Many of the things we believe in aren’t technically real.
What do I mean by this? I mean that they haven’t been proven to exist through double-blind, control group studies that can be replicated.
But so what. They work well enough anyway as ideas, especially when shared by others.
The big example of this is the idea of psychological disorders. These are typically observed as patterns, diagnosed accordingly, and then treated not by medicine alone but by conversations with therapists and friends in support groups.
If you’re diagnosed with, say, depression and anxiety, the likelihood of getting a brain scan to conclude that — look, your brain is functioning differently, can’t you see what’s going on with the dopamine and serotonin in this scan? — is roughly zero.
Instead, you’re said to be exhibiting certain patterns of behavior and thought which are consistent with others who have exhibited similar patterns.
This conclusion is not reached by the measurement of instruments like, say, a stethoscope or a CAT scan.
They’re reached by questionnaire, dependent on self-reporting (which is always influenced by the setting in which the questions are asked).
That doesn’t make the prognosis any less real, nor does it mean that the treatments offered aren’t helpful.
But thinking about it as a concrete, observable object which would look the exact same to eight different observers is not true. It wouldn’t look the same to eight different viewers unless each one of them was operating with the same set of assumptions and diagnostic vocabulary. (And even then, those “educated” observers might argue among themselves.)
Vocabulary is a big hitch when you’re like me — someone for whom semantics actually matters.
Two lightly different synonyms have a very real distinction for myself, although most other people see them to be, roughly, the same thing.
Overthinking aside, though, it might be that a treatment which works well for many others a certain percentage of the time doesn’t work for you.
It especially doesn’t work going in if you can’t believe in it, if you can’t get behind it intellectually or at least conceptually.
None of this is being said to cast shade or created suspicion — in fact, I’m going for the opposite.
When we commit to seeing something as a problem, and to try to use what treatments are available, we are committing to a better sense about the issue, and to attempting to make the situation better.
In cognitive science, this is called “Relevance Realization.” In a world where too many options can become “combinatorially explosive” (that is, when too much information — too many options — can become impossible to process), we need to be able to distinguish what is of use to us in our situation — what is valuable.
If we took everything at face value and followed the logic, everything would become a head game, and more often than not we will become neurotic.
Instead, we take suggestion. We relate to people important to us — friends, loved ones, and specialists who take on an authority.
But I’m also not saying that we shouldn’t think about things, that we shouldn’t consider options or be willing to critique.
That’s a large part of what The Assimilationist has set out to do — to find a path forward that takes as much information into consideration as it can, without slipping into dogma or conspiracy theories.
All of this has to be done with humility, accepting that I’m only a single mind, and I’m honestly not particularly intelligent. I get by, but most of what I do is hear things from others and attempt as best as I can to process the ideas, mixing them with the other ideas I’ve taken in from other sources.
Sometimes I have to choose to disregard things that make sense to others, but which don’t seem to fit into my synthesis. That’s all I can do. I try not to do it frivolously.
Instead, I try to come to the best conclusions I can, being open in conversation to gain provocation or insight.
It might not be real, but it’s what I have to work with.
Acceptingly,
Aaron