On the Absurdity of Collective Knowledge.

On the Absurdity of Collective Knowledge.

 

Suppose that I am watching a video on the history of Rock and Roll. This video is on youtube. I make, halfway through the video, a joke in the Comments section of the video. The joke makes reference to the song “Anarchy in the U.K.”, by virtue of a pun.

 

At one point later on in the video, a man being interviewed in the video makes reference to a band known as the Sex Pistols.

 

I have a vague suspicion that the Sex Pistols wrote a song called “Anarchy in the U.K.”. Yet I am uncertain.

 

I perform a Google search. I search for the song “Anarchy in the U.K.”. I find the name of the group The Sex Pistols. It is in the context of this understanding that I realize that, with some probability, the entire nature of my joke depended upon my unconscious knowledge of the fact that the Sex Pistols were banned in the United Kingdom.

 

I would conclude, using tribal reasoning, that “The man and I were referring to the same band and the same historical instance.” He had, in fact, mentioned their ban as well, but in the form of an informed historical opinion rather than a feeble joke.

 

There is a fallacy in this.

 

In order for me to make this equation, I should have to make another set of equations:

 

1.        I should have to equate “Anarchy in the U.K.”, in the instance that I used it, with the formally recognized song, thus changing it from a matter of personal experience to Collective Knowledge.

2.       I should have to equate the visible text “the Sex Pistols”, with an image in my mind created by Memory.

3.       Only after having done this can I then equate that image in my mind, over the course of time, with the audible words that I heard the man pronounce.

4.       I should then, using the transitive property, have to equate the auditory input with the visual input.

5.       I should presume that his experience was identical to mine.

There are several problems with this. Imagine the scenario, in the first place, that I can speak the English language, but I would be unable to read or write it. I should be entirely helpless in making this connection. Yet there are also several fallacies at work here. Between steps two and three, time elapses, and therefore the image in my mind may change, unless it is truly static. This is an opportunity for distortion. I can never have Total Certainty that this has not happened, at least not from the solitary perspective of Consciousness. There may also be, for this reason, a problem with employing the transitive property at step 4. In the absence of Memory, this equation would be impossible. Yet the largest fallacy appears to be in Step Five. The entire relevance of the equation seems to be grounded in the presumption that his experience with the band is relevant to mine. Yet because each of us occupies a different Universe, this may not be so. His interpretation of his memories of the band has little to do with my interpretation of my own memories. Either set of interpretations would also have little relevance to the Current Condition of the band. We see an immediate departure, therefore, from the apparent clarity of “mutual understanding”, or Kantian intersubjectivity. The irrelevance of Memory would suggest that no further authority can be leant to Common Knowledge, at least where it is defined by History rather than immediate experience. We may still be able to "share" experience when it Happens, but we may be unable to say with fairness that we "have shared" a moment. Yet this may be an extreme conclusion. A more apparently reasonable middle-ground would probably be to say that, whereas a Collective Phenomenon understood through Directed Thinking can be shared, the immediate experience of revelation cannot be shared in the same way. I can Describe Non-directed thinking in terms of language, but I cannot Express it. In other words, if I have had a non-verbal experience, and you have not, no degree of language would enable you to understand the experience. I cannot "make you see it" as I could make you see a style of logical thought, if that even is possible. It cannot be Expressed. Yet if we have both had the same experience, hypothetically, and I can artfully Describe my experience in language, then perhaps the description would resonate with you because you have had the same experience. This would belong to the type of Universal that Kohlberg makes reference to in his psychology. We would both be, in that instance, on the Sixth Level of Moral Development. Yet in the case of my relation to the man in the youtube video, that would be an instance of probably the Fourth Level, wherein the World is still understood through agreement with others, yet without considerable consideration for the distance between one person's subjective reality and the other's.

Here we see a reprisal of the "Rule of Three". There seems to be, in many instances in the history of philosophy, psychology, and religion, the theme of three steps. This could be seen as analogous to the three stages of life in a butterfly. In the first stage, we are an innocent caterpillar. In the second stage, we are in the awkward predicament of a cocoon. In the last stage, we are a splendid butterfly.

Kierkegaard makes reference to such stages in the transitions from the Aesthetic way of Being to the Moral Way and, finally, to the Religious Step. Neitzche refers to the three stages of Life as that of the Sheep, the Lion, and finally the Child.

There is, in the Bible, the theme of the Garden of Eden. Man begins in innocence, not knowing the difference between Good and Evil. He is banished to the difficulty of Living with a loss of that innocence. Yet, by eating of the Other Tree, with luck, he returns to the original state of peace.

The Positive Psychologists posit three styles of Happiness. One is analogous to Kierkegaard's aesthetic life: A life of pleasure. The second is the life of Engagement and Flow. The third, at the top of the hierarchy, is the life of Meaningful Correspondence with Others.

We can say that Kohlberg's stages three and four of Moral Development, which comprise Conventional Morality, are the innocent stage wherein the world "makes sense" through Collective Agreement. Stage five, the beginning of Post-conventional Morality, is the dissolution of the agreed-upon sphere of World. Stage six is a return to the comfort of a kind of Universal, but only through oftentimes arduous work and a true appreciation for solitude and the difference between different People.

dm.A.A.