[P&N] Chapter 1: Shadows on the Wall

Citation: Edward A. Lee, 2017: Plato and the Nerd - the creative partnership of humans and technology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

I am a nerd. … Who but a nerd would start a book with a quote from the dictionary?

I used to think the word “nerd” as an insult before I read this chapter. Now, I can proudly say that I am also a nerd, if the nerds will.

The term Platonicity is very interesting, though it may be a little hard to get its meaning at first. It stands for “the desire to cut reality into crisp shapes“(Taleb, 2010). To my understanding, Taleb is trying to address the idea that this kind of desire may just be a “wishful thinking” at most times.

The arbitrariness of categories such as “scientist” and “engineer” is an example of Platonicity. It makes us sanguine in our understanding of the world, but it can be misleading.

According to some psychological research, human beings are always trying to find explanations for everything, forcing them to make sense in their brains, but this will lead to result that they think they know more than they actually do.

I won’t judge whether this is good or bad here. If I say it’s bad, it is the source of curiosity. If I say it’s good, it is somewhat an obstacle on the way to the truth, if there is such truth. As a normal person, what I can do is to try my best to not falling into the “Platonicity Trap”, to think outside of the box sometimes.

Indeed, Wikipedia is more useful than encyclopedia in most times.

Another thing which impressed me is the example of wikipedia and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave(See bellow). Lee is trying to prove that collective wisdom can be better than individual wisdom regarding the idea of “facts” and “truths”, with which I totally agree. But of course, sometimes individual wisdom can also be better than collective wisdom, too. I will explain why.

Which is closer to the truth, the collective wisdom or the individual one?
The question gets ensnarled by what we mean by “truth”. The answer is different if truths can be created rather than just being discovered.

This allegory suggests that human perception of the reality is always imperfect and somewhat “flat or one-sided”, and it also suggests that humans’ fields of vision or insights can vary from person to person tremendously, which is to say, if collective wisdom is always better than individual wisdom, the prisoners facing the shadow should be closer the the full picture of the cave than the men standing outside the cave, which is obviously not true. Furthermore, if the men exposed to sun managed to get back to the cave and tried to convey those prisoners the truths they thought, they will probably be killed as aliens.

Another interesting point is the discussion about the definition of scientific:

Popper before Kuhn, stressed that the core of the scientific method is falsifiability. A theory or postulate is scientific only if it is falsifiable, according to Popper. To be falsifiable, at least the possibility of an empirical experiment that could disprove the theory must exist.

It seems to be exactly correct, but what really blew my mind is that Kuhn rejects this conclusion by pointing out that even in the face of evidence against it, a theory will not be rejected until a replacement theory is invented:

The act of judgment that leads scientists to reject a previously accepted theory is always based upon more than a comparison of that theory with the world. The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other. (Kuhn, 1962)

This man is really a genius and it reassured me of that “seeking explanations” thing. Let’s say if there’s no replacement of one theory, then the evidence against this theory will probably be either treated as errors or ignored. To say the least, astrology, phrenology and pseudosciences can explain everything.

Furthermore, this chapter makes me thinking about the statement that “Chinese have no belief”. Indeed, most Chinese are not religious, which is the base of the statement. In Chinese, it is called “信仰”, which probably means “belief”(or faith) in English. If Christianism and Buddhism are religions created by human beings, then we can say so called “science” is also a religion created by human beings to some extent. So from now on, if someone ask me, “Do you have faiths?(Or beliefs)”, I will have something to answer.

Here’s another paragraph I like very much:

Technology and engineering are distinctly not about discovering preexisting, disembodied truths. They are about creating things, processes, and ideas that never before existed. Pursuit of the Platonic Good, the preexisting, fixed world of Forms, is no longer what is driving humanity forward. We are instead creating knowledge and facts that never before existed, embodied or not.