Several recent experiences have challenged some of my precepts about basic human interactions and how I perceive them. By the end of this it should be obvious that examining this topic, these questions, is basically pointless. Why is the time and effort and energy being wasted considering this then? I have a certain solid worldview that has worked more than adequately in a number of situations to which I have been exposed, lived in and through, and prospered in.
Suddenly I find a gaping hole in what I had considered reality. Have I somehow sheltered myself, hidden from, this thing? Was it always there and I have been beyond it, dealing with other issues and topics, too busy pushing forward towards the next goal or target, consumed with learning and pushing different limits inside of myself? Good question. I suppose it always is there. There's a big void sitting just outside of door number three, waiting to suck you in if you open the door; but that's okay, because everything I have needed has been inside and behind the other doors. No point in opening another door and complicating things further. And one day, one of my acquaintances opened the door for me, and neatly kicked me through.
The point here is that I have a difficult time understanding that things do not work the way they ought. We can make the trains in Italy run on schedule, can we not? Well, technically, no - the myth of Mussolini's trains is offset by the fact that we had bombed all of the through routes.
A background in engineering, infantry, and alpinism have taught me that it is negative to have failures. Failure results in these fields result in people getting injured and killed. Failure is an unacceptable end-state with these outcomes. In order to reduce failure we build in factors-of-safety, test to sigma-three standards, learn, memorize, and follow exact procedures, and check and re-check everything to ensure safety. Even when the safety is illusory (reference All Mixed Up!), it is as thoroughly checked as possible.
What keeps one safe (an arguably relative term) on a climb is a complete trust in your partner's will, ability, and attentiveness to you; nothing more and nothing less. If you cannot trust someone to do the correct thing one hundred percent of the time, you are gambling. Risk analysis and mitigation are fairly developed sciences; the obvious method of returning to your sigma-three or better safety rating is to remove or replace the elements that endanger. Remove the partner that you cannot trust or risk (gamble) with consequences.
Can you trust someone that is, in the parlance, 'flakey?' If they seem competent on the rope is that enough? Well, it cannot be. Climbing is just a parallel for life, not a complete replacement (though I often wish it could be). I have been in many leadership roles and it most likely poisons my thought processes here. The leader is responsible for everything that happens and fails to happen, from mission accomplishment to the safety of the party. Missing a split time or failing to accomplish mission-essential tasks upon which others depend will eventually cost lives in so many arenas. Therefore, failure is not an option.
Is it unreasonable to expect people to do what they say they will? Is it unreasonable to have an expectation that humans would treat one another the way that they would wish to be treated? Perhaps it is. I would like to examine the question.
Reliability. What does the word mean? Something that is reliable is something that can be counted upon, that will be consistent from observation to observation. Statistically speaking, nothing is truly reliable. Statistical mechanics tells us that there is always a non-zero chance that something will not work the way that we expect it to; from energy levels in individual electrons, to coincidentally large gravimetric fluctuations, to chaotic human reactions and behavior, quantum mechanics starts us on a strange path.
On a macroscopic level, items can be reliable. Transistors, including quantum devices, function reliably in a manner that can be predicted with some large degree of certainty. One would not expect a transistor to suddenly change properties. In one direction current flows and information can be transferred, and in the other it is blocked. Gravity, we understand, is a 'reliable' force. When we fall, we are subjected to the same attractive force consistently until we reach the hard surface below us, transforming potential energy into kinetic into mechanical (only by our definitions, of course, as the amount of energy is constant in this experiment). We would not expect gravity to suddenly lessen, or to reverse polarity. We learn, by experience, to accept gravity as a constant.
We can expect that falling from twenty feet onto a hard surface is going to hurt like the dickens, and that the energy released upon impact will be linearly consistent with the local gravitational field, the distance fallen, and our mass. Classically, the amount of energy released in a fall is constant for a given set of these variables. What matters to us, though, is how we have that energy absorbed - friction with the air, tumbling, abrasion, yielding materials. The less energy that we absorb, the less injured we will be by the application of the force.
We can generally expect that simple things will act reliably. Water has a well-defined set of states, and we can reliably predict the action of a small amount of the material based on temperature and pressure. But if we look at the motion of individual molecules, or worse at the component subatomic particles, we cannot ever know what is going on. The location and speed of component particles is random, statistically determinant but impossible to know both of, per Heisenberg. Similarly, we have not discovered how to deal with large amounts of the material; no one knows how or why the oceans behave as they do. We cannot predict accurately the behavior of systems this complex.
Are complex systems truly random? Or do they follow some set of rules? Does the set of rules that a complex system has to obey mirror the strange rules of quantum mechanics, or does the system only have to be adequately defined with fields of conditions, like temperature and pressure fields, to predict its behavior? Does 'chaos theory,' inherent randomness, also affect large collections of matter, or is chaos a manifestation of coincidence in statistical terms? Or is there a larger pattern in the apparent random behavior of complex systems?
These are moot questions. They are in the realm of high-level theoretical physics and massively parallel quantum supercomputing, and we cannot even begin to guess at the answers. Yet. If there are definitive answers to them, the questions will cease to be irrelevant and insignificant from a human perspective; instead, like gene sequencing and the understanding of basic atomics, they will open up new doors in Pandora's Box.
Humans are complex systems. A single human brain is more complex than any realistically imaginable computer system (for the time being, anyway). Now imagine the interaction between two, ten, a hundred of these most complex of systems, and consider that each is self-aware and programmed, at some level, for self-preservation.
Imagining that we can even understand our own systems, let alone the interactions of multiples of these, is pure unabashed self-delusion. Why then, do we entertain even the notion that we have any control or real comprehension of how we or others work? More importantly to me, though, is the question - why do we not all see that self-preservation is more than self? Negative conditions, left to their own devices, tend to cascade. If something affects you now, and I am standing next to you, there is a likelihood that it's coming after me next. It is in my best interests to stop it before it gets to me, to use your and my strengths and talents combined to defeat it before it comes for me alone.
"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Are some patterns actually ingrained, real, and predictable? Well, we can see that the ocean does not suddenly fly up off of the seafloor. But, is this because of the nature of the ocean, not to fly? No. It is specifically because other systems act on the item we are attempting to make a closed system. There are no closed, isolated systems. Theoretically it would be nice to put things into closed boxes for analysis - no external inputs other than those for which we are testing systemic reactions. The butterfly in China flaps its wings, and the system has been changed, in a manner that we have to explain as essentially random.
What expectations can we have of complex systems? Is there a way to set conditions to make a system more predictable? Is there a set of situations that will have a more reliable set of outcomes, ones that can be predicted with any sense of accuracy?
Experientially we can generate some generic rules that seem to govern a majority of situations in any given system. People will not run red lights (except in Denver), because they have been conditioned to stop for them. We believe that we can count on things like this. And then, once, we step out into the crosswalk and the person in a hurry breaks the normal, expected behavior. Wham! Nothing is ever for certain.
Years before we can consider these sorts of arguments, we are taught the concepts of trust, reliability, consistency, right, wrong, good, evil. These concepts are taught to allow us to conform to societal norms and succeed in unreasonable circumstances. These things allow us to be controlled (or, if we are savvy enough, to control). Things that cannot be explained are turned either to religion or science for guidance. The concepts themselves are illogical, but they have manifestations in large enough amounts. A raindrop cannot have waves; a trillion of them in a small puddle has different properties entirely.
Consciousness allows us uniquely to make choices that can forge patterns. We can learn and construct neural pathways for certain types of information for processing and reactions (behavior). Negative behaviors are negatively reinforced with results. Positive with their own. We learn what works in some, even most situations.
And then we get kicked into door number three while believing that we were functioning positively.
What conclusions, if any, can we draw from this? No complex system, even our own, is infallible. Trust in a complex system's anticipated behavior is illusory. Trust in simple systems, if we view them as closed, is illusory. Believing that we understand these things is illusory. Illusory things are not as they appear, by definition. We deceive ourselves if we believe in anything illusory. Therefore, any trust in anything is illusory, deceitful. The logic draws us to the conclusions.
There is no such thing as trust. Trust has an extra letter somewhere in it; I do not know which should be eliminated. It is an imaginary construct, ready to collapse with a single straw or the flapping of a rare butterfly's wings. Any belief in anything, if we cannot even understand ourselves, is chimerical. Specious though it may be, any concept of trust, control, or understanding is absolutely incorrect. There are too many other factors involved.
Conclusion: It is not worth the effort to consider any philosophical arguments. It is equally unworthy to exert effort in understanding or attempting to modify the world around you to fit you. There is no point, either, in attempting to conform to the views (illusory) of those around you. Just rolling with things and continuously realigning the deflector arrays is the best that can be hoped for.
Be careful out there. It's a big quantum place.