Jimbo Rants: November 2023

Introduction

I recently read A Heart So White by Javier Marias with a twitter book club, #javiermariastogether. The story is a slow paced philosophical suspense. Secrets, listening, and knowing are main ideas in A Heart So White. The opening sentence in the novel is:

I did not want to know but I have since come to know that one of the girls, when she wasn’t a girl anymore and hadn’t long been back from her honeymoon, went into the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror, unbuttoned her blouse, took off her bra and aimed her own father’s gun at her heart, her father at the time was in the dining room with other members of the family and three guests.

Later in the story the narrator says, "Listening is the most dangerous thing of all!" The narrator explains how one can close their eyes to avoid seeing something, but one can't close their ears to avoid hearing something.

In A Heart So White, characters keep, tell, and hear secrets. Once characters know a disturbing secret, they can't unknow it. Once characters tell someone a disturbing secret, they can't untell it.

I believe people should be free to choose. Individuals, in general with exceptions to children and people with certain types of mental illness, know what is best for them. They can choose for themselves if something is or isn't worth it. A person, like the narrator in A Heart So White, knows secrets hide for a reason. Secrets have a cost.

But secrets inspire curiosity. Once a person knows a secret exists, can they make a rational choice? How does the one with a secret decide if a secret should be shared?

Though Experiment

You're given an envelope with the secret of reality (it includes the answers to free will, God/s, afterlife, etc). It is a perfect proof that every human with an IQ score above 70 can understand. The downside to this secret is that it will make people 15% less satisfied for the rest of their life. If shared, the secret of reality will spread as scientific knowledge and will infect all that learn it by reducing their life time satisfaction by 15%. Once shared the secret cannot be contained again. You, as the thought experiment subject, are the only person who gets to make the choice about the secret. You can read it or not, and then you can share it or not. If you read it, you will be 15% less satisfied/happy the rest of your life. If you decide to share the proof, everyone who learns it will be 15% less satisfied/happy.

Here is the secret in an envelope. Which of the four choices do you pick?

	Read It	Don't Read It
Share It	Read it and share it	Share it without reading it
Discard it	Read it and discard it without sharing	Discard it without reading or sharing it

What do you think about your choice?

If you didn't read or share the secret, at what point would you share it? Pick a percent between 0-24%.

If you choose to read or share it, at what point would you not share it? Pick a percent of 26% or higher.

Analysis

The 15% is an arbitrary number. It seems about the point that makes reading and sharing the secret most difficult for me.

I suspect most people will choose to read the secret of reality and then choose to discard the secret. The curiosity of the secret of reality is appetizing, even at the price of happiness. I suspect others would feel similar.

The nature of reality won't change the nature of reality. Reality is reality. Would humans understanding reality alter life for humans? I suspect not much. But maybe having a clear proof for or against religions, or free will, would have a, positive or negative, impact on society and institutions. Maybe wars would increase or decrease at a faster rate. Maybe criminal justice would reform to more or less punitive systems. The thought experiment subjects will need to evaluate these ideas, among others, to pick their necessary read and share percentages.

Conclusion

If I had to choose now, I would not read it and discard it without sharing. 15% is a significant amount of satisfaction/happiness. Since I don't see much value in knowing the nature of reality, it's not worth my happiness or the happiness of others.

I would read the letter at 10%. My curiosity is worth close to 5% of my satisfaction. Then the risk that some religion might be correct is worth close to 5% of my happiness, due to the potential eternal consequences of some religions.

I don't know how other people value their curiosity, and since they'll never know, I'll ignore other's curiosity. For similar reasons mentioned above, I would sacrifice 5% of everyone's satisfaction for the knowledge of reality.

This is a lightly edited quote from Daniel Dennett. I think this applies to more than just free will.

“We're not responsible for being responsible. We're lucky to be responsible, but once we're responsible we're responsible for staying responsible. Once you have the competence, once you have the can do, once you've got the self-control, then you get two things: 1) you get the freedom of the state, you get to sign contracts, you get to earn royalties, you get to go where you want to, you get to get a passport, you get to get married; 2) the price you pay for that is your willingness to be punished for any violations of laws. It's a great bargain. It's a great deal. It's the best game in town and we've got to think of free will as an achievement not a metaphysical endowment. We weren't born with free will. The little baby doesn't have self-control. They get self-control, pretty much unless they have a horrific childhood. They get self-control. They learn from their mistakes, they overcome their obstacles, not in every case, we want to leave plenty of room for people who are disabled. But a key fact, the serial killer, the person with the brain tumor, are disabled. They don't have free will. But that doesn't mean nobody has free will."

Here is a link to a video of Dennett’s conversation with Michael Shermer where I heard the quote. Below is the original transcript I copied from youtube.