06 24 09 Some thoughts about skepticism
Wed Jun 24 11:59:30 2009
There are some words which describe people's attitudes about things which are usually thought of as "supernatural." One of these is "skeptical" and for most people it means an attitude of total doubt. "Skeptic" comes from the ancient Greek word skeptikoi, which means "to inquire or search." The nuance of a skeptic being a doubter began in the English language sometime in the sixteenth century. A second word is "cynical" and is usually associated with a person who has an attitude of assured, perhaps sneering doubt about something. "Cynic" is related to the ancient Greek word kynos, which means "dog-like." It more than likely refers to a school in ancient Athens called the "Grey Dog," where a student of Socrates, Antisthenes, taught. How "cynic" and "cynical" morphed into the current English usage is beyond the scope of this short essay.
In noting that both words derive from ancient Greek usage, I should add that they both were descriptive of philosphical systems current in ancient Greece. According to Greek philosophical tradition, Skepticism was founded by Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360 - 270 BCE). His leading idea was to withhold assent to or agreement with a philosophical or scientific idea, because it is quite common that good reasons for a contradictory idea can be advanced. He had the very common-sense notion that we can only know how things appear. The teachings of the "School of Skepticism" was compiled into a longish book by the writer Sextus Empiricus (c. 160 - 210 CE) called Outlines of Pyrrhonism. It should be noted that this author did not count himself as a Skeptic. The school of Cynicism produced the remarkable figure of Diogenes of Sinope (c. 404 - 323 BCE), the son of a dishonored banker who moved to Athens, then to the city of Corinth in Greece. Although quite possibly legendary, stories told about him say that he lived in poverty; his home was a kind of barrel or tub. He is also said to have gone about in the daytime with a lighted lantern, "looking for an honest man." Whether these stories are true or not, they reflect the basic impetus of ancient Cynicism: to strip away the unnecessary in life. In modern terms, it can be said with justice that we don't need that Rolls Royce, we don't need that condo in the Hamptons or Monte Carlo.
The short sketch just given is meant to clear the air and put us on common ground. When it comes to things which are "supernatural" it sounds to me like a healthy idea to withold my assent or belief in them until I've made some inquiry into the phenomena described as such. There is no element of doubt in this skepticism, it is an attitude of "show me what you've got." This in turn comes from basic scientific method; if I claim that you can make a ghost visible by some process (I haven't claimed this, okay?), someone else should be able to test my claim using my method. This is known as "peer review" and has verified or debunked many a claim put forth not only by supernaturalists such as myself but by many a reputable scientist. It's downright healthy to be this way!
However, those of us who claim to experience supernatural phenomena are often hard-pressed to give a testable procedure to the world. As an example, people who claim they've been abducted by aliens are usually by themselves when the alleged abductions take place. The stories told by abductees plainly indicate that they neither desired nor caused the abduction, and in practical terms, they likely could not get the aliens to come back for a repeat performance. From this, many a modern skeptic can legitimately ask, "Well, if they're there, why don't they land in Times Square, at the Kremlin or in Piccadilly Circus?" The same can be said for people (like myself) who claim to have angelic presences in their lives. "If there are angels, why don't they visit the Pope or the Dalai Lama?" Or the Amazing Randi, for all of that.
There is a further reason for modern skeptics to be well over the edge into Total Doubt. Are the people making such fantastic claims also making fantastic piles of money from their experiences? If there are non-ordinary cures for cancer and AIDS; if there are in fact wise beings who wish to guide us from our destructiveness and foolishness as human beings, why haven't any of the people making these claims provided the information for free or for nominal charges? It's no secret that in the world of computers, you can have an operating system which in many ways is better than either Windows or Mac. Linux and its many distros (Ubuntu, Debian) are available for free under the various OpenSource licenses. I don't see why someone making claims for cures and guides can't give away what they themselves have been given - and many a skeptic will agree with me there.
In an epistemological sense, it does to some degree matter how a person views the world when it comes to supernatural phenomena. If a person has a life attitude of "it can't happen," it is likely that no amount of evidence or peer-review repitition will convince them. On the far other end of this spectrum are those who believe in these things without exercising any critical acumen whatsoever. These are people whom I would describe as living in Total Superstition. Recall that Pyrrho suspended his judgment about things; when it comes to extraordinary phenomena, it seems wise to do the same. While the sad fact remains that many people making wild claims are just plain deluded or lying,there are others who are not.
Wilhelm Reich (1897 - 1957) was originally a psychoanalyst who had been a student-disciple of Sigmund Freud but, like many of Freud's students, broke away from the master amidst controversy and ill-will. Reich's major contribution to psychology was his description of "character armor," wherein a person's "true self" was hidden from the world by various defense mechanisms created by the mind. Reich characterized such people as being extremely physically rigid, and he devoted a number of decades of hands-on work trying to help such people literally loosen up. It should be recalled that to be a psychoanalyst in Freud's day meant getting a degree as a physician, so Reich had the benefit of knowing scientific protocol. However, as his life progressed, Reich began making a number of extraordinary claims; one was that he had successfully created a kind of living organism which he called the "bion;" another was that the universe was but a face of a kind of energy which he called "orgone." Unfortunately his work did not hold up well under peer-review, and Reich's usual response was to dismiss his critics. In his later years he is generally seen as having been paranoid and deluded. That did not keep him from writing any number of books and articles. There is some interesting material in one of these, Ether, God and Devil, which has some relevance to our little foray here.
Reich claimed in this work that there were three kinds of people in the world - discounting those who had been liberated by his therapy. The first of these he called animists, and he described them as people who healthily experienced their bodily sensations and projected them out into the world. For such people, the sun was a person, the water was aware of the world. A second class of people whom he described were the mechanists, and for these he had a good deal of scorn: as they were so locked into their character armor, so rigid in their bodies as to not be aware of them, and they could at best see the universe as a machine and not as a living organism. Lastly, Reich proclaimed with almost equal vituperation, were the mystics. Mystics were, like the mechanists, rigidly locked away behind their character armor, but did in some way experience the physicality of their bodies; this experience was then distorted and then projected outwards into the universe and is responsible for claims about gods, angels, aliens and ghosts.
Whether Reich was paranoid and deluded at this point in his life is besides the point. Whether everyone who lives in Total Doubt may be legitimately described as a mechanist, or everyone who I describe as living in Total Superstition is one of Reich's mystics, is also besides the point. What Reich recognized is the epistemological worldview of people, and this has got to be recognized, or perhaps redefined for the present day. There simply are too many unusual occurances in the world that defy explanation under what we know. What I am asking here is that those in Total Doubt and those in Total Superstition start listening to each other, perhaps in a way that Pyrrho of Elis would approve.
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