Complexity, Uncertainty and Our Longing for Duality

“Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors” – Nikola Tesla

From what we know and understand of our universe and everything in it, we are able to conclude that the universe is immensely huge and complex and there are many forms and ways in which elements and forces interact with each other. We know that, on our planet, the biological balance and general diversity of living beings and the cycles and interdependencies that make up their lives are unbelievably complex. We also know that the human body is a complex universe unto itself, with millions of interactions happening every second – a thing which can be built up and pushed to amazing feats if trained to do so, and which is subject to all kinds of stresses and problems, unforeseen illness, which themselves then set off millions more interactions. On the interpersonal level, we know that the relationships between individuals are highly complex – a healthy partnership or marriage is complicated, it changes over time and requires work and a level of deeper understanding, just as real, meaningful long-term friendships are prone to do. We know that the relationship between parents and their children is a complex thing that changes and evolves over time. It also requires work and a growing understanding, with the roles constantly being adjusted and each side having to reassess themselves in order to keep a healthy, meaningful bond. Why, then, should relationships on a societal, political or even global level be any different? Why is it, that here, we look for the one answer, the one idea or general construct that will solve all problems? So much so, that we as a species have spent most of our energy on the conflicts and the killing of each other in disputes over these seemingly simple answers to all of our problems. Our incapacity to properly deal with complexity and uncertainty, and the continuous search for a simple answer is something that is inherent to our nature and may well be a leftover of our prehistoric survival instinct.

David Hume, philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment,  and his concept of induction provides a gateway into why we always search for these simple answers. Hume placed induction opposite deduction – a simple example of which would be 1 + 1 = 2. This is always true in this form and cannot change, as the information that makes up this equation is set. Induction, on the other hand, is something that we come to presume as true as it has never been proven otherwise. The prime example here is that the sun has always risen, so it will rise tomorrow. For as long as there have been humans on Earth, this has been true. But this is not an absolute truth – there is no way to completely positively prove that this has to happen tomorrow. The elements which make up this example are not set, some cosmic disaster could come between you and the next sunrise and, in the very distant future, the elements themselves will cease to be true, i.e. exist, when the dying sun swallows Earth. According to Hume, it is this inductive way of thinking that was essential to our survival, evolution and proliferation. Through learning that something was regularly dangerous, say a tiger, we knew to stay away from it in the future. This manner of thinking allowed for humans to make quick decisions, solve problems, categorize the world around them and thereby make some sense of its complexity, building up systems and, eventually, communicating and organizing on a higher level.

This very handy way of breaking down our surroundings informs our view of the world and our theories about our place in it. Ideas of good and evil, right and wrong, which are also the driving force behind the religions and ideologies that shape our societies, are extensions of this categorization. One of the starker examples is found in the 3rd century Persian prophet Mani. The founder of Manichaeism, he preached a religion based on the strict dualism of good and evil, which were locked in an eternal struggle. Much like the concept of yin and yang, there are two opposing elements in a struggle with the individual looking to come to terms within a world made up of this duality and striving for balance. It gives us a way to explain complexity and our place within an ever more complicated universe. Fight or flight, us and them, good or evil, right or wrong, dialectics, 0’s and 1’s, these things are soothing to us.

Yet, more and more, we have to face a world that is increasingly complex. Or rather, it has always been this complex, but we now have to deal with it on a very immediate and personal level and face up to the fact that we play a direct role, both positive and negative, in this world made up exclusively of shades of grey. This uncertainty is unsettling. Old concepts and theories that helped us come to terms with the complexity, randomness and perceived “meaninglessness” of life and, more importantly, death, no longer offer the consolation they once did. Things like religion and dialectic understandings of the world gave us the propensity to search for deeper meanings within ourselves and apply these to the world as a whole. Crashing into this precarious balanced perception of right and wrong is a tidal wave of science and information via the internet. No matter our background or political persuasion, we are forced to confront information that questions our personal and emotional reality on a daily basis. As with our ancestors, we seem to choose a familiar and calming duality when faced with the overstimulation of complexity and uncertainty. We have not yet learned to live in the world that we have made for ourselves. But to say that induction is the answer to understanding all these frictions and problems would itself be giving in to the oversimplification of the issue. It does, however, offer a logical foundation from which to understand how we are prone to think and why we seem to be getting more and more dogmatic about our views in light of these times of overstimulation.

Humans have always held a simultaneous fascination and fear of concepts that seem to have no fixed answer, or sometimes just an answer we don’t want to accept. Death, the most fixed and difficult conclusion to accept, seems to be the biggest influence on our civilizations and ways of thinking. Our current religions go to great lengths to defeat death, to the extent that they devalue life in the now, so as to devalue the effects of death. We bristle to think that there are problems that do not have an answer or that there are answers that we might never know. Likewise, we also have deep-set problems accepting the complexity of certain concepts, such as guilt and causation. Many abusers, be it physical or sexual, are themselves a victim of abuse. At what point on a timeline, then, would we judge someone to no longer be a victim of abuse, but have crossed over into being an abuser or even a pedophile - probably universally seen as the worst type of person. Is it the act, is it what they think, how much does causation factor into it and to what degree? Both the victim and the perpetrator illicit visceral reactions, but depending on the time in a specific person’s life they could be either the recipient of deep, deep empathy or unending hatred. To be able to deal with problems of abuse or mental illness requires us to understand the complexity of the problems, their causation and their very nature. Without that we cannot solve the problems these acts trigger. Specific answers, people who are good or evil, innocence and guilt – these are things we feel we understand and they help soothe the uncomfortableness of dealing with issues that begin to appear opaque. Buddhism is based around the concept of letting go of this uncomfortableness. Yet, as anyone can tell you, it takes a lifetime of practice to get anywhere near coming to terms with it. This is down to our wiring, which simply does not want to allow us this peace, because it is not conducive to our survival. Considering that the Buddha was dealing with this problem around the 5th century BCE, one can only imagine the strains our minds are under today. It is not all too surprising that we give in and revert to a Manichean view of the world.

The introduction of the internet and information technologies has massively disrupted our perception of the world and our place in it. The slow dawning that there is a very real difference between universal laws and truths, as interpreted through our sciences, and human truths, as laid out in our thinking and civilizational constructs from the last few thousand years, has left many unsettled and insecure. Our grand theories do not necessarily map onto reality anymore, yet this has left people gripping onto older theories, constructs and simple answers all the more. We stumble, panic, cry out and attach ourselves to the next figure who seems to be saying something, anything, that bears any kind of resemblance to a logic that we can relate to in our efforts to excuse ourselves from having to understand the complexity around us. We are now living in a time of flux and people feel lost within the uncertainty of it all, while simultaneously feeling more and more affected by what is happening in other parts of the world. On the surface, this is a small tweak of perception, something that did not used to happen, but it is something that has far-reaching consequences. We are forced to see our place in the world, our spheres of culture and values are colliding and we buck at the thought that the others may be right to one degree or another. To battle this we project the personal onto all these global issues, we take our subjective experiences and views and give them objective characteristics and values to assure ourselves that we have been right all along and don’t need to change to any larger degree. In this way, we break events and ideas down into right and wrong, good and bad, and are always sure that we are on the right side. When we talk of the value of critical thinking, we usually do not mean ourselves, but rather the “other side”, which should take the time to see themselves as we want them to. Anyone who is reading this is interpreting it in their own way, thinking of examples that they can relate to and positioning themselves in relation to this idea. It is how we make sense of the world…subjectively with our basic tools.

Our condition grows deeper as our lives and the lives of societies and civilizations move forward through time. Another truth of death that we choose to ignore is that a civilization might end. No matter the age, people have chosen to ignore this fact until it actually happened. It was and is just as inconceivable to us that our civilization might end. Yet, we know with absolute certainty that it will end someday, just as every single society and civilization has ended before us. Being able to wrap one’s head around these types of truths is the key to a less stressful, vexed, and therefore healthier life. At the moment we seem to be choosing the stress, anxiety and vexation of dualistic worldviews, living in denial of ourselves and our histories. It feels like we are slowly waking up to the hangover that we, like all the billions who came before us, are bound to our very short, human history. Instead of taking on this new challenge, people around the world reach for old ideas of nationalism or righteous idealism, the dualism of “us and them”, to comfort themselves in a complex, confusing and scary world. But maybe, in the spirit of other ideals of the last centuries, there is room to make a stand for rationality and greater, multiple truths. We can embrace reality and ourselves in all of their complexity and thereby actually make a concerted step into the future, as opposed to the uncoordinated lumbering and violent lurching that seems to be our usual course of action. This is something that we may be capable of, but that requires the majority of people to have an understanding of themselves and an honest reflection on their own motives and the causes behind them. This starts at a very personal level and can then maybe move up. But, in all honesty, and with a view on our past, this is not likely to ever happen with the tools we have had at our disposal for the last millennia.

Not everyone can be right, but everyone can definitely be wrong. Not only that, it is possible for people to be both right and wrong at the same time. There is no one truth, but multiple truths with different dimensions and ones which are also steadily changing. Anyone can argue based on facts these days, to the degree that people now simply ignore them. The challenge of this generation is to master this transition, to keep a cool head, to put all of the lessons learned in the last 200+ years of the modern era into effect and to understand how to deal with complexity, uncertainty and shades of nuance, so that following generations will be able to as well. This is a huge task and seems impossible, at least judging by the conduct and conversations of our time. On the other hand, if we cannot come to terms with this, we will probably end up facing a relapse, or a continuation, of the conflicts and wars of the last 200 or more years. Maybe even worse, we might be facing a future of dumb ideological, national tribal wars fought with 21st century means. If that were the case, we would end up deserving anything we got for having the knowledge and scientific advances of the last centuries and having nothing better to do with those gifts than revert to the tribal stupidity we celebrate today.

Image credit: René Descartes's illustration of dualism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind-body_dualism).