a way, it’s actually what we want. We want people to want to treat us rightly: we don’t just want to be treated rightly (that’s part of it, but not all of it). Minorities don’t just want to be treated fairly: they also want people to want to treat them fairly. If I am a black man, I want whites to stop being racist toward me not primarily because it is their duty, but because they want to do so (“I want to be wanted”). I also want whites to feel as if they benefit from wanting me for who I am, for that makes me feel as if I have value and worth that I can share. To offer another example: a girl doesn’t want to be asked out on a date because the guy wants her to feel good: she wants the guy to want her. When people want to like us, we feel as if they actually like us; when they only want to like us because “it’s the right thing to do,” we don’t feel fully wanted. Perhaps it is Ethical to want someone without any self-interest, but if that’s the case, we don’t want to be treated Ethically: we want to be wanted. Otherwise, the relationship doesn’t feel genuine. It feels empty.
Self-interest can create a sense of genuineness, though it can also lead to abusing others out of greed, materialism, etc. (increasingly likely as Capitalism loses its focus on creativity and true wealth creation). But at least in freedom there is the possibility (and even likelihood) of genuineness, so how do we get this “genuineness” without the perversions of self-interest? Beauty, I think, as Thomas Jockin stresses.
⁶The probability of overcoming racism, sexism, etc., will be greater when the efforts to do so are grounded in the biological reality that humans feel self-interested motivation more so than they feel Ethical motivation. In other words, telling people to care about race issues will not be as effective as making it in people’s self-interest to stop racism. Success will also be more likely when there is a test (such as free exchange) to determine which efforts actually work, to determine, for example, if a housing project actually helps with minority homelessness without causing housing discrimination or not. Perhaps this paints a less Ethical picture of humanity than we would like to paint? Regardless, we must accept human biology and the natural limits of empathy for us and the majority. The sooner we do so, the sooner we can enact initiatives that work at solving discriminatory problems.
If we want to increase justice in the world, the likelihood we succeed will be proportional to the degree we spread the conditions of possibility for friendship, which I think are connected to “the conditions of possibility for Childhood” (discussed in Belonging Again).
⁷Please note that “the strike of beauty” does not have to convince people, for they are struck and then cannot “unsee” it (Nabokov).
⁸Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 184–185.
⁹Smith, Adam. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1981: 456.
¹⁰Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 185.
¹¹In his “History of Astronomy,” Adam Smith suggests that philosophy begins with a ‘curiosity to find out those hidden chains of events which bind together the seemingly disjointed appearances of nature.’¹ Smith described wonder and surprise, and he thinks that surprise arises when things “appear” and/or “lead to one another” in a way that is contrary to what we are used to, and that this can lead to a dis-ease in us that we then want to stabilize (unable to “unsee” it). We can then inquire into the occurrence to understand it, and if we come to succeed, ‘[t]wo objects which are [somehow] connected seem no longer to be disjoined, and the imagination flows smoothly and easily along them.’² A regaining of “smooth flowing imagination along phenomenon” — this is what we are after once dis-eased, and Smith suggests philosophy is birthed in hope for such a regaining.
Philosophy is birthed from wonder, yes, but that is because wonder leads to dis-ease (almost a “mental illness”). ‘Philosophy is the science of connecting principles of nature,’ Smith writes, which begs the question of why is philosophy even needed versus just science?³ Well, science is where “imagination flows smoothly along phenomenon,” and in this sense all (“dis-eased”) philosophy ideally leads into (“smooth”) science (which could then make it seem as if philosophy isn’t needed, perhaps setting us up for trouble). But science as a method cannot alone tell us how we should go about theorizing, approaching, and/or experimenting regarding our dis-ease: that will take philosophical reasoning, which hopefully leads to the scientific method, but perhaps not. Philosophy is how we can investigate our dis-ease so that we can determine the best way to scientifically go about testing it, and/or, if the dis-ease can’t be “smoothed out” by science, philosophy could help us experience Beauty (where science cannot reach and make intelligible by itself, Beauty could do the work — assuming we have not disregarded Beauty as irrelevant).
However, philosophy doesn’t always lead to an understanding which can be scientifically tested and verified (which could bring great relief to the imagination, to the point of no longer having to think about it, alluding to Blondel), but that doesn’t mean philosophy isn’t nevertheless supposed to help us with existential stability. As Smith writes:
‘Philosophy, by representing the invisible chains which bind together all these disjointed objects, endeavors to introduce order into this chaos of jarring and discordant appearances, to allay this tumult of the imagination, and to restore it, when it surveys the greater revolutions of the universe, to that tone of tranquility and composure, which is both more agreeable in itself, and most suitable to its nature. Philosophy, therefore, may be regarded as one of those arts which address themselves to the imagination […]’⁴
If philosophy leads to understanding regarding what is “invisible,” we can regain ease from dis-ease. Where uncertainty appears, philosophy naturally emerges to treat the dis-ease (hence why “philosophy” and “the (meta)physician” share a history), bringing the chaos into some order as understood in some field of study (with science perhaps being “the most conquered chaos,” per se). Looking to Belonging Again, where “givens” are gone, uncertainty and chaos grow, and so it makes sense we see “a revenge of philosophy” today (as Cadell Last discusses): philosophy is making a comeback to treat the dis-ease which the scientific method alone cannot “smoothen” (not that science acknowledges this shortcoming, leading to trouble).
Anyway, philosophy begins in wonder, yes, but a wonder of the invisible forces by which visible things “are” themselves, operate, and form. We do not readily feel wonder when rain falls from the clouds; we can feel wonder when we wonder how rain falls from the clouds, for that “how” is not given by the mere seeing of rain fall from above. Our curiosity does not readily activate when we see a stone fall from the cliff; our curiosity blazes when ask why the stone fell and realize that saying, “It fell from a cliff,” is not enough. It is the “not seen (yet)” that captivates us, especially once we realize that we cannot understand why visible things behave the way they do simply by studying the visible. Sure, we can learn that rocks fall when dropped off cliffs, but this sight alone does not tell us “the (meta)background” that makes it the case that “rocks fall when dropped off cliffs.” (“Beauty,” as Jockin describes, is perhaps when the sight of a rock falling becomes “one with” the “invisible background” of its manifestation — (in)visible, we might say, which means beauty is on the other side of the thought that threatens it.)
Philosophy is an investigation into ‘invisible causes,’ and it begins when ‘imagination, which accompanies with ease and delight the regular process of nature, is stopped and embarrassed by […] seemingly incoherences.’⁵ ⁶ As I understand it, Smith suggests that Astronomy helped birth philosophy (‘the celestial appearances are […] the most universal objects of the curiosity’), because it so easily created a sense that there were invisible forces we didn’t understand, hence generating dis-ease (and please note how Plato describes “the forms” in Book VII of The Republic as being like the orbits of planets, more than “the perfect planets” themselves).⁷ But critically, a reason Astronomy did this was not just because humans didn’t understand the invisible forces that moved the stars, but because the heavens were regular (‘the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars […] appearing always in the same situation, and at the same distance with regard to one another and seemingly to revolve every day […]’).⁸ The heavens were not random and chaotic: they were mysterious, but they were a reliable and regular mystery. This suggested intelligibility was possible though unknown, and so the mind felt wonder and dis-ease (we feel dis-ease where there is something we sense we can know but don’t; if we were certain intelligibility was impossible, we would not feel dis-ease (perhaps incentivizing us to claim the Unknown is Unknowable)). Today, a reason “the loss of givens” is causing “a revenge of philosophy” is because we remember regularity, order, and social intelligibility; hence, we know it is possible. If we didn’t have that memory, perhaps philosophy would not be making a comeback, suggesting why Plato was right to connect memory and philosophy so profoundly. But does this mean memory is a bad thing because it causes dis-ease? Perhaps we should be “like a dog,” as Kafka wrote on? Indeed, Kafka presents a choice, as does Nick Land.
Philosophy begins in wonder, but wonder requires a mixture of regularity and mystery; otherwise, we don’t sense a possibility for understanding, and a mystery that isn’t intelligible isn’t a mystery but nonsense. The split between “not knowing” and “the possibility of knowing” causes dis-ease, and in that state we seek to regain “smoothness of imagination,” the seeking of which leads to a process of seeking “the most elegant system” of explanation (for if a ‘system […] become[s] as intricate and complex as those appearances themselves, which it had been invented to render uniform and coherent,’ it is a failure for the imagination) — hence an existential justification for Occam’s Razor.⁹ Philosophy with its fields of study ever-seeks an ever-more elegant and/or “simple” system (as perhaps we do in all speaking, thinking, writing…), and to find an understanding that (re)grants “smoothness to the imagination” is what can drive intellectual investigation. If this investigation fails, slows down too much, etc., we might be overwhelmed by dis-ease, and that, in our hunger for regaining “smoothness” (“existential stability”) could lead to severe political and social consequences (as we might be seeing today)…
Kuhn is famous for his discussion “paradigm shifts,” and Kuhn noted that elegance was a key quality of new paradigms. Here, considering Smith, we can begin to see why: dis-ease begins investigation, and dis-ease seeks a “smoothness” that frees us from dis-ease; the more elegant and “simple” the system, “the more smooth” the imagination can feel again, and so dis-ease is addressed. Alluding to Gurdjieff as taught by Luke Behncke (#238), an elegant system helps Energy flow (which I’ll capitalize to suggest the Gurdjieffian sense), and it is when Energy is unable to flow that we feel dis-ease. In a sense, a reason “paradigm shifts” align with “increased elegance” is because Energy can’t not go in that direction: the “smoothness” just slips and carries thought along (as does a good metaphor and/or analogy, like “invisible hand,” for good and for bad). The new “map” must be simple enough for “Energy to flow,” but not so simple that Energy feels like it didn’t gain a new direction — a proper proportion and “geometric mean” (Jockin) is needed. Once that criterion is met, the “paradigm shift” begins (it seemingly cannot not begin).
(Energy can’t be stopped, only contained until a “smoother” direction manifests.)
(Metageometry is Energy — time(space) curving-into-curving.)
Anyway, we see stars moving regularly, but we do not see what is mysteriously moving them; hence, philosophy begins (often ending up in mathematics, because mathematics is itself “invisible” yet seems discovered and so real — hence why it’s important to stress that “Algebra is created, while Geometry is discovered”). What Smith is suggesting is that Astronomy is a “a study of ‘an invisible hand,’ ” per se, that in philosophy starting in Astronomy, philosophy proves to be the study of (an) “invisible hand(s)” (“form(ulation)s” are “invisible hands,” per se, “(meta)physical” and “(in)visible” like glaciers across dimensions).¹⁰ ¹¹ And so there are as many “invisible hands” as there are fields of philosophy, and if all fields of study entail philosophy, then all fields of study entail an “invisible hand.” Driven by wonder and dis-ease, Plato argued that philosophy is about studying the forms, and Adam Smith argued that philosophy is about studying “invisible hands.” In other words, they agree: “the invisible” are “the forms.”¹² Economics is Earthly Astronomy.¹³
In all this, we can begin to glimpse an interesting characteristic of “philosophy as seeking smoothness for imagination,” one we can associate with Hegel: philosophy seeks negation (say in science). Where there is an “invisible hand,” we feel dis-ease, and so we seek to make that “hand” visible (removing ‘the invisible hand of Jupiter’), which restores a feeling of ease and so negates/sublates philosophy into science.¹⁴ But what if we are dealing with something that cannot be made “totally visible” (or shouldn’t be, like with free enterprise)? Then we will always need philosophy, and yet philosophy in its very quality seeks to negate itself. What then? Well, we have to learn how to handle the dis-ease that the feeling of ever-seeking negation causes, which is what a Child can do (as discussed in Belonging Again); otherwise, the consequences could be dire. Is there an urge-for-negation that can never find rest? Lack? Yes, but in Beauty it might find harmony. Also, ultimately, there might be an “invisible hand” we can never do away with, no matter how much we might deny it, meaning we might always be in danger if that “invisible hand” (of Kafkalikeness) serves an AI-Lovecraft (Land waits).
Smith ends his essay considering Sir Isaac Newton, ‘a system whose parts are all more strictly connected together, than those of any other philosophical hypothesis […] Neither is their connection merely a general and loose connection […] It is every where the most precise and particular that can be imagined’ (“tightness” corresponds with Energy direction and flow).¹⁵ When Smith was writing, there were no anomalies which Newtown did not address, but today new anomalies are arising which are causing dis-ease and for Energy to be “captured” and stuck. And so dis-ease drives imagination to seek “smoothness” again, as we remember and know is possible. So it goes in Politics, Sociology, Economics…all places of philosophy and wondering today (of what went wrong?), where we seek again the feeling of ‘an immense chain of the most important and sublime truths, all closely connected together, by one capital fact, of the reality of which we have daily experience.’¹⁶ ¹⁷ (Metageometric curvature? A slide? A spiral?)
¹Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 48.
²Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 42.
³Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 45.
⁴Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 45–46.
⁵Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 48.
⁶Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 50.
⁷Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 54.
⁸Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 54.
⁹Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 59.
¹⁰Philosophy is the study of ((in)visible) self-organization, an inquiry into how “the self” can entail what organizes it and that be distinct from the self not (so yet) organized (we entail dimensions that we are (not)): in other words, how can one be many that are not one (A/B).
Geometry doesn’t lack; it is completely spatial (self-effacement).
Metageometry lacks; it is timespace (so self-motivating).
¹¹Adam Smith is writing amongst Calvinism, where there is an emphasis on God acting over us (“predestination”): in Smith, might we see a unity of Calvin and Arminianism? Where Grace and Providence are with(in) us?
¹²Economics is a study of “form,” hence perhaps why “the more philosophical” a society is (“(meta)physical”), the more wealth it can create (as argued in II.1).
¹³Economics is a study of “(in)visible forces” and to a degree for Smith a justification to let those “(in)visible forces” “be” (as Thomas Winn discusses with Heidegger). Economics seeks to represent the invisible to help us trust it, versus assume the invisible doesn’t exist and try to treat our dis-ease with something entirely visible and/or scientific at the expense of the invisible (a constant temptation). This can be the mistake of “command economies”: their dis-ease leads to the establishment of a “visible hand” over an “invisible hand,” and that leaves no room for grace or providence. Philosophy and dis-ease can lead to science, yes, “a supreme return of imagination to smoothness,” but sometimes we must address our dis-ease by learning “to meditate upon the beauty of the forms” (“the metageometry”), as Smith suggested we “ought” to do when beholding the wonders and beauty of free exchange (“the strike of beauty” fortunately has an authority like science over dis-ease). Beauty, when “fitting,” cannot be replaced by scientific justification (“a vector of the good”) without great consequence
¹⁴Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 49.
¹⁵Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 104.
¹⁶Smith, Adam. “History of Astronomy.” Essays on Philosophical Subjects. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1982: 105.
¹⁷To look very far ahead in O.G. Rose, philosophy seeks to negate itself with dis-ease, but what if there are limits to science? Are we doomed? Is this a damnation to ever-dis-ease? Perhaps, but it also might be a “grace” that drives “intrinsic motivation,” if that dis-ease perhaps “saw” something that eased it (in motion) (and indeed, science is an effort to “observe” and “see” something, empirically). Indeed, what thought (with us) is after is “smoothness,” which means it is after a metageometry (alluding to Leibniz), but the “smoothness” of a flat line (self-effacement) is very different from a curve (negation/sublation). Indeed, this “smoothness” cannot be flat, for then movement could stop and that would be “a dead equilibrium”: it must be “curved” and make possible ever-movement (without running out of Energy: the movement must generate Energy, Gurdjieffian).
Energy is the Metageometry (timespace). Metageometry “unfolds” and so, curved, can generate (it(s) own/self) Energy (entropy is a description of a closed system). The dis-ease of the mind is an effort of Energy to flow, but it cannot because there is something it doesn’t understand (it has lost ignorance). Dis-ease is when the Energy (of being) is trapped in us, “the shepherds of being” (Heidegger) (hence free), and since Energy cannot be destroyed and must flow, if the Energy is trapped too long, we will “blow up” to release the Energy again. The mind is a “transcendent emergence” (Alexander Bard) (of being) that changes how Energy can flow, and we decide if it “flows through us” (like Christ) or if it “blows-up(ward)” — the choice is ours (lack or nothing?).
When we are dealing with (a) dis-ease that cannot be translated into “smoothness” via science, we must do it another way (say through Childhood and Beauty). And if we don’t, the Energy will be stuck and blow up. And Hikikomorism is evidence that the Energy is stuck, that the Metageometry (of us/being) is not being freely participated in — and so it must blow up/on. (Land waits.)
There is a wonder that leads to dis-ease and a wonder-of-dis-ease in Beauty: the dis-ease of wonder is meant to push it on to Beauty (of Metageometry). But will it? We want to see something, to “smoothen imagination” with a “grasp” of “the invisible hand” (of God?). A mystical vision of the Metageometry that moves the sun and other stars? Philosophy begins in a sense of (meta)geometry ((in)visible) that leads to a dis-ease that can move us toward “God” (“The (Final/First) Metageometry”), like love in Dante to/by Love(craft). But now we say far too much in Algebraic language about Geometric experiences.
¹²Keep in mind that “intrinsic motivation” may entail the benefits of “low desire” without the loss of motivation, providing a negation/sublation and better alternative.
¹³AI might also habituate us to a way of life where ethics seem unnecessary, only utility, and it is perhaps not hard to imagine where Utilitarianism would have AI do away with humanity. Our technological paradigm and AI more generally might habituate us out of “nonrationality,” which means we are habituated “toward” Nash Equilibria and “suboptimal results.” As “the problem of scale” is a problem for us not for AI, so it goes with “the loss of the nonrational”: what technology is socially habituating us into, technology benefits from, with “Global Hikikomorism” being its crowing achievement. A world of “zoo animals” and “pod life,” as Sloterdijk and Owen discuss.
¹⁴To avoid this autocannibalism, we need a constant presence of nonrationality (say through empty), which religion could assure was always possible and present, but perhaps by making it “socially plausible” what could never be falsified or limited, mainly God. Where God is not plausible or “sticky,” nonrationality cannot be guaranteed.
¹⁵Efforts today to “return to givens” (which is impossible) can also be seen as efforts to regain “a shared background” which can help us understand one another and so feel like we have developed empathy that is “practically good enough.” Arguably though, it is only with “the loss of givens” that empathy can actually be trained, whereas with “givens” we are dealing more with “a simulacra of empathy” — though on the other hand if “perfect empathy” is impossible, the best we can hope for is increasing degrees of empathy, and perhaps “givens” provided “training-wheels” for developing empathy. Hard to say: “the loss of givens” might make the cultivating of empathy too hard and too much.
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