Something About Pride

One of the reasons that I think adults often find it more challenging to learn new things than children is that adults generally possess quite a number of expectations about what should be easy for them. There are certainly other factors: adults already have a solidified framework for their preexisting knowledge; so, any new information must be fit into this framework somehow, and sometimes the fit may not be perfect. There are also brain growth and adaptation differences between the age groups—the brain culls unused neurons as a child develops, so certain capacities get cut if they are never utilized. Consequently, an adult who never, say, learned to speak as a child may lose that ability forever (there are numerous cases of so-called feral child who suffer severe language and social impairments when returned to society.) ¹ Today, however, I'm interested in pride and how pride interferes with learning.

My own experience: I am currently taking a statistics class, and I am very aware that the mathematics and reasoning involved are quite rudimentary—the prerequisite is just one semester of calculus, and there have been only one or two places where knowledge about, say, integrals has been helpful. It's not as though basic calculus is a very difficult subject anyway, compared to God-knows-what-else that higher level mathematicians study (hyperbolic geometry? Abstract and linear algebra? Combinatorics?). Now, most of the time I do find it easy to understand and use the concepts in statistics, but every once in a while I get stuck on a particular problem or issue. And, at these points, my venomous pride comes into play: knowing that the material is simple, I berate myself all the more for not picking it up easily. I have to wonder though, is this ever helpful? Such self-castigation is counterproductive: I feel more frustrated and upset with myself, which in turn makes it more difficult to focus on the work, which again makes me upset and frustrated — and before you know it, we have a vicious cycle and/or positive feedback loop spiraling out of control.

Now, I began this post by speaking as though it is a bigger hindrance for adults than children (and it no doubt is). But, as it turns out, children are not always free from the detrimental effects of pride either.

Studies by Claudia M. Mueller and Carol S. Dweck indicate that complimenting children on their intelligence can actually have damaging rather than beneficial effects on their self-esteem and willingness to address difficult problems. This happens if the praise emphasizes ability rather than effort put forth.

From their article's abstract:

Contrary to this popular belief, six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students' achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. Finally, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praise for hard work, who believed it to be subject to improvement.²

Part of the very real problem is that children (and, of course, adults too) want to feel and look smart, particularly if they have been led to believe that they are smart. Sometimes this will incline a child to favor those activities which are easiest in order to maintain their smart image. After all, surely only ungifted plebians have to actually struggle in order to learn things — not like those brainiacs who breeze through the most abstruse material with the greatest of ease. Here's another quote from article's prepatory discussion:

For example, Dweck and her associates have demonstrated that children who hold performance goals are likely to sacrifice potentially valuable learning opportunities if these opportunities hold the risk of making errors and do not ensure immediate good performance (Elliott & Dweck, 1988). That is, "being challenged" and "learning a lot" are rejected in favor of "seeming smart" by children who subscribe to a performance orientation (Mueller & Dweck, 1997).

In other words, children who are overly focused on doing well (rather than trying hard) are reluctant to try new things, particularly if failure might compromise their image as "intelligent." Unfortunately, opening oneself to the possibility of failure is a very necessary part of trying any new activity: closing oneself off from potentially valuable but unfamiliar experiences may wind up stunting one's intellectual growth. (I plan to write more on this subject in the near future.)

Another fascinating point that Mueller and Dweck bring up is how the way children are praised can affect how they conceptualize intelligence. Children praised for their good performance (rather than their hard work) tend to see intelligence as a fixed, static trait rather than something which can be developed and improved. Something along the lines of, "either you're born with it or you ain't" — which seems to be an unfortunately all-too-common view for the average person. Failure and success are then seen in the light of ability rather than effort.

Society really doesn't help with this. We venerate the myth of genius, the prodigy, the wonder-child who's "always right" through some innate, Nature-given powers. However, I think the reality is that these cases (if they can even be said to exist) are very, very, very rare. So rare, in fact, that I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who are thought of as "geniuses" really did not possess much more in the way of "raw brainpower" or "talent" than the average person. Thomas Edison said, "Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration" — and if you don't believe a prolific inventor of his caliber, who can you believe? Vincent van Gogh worked like a fanatic at honing his painting skills: he may have been talented to begin with, but his brilliance may have been moreover due to his hard work and perseverance. If one examines Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton's lives, one does not necessarily find early displays of talent so much as early displays of intense, self-motivated interest in understanding the world.

To return to my own problems with my statistics course: clearly it does not benefit me to get worked up over my own failings. High standards can be very helpful at times as something to aim towards, but I do not see any compelling reason to allow rampant self-flagellation in the process. The key is to dedicate energy and thought toward growth; be aware when you fall short of your target, but why be cruel to yourself if you don't meet it? Does needless criticism help you to grow more? I doubt it. When I worry that I am dense for not comprehending a subject easily, I am distracting myself from what is really important — namely, that I engage the material, attempt to absorb it with an open mind, and enjoy the experience.

The same ought to apply for children: maintain high expectations, but only if you can present these expectations in a friendly, encouraging manner. Teach them to enjoy struggling — putting forth effort — rather than gold stars and A+'s. Teach them not to fret so much about intellectual pride.


¹ Actually, feral children are sometimes able to develop language skills later in life, but the process can be slow and difficult. Children returned to society before the age of about 7 seem to have the best chances of recovery. http://www.feralchildren.com provides more information, with a number of references to published sources.

² "Praise for Intelligence Can Undermine Children's Motivation and Performance". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, No. 1 (1998) : 33-52.

This Is Beauty

Theo Jansen's kinetic sculptures:

Here's a clip of a talk he gave for TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design).

Theo Jansen is an engineer who produces the most astonishingly beautiful "creatures": ambulatory and wholly wind-powered, they possess the most rudimentary self-preservation abilities. Through ingenious design and cunning craftsmanship, they glide about on many cycling limbs and are able to respond (in a limited way) to changes in their environment — such as the encroaching high tide or an approaching storm. All this without the use of electronics or a guiding computer. Well, no "computer" in the popular sense of the word. Actually, any device which exhibits the proper computational functionality should indeed be considered a computer; so it is perfectly accurate to say that Jansen's automata are guided by computers, albeit very simple ones. See, for example, the latter of the above videos, where he describes a mechanism which monitors the automaton's distance from the sea — the device counts in binary, just as an electronic computer does.

I must confess to feeling some perhaps foolish sentiments regarding these automata. I want them to "live" as though they were cells, somehow. Perhaps not fulfilling the ten biological criteria for life, but I want to see them developed so that they can better guide themselves, perhaps repair and sustain themselves. I find their spindly-yet-graceful movements so wondrously, eerily beautiful — perhaps all the more so knowing that it is the wind which propels them.

They consume so little and they are more or less harmless; they are gently mesmeric and captivating in their geometric splendor.

I want to see colonies of them deployed onto an otherwise barren planet, where they could simply exist and wander about, free from potential biological scavengers/predators. They would still have to contend with the corrosion of the elements — perhaps it would be possible for them to reproduce, to some degree? I don't even need to see them there, I just want to know that they are out there, exhibiting life-like behavior while powered so clearly by a non-living source. Perhaps extraterrestrials or some distant descendants of the human race would eventually find, marvel at, and speculate about them in curious awe.

Forgive me, for I am but an uneducated philistine in the realm of art; yet I cannot help but pronounce that Theo Jansen must be one of the great artists of our time.

Cyanosarchina Sp.
from Cyanosite Image Gallery

Imperfection and the Absurd

(Warning: this post meanders around a bit. It's mostly some musings that I've tried to develop a little. The ending could use more clarification and development.)

Life is imperfect.

What does that mean?

That "the whole business of life" does not meet whatever criteria or standards constitute perfection.

What do we mean by "the whole the business of life"? Something about "how things are." Presumably, the phrase denotes the fundamental circumstances underlying existence. It indicates something about the universe as it appears to us, specifically as it relates to our lives as sentient, feeling beings.

What does it mean to fall short of perfection?

It means we possess some notion of perfection--however ill-defined it may be--yet the world does not accord with this notion. It means that I, the speaker, assert that things would be better if they were more like my notion of perfection. As it turns out, we can group all desires which employ the imagination under this rubric: the impoverished person asserts that her life would be better were she only to win the lottery, the hungering person imagines himself better off in a scenario where his belly is full, etc. The difference, then, between an ordinary desire and a statement about the universe (or life as a whole) is one of scope; I assert that life is imperfect because of something fundamental to how reality is structured. (Usually the imperfections in question pertain directly to how reality affects humans, since, of course, it is humans who make the assertion). However, these kinds of universal assertions suggest a further meaning beyond those of ordinary desires: when I say, "The universe would be better if _____," I imply that it would better for all people and all things, not just for myself. Clearly, it is nothing more than a single thinker's opinion, and no doubt I only propose changes that would benefit myself. Nonetheless, I give the impression of espousing an opinion something like the following: in some deep sense, all of life would be ameliorated by the perfection I wish upon it.

How can this thought be justified? How could I possibly entertain a hubris to the degree that I believe a lowly, imperfect, epistemologically impoverished mortal could hope to prescribe a state of affairs that would benefit the entire universe?

Well, perhaps I don't believe anything that grandiose. Perhaps I merely assert that things would be better for me (and probably those I care about, whether that ends up being just my family, friends, peers, or all sentient beings) if the universe were as I wished it. Still, it is a remarkable claim, given the extensive complexity of the universe and the so very limited extent of human comprehension.

Nonetheless, we pass beyond these concerns for now. Let us allow the finite-yet-hubristic, imaginative being to keep her notion of perfection; let us allow her envisioned state of affairs to accurately depict a "better" world. We pass too beyond how it is possible to evaluate "better" from an objective standpoint (since it may, indeed, be impossible). At present, we are concerned only with the following: to the individual, what does it mean to exist in a universe which does not agree with her desired, imagined universe?

The Absurd

Thomas Nagel and Albert Camus (in "The Absurd," and The Myth of Sisyphus, respectively) characterize absurdity in similar ways. Both writers describe the absurd as a particular kind of discrepancy between what one expects, desires, or seeks in a situation, and what actually obtains.

To loosely sum it up:
Reality ≠ pretense.

To use Nagel's examples, it is an absurd situation when a philanthropic committee elects a heinous criminal as its chairman. It is absurd when a situation requires solemnity--say, a respectable person is being knighted--but the prospective knights' pants fall down.

(Side note: irony is a similar concept to absurdity, in that it is a discrepancy between the image or sentiments one expresses and the reality or beliefs one actually entertains. So, irony might too be described as a mismatch between reality and pretense, only it is an intentional and deceptive mismatch.)

Nagel, Camus, and I differ slightly on the specifics of what makes the human condition absurd. Camus holds that our incessant need for meaning in the face of a wholly meaningless universe creates absurdity. Nagel focuses on the fact that we take our lives seriously, but unjustifiably so, since it is always possible to adopt an external viewpoint (sub specie aeternitatis) where none of our aims or goals are important. Camus and Nagel's viewpoints are closely related, since Camus' "meaning" is arguably similar to Nagel's "importance" (although there are a few other subtle differences). My particular take on the matter is as follows.

The life of a human is absurd because we dream, but more so because we are aware that we dream. That is to say, absurdity as a pervasive, ineliminable aspect of the human condition inheres because we possess the ability to mentally simulate counterfactual circumstances; the absurdity is exacerbated by our awareness of that ability. It is only because we can imagine and desire a perfect world, only because we imagine it with some sense of "should" or "ought" that relevantly applies; but, we are incapable of ever actualizing that world.


Note: I have not delved very deeply into secondary literature to see what else has already been said on absurdity. I have noticed that Jeffrey Gordon ("Nagel or Camus on the Absurd?", Phil. and Phenom. Research, Vol. 45, No. 1. (Sep., 1984)), for one, might be relevant, but I am frankly too lazy to treat it in adequate detail at the moment.

Introductory Post

The main purpose of this blog is to clarify my own thoughts by forcing myself to set them out in a more precise manner. Second, perhaps some of my thoughts/ruminations might be entertaining or edifying to others. Further, I would be happy to receive some helpful feedback/correction wherever it is warranted.

Please forgive me if I am not the most rigorous of writers--this is another thing which, I hope, writing things out in a blog will help to improve.

Expect: metaphysics, plus the philosophies of logic, language, and math, respectively (although I cannot claim to be very well versed in the latter fields). Also, an occasional bout of existential angst or angry rant about gender. Or whatever else strikes me as interesting.