Arbitrary means and definite ends
How to understand contingency as part of progress
It’s currently August 2020 and much of the world remains under some form of restriction on congregation to prevent the spread of COVID-19 - Godspeed to us. In other times, there was no indulgence I liked quite as much as a trip to the local cafe to drink a coffee and while away an hour reading in anonymous company.
I’d walk in, note the regulars and the new patrons, exchange pleasantries and give my order to the barista. Behind the bar she attentively grinds out the precise weight of coffee into the portafilter; carefully measuring out any excess with a silver spoon. The grounds are pressed down in their cradle by a hand tamper, then their container clicked into place on the espresso machine with a sharp turn to the right. Then water is pushed through the grounds at near boiling temperature, while the milk is heated by a steam wand. Once everything is ready, the two liquids are mixed one part to one part in a Duralex glass and topped with a foamy flower. Finally the concoction is passed forward by the smiling-faced craftsman who’s dedicated work created this art. A clink comes from the marble counter as the drink is set down with a carefree “your order’s ready”.
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I want to show that in life decisions are taken with a great degree of arbitrariness and that this is not only essential but is desirable. The complexity of things makes the world fundamentally indeterminable yet somehow we live forward and create magnificent edifices of action, word and thought. We dedicate ourselves to arbitrary means and produce ends that are anything but arbitrary.
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1. The margin is where (good) things happen
To be able to say things about the way the economy works economists create simplified models of how people produce and consume. Needless to say there are all kinds of problems with this. However, in the attempt there are sometimes a few gems of insight generated that are worth thinking about more deeply.
One of these nuggets is the idea of surveying an economic system at the margin. The general heuristic is that for any enterprise or individual the most interesting and important questions, the ones that determine behaviour and outcomes, are about what happens with the marginal unit. These questions might include things like “What is the profit on the next (marginal) unit sold by this company?”, “What is the productivity gain from hiring one additional (marginal) person?”, “What is the happiness someone feels from consuming one more (marginal) unit of a given good?”.
The belief is that by looking at what happens at the margin you can understand the nature of the functions that determine the output given certain inputs - something loosely analogous to the kind of investigation done in differential calculus. By seeing what is happening with the marginal good you can start to understand what is currently going on and what will be going on in the system much better than looking simply at some kind of aggregate of what has happened previously and extrapolating from there.
This is why the core of a company’s value is so often determined not by what was produced last year or by what is assumed to be produced in the future but on what is being produced right now. The current production explains the meaning of the past production and the direction of future travel. It is a very different story that Amazon hasn’t made a profit for twenty years if the marginal book they ship today makes them money.
The margin is a useful idea in economics though I think the insight translates well to other domains of value. If you want to tell if you are reading the right things don’t interpret the books you have already read or will read but look at the book you are currently reading. If you want to understand the degree of compassion that a society has, look not at those it has treated with compassion already or those it says it will treat with compassion in the future but at the marginal people that it is treating compassionately today.
While attempting to avoid being too philosophical, another way to look at it is that by using the margin we are practically able to engage with both being and becoming. With each marginal action we move from what is to what will be. We can use this perspective to avoid getting stuck in an idea of the static present system or misdirected by our imagination about the future by paying attention to what straddles these two worlds.
2. What is technical contains a degree of arbitrariness
The margin used in this way is a technique for interpreting the world. In this case it is a technique taken from economics and pulled into a more general application. Every field of human endeavour from economics to archery develops these kinds of techniques to better carry out their craft. In economics this might be the idea of supply and demand curves used to find the price for a good, in archery it could be a rule of thumb to aim one foot above the target you want to hit for every 20 feet you are from the target [^1]. As we create these tools, both theoretical and practical, for effecting change we simplify, quantify and model the world. While these technical aspects can be more or less rigid still this process is by nature Procrustean.
For example, we might come up with a way to press aluminium into the shape of a can and trap liquid in it under pressure. As a result of this technical innovation we have created an effective liquid transport mechanism, keeping things sanitary and disposable. On first glance, and with youthful courage we may fall in love with the new technique then take a shot to push boldly forward to bring this innovation to the world! Yet, our model may not be complete. We may not know it now, but this same innovation as applied may have created a potentially serious problem of excess waste; it could cause a problem of public health by making certain drinks cheaply and easily available; maybe it will even set us up for failure when we realise the world’s aluminium reserves were much lower than we thought. Our model can also be inaccurate in very simple and immediately relevant ways - what may at first seem to be a highly sanitary way to transport drinks may in fact be the perfect delivery mechanism for some new germ that thrives on metallic surfaces.
Not only may our model be wrong for reasons of complexity beyond our control it is also constrained by our personal and psychological nature. As we develop and then apply techniques to solve problems we do so without looking at all the possible alternatives or investigating the whims that may have led us to pick one solution over the other. For a particular packaging manufacturer, choosing to create cans rather than tetra pak boxes may happen for reasons as simple as a friendship with a particular smelter they want to help out, potential future legal questions over the copyright of the different technologies and personal fear of retribution, or a wish to be frugal combined with a high price of paper pulp at the critical moment of decision.
Certainly, when developing and implementing technical solutions, we may employ varying degrees of rigour, scientific method and wisdom. Yet nonetheless we cannot avoid develop techniques driven in large part by simple aims, immediate hypotheses, gut intuitions and a good deal of random chance.
Technical things are not useless by any means, but they are always in some way arbitrary.
3. Changes at the margin are always technical and therefore chancy
Returning to the idea of the margin; if this insight is really accurate and we want to make meaningful changes to the world then we may likely wish to do so by focusing on changes at the margin. If we can improve just what happens next with a particular system at its’ edges then we may be able to slowly but surely get to a point where the whole has changed entirely for the better.
A margin is a bounded thing, it always exists at a particular place and time and with a particular system under-girding it. Before we can really find a margin and effect a change there we will need to model it in some way so that we can begin to understand what it is we are changing from and to. Say, for example, if I wish to make my potato salad better, I’ll need to look at one part of the recipe like the dressing then investigate the impacts of various mayonnaise on it’s consistency and taste.
So, when we approach a change at the margin it will be through simplification and quantification of the problem. In other words to produce a marginal change we will need technical innovation and application. By requiring a technique a degree of contingency will creep in to these changes.
A good example of this may be the introduction of alternating current (AC) as the standard current for electricity generation and transfer on the power grid. There are two ways that electricity can flow through a power system: AC where the direction of power can sometimes reverse and ‘alternates’ up and down and direct current (DC) where it does not. AC is the dominant system used to transfer power and electrify every country today. Though in essentially every home both are used at different scales - the computer you are likely reading this on for example runs on DC.
I am no expert in the matter but from a cursory reading, however, it seems that having a power system built off of an AC grid is not the obvious or only possible state of things. Today it is certainly the entrenched standard and it would require a herculean effort to do anything different with any marginal changes. Yet, if you were to design an electric grid system from the ground up, although a system running AC might look very different to one running DC, it is not obvious which would be the superior technology to use. In the late 19th century both were real, viable, options with strong backers for each - famously Nikola Tesla in support of AC and Thomas Edison backing DC.
Without going into the details, at some point there reached a tipping point where AC became the current of choice and slowly, then rapidly, every marginal unit of power generation and transmission occurred on the AC system. Once the system started gaining ground it then became near impossible for DC to be as effective as AC for powering homes as innovation and infrastructure compounded.
The marginal changes towards AC came through highly technical decisions that proceeded to build up the electrical grids that power the world. It all seems to have worked out well. However at the time, and perhaps even now, it is not clear that this was the better of the two options. If many of the marginal changes in society or at the individual level are dominated by these kinds of arbitrary moves where the right decision is anything but clear then how is it that we ensure we go in the correct direction? How can we adjudicate ahead of time between technical alternatives?
4. A halting problem for marginal improvement
So, marginal changes are crucial to the life of a system. When considering technical things we make arbitrary choices to develop and instantiate a certain technique. At the margin, where it matters, all actions producing improvements are technical in nature. So we are at an impasse. When looking to make a marginal change we have to take actions that are more or less arbitrary in nature for us to be able to make anything happen but we cannot know if what is arbitrary in them will help or hinder us.
This implies something like a halting problem for marginal improvements. The halting problem in computer science - first expressed by Alan Turing though not named by him - states that it is not possible ahead of time to decide whether a given random computer program will ‘halt’ (i.e. complete its’ function) or run forever in an algorithmic fashion.
Just like with the halting problem, while we may be able to make some sound judgements, there is no formal way to determine the ‘best’ technical implementation ahead of time - we can only know for sure after the fact. If our chosen technique reduces effectiveness, breaks the system, leads to harm or is simply superseded by an improved version we may never be able to say for sure what exactly what was wrong with it, but we can certainly say that a problem was there. The technique may take a long time to work itself through but with time we can tell when the bad technique fails[^2]. This seems like one of the most critical insights from the Incerto: ‘the only thing we can predict is that what is fragile inevitably breaks’. In the Talebian cosmos technical things are inherently fragile.
However, there are a multitude of cases where no such obvious problems occur. To continue the theme of computer science, programming languages are replete technical decisions with indeterminable outcomes. To take one example, in the Ruby programming language when you write a loop to handle a certain repeated operation you enclose the code that is to be repeated between the words `do` and `end`. For example, if you wanted to print the statement “Hello World” five times you might write:
5.times do puts "Hello world" endThe decision by Ruby to use `do` and `end` as brackets in this cases is completely arbitrary; you could just as easily replace them with curly braces { } and the ability to write the program would not change in any way - in fact this alternative is a completely ‘legal’ move when using Ruby.
5.times { puts "Hello world" }The vast majority of the decisions we take at the margin are like this, there is no clear answer of what is better beyond something like personal preference, historical precedent and perhaps if we’re lucky, the beauty of the overall system. What matters however, is that a choice is made and that the marginal change can be implemented. A technique to move from here and now to there and then is only valuable if used. If Ruby had no way to enclose code snippets like this there would be many fewer operations that it could easily handle.
In other words, in cases of relative indifference or where the bounds of the problem are well defined having a technical solution with some degree of arbitrariness is better than no solution at all [^3].
Over time, as with the example of AC, a string of these decisions can lead to a system where it makes sense to do things a certain way. At that stage it may be far from random chance how the whole system operates.
5. The arbitrary in religion
In Tibetan Buddhism one of the most visible features of worship is the prayer wheel. Large heavy wheels line the passageways into grand temples. Monks spin ceremonial wheels to start a session of chanting. At home, in the street, and on car dashboards lay Buddhists carry pocket sized prayer wheels or set up solar powered variants to guard from evil spirits and invoke the aid of the Buddha.
Across each wheel's exterior and often packed on written manuscripts stuffed inside there are mantras of protection, healing and enlightenment. With each spin it is said that the one doing the spinning receives the same merit as one reciting the prayers aloud.
The prayer wheel is a technical innovation of Tibetan Buddhist practice. It became a mainstay of daily life much like the AC system as sets of successive small marginal changes were made to existing modes of worship. These changes compounded until a full system of effective activity was constructed.
Like our scientific and economics developments the techniques employed in religion are to a degree arbitrary. Yet at the same time just as with any human endeavour, they are the marginal means of improvement in the religious superstructure. Like with our attempts to develop a scientific concept, build a business, or reform a polity, just so when progressing towards religious goals some amount of chancy, contingent action is required [^4].
If we tried to remove the arbitrary elements of our technical endeavours, especially those that are essentially indifferent within the context of the problem being solved, then it would leave us entirely unable to engage properly with the problem, progress, or make practical improvements at the margin. Just so, removing the contingencies of religious belief and practice is neither functional nor clarifying.
Because a technique contains a degree of arbitrariness does not mean that it is not useful. In fact without its arbitrary nature no technique could achieve anything.
We can see from our halting problem of technical things that if there is some problem with a particular technique we will learn it over time. As long as that is not the case, it may be that there is some degree of indifference between options producing the same result.
When looking at religious practice, it is just possible that these seemingly arbitrary edifices are the result of applying techniques for effecting marginal change towards a particular goal. If they have survived then it may be that those techniques even ‘work’. It would be a pity and intellectually dishonest to dismiss any such development on the basis of its arbitrary elements.
When we look we may even be lucky enough to find something beautiful in their configuration.
References
Images
Photo by Tim van Kempen on Unsplash
Footnotes
[^1] To be very clear, I am not an archer, and this example is for illustration purposes only. Please do not use this to try and improve your marksmanship.
[^2] I can’t remember where I heard this story from but one example of this may be the advice to have babies sleep on their fronts vs. their backs. This was a recommendation that became widespread in the 1950’s and 60’s due to something like babies being less boisterous and sleeping sounder as a result. However, in the last few decades evidence has accumulated that this is terrible advice. Setting babies to sleep on their front significantly increases the risk of sudden infant death syndrome and is now widely cautioned against. However, when the recommendation was first made with the scientific medical establishment just finding it’s sea legs how could a better decision of been made?
[^3] It may be worth observing that if you make a choice it is probably better to stick with it then mess around between two options - no one wants to read a program where loops are all jumbled up between curly braces and `do` and `end`. In fact, it might even be said that the more committed you are to this position the better your program will be.
[^4] I want to be clear here that I do not mean to in any way to dismiss the reality of religious practice. Whether in fact the prayer wheel does bring the aid of the Buddha those are discussions outside the scope of this essay (though my position is certainly not one of disbelief). Here I just want to make an argument that when adjudicating between the technical aspects of religion like the prayer wheels of Tibetan Buddhism compared with the use of Koan in Zen noting that these practices are different and therefore somewhat arbitrarily chosen not only does not invalidate their effectiveness but is a sign, given they have survived, that they may ‘work‘.