Nothingness and not-knowing

Going Nowhere through Not-knowing Where to Go (Part #8)

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Omar Khayyám, variously acclaimed as the "poet of uncertainty" (in a BBC Documentary series, 2009), the "poet of doubt", and the Shakespeare of Iran -- is recognized as unique in being remembered as both a great poet and a great mathematician [See extensive entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]. However, as the famed author of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, quatrains such as the following are attributed to him:

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes -- or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face Lighting a little Hour or two -- is gone. And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press, End in the Nothing all Things end in -- Yes -- Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what Thou shalt be -- Nothing -- Thou shalt not be less.

For another person acclaimed as wise, Lao Tsu:

The sage is always skilful at saving things, And so nothing is uselessley cast away. This is called the hidden wisdom --- Therefore the sage does not fail in anything, since he does nothing; Does not lose anything, since he holds nothing

In a period in which the future is experienced by many as having "nothing to offer" and in which many have been "left with nothing" (as a consequence of man-made and natural disasters), there is a case for exploring the nature of "nothingness" more attentively.

Nothingness for physics: Curiously, and perhaps appropriately, "nothing" has become of considerable significance to astrophysics, as noted above (Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: why there is something rather than nothing, 2012). Credibility has been given to the sense in which nothingness is the main characteristic of both matter and outer space (Emerging Significance of Nothing, 2012). The possibility of "dark matter" has been hypothesized to give coherence to theories regarding the nature of the universe.

Cognitive nothingness?: This suggests the further possibility that some cognitive form of "nothingness" may underlie that to which the senses so readily attribute substantive reality, as separately discussed (Unthought as Cognitive Foundation of Global Civilization: implications of God, debt, overpopulation, waste, negligence, encroachment and death?, 2012). Significance would appear to be mysteriously associated with nothingness. This possibility has long been affirmed in various Eastern religions through insights such as the "emptiness of form". There is a case for exploring how the variety of related insights can be configured, as discussed separately (Configuring the Varieties of Experiential Nothingness, 2012). Engaging with that nothingness is necessarily a cognitive challenge -- as readily avoided and denied as is the effective denial of the current insight of physics.

Nothingness as a "hole" in reality: The nature of "nothingness" becomes more mysterious when recognized as a "hole", as remarkably discussed by Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi (Holes and Other Superficialities, 1994) -- with respect to the borderlines of metaphysics, everyday geometry, and the theory of perception (as they summarize in the entry on holes in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). What might indeed be the cognitive implications, as separately discussed (Existential implications -- of a "hole" in conventional reality?, 2012) ?

A key factor with respect to the emergence of appropriate engagement with nothingness may be intimately associated with what is "missing", as argued by Terrence W. Deacon (Incomplete Nature: how mind emerged from matter, 2011; What's Missing from Theories of Information?, 2010) and previously discussed (Evolutionary influence of the absent, 2011). For Deacon:

... have we been looking in the wrong places for clues? ... brain researchers and philosophers of mind have focused on brain processes, neural computations and their correspondences with the material world. But what if we should be focusing on what is not there instead? ... I believe that in order to overcome this stalemate we need to pay more attention to what is intrinsically not present in everything -- from life's functions and meanings to mind's experiences and values. [emphasis added]

The impressive exploration by Matthew E. May (In Pursuit of Elegance: why the best ideas have something missing, 2009) is notable for having been embraced by the conference process of the design world through TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).

Emptiness: As a human condition characterized by a sense of generalized boredom, social alienation and apathy, emptiness is framed by Western sociologists and Christianity as a negative, unwanted condition. A sense of the emptiness of life is recognized as accompanying dysthymia, depression, loneliness, despair, and other mental/emotional disorders, including borderline personality disorder. The feeling is also part of a natural process of grief, separation, death of a loved one, or other significant changes. The sense may well be felt to justify suicide. Associated with despair, a personal sense of emptiness may have wider implications (Implication of Personal Despair in Planetary Despair, 2010).

"Non-existence": In societies cultivating class and other distinctions to some degree, many may be effectively condemned to a condition of "non-existence" as "nobodies". It is well-recognized in the case of the treatment of servants, as has always been the case with slaves. The attitude has long been evident in relation to treatment of women in many cultures (Elise M. Boulding, The Underside of History: a view of women through time, 1976). Such behaviour may strongly reinforce lack of self-esteem and the sense of emptiness described above. It may itself have collective equivalents, as separately explored (Collective Memory Personified: an Analogy, 1980). The behaviour has been widely condemned with respect to racial and ethnic discrimination.

Strategic unknowns: As separately discussed (Unknown Undoing: challenge of incomprehensibility of systemic neglect, 2008), the former US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld continues to be cited for his prescience in strategic and security circles due to his succinct articulation of the challenge of what may be known with any confidence in a world of increasing uncertainty. His formulation famously took the form of a "poem" -- on The Unknown -- presented during a Department of Defense news briefing on 12 February 2002. The insight has been most recently used in the analysis by Nathan Freier (Known Unknowns: Unconventional 'Strategic Shocks' in Defense Strategy Development. Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2008).

Unknowledge in economics: Ulrich Witt (Novelty and the bounds of unknowledge in economics, Journal of Economic Methodology, 16, 2009, 4) has argued that economic development and growth are driven by the emergence of new technologies, new products and services, new institutions, new policies, and so on. Important though it is, the emergence of novelty is not well understood. Epistemological and methodological problems make it a difficult research topic. As Witt notes, they imply a "bound of unknowledge" for economic theorizing wherever novelty occurs in economic life -- as first articulated by G. L. S. Shackle.

Apophasis and not-knowing: Especially relevant to this argument is the extensive discussion of the via negativa, especially from a theological perspective in respect of the nature of deity. This has also been termed apophatic theology. It is a theology that attempts to describe God by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the nature of the perfection assumed to be characteristic of God. It is contrasted with the descriptive affirmations of cataphatic theology.

That mode of argument can be adapted to the nature of individual identity -- as experienced -- and the cognitive traps of its over-definition, as separately discussed (Being What You Want: problematic kataphatic identity vs. potential of apophatic identity? 2008). It raises the experiential question of the nature of "not-knowing" and the problematic consequences of seeking to "know" and define, typically ensuring premature closure in the light of future insight.

A non-theological appreciation of via negativa has been most recently articulated by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (Antifragile: things that gain from disorder, 2012), notably reviewed by Julian Baggini (Antifragile: how to live in a world we don't understand by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Observer, 16 December 2012). The via negativa is the focus of Book VI of that opus, where Taleb argues:

But if we cannot express what something is exactly, we can say something about what it is not -- the indirect rather than the direct direct expression. The "apophatic" focuses on what cannot be said directly in words... The method began as an avoidance of direct description, leading to a focus on negative description, what is called in Latin via negativa.

He applies the argument to the contrast between positive acts of commission typical of governance and those of omission in any intervention:

Acts of omission, not doing something, are not considered acts and do not appear to be part of one's mission... Yet in practice it is the negative that's used by the pros...

Now when it comes to knowledge the same applies. The greatest -- and most robust -- contribution to knowledge consists in removing what we think is wrong -- subtractive epistemology.... I have called "Platonicity" the love of some crisp abstract forms, the theoretical forms and universals that make us blind to the mess of reality and cause Black Swan effects. Then I realized that there was an asymmetry. I truly believe in Platonic ideas when they come in reverse, like negative universals.

So the central tenet of the epistemology I advocate is as follows, we know a lot more what is wrong than what is right, or... negative knowledge (what is wrong, what does not work) is more robust to error than positive knowledge (what is right, what works). So knowledge grows by subtraction much more than by addition -- given that what we know today might turn out to be wrong but what we know to be wrong cannot turn out to be right, at least not easily.... disconfirmation is more rigourous than confirmation.

A much-cited related argument has been presented by the poet John Keats as: when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. This he termed negative capability, namely the capacity of human beings to transcend and revise their contexts. The term has been used by poets and philosophers to describe the ability of the individual to perceive, think, and operate beyond any presupposition of a predetermined capacity of the human being, as separately discussed (Negative capability: a bridge to nowhere as a bridge to knowhere? 2011).

In a section on Do you really know where you are going?, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012, pp. 169-171) clarifies how classical thinking prevented appreciation of antifragility as vital to sustainable development. He argues:

The erudite mind's denigration of antifragility is best seen in a sentence that dominates the Summa [Theologica of Thomas Aquinas], being repeated in many places, one variant of which is as follows: "An agent does not move except out of intention for an end"... in other words, agents are supposed to know where they are going, a teleological argument (from telos, "based on the end") that originates with Aristotle.... This entire heritage of thinking... is where the most pervasive human error lies, compounded by two centuries of the illusion of unconditional scientific understanding. This error is also the most fragilizing one.

So let us call here the teleological fallacy, the illusion that you know exactly where you are going, and that you knew exactly where you were going in the past, and that others have succeeded in the past by knowing where they are going.... The error of thinking you know exactly where you are going and assuming that you know today what your preferences will be tomorrow has an associated one. It is the illusion of thinking that others, too, know where they are going, and that they would tell you what they want if you just asked them

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