Our Tool for Szabonian Deconstruction of Highly Evolved Religions

In Objective Versus Intersubjective Truth Nick Szabo gives us some ideas for sorting through types of complex information that might reflexively involve our subjective beliefs (i.e. we want to observe a complex phenomenon but through complexity distance).

He ask which methods should we use to traverse the complexity of culture and suggests there is usefulness the metaphor of ‘god(s)' (and the use of games):

What are the proper methods for critiquing traditions related to interpersonal behavior? The methods of the humanities include at their core methods for examining the subjective source(s) and interpreters of a tradition. Here, most arguments center around subjects, the authorities who are sources, transmitters, and/or interpreters of a tradition. Arguments may also revolve around the "subjects" referenced in the traditional texts: as heroic figures, strategic players, and so on. An interesting book on game theory, Negotiation Games, by Steven Brams, reinterprets several Torah/Old Testament stories as games between the characters in the stories. God becomes just one of several strategic players, albeit often with some tricks up His sleeve. Somehow I think my old Sunday school teacher would not have approved, but these are fascinating and potentially valuable interpretations.

He also warns against the social sciences as having shallow complexity and thus not being suitable for understanding and applying to higher evolved culture and institutions etc:

We must conclude that "social sciences", "rational ethics", "legal realism", "law and economics", and other such shallowly rational approaches to interpersonal problems can sometimes provide justifications in the sense of (c), but it is a severe misapplication to use them to refute highly evolved traditions.

The the superficial cultures that arise are easily understood to be shallow and not valuable-not derived from the history and knowledge of man:

Thus, a discovery in social science which contradicts a highly evolved belief is most likely hermeneutically false: ultimately destructive to the individuals or groups who believe it in preference to the highly evolved beliefs

We can have horizontal (transient) or vertical (traditional) intersubjective truths. Prices, imply intersubjective connectivity:

Intersubjective truths can be classified into at least two major groups, transient (proximate, between contemporaries) and traditional (ultimate, or multi-generational). Hayek's canonical example of a transient intersubjective truth is a market price. Most economists think of price in terms of value rather than "truth". But prices incorporate both objective information unknown to other subjects and the values of those subjects. In intersubjective communications, value and truth are inseparably intertwined.

We could consider the highly evolved tradition of prices. Perhaps we should think of prices as traditional and transient in this sense.

Szabo suggest we consider the deconstruction of highly evolved tradition with his proposed framework for traversing it:

I argue that we should think of highly evolved tradition, what Gadamer calls "hermeneutical truths", in the same way.

Szabo gives us three ideas for deconstructing highly evolved tradition, whether or when it flourished or faded, whether and when it was more or less prosperous, and of it’s knowledge and command of nature:

Due both to the truth/value intertwining and evolutionary contingency, traditional forms cannot usually be easily reverse engineered. However, due to the depth of multi-generational traditions, we may expect reverse engineering to be somewhat easier than invention or replacement from scratch, if we can come up with the proper methodologies for deconstructing tradition: to tease out truth from value, to determine cultural niches in which traditions flourish and fade, are more valuable or less, are more true or less (three different but related measures), and so on.

Szabo suggests we observe the interplay between the evolution of a culture and its religion:

A good rule of thumb for rational interpretation of theological justification: map the objective fact of cultural evolution to the intersubjective truth of God.

The following is a slightly awkward suggestion. It means, in order to reduce the complexity distance and enter into the perspective of the individuals of a culture, we should treat culturally held truths and religions as artifacts of stored complexity:

In other words, treat God or the gods as a metaphor for our modern insights into cultural evolution

In physics there can be be repeatable and possible experiments, or those of ‘parsimony’ for determining truth:

In the physical sciences, experiments are usually possible and repeatable, or there are other objective means (such as parsimony) for determining the truth of a statement.

Szabo notes the problem of subjectively observed objective information and the problem of authority and theorists:

... even when communicating purely objective information, subjective interpretation, selection, etc. quickly creep in, and those not directly observing the experiment must rely in large degree on the authority of the experimenters or theorists.

Coda: Ad Hominem and Argument From Authority

Szabo makes an interesting stop.

Of ad hominem and argument from authority he notes their usefulness in traversing complexity distance:

From an immediately rational point of view, these are always invalid methods of debate. However, we are computationally limited creatures, often not capable of anything even approaching full rationality, and so these thinking processes in practice have their place.

We want to think about how the decision makers' lack of scientific understanding, may be remediable by improving understanding of scientific methods themselves, rather than improving understanding of the results of particular sciences:

Much scientific misinterpretation, and much of decision makers' lack of scientific understanding, may be remediable by improving understanding of scientific methods themselves, rather than improving understanding of the results of particular sciences.