Prof. Keith S. Taber's site
Keith S. Taber
This morning I listened to a really interesting podcast on 'Free will, retribution and just deserts', with Prof. Gregg D. Caruso being interviewed about his ideas by David Rutledge.
The question of free will (as opposed to a rigid determinism) is one of those matters that most people seem to instinctively feel they know the answer to: we all feel we have free will. Why did I decide to write this blog rather than do something else this evening? Clearly I think that I freely decided to do this because this was something I wanted to do. Yet, that it feels like a free choice, means little. We may also think that life would lack any meaning in the absence of free will, and that being free agents is a much more attractive proposition; but wanting something to be the case is not much of an argument for thinking it is so.
If everything is predetermined (perhaps by the initial conditions of the big bang plus the fixed laws of the universe) then those people who think they have free will must have no choice but to think so (as it was determined), just as those who (correctly, in this scenario) reject free will cannot be given credit for this insight. (Actually, I doubt anyone really believes that they do not have free will, not even any off-duty philosophers, as I am not sure how one can live one's life that way – as just an observer of the automaton that others identify with you, as a viewer of the unfolding movie that is your life?)
I found much of Caruso's argument convincing, in particular in relation to the justification of judicial incarceration. My moral instincts are that if the state takes away someone's liberty this should be because it is acting to protect society or its vulnerable members, and not as an act of retribution.
Caruso argued that we should take note of how so many people in the prison system have mental health issues or addictions, and he pointed to the strong associations between convictions and poverty or other limiting or damaging socio-economic conditions. This raises issues of social justice, and when treatment and rehabilitation are more productive responses to crime than punishment per se. Caruso was primarily using the example of the situation in the United States, where he suggested most inmates have mental health issues, but his general points apply more widely.
However, there was one point at which I became uneasy with the argument, where Caruso brought in what is sometimes referred to as the "there, but for the grace of God, go I" position. If we accept that people born in poverty and squalor, or brought up in neglect or abuse, are those most likely to enter the criminal justice system as offenders, then those of us fortunate enough to have been born into relative privilege should acknowledge how lucky we were in the lottery of life, for "there, there, but for the grace of God (or, indeed, pure chance), go I".
Caruso noted:
"I could just have easily been born into low scoio-economic status, or homelessness, or born with a mental illness".
Gregg D. Caruso
I know exactly what he means, and agree we should acknowledge our advantages over those less lucky than ourselves, but, strictly, I cannot accept that argument.
I think the argument can only work if one believes (a) in an immaterial soul, which is only housed in the body during mortal life, and could have just as easily journeyed through life in a different body; and (b) even if that soul may impact on the actions of that body in its environment, it is is not changed by those experiences; and (c) that this soul is the true 'I', the identity of the person who refers to themselves as I (in "I could just have easily been born into…"). Of course, some people may believe just that. But I suspect most people who do believe in some kind of dualism involving something like an eternal soul imagine it is able to (and perhaps even intended to) learn from its incarnation(s).
Even having the debate assumes that one accepts that it makes sense to acknowledge a discrete and relatively stable 'I' (and there are plenty of commentators who feel that this individual self identify soon starts to dissolve when examined too closely). I am happy to acknowledge a kind of distinct and not-overly-plastic 'I', as I think I know what I mean by 'I', and my experiences of that self seems stable and discrete enough to reify it. My self certainly changes, but not so radically and quickly that I awake a stranger to myself (sic) each morning.
But then this 'I' could not just have easily been born into low scoio-economic status, or homelessness, or born with a mental illness.
I was very lucky to be born in a country at peace, in an open society that had a national health service and free education for all; and to loving, caring and supportive parents who were never violent or intoxicated. Money was tight when I was a young child, and the flat where I spent my first few years might not have passed health and safety inspections by today's standards: but we never went hungry, or had to wear torn or dirty clothes; and we slept in proper beds in a secure building; and there was coal for the fire each winter's morning. (For younger readers, coal is a carbon-rich combustible rock which was delivered to homes and used as fuel in open fires in the distant past – releasing filthy dust when handled, and producing choking, polluting smoke when burnt. But, once upon a time, even the rich used it for home heating!) My father always had at least one part-time job alongside his full-time employment to make ends met, but he still always found time to spend with my sister and I when he could be at home. Yes, in the lottery of life, I was very lucky.
As I started this post talking about determinism, I should acknowledge that if everything is predetermined, then clearly it could not have been any different! Although I cannot logically refute this possibility I behave as though it has been rejected.
It would seem
a) if I do not have free will then I am only appearing to make choices about what to type (and whether to think I have free will), and even if there was any point worrying about this, whether I do worry about it or not is totally out of my control;
and
b) if I do have free will then I gain nothing by assuming, or acting, as though it is otherwise.
(That is, there is a kind of parallel to Pascal's wager going on here – if you have free will than a bet on anything other than free will looses everything; and if you do not have free will then there is no actual bet to be had, only the illusion of one, and nothing more can be lost).
So, assuming that the course of my life has been the outcome of the choices I have made, and those of my parents, and my friends, and my teachers, and everyone else who's decisions have ever had any influence on my life, then the self I identify with today has been constructed through my experiences of the world, impacted by others, and iteratively built up as I reacted to situations by developing my values and personality; which then influenced (i) my actions and interactions in the world, and so (ii) others' responses to me, and so (iii) the experiences I drew upon in developing that self further…
This is of course just a variation on the constructivist account of learning as incremental, interpretive, and iterative – as we build up our conceptual structures, our mental models of the world, our perspectives, our worldviews, our value systems, our ideologies, our beliefs, our attitudes, our habits, our metacogniti0n, our preferences, our epistemological commitments, and so forth (and these all interact of course) we build up our selves. Indeed, what is the self, if not the gestalt, or perhaps the subsuming system, of these facets of our selves?
So, if my parents had neglected or abused the child who grew to be me then that child would have become someone different to the person I am now, someone else. Even if I had not ended up incarcerated 'at her majesty's pleasure' [sic, a term which reeks of retribution rather than restoration], I very much doubt I would have ever been admitted to a University, or become a teacher, or met my wife (when she decided to do an evening class in physics), or got to teach at Cambridge…
This was Caruso's point, of course, that 'there, but for the grace of God…' – but it would not (by definition) be me who was someone else, as I (the person writing this now) would never have existed. How different that other person would have been is an open question, but I suspect substantially and significantly different.
But then my parents could not have neglected me or abused me. I do not mean that the people who became my parents could not, under different circumstances, have become very different people and so different kinds of parents – of course that might have been possible. But those hypothetical people are not the parents I know – they would have been quite different people.
If I had been born in another country… but then no, I could not have been.
Perhaps, under different circumstances, my parents might have emigrated before I was born (not so unlikely as relatives emigrated to Australia and New Zealand when I was young). But my parents, as they developed in their actual circumstances, were not those people, and if the people who became my parents had, under other circumstances, under different life experiences and influences, moved abroad before having children, then again, the self I am would not have developed.
Indeed, the resulting person might have been very different. After all, I am, not just the result of a social environment, but the unfolding in dialogue with that environment of a biological potential that is genetic. My particular set of genes is not only a unique combination because of the unique genotypes of each of my parents, but is one of myriad potential unique permutations of crossing those two unique genotypes – one particular outcome of the lottery of making life.
If the people who became my parents had emigrated to another country (or even moved to another town) before having children then I would almost certainly not have been born. The number of possible genotypes that could have resulted from crossing my parents (so to speak) is immense. The chances of my genotype becoming the basis of an implanted zygote, and leading to a child, is minuscule (except in the deterministic scenario when it is 1, but I have chosen to (/been predetermined to) disregard that scenario). If my mother had conceived somewhere else – it would not have been me that was conceived.
For, without wishing to be insensitive here, if conception had taken place the day before I was actually conceived, or the day after, it would (almost certainly) not have led to the same union of gametes, and the same me. Indeed, if conception had been delayed a few minutes to make a cup of tea, brush hair for longer, clean teeth… or perhaps had been brought forward by not brushing hair or teeth for as long… then if conception had still occurred (by no means assured) my genotype would almost certainly not have arisen, but would likely have remained one of the vast multitude of possible human genotypes that has never been called upon to guide (or channel, or afford) the biological development of a person.
Given that, you can probably anticipate how I might respond to the hypothetical "had I been born to different parents" – it is a meaningless question. I could not have been born to different parents. We are all very unique. We are also very lucky to be here at all.
Had, say, Henry VIII not fallen out with the Catholic Church, or had Luther's theses blown away, or if Alfred had taken more care over the cakes, I almost certainly would not have been here at all, in the sense that my genotype would likely have never have been expressed (given that it only takes a trivial change in a small domestic detail in the preceding generation to abort or trigger a specific conception, think about the knock-on effects over many generations once one conception is changed), and I certainly would not be here as the person I am today. (And if by some strange fluke of extreme improbability – anything that is not impossible could happen – a baby with 'my' genotype had been born in Victorian England, or even the same time as me but in a Welsh mining village (where they extracted those rocks we all used to burn), then despite some likely similarities, my 'twin' would not be me. After all, even actual 'identical' twins born on the same day in the same place to the same parents are not actually identical (e.g., they develop different fingerprints.)
So the 'there, but for the grace of God, go I' argument does not really make sense to me ,as it should really be 'there, but for the Grace of God, goes someone else' – which rather lacks the same rhetorical impact.
However, I was recently listening to a different programme where Rawls's theory of justice was being discussed, and his notion of the veil of ignorance. The argument here is that people should judge what seems fair on the basis of having no knowledge of their own position in the pertinent social system.
So, perhaps at the end of a science lesson a teacher complains that the practical apparatus and materials have not been properly put away. The teacher offers the class a choice: everyone can miss the start of their break, till everything is cleaned and tided away; or, she will draw lots and select six students to do all the cleaning and tidying, and the rest can go to their break on time. As long as the class decide their preference BEFORE the teacher draws lots, they remain behind the veil of ignorance.
So, in the context of the penal system, the principle suggests that, for example, one needs to decide whether or not it is just and appropriate that someone who has been convicted for the third time of a minor drug offence should be sentenced to many years of imprisonment (at great public expense) before one knows whether one is lucky enough to be brought into the world in a loving, comfortable home, or born to a childhood of poverty and neglect.
Of course, that is, in principle, one should decide from the other side of the veil – we cannot actually regress to that state of ignorance. (Imagine that science teacher first telling the class which six students would be assigned the detention, but then asking the class to chose between the two options without taking that into account!)
In practical terms, this seems little different to Caruso's formulation, as both involve an impossible hypothesis (being born in different circumstances but being the same person; making an intellectual judgment before being born at all!)
Yet I think there is an important difference from the perspective of science education.
Asking someone to make a judgement on what is just without regard to their particular circumstances, whilst sensible in theory, is surely obviously impossible in practice: we cannot put aside knowledge that is essential to us, so it clearly can only be a kind of thought experiment where people do their best to disregard knowledge that actually frames or permeates every aspect of their thinking.
From my perspective, as outlined above, the same should be true of the "what if you had born born in poverty/to abusive parents/in a totalitarian state, etcetera." formulation as that is equally non-viable, and can only be a hypothetical argument. Yet, I am not sure sure that is so obvious to some people. There is something of a common notion that a person is their genes, or at least their genes determine them. Science suggests otherwise.
Whilst it is certainly true that with different genes 'you' will be a different person (and indeed with enough different genes… 'you' may be a carrot – that is, with different genes, there is no you, but someone/thing else), but it is certainly not true that someone with your set of genes will necessarily be the person you are. Your genotype had the potential to support the development of a vast range of different people (albeit that range is still a tiny region of the even more enormous array of possible people the general human genome could give expression to).
Unless, that is, my wager is lost and everything is determined. Then you must be you, but not just because you could not have had a different genotype, but also because that genotype could not have been expressed in a different environment, so the developing person that became you could not have had any different formative experiences either.
Rutledge, D. (2021, 31 Jan). Free will, retribution and just deserts. The Philosopher's Zone.
Watts, R. (2021, 21st Jan). John Rawls's 'A Theory of Justice'. Arts & Ideas.
Keith S. Taber
The 1969 film 'The Chairman' (apparently released in the UK as 'The Most Dangerous Man in the World') was just shown on the TV. I had not seen it before, but when I noticed it was on I vaguely recalled having heard something about it suggesting it was a film worth watching, so thought I would give it a try. And it had "that nice Gregory Peck" in it, which I seem to recall was the justification given for one of my late wife's sweet little Aunties going to see 'The Omen' (wasn't that also about the The Most Dangerous Man in the World?).
Peck plays a Nobel laureate chemist, so I got interested. He had received a letter from a Chinese scientist, an old mentor who had worked with him at Princeton, warning him not to go to visit him in China, which (a) piqued his interest as (i) he had had no contact with the colleague for a decade, and (ii) he had no plans to go to China, and (b) told us viewers he would be off to China.
Peck's character, Hathaway, is an American who is currently a visiting professor at the University of in London. He contacts his embassy, suspecting there must be something of international significance in the message.
It transpires that this Nobel prize winning chemist had some kind of background in "the game" – intelligence work (of course! Well, at least this gets away from the stuffy stereotype of the scientist who never leaves the lab.), but had reached an epiphany three years earlier when his wife had been killed in a road accident while he was driving, and the experience of being with her as she died had led to him deciding that every life was unique and precious (as he later explained to Mao Zedong, the eponymous Chairman of the title) and he would no longer take on a job that would oblige him to kill. (Later in the film Hathaway seemed to have forgotten his high principles when he accepted a pistol as he made an escape in a stolen armoured car.) The intelligence communities had become aware that China had identified a natural product that could be extracted in tiny quantities, an enzyme which allowed any crop to be grown under any conditions.
The film seemed to be intended to make some serious points about detente, the cold war, the cultural revolution and the cult of Mao, and political and moral imperatives.
For the rest of the film to make any sense, Hathaway and the viewer have to assume that the promise and document will not be honoured (and it seems to be assumed that a character simply suggesting this is all Hathaway, or indeed any of us, need to be convinced of this). Yet, (SPOILER ALERT) when Hathaway is safely back in London, and has decoded the structure, he is told that the Western authorities have decided not to share the discovery.
I was not sure what a young audience who do not remember the context might make of some aspects of the film. We are told that the operation to obtain the enzyme, operation Minotaur *, has according to the US officer in charge cost half a billion federal dollars (which seems a lot for 1969, even allowing for some exaggeration) and was supported by the UK with a contribution a British intelligent officer suggests was likely "two pounds ten" (i.e., £2.50).
I wondered whether Chinese agents actually operated so easily in moving into and out of Hong Kong as is suggested, and there was some interesting brief news footage playing on a hotel television suggesting (British) Hong Kong police were responding to civil unrest in a way that does not seem so different from contemporary reports under the already notorious 2020 Hong Kong national security law.
Anyway, I will try and avoid too many plot spoilers, but suffice to say I was interested and intrigued in how matters would pan out for the first three quarters of the film (until people started firing guns and throwing grenades, at which point I lost any investment I'd had in what would happen.)
The science in the film was far-fetched, but perhaps not too far fetched for a general audience in 1969. 1969 was after all, a different age. (In 1969 the Beatles were still together, 'In the Court of the Crimson King' was released, and NASA's landing on the moon showed just what the USA could achieve when a President believed in, and encouraged, and resourced, the work of scientists and engineers.)
Hathaway was bugged (through a sinus implant) such that his US /UK handlers (and USSR observer) could hear everything he said and everything said to him from half a world away through a bespoke satellite that the Chinese had not noticed recently appearing over their territory. The Americans initially had serious trouble with signal:noise and just made out the odd consonant, and so could not understand any speech, but a UK intelligence officer suggested simply filling in the gaps with uniform white noise, which, amazingly, and (even more amazingly) immediately at first attempt, gave a much cleaner sound than I can get on FaceTime or Zoom or Skype today (Implied message: the British may be the poor relatives, but have the best ideas?)
What Hathaway did not know (but perhaps he should have been paying more attention when he was told the implanted transmitter was a 'remedy' in case the Chinese would not let him leave the country?) was that the implanted transmitter also had an explosive device that could be used if he needed to be terminated.
Indeed there was supposedly enough plastic explosive that when Hathaway was invited to meet Chairman Mao (was he meant to be 'the most dangerous man in the world'?) it raised the issue of whether the device should be used to remove the Chairman as he played table tennis with Hathaway (asking us to believe that democratic governments might sanction the violent summary execution of perceived enemies, without due legal process, in foreign lands) *.
The command code to explode the device was stored on magnetic tape that took over thirty seconds to execute the instructions (something that seems ridiculous even for 1969, and was presumably only necessary to provide faux tension at the point where the clock counts down and the audience are supposed to wonder if the British and Americans are going to have to kill the film's star off before the movie is over).
Equally ridiculous, the implant supposedly had the same density as human tissue so that it would not show up on X-rays. (A wise precaution: when in Hong Kong, Hathaway is lured to some kind of decadent, Western, casino-cum-brothel where Chinese agents manage to covertly X-ray him from the next room as he enjoys a bowl of plain rice with a Chinese intelligence officer – quite a technical feat).
Of course, human tissue is not all of one 'density' (in the sense of opaqueness to X-rays), or else there would be little point in using X-rays in medical diagnosis – actually a sinus should show up on an X-ray as an empty cavity!
Highly technical information appeared on screens at the listening post as displays little more complex than sine waves – not even the Lissajous figures so popular with 1970s sci-fi programmes.
At one point Hathaway broke into a room through a thick solid metal floor by using just a few millilitres of nitrohydrochloride acid (aqua regia) that was apparently a standard bench reagent in the Chinese biochemistry laboratory (these enzymes must be pretty robust, or perhaps Professor Soong had a side project that involved dissolving gold), and which Hathaway was quite happy to carry with him in a small glass bottle in his jacket pocket. The RSC's Education in Chemistry magazine warns us that "because its components are so volatile, [aqua regia] is usually only mixed immediately prior to use". Risk assessment has come on a lot since Dr Hathaway earned his Nobel.
The focal enzyme was initially handled rather well – the molecular models looked convincing enough, and the technical problem of scaling up by synthesising it seemed realistic. The Chinese scientist could not produce the enzyme in quantity and hoped Hathaway could help with the synthesis – a comparison was made with how producing insulin originally involved the sacrifice of many animals to produce modest amounts, but now could be readily made at scale. I seem to recall from my natural products chemistry that before synthetic routes were available, sex hormones were obtained by collecting vast amounts of 'material' from slaughterhouses and painstakingly abstracting tiny quantities – think the Curies, but working with with tonnes of gonads rather than tonnes of pitchblende.
Before Hathaway had set out on his mission he had pointed out that the complexity of an enzyme molecule was such that he could never memorise the molecular structure as it would contain anything from 3000 to 400 000 atoms. So, the plot rather fell apart at the end (SPOILER ALERT) as he brings back a copy of Mao's little red book, in which his mentor had hidden the vital information – as the codes for three amino acids.
Ser – Tyr – Pro
Hm.
But, what sparked me to wrote something about this film, was some dialogue which brought home to me just how long ago 1969 was (I was still in short trousers – well, to be honest, for about half the year I am still in short trousers, but then it was all year round). Hathaway is flown to China from Hong Kong, and on arrival is met by the daughter of his old mentor:
Soong Chu (Francesca Tu): I am Professor Soong's daughter
Dr. John Hathaway (Peck): You look a great deal like your beautiful mother.
Soong Chu: Not I. I am just an ugly chemist
Hathaway: I read your recent paper on peptides. I thought it was brilliant – for a woman.
Soong Chu: Oh, I agree, but my father helped a great deal.
I was taken aback by the reference to just being an ugly chemist, and had to go back and check that I'd heard that correctly. Was the implication that one could not be beautiful, and a chemist? Nothing more was said on the topic, but that seemed to be the implication. And what is meant by being 'just' a chemist?
Hathaway's comment that Soong Chu's paper had been brilliant, was followed by a pause. Then came "…for a woman". Did he really say that?
I was waiting for the follow-up comment which would resolve this moment of tension. This surely had to be some kind of set up for a punch line: "It would have been beyond brilliant for a man", perhaps.
But no, Soong Chu just agreed. There did not seem to be intended to be any tension or controversy or social critique or irony or satire there. So much for Soong Chu's membership of the Red Guard and all the waving of the thoughts of the Chairman (she would have known that "Women represent a great productive force in China, and equality among the sexes is one of the goals of communism").
This dialogue is not followed up later in the film.
So, this is not planting a seed for something that will later turn out to be of significance for character development or plot, or that will be challenged by subsequent scenes. It is not later revealed that Soong Chu has a parallel career as Miss People's Republic of China (just as Hathaway is a chemist and also a kind of James Bond figure). Nor does it transpire that Professor Soong had been senile for many years and all of his work was actually being undertaken for him by his even more brilliant daughter.
Sadly, no, it just seems to be the kind of polite conversation that the screenwriters assumed would be entirely acceptable to an audience that was presumably well aware that females cannot be both beautiful and scientists; and that women need help from men if they are to be successful in science.
Times have changed … I hope.
* Interestingly, I've now found a poster for the film which seems to suggest that the whole purpose of the operation was not to acquire the enzyme structure at all, but to get Hathaway close enough to Mao to assassinate him.
This seems to describe a very different cut to one I watched – where the audience with Mao seems to have surprised everyone, and the senior intelligence officers contacted their governments to alert them of this unexpected opportunity!
Keith S. Taber
I am not too concerned about the machines taking over, as they have no wish to do so. They just want to help us. But that may be enough to impede us considerably.
There is something of a culture clash between human and machine intelligence, such that even when we seem to be talking the same language, we actually mean very different things, and there is no great meeting of minds.
It is a bit like humans and machines are following different Kuhnian paradigms*, with different exemplars for how to think and react. In a very real sense we occupy different worlds, and do not share a common language. (*Kuhn suggested that although astronomers pre- and post-Copernicus may have shared words such as 'sun' and 'planet' they understood them within such different conceptual frameworks that their concepts for what the words referred to were incommensurable.)
I needed a new cheque book, and in the past have contacted my bank branch on such occasions – but since the branch has been closed I have been moved to on-line banking (which is a major challenge for someone with a limited memory for passwords and terrible typing skills). I imagined I could order a new chequebook on-line, as long as I could get in to my account. Once I'd logged in it was just going to be a matter of finding the right link. Surely?
I found the instructions easily enough – it was possible to order from my on-line account, but only as long as I had previously ordered a cheque book through telephone banking – which I never had. An alternative, the instructions suggested, was to use webchat – which did not sound too difficult. But as so often, before 'chatting' with another humanoid equipped with theory of mind, and capable of interpretation and empathy, I first have to discuss my needs with the gatekeeper of on-line support: Cora.
"Hi there, I'm Cora your digital assistant. I can help with all sorts of everyday banking queries…"
"I would like to order a cheque book for a current account. I have looked this up and found 'To order a cheque book or paying-in book online you must have previously ordered one for that account through telephone banking' but I can use webchat?"
"You can order a cheque book or paying-in book online as long as you have previously ordered one for that account using telephone banking to record your preferences."
So, no progress yet, but at least we seem to be thinking along the same lines.
"Have you ever had a cheque book or paying-in book on that account?"
"Yes, but sent by my (now closed) branch."
"Ok, log in to Digital Banking and select 'Payments and transfers'. Under 'Credit/cheque books', choose either 'Order cheque book' or 'Order paying-in book'. Pick the account you wish to order one for, click 'Next', then 'Confirm' to place your order."
Well that seemed simple enough. These were the instructions I had already found on-line that were supposed to work as long as I had previously used telephone banking (which I had not), so it seemed (i.e., my interpretation) Cora had now registered me to be authorised to order in this way. That was relatively painless.
"Was that helpful?"
"Oh, okay – will do. Thanks"
(No harm being polite to the machines – we all remember HAL.)
But then, Cora had a rethink!
"One moment please, I'm just typing."
"Ah ok, I'm not sure. Could you reword your question?"
I do not know if I was more surprised that Cora changed her mind, or that she was typing her responses (I had naively thought she might be able to digitally send me messages without having to bother with a keyboard), or that she felt the need to tell me this, rather than just type out her response. Was this the machine equivalent of giving oneself time to think? I can't imagine so as given how many floating point operations per second Cora must complete, she could probably have written a novel in that pause. (It might not have been judged a good novel, but another digital assistant might have enjoyed it in her ** downtime.)
I rephrased:
"I wanted to order a new cheque book, but have previously only obtained one from my branch (now gone)."
"You can order a cheque book or paying-in book online as long as you have previously ordered one for that account using telephone banking to record your preferences."
"Well I have not, which is why I am following the instructions on line to contact webchat"
This was fast becoming circular.
"I can try an FAQ search, here is the most popular answer:
How do I order a cheque book or credit book using Digital Banking?
Did I answer your question?"
"NO – you just repeated my question."
I wonder whether when Cora is unable to find what she needs in the FAQs she has access to her own digital assistant – or whether she is expected to talk tautologies to herself. I wondered if Cora has access to a digital counsellor for when she finds the work too stressful:
At this point Cora gave up, and passed me on to a very helpful human being who quickly understood the question and ordered me a cheque-book. So, objective achieved with only a modest waste of time and energy, and a temporary increase in blood pressure.
If ever they put the machines in charge we will find we live in a very polite world with digital assistants who only want to help us, and that will be fine as long as we not pushed for time and only ever need someone to confirm for us what question we are asking them.
"Oh Cora, oh Cora
I never knew your head
…Cora, oh Cora
It wasn't lightly said
But living in two cultures
Our lives were truly led"
(Roy Harper, Cora)
Postscript added 2021-08-21:
Despite telling me she's "learning all the time", Cora is still unable to make sense of my enquiries.
** Why do I assume 'her'? Here is an interesting podcast: AI home devices: A feminist perspective (An episode in ABC Radio National's The Philosopher's Zone with David Rutledge from August 2020.)
Keith S. Taber
If you are going to have an accident in Cambridge and do not wish to get into trouble, you should make sure you take due care. Apparently it is permissible to drive into someone, and then drive off without checking they are okay or offering your details, as long as this is not deliberate, and simply due to you not looking where you are driving, or perhaps being in a hurry because you know you should not really have stopped the car where you are blocking a pedestrian crossing.
Science is full of stories of happy accidents – serendipity. Negotiating the traffic in Cambridge risks less happy ones. Last week I was nearly hit twice whilst undertaking the hazardous activity of crossing roads – using pedestrian crossings. That is probably not so unusual in Cambridge or many other cities, but it led me to reflect on some of the psychology involved, and also on how the Cambridgeshire Police understand the terms "accident" and "due care and attention".
As I crossed the road, when indicate by the green symbol of a person walking, a cyclist braked suddenly to prevent herself running into me. My initial response – a slight shock, indignation, anger – was dissipated very quickly.
The cyclist quickly indicated an apology. The negative feeling dissipated immediately. No harm done. My mood brightened and I went on my way.
Now, to be fair, it was more a brush or a kiss than a thump – but I was driven into. The car had been completely stopped across the crossing. This often happens in Cambridge. Despite the reputation of the place for clever people, this does not extend to many of the road users. During the rush hour cars drive onto crossings even when there is a long queue of traffic directly in front of the crossing that is not going anywhere. Even some bus drivers do this. The indignation that people do this selfish thing, annoys me much less than the fact that they do this even though it is obvious that they can gain nothing from it. When the traffic is that busy, it perhaps allows them to make the next 20 metres 30 seconds quicker than if they had driven correctly. But it does not get them to the next set of lights any quicker – it just gets them to the back of the slow moving queue, in precisely the place in the queue that they have had all along, slightly earlier than if they had not blocked the crossing. How stupid are these drivers not to realise that? I seriously think that even if such selfishness does not debar them from driving – such a lack of basic intelligence should.
When the green light and audible bleep signalled pedestrians could cross a number of us set out across the crossing. Well the nearest half of it, because we could not get across the other side of the road without leaving the marked path, or walking over the car. (I've often been tempted in these situations to climb across the car – but that would make me as petty as the drivers who behave this way.) The other alternatives, excluding a superhuman leap, were to walk behind or in front of the car. Only a very small part of the car extended in front of the crossing path, so I went in front. I assumed this was safer as the driver could not help but see me. I was surprised then when the car started up and drove into me. I was in front of a car, about a metre from the driver, and she drove into me. Presumably she did not see me, directly in front of her car!
No harm done, again? Physically, no harm done. Not a mark.
Or perhaps rather what did not happen next. I waved my arms and shouted something at the driver along the lines 'you should not stop on the crossing; you should not drive into people'. If she really was so stupid that she did not already know that, I am not sure my advice would have been understood, but I had just been hit by a car, and it was an impulsive response. I was agitated, and I raised my voice and waved my arms – but I was not rude or abusive and I did not use foul language. What the driver did not do was… look at me, say anything, acknowledge me. She stared straight ahead as if I was not there (which presumably was what she had also thought when she drove her car into me).
If she had simply mouthed 'sorry' or something similar, I might have carried on uttering platitudes for a few more seconds, but then it would have been over. I would have had closure. I would have thought she was in the wrong and careless – but not that she was so ignorant that she did not think the likes of me were worthy of her attention.
She drove off, but I followed her along the pavement. This was easy as she only got to the back of where the queue had reached, so as I overtook her on foot, at walking pace, maybe 20 seconds later, I paused to make a note of her registration number.
There was a form for reporting 'driving without due care and attention'. I am not a lawyer, a police office, nor even a driver, but it seemed to me that if you stop your car on a pedestrian crossing and then drive into someone who is directly in front of your car you are either
I spent about 30 minutes completing the form with all the details of the location, the incident, and a description of the car and driver.
the form asked. That would be inconvenient, as the police station where I live does not seem to be manned very often (or at least, given there are nearly always plenty of cars in the car park, no one seems available to talk to the public) but if I think there is a civic duty to report an offence then I should be prepared do so. So, yes.
That would be really inconvenient, but again, if I think people in a civil society should take responsibility (the next pedestrian this person drives into may actually get hurt) then I had to agree.
Well clearly not prison. Not a court appearance. Not even a fine. Just contact from the police saying this had been reported, and the driver should be more careful in future to follow the highway code, and to look where they are driving. A warning that says you cannot carrying on behaving this way. A warning I would not have thought was needed had the driver simply said 'sorry' or 'how stupid of me' or even or 'are you okay'? Or, even just looked at me and offered an apologetic smile. Anything to acknowledge this was wrong, and that she might try to take more care in future.
The actual outcome was an email from Cambridgeshire Police – signed with the ironic byline 'Cambridgeshire Police – creating a safer Cambridgeshire' – informing me that the matter was noted for intelligence, but would not be followed up. Why? Because "we do not believe this would fall under driving without due care and attention, after reading the report it appears to be an accident where the driver did not see you"
I was busy composing a response to the effect that
when I noticed that the email came from 'donotreplyvc@cambs.pnn.police.uk' – so presumably a reply was not wanted and would not be read.
(Interestingly I was also told that I should 'notify the sender if you have received this in error' using one of those legal disclaimer footers that so many organisations use unthinkingly in their emails. [For example, see: It's a secret conference invitation: pass it on…] Perhaps someone does read the replies, just to find those received in error, and ignores more substantive responses?)
Not by the cyclist, as she said sorry.
But by the driver who drove into me and then would not even acknowledge me. I was physically unharmed (as I pointed out to the police in my report of the incident, "as hit and runs go – there was hardly a hit, and a very poor attempt to run") but treated as if less than human by someone who clearly felt no need to admit any sense of guilt over her poor behaviour, and was not prepared to show me the most basic respect that should be due to any other human being. Perhaps she had had a really bad day – but a simple sorry does not cost much.
And by the police, who responded to my report by offering an illogical argument for why they would not take any action – and then perhaps more importantly did not leave space for me to respond to point out the irrational nature of their justification.
It is the refusal to interact at the human level – to say sorry, to respect us as human beings, to consider our views – that does injury, as it is an assault on our spirit. Strangely, the incident with the cyclist actually improved my mood. I am not recommending we encourage more near misses to act as foci for human interaction – but that moment of humility when the cyclist offered an apology made a human connection and made me feel good about the world.
If you are reading this, cyclist, thank you (but do try to watch for traffic signals in future).
If you are reading this hit-and-run driver, and Cambridgeshire police, then perhaps remember that.
We all sometimes make mistakes, do silly things, utter illogical statements, have accidents – but often it is how we behave afterwards that matters most, and that can leave the world seeming an impoverished or enhanced place for those we interact (or decline to interact) with.
First published 27th October 2018 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/
Keith S. Taber
I am a scientist and well aware that I am – in a corporeal sense – composed of many billions of bits which have been recycled myriad times. At the level of molecules, ions, electrons and the like, bits of me have in the past been parts of other humans, various other animals and plants, in the rocks, soil, seas. Bits of me have been sneezed, urinated, bled and sweated out of many others who had use of my quanticles before me. No doubt my components have been parts of worms and bacteria and dinosaurs and dodos. Some of my bits are extraterrestrial, having drifted in from other parts of the solar system. Ultimately, much of me is stardust, as all the carbon and oxygen and nitrogen etc were forged in nuclear furnaces in a previous generation star.
So, it may seen incongruous that I was disappointed, disgusted, and even surprised, that the Bank of England has decide to continue its recent innovation of making its banknotes from a mixture which includes some products of animal butchery. The polymer used in the new notes contains a small amount of fats sourced from animals killed for human use and profit. This was inadvertent, and when discovered there was an outcry, and a consultation.
Although most people in England are not especially concerned that their new notes contain meat products, a number of groups objected and this not only included vegetarians and vegans, but members of some religious groups who are subject to rules about which animals they can consume and handle. Nondescript dead mammal fat products are not something they wish to handle, even as cash.
Given that there was originally no deliberate decision to use butchery products in banknotes, and there was such a strong objection to the accidental development (well people must have known, but not the Bank), and given that usually England is a fairly liberal place where religious groups and eccentric people like myself are at least tolerated, I strongly expected a change in policy: but the Bank has contacted me (and others responding to the consultation) to report that "After careful and serious consideration and the extensive public consultation, the Bank has decided that there will be no change to the composition of polymer used for future banknotes. … The new polymer £20 banknote, to be issued in 2020, and future print runs of £5 and £10 banknotes will continue to be made from polymer which contains a trace amount, typically less than 0.05%, of additives derived from animal products".
I feel let down by the Bank of England, which clearly does not seek to take into account the reasonable (if to others somewhat picky) views of the full range of people it is meant to serve. Shame on you Mark Carney and your colleagues. You have betrayed many of the people in this country who believe that convenience sometimes needs to be balanced against taking an ethical standpoint, and that in England we sometimes stand up for the beliefs and concerns of others – even when they actually seem a bit quirky to us.
Most people have no qualms about eating and wearing (and gluing with, etc.) the worked-up products of killed animals, even if today few people in England are prepared to do their own hunting and killing and butchery. I am a vegetarian on aesthetic and moral grounds. As a scientist, I know there is no absolute difference between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. I find meat disgusting, and the idea that animals are put to death so others can enjoy eating them as disturbing.
Purely as an analogy, consider how an anti-slavery campaigner must have felt at the time when most of their peers – most decent, honest, caring, God-fearing, people they knew – seemed to think that slavery was a perfectly reasonable, economically justifiable, activity. Or when polite society thought it was appropriate to hang someone for stealing food for their starving children – after all, if you do not make an example, then before you know it all the poor will be stealing rather than starving quietly, and where might that lead?
The bank notes will not look or smell or feel of meat – but they will contain materials deriving from the commercial exploitation of animals killed because people think they are tasty and that living things can just be treated as economic resources to do with as we wish. (There is no strong global economic argument for the meat industry as we could feed the world more effectively with arable farming.) So, to my mind the new banknotes are unacceptable tokens of immoral actions. Deliberately including rendered animal corpse products into banknotes is, by my own personal ethical standards, an immoral act.
Most readers will no doubt think I'm quirky. After all, I've no problems with being made of bits of all those dead animals because they did not become part of me by a deliberate act (by myself or agents working for me) of taking life from other creatures – unlike the new banknotes. I'm very aware of my own mortality, and the precious gift of experience in this world. I do not expect other animals to experience life just as I do (I cannot be sure of that even for other human animals) but to be animate is have some level of experience that is ended by being used simply as material for human greed. I do not know what it is like to be a bat (or any other non-human animal, but Nagel (1974) famously chose this example to pose the question), but I can empathise with what it might be like to suddenly be denied being one to become food, or shoes, or banknotes.
I'm happy to be considered quirky all by the meat-eaters out there – except for those of you who think it is okay to eat, say, pigs and cows and – maybe – horses; but not cats or dogs…at least my quirkiness is systematic and coherent as any good scientist's quirkiness should be.
First published 15th August 2017 at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/
Keith S. Taber
*
"Tim Howard is a little frustrated with himself that it wasn't a tidier save, because he feels he ought to have done better with the first attempt."
Thus claimed the commentator on the television highlights programme Match of the Day (BBC) commenting on the association football (soccer) match Everton vs. Spurs on May 25th 2015. Â
It was not a claim that was obviously contradicted by the footage being shown, but inevitably my reaction (as someone who teaches research methods to students) was 'how do you know?" The goalkeeper was busy playing a game of football, some distance from the commentator, and there was no obvious conversation between them. The answer of course is that the commentator was a mind reader who knew what someone else was thinking and feeling.
This is not so strange, as we are all mind readers – or at least we commonly make statements about the thoughts, attitude, feels, beliefs etc. of others, based on their past or present behaviour, subtle body language, facial expressions and/or the context of their current predicament.
Of course, that is not strictly mind reading, as minds are not visible. But part of normal human development is acquiring a 'theory of mind' that allows us to draw inferences about the thoughts and feelings of others – the internal subjective experiences of others – drawing upon our own feelings and thoughts as a model. In everyday life, this ability is essential to normal social functioning – even if we do not always get it right. Yet we become so used to relying upon these skills that public commentators (well, a sports commentator here) feel no discomfort in not only interpreting the play, but the feelings and thoughts of the players they are observing.
A large part of the kind of educational research that I tend to be involved in is very similar to this – it involves using available evidence to make inferences about what others think and feel. [There are many examples in the blog posts on this site.]Â Sometimes we have very strong evidence (what people tell us about their thoughts and feelings) but even then this is indirect evidence – we can never actually see another mind at work (1). We do not "see the cogs moving", even if we may like to talk as though we do.
In everyday life we forgive the kinds of under-determined claims made by sports commentators, and may not even notice when they draw such inferences and question what support their claims have. Sadly this seems to be a human quality that we often take for granted a little too much. A great deal of the research literature in science education is written as though research offers definite results about students' conceptions (and misconceptions) and whether or not they know something or understand it – as though such matters are simple, binary, and readily detected (1). Yet research actually suggests this is far from the case (2).
Research that explores students' thinking and learning is actually very challenging, and is in effect a enterprise to build and test models rather than uncover simple truths. I suspect quite a bit of the disagreement about the nature of student thinking in the science education research literature is down to researchers who forget that even if people are mind readers in everyday life, they must become careful and self-critical model builders when they are seeking to make claims presented as research (1).
References:
Taber, K. S. (2013). Modelling Learners and Learning in Science Education: Developing representations of concepts, conceptual structure and conceptual change to inform teaching and research. Dordrecht: Springer.
(2) Taber, K. S. (2014). Student Thinking and Learning in Science: Perspectives on the nature and development of learners' ideas. New York: Routledge.
* Previously published at http://people.ds.cam.ac.uk/kst24/science-education-research: 25th May 2015
Keith S. Taber
I had gone into the office to collect something. (My office is in the Science Education Centre of the University's Faculty of Education, located on the site of Homerton College Cambridge.) Due to the global pandemic, and government advice (and later instructions) the office had been in lock down for some time. I'd been away for so long that aspects of the room seemed unfamiliar! The room was something of an oblong, at the back of the building near the technician's area. It was rather cluttered: that was certainly familiar, but it struck me, having been away for some weeks, just how cluttered.
I was pretty sure I needed to collect a lead, but could not see the lead I wanted. I noticed some leads with very thick insulation connecting to the computer – were these SCART leads: I did not remember these being used in the office. But that was not what I was looking for.
I've been in this office quite a few years (well over a decade now) and whilst looking around I found some things I had rather forgotten about. There were some small toy cars – of the kind that that were used on some gravity powered racing tracks when I was a child. These were approx. 1:64 scale, and made to roughly replicate real models, and painted in various colours. It might seem an odd thing to have in an adult's (there may be an unjustified assumption there?) office, but for my first decade in the University I had largely worked in teacher education and led on the physics teaching component – so that provided a good excuse for having lots of different toys!
Another thing that was initially unfamiliar was a large card. This was about A3 size, or originally A2 but folded like a greetings card. Inside were various other post-card sized cards attached, as well as some confectionery wrappers! What was this? It was coming back to me. One year I'd sent a message out to all the students who had finished the course (this was presumably our one-year Educational Research course), and many had replied from all over the world, and I'd made this as a record. Had I sent them all chocolate, and they had returned the wrapper with a greeting? Or had they sent that the confectionery to me from different locations? I was not sure now – the details were bit hazy.
Coming back into the office, and indeed into Cambridge from the satellite town where I live, for the first time in a while was a little odd. I could see into the school next door to our site. There were not many children (most were now at home, with just key workers' children and vulnerable children being in school to be looked after) but those there seemed to be playing happily (both outside and inside classrooms – I could not see anyone supervising) and unperturbed by the current emergency. This seemed reassuring, if a little odd.
I could also see into a classroom of an adjacent college (not a college of the university, but one of the many independent sixth form colleges that allow, mostly overseas, students to study at Cambridge at university entrance level). There were a few young people visible studying. A teenage boy and girl were sitting next to each other working on something together. They were even touching I noticed – nothing inappropriate in normal times – but these are not normal times.
I'd been to the College Combination Room (a staff room for all those working in Homerton – whether academics, clerical, gardeners, or whatever). It was almost empty. I had a conversation there with a colleague I recognised. I think I had wanted to say something about the prime minister being in hospital, along the lines that if he were to die from COVID-19 that would be a terrible loss to his family and friends, but might do wonders for getting across the government's message about social distancing – his one death could save hundreds. But although this was a thought experiment along the lines of those 'trolley' dilemmas used to explore ethical reasoning, I thought it might come across as a little callous. (It is one thing to conjecture scenarios involving the deaths of unnamed imaginary people, but not a real, ill, human being.) [Since publishing this, I have learned this evening on the BBC Radio News that Mr Johnson's health has deteriorated, and he has been placed in intensive care. I do, of course, wish him well along with others suffering from the disease.]
I saw it was 14.00 (2 p.m.) and felt I should have gone to the main faculty building to take a class (although there are no classes now, so just force of habit there I suppose). I wanted to get a cup of coffee to take with me to the class (force of habit, again?), but I saw the coffee machine, and all the tea making paraphernalia, were gone. I assumed that this was because of the current emergency – having a place where people can come to get tea and coffee would encourage the social mixing that we need to avoid. The College must have taken all the refreshments away.
On leaving the Combination room I moved into a corridor (known as Pauper's Walk) but, as I entered the corridor, I saw another colleague enter from the far end. Current protocols suggested to me that I needed to stand back against the wall, and allow her to pass on the other side. However, she had not seen me for a while, and seemed to want to come up to me to talk.
Back in my office, I noticed that some things had been moved since I had been in regularly (pre-pandemic). Some filing cabinets had been shoved out of position, apparently to get access to some large cupboards built into the walls. I did know what was in those cupboards – actually I am not sure I had ever noticed them before. I assumed the technicians used them for storage and had been in to get something, and had needed to shift the cabinets across the floor.
I also noticed that the builders (who had been on site an interminable time, working on one project after another) had made a small hole in the floor in the corner of the room. Through that I was able to see the large, and very 'modern' looking, installation beneath the floor of the store room – presumably the new power plant to heat the building. I could see it was subject to a continuous, and quite extensive, waterfall. I wondered if this was necessary. If the building is closed at the moment, was this not wasting a good deal of water? Or, I wondered, was it a safety precaution that the core needed to be kept cooled even though we were not meant to be operating at the moment?
I had given up on finding the lead I was looking for, and decided I should head for home. I felt a little uneasy about this. The restrictions were still in place. If I was stopped by a police officer, could I really justify my going to work as essential if my main justification had been to look for a lead that I could manage to work at home perfectly well without? I was also uneasy about getting the bus back from the centre of Cambridge to my home – did I really want to be using public transport at this time?
It was then that I started to experience what might be considered cognitive dissonance. Why had I not been concerned about getting the bus into Cambridge? Actually, I did not recall having got the bus into work. The only other viable way I could have got there was cycling, which given the distance, my fitness, and my cargo trike, was, although certainly possible, not an undertaking I would likely have made and immediately forgotten. It was at this point that I released that I did not remember going into work because I had not done so. It was a dream, and, realising that, I woke up at home.
But it was a dream like so many of my dreams – experienced as real, and involving a lot of remembering of things that never happened. (I do not mean remembering the dream when awake, but the experience of remembering in the dream). There is an independent college just adjacent to our building where I often see students studying as I pass by. But no school. The combination room was a real (or at least realistic) memory, as was the colleague I talked to there and the corridor outside – but the other colleague who approached me in the corridor (although seen with clarity in my dream) was not someone I know, or as far as I know based on any real person.
The office I was in (in my dream) was not actually my office, or any office we have in the building (much more like an office I shared at the Institute of Education in London for a year when a visiting fellow there), and was in a different part of the building to my real office.
There is no power plant built under our store room (though last Summer something like this, sans waterfall, was built under the Homerton College lawn). I had left my laptop power lead in the office when I brought the laptop home, and I had considered whether I should go back for it (before we were officially banned from the University buildings) and see if there was anything else I needed before the lock-down: but had decided it was not necessary or a good use of time, or sensible in the circumstances. (But why could I not find the right lead in the dream?)
I have various things in the office from my days working on the PGCE teacher preparation course (a magnetic pendulum for example), but I am not sure if there are toy cars (perhaps there are, and I have forgotten them in my waking life). The large card displaying messages (and chocolate wrappings) from various students has no real counterpoint, but could perhaps be seen as a composite of various post cards and gifts I've been given or sent by students over the years.
Why bother writing about a dream at such length? Because it made me think about memory. In the dream I experienced things that are real, some that were realistic enough (the non-existent colleague in the corridor seemed as real as the real one in the Combination Room) and some that seem (now) fantastic distortions or syntheses of past experiences.
But what was most notable, to my mind, is the role of memory in the dream. When I found the cars, and the card, I was initially nonplussed, but then remembered them from years before (even though, in the case of the card at least, I could not have actually remembered something that never existed). When there was no coffee available in the Combination Room I remembered the current restrictions and inferred this was a precaution the College had taken.
When I found the hole in the floor of my office, I remembered that the builders have been excavating and installing equipment beneath the store room next door (they had not, and the store room was not next door to my actual office). However, a shiny new futuristic apparatus as part of the heating system had recently been open to incidental passer-by inspection as part of ongoing (and indeed interminable) works elsewhere on site – perhaps conflated in my dream with the ground source heat pump under the lawn. In my dream I recognised and remembered things that were real, imagined but possible, and fantastic (the waterfall installed in the excavated cave under our store room, even if not exactly where "the sacred river, ran, through caverns measureless to man"), with equal verisimilitude, as seeming equally likely and trustworthy. The imaginary colleague was as real to me as the remembered real one.
I had no doubts during my dream that I had been in my office, even if it seemed a lot narrower than I recalled. I did not remember having toy cars there, but immediately saw why they might have been useful in teaching. I was initially not at all sure what to make of the large card with the various additions attached inside – but then I 'remembered' (actually, constructed an account of) what I had done years before, and the responses this had initiated, and what I had then done to commemorate those response from past students. It seems a little odd that in my sleep I could 'remember' this unlikely object, but could not remember having gone into work (where there is much genuine experience on which to have constructed a recollection). Perhaps I was just reaching the point where I (my body) was ready to wake, and so my dream became lucid, initiating my awakening. (The thinking we do in dreaming seems worth the effort at the time, until we realise it is 'just' a dream.)
It is perhaps not surprising that in dreams we recognise, and even remember, things that are not real, things that are distorted, and things that are syntheses or different experiences, or that are actually post hoc justifications that enable us to make sense of otherwise confusing (dreamed) experiences. What struck me, though, was how this phenomenon – the way memory seems to cheat and fabricate during dreams – was actually no different from how research suggests memory works in our waking lives. When students tell me they have been taught something that I realise is incorrect in their science lessons, I am always aware they may be recalling correctly, but it is also quite possible that what they 'remember' being told was not what the teacher actually said at the time.
So we might readily dismiss as false things we thought we were remembering when dreaming. But we usually trust a memory we have when we are awake, although research has shown that the things we remember clearly in our waking lives can also be distortions – or even confabulations – as our mind guesses and fills-in what we infer must have happened in order to to make sense of current experience.
A sobering, perhaps even arousing, thought.
