Thought Experiment - Is Sharing Knowledge Right?
What Is Right?
A common argument presented about people meddling in other people's lives, particularly their belief systems, is that they think they know better. The holier than thou attitude that comes with actively trying to bring others to have a shared perspective is wrought with flaws. Namely, that the idea that one perspective is right means other perspectives are wrong.
Thought Experiment
Let's say that hypothetically there is a specific way of looking at things that is in line with reality; it is true. For simplicity, let's say that the perspective is that 2+2=4. Now, let us say that the world is filled with perspectives about what 2+2 is. These other perspectives state that it is anything else; 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and so on.
Let's also say that every perspective began with the answer to 2+2; it was the foundation of how each person looked at reality and so it is very integral to all other aspects of their lives.
If someone were to be able to fundamentally understand that 2+2=4 through thoughtful consideration and logical deduction that could be retraced, and thereby able to explain it to people if they were willing to take the time to listen (which for argument sake some are and some are not), what is the correct action in this circumstance?
Should the person:
- Live their life in silent understanding that 2+2=4 but never try to change anyone else's perspective on it. In other words, know, but do nothing.
- Continue to accept all views that stem from different understandings of 2+2, thereby molding their own decisions to the perspectives of others. In other words, forget and do nothing.
- Actively invest energy into demonstrating to others that 2+2=4. In other words, do something.
In the first instance, they would make decisions that stem from their awareness that 2+2=4, but they would make every effort to never impact others by their awareness.
In the second case they essentially live without the knowledge at all. For argument sake let us say that it is generally accepted that 2+2=5. Then when they do anything that is influenced by this general acceptance, they would use the currently accepted understanding to determine their actions and thereby the knowledge that 2+2=4 would never come into play whatsoever. Is this the choice that produces balance because no one is offended?
In the third case, they essentially choose the holier than thou path by actively investing energy into trying to change reality around them. Does this make it wrong, since they do not accept any other perspectives as being fundamentally correct except for that 2+2=4?
Questions
What is the right choice? Is there one?
Can we ever truly know something? Is it even possible to know something with such certainty that any perspective that says otherwise is understood to be fundamentally false?
For argument sake, let us say that it is; what, then, should be done about it when what is generally accepted as true is able to be shown to be wrong???
Does it help society if what is true is "forced" to become common knowledge by actively promoting it? If so, does it also hurt society and is the loss worth the gain???
Like most thought experiments, there may not be a true answer. My personal views would be number 3 though.
Whether I am right in my perspective or not I would feel terrible about allowing others to live in ignorance. Even if there was a piece of knoledge that was damaging to know I feel it would be worth learning, because atleast in my belief to be intelligent is to seek out knoledge. If curiosity killed the cat then so be it, otherwise we live in a world were our intelligence will go to waste.
The key is to put it out there in a way that isnt forcing it apon those who dont want to hear. Or even better (butchering some dead persons quote) "The best way to teach something, is to make them think they came up with it themselves".
Great post, and I have followed. You may be interested in the spider in the urinal thought experiment.
Thanks for your response and for directing me to the spider in the urinal thought experiment; that has a much better approach to get at what I was generally trying to direct thought towards. The idea of whether or not intervention is right when we think we know better. I would have to agree that the third option seems like the most reasonable, especially since we cannot predict the future with any absoluteness to know with certainty that our actions would necessarily bring negative effects. It seems like even if we foresee the negative consequences and choose to avoid them by doing nothing, we are simply assuming that they will occur, which is a fear-based decision. Also, non-action is still action and unforeseen results could come about as a result of the action of "non-action" that are of equal or greater negative consequence to what was expected from active action.
With the spider in the urinal, I immediately thought of some other angles on it. It is also one specific instance, but lets say that there are 1,000,000 spiders who are each saved simultaneously from various urinals throughout the world and some are able to spin webs and live out their full spider life and others die quickly after as in the thought experiment. Can any altruistic acts, when in total combination, have anything but a zero-sum gain? Like a wave, we can look at individual peaks and see specific moments of positive events, and specific moments of negative events, but the summation of the parts is zero. Is it possible to have any other outcome?
I think of an infinite amplitude wave that just goes up and seemingly never comes down, and wonder. If it ever came down though, it would still have a zero sum. Maybe it is just an intrinsic element of reality that we are stuck at zero, but that seems so hopeless for an actual better world, if it is always destined to have a zero-sum. Which makes me think that if we could all work together as one, then we can have that infinite amplitude wave where we go from zero-sum to infinite-sum.
As far as the idea of teaching through making someone think they came up with it themselves, I agree that is a useful tool. In practice, though, it is extremely difficult for the entire society to learn things through indirect teaching. Also it limits the person to their own mind in a way, as they do not necessarily consider asking questions from a source that may be able to jump them ahead. I think the key to teaching is direct persuasion. No one knows anything without the information coming to them from "outside" and processing it through thought, but once they know something they are the most capable of sharing information rapidly compared to subtly directing thought patterns without someone's knowledge.
I'd say the best way to teach is a combination of both direct and indirect teaching. Some things are understood to be unteachable at a certain stage, but setting the path towards those things like intentionally designing math courses in preparation for calculus and beyond. When we first learn basic math, we aren't necessarily aware of calculus whatsoever but we are typically learning from someone who is well aware of it, for example. Just some thoughts on that idea; there is definitely something to be said for subtle teaching and I know I have personally learned many things from others using that method :D But I've also learned many things from being directly taught, the essential ingredient of this way of teaching though is the "student" willingly choosing to openly listen when they are aware someone is actively trying to bring them to think a certain way. School makes it easier because of the environment, but in real life it is much more difficult as we are generally stubborn when it comes to learning new ideas that change our perspective, especially if they are in opposition to how we look at things. A big part of this is the recognition that both self and others are both teachers and students.
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