Limit your thinking

A theory that explains everything, explains nothing

Karl Popper,

One of the most important aspects of measurement is scale. When we measure the distance between one city to the next we don’t do it in micrometers, even though that would be a valid measurement. We implicitly encode something about our presuppositions in the way that we measure things. When we measure fuel economy we care about miles/gallon (at least the US does) because gas is measured in gallons, and highway signs are in miles. The utility of the measurement is tied inherently to a few things:

The most common measurements; As is the case with miles/gallon
Measurement accuracy; You can only get a certain level of precision for a given accuracy. You may want micrometers to measure distance between cities, but it’s too hard to do in practice.
The scope of what you’re measuring; We don’t measure distances between cities in micrometers because the number would be astronomically hard to fathom.

For this article my concern will primarily be with the 3rd point. There are tons of aspects that go into a rational analysis of what scope to use for a given problem. However, much like micrometers to the distance of a city there is a point where an answer becomes indistinguishable from noise. If I were to put a single black pixel on a 5x5 image of white pixels and ask someone what it was they would tell me it’s a black dot (or square) on an image. If I put the same dot on a 3440x3440px image of white pixels it becomes indistinguishable from a blank white image. In fact arguing it is just a white image in the majority of contexts is more useful than knowing about the single black dot in my opinion.

Simple, not easy

In order for someone to know what scope makes sense they first need to have some sort of idea of what you’re looking for. This creates a bit of a chicken and egg issue, or at least it seems like it does. Particularly in cases where a more emotional side is necessary to sort out the issue people are terrible at conceptualizing what a solution might look like. There is a concept Nietzsche develops called eternal recurrence. Essentially the argument is that history repeats itself, or in a more nuanced view, there’s no new problems under the sun.

Throughout my life I’ve dealt with depression multiple times, and known others who have. When these issues arise there’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve watched happen. In many cases people can have an “idea” of what might help them. For them however their issue cannot be so simple. Ideas of spending more time with others, or going out more, or living healthier cannot be sufficient. In this case there is an inverse relationship between the scope of how a problem feels, and how grandiose it’s solution “should” be. The problem feels insurmountable, so the solution must feel sufficiently complex. People might even admit the “simple” solutions work for others, but their problem is “just more difficult”.

They need some overarching life-changing event. Someone has to die, or they have to move, or destroy their life as it stands. This often is pure ego. People will completely forego things that might help them to maintain this perception. Unfortunately as I, and many other people I know have learned this is rarely the case. Usually the solutions to some of the most strongly felt, and insurmountable problems are relatively simple, but incredibly uncomfortable.

Cosmic Nihilism

If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.

Carl Sagan, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage episode 9 ¹

There is a phenomenon that exists with people who know a bit about physics and/or cosmology. Essentially they believe that the size of the universe has a causal effect on their own meaning. Someone might say for example that “No matter what i do I’m just a spec in the universe”. This is actually a “correct” answer, at least as far as the academics of the argument goes. Likewise measuring in micrometers between a city will give you a “correct” answer academically. However pragmatically the question is more about what a sort of answer “should” look like.

Nihilism is the belief there is no objective solution to the question of if there is meaning to our existence. Some can find this notion freeing, while others find it torturous. An interesting question to ask however is what should the scope of one’s meaning be measured in. This “cosmic nihilism” solves the question at a cosmic scale, but is this even relevant. Many people find themselves miserable over a self-imposed proposition that their life is meaningless compared to the stars. This intellectual self-flagellation might make you feel clever, however the interesting question is why you would care about meaning in the first place.

For this solution to matter we would have to presuppose we potentially had a cosmic meaning in general. However if we were to look directly at the life of a person this issue actually goes away rapidly. Looking just at the confines of one’s own life it becomes much easier to at least conceptualize meanings one could have (to help others, to build something etc.). Not only that, but I think the scope of objectivity is a mistake here as well. “Meaning” is not a well defined thing. It’s actually mostly defined in a negative sense. We often say someone has “found meaning” if they lack existential dread. Though arguably this should be more of a default state than those who feel the dread. It’s definition in many cases is directly illogical.

Therefore I would argue that the question asked by people who are convinced by nihilism is poisoned right from the start. There’s no reason why an illogical question should have an objective answer. Likewise there’s no reason it should have the same type of hold it does have over people. Instead I think we should define the scope of an answer to the sorts of solutions that we would accept as evidence that someone has “found meaning”.

Asymptotic closeness

I wrote an article a while ago called asymptotic closeness. In the article I argued a very similar point to what I’m making now. If you assume that closeness means being directly and completely connected to something, then you can never be close to anyone or anything. Instead if we use a more pragmatic definition, into something that can be attained we can reframe the problem into something with a potential solution.

Nose to the grindstone

So far I’ve spent some time complaining about existentialism, and shilling a previous article. A natural question that might be useful to ask is, “for questions within ones life what sort of measurements should we use?“. I can’t answer that question fully, however I think there are a few useful paths to avoid falling into this endless noise trapdoor so often. The practical approach I would argue for is to limit one’s scope as much as possible. Some systems of thought for this would be something like stoicism that posits you should only be interested in things you have a locus of control over. Arguably this more individualist approach makes it easier to deal with the problems in ones life. It gives you a chance to focus on the aspects of reality that matter to you, while filtering out lots of the noise.

These individualist approaches can be useful, but here be dragons. There are limitations to these philosophies, and they should not be used as a crutch to avoid complexity. Some problems are hard, and take additional context, however many don’t. Deferring to simple analysis until you encounter issues is a very useful technique. You do however want to make sure you aren’t burying your head in the sand in order to avoid potentially difficult challenges.

Forever young

There is one other argument, and potential issue with limiting the scope of your thinking. Going by pragmatics there are tons of topics that would never be worth investigating. Just as an example when you are reminded of your death you’re less useful ² ³ ⁴ ⁵. Death denialism is more rational if you’re a pragmatist than potentially worsening the affect of your thinking considering your mortality. However avoidance for the sake of comfort can then blind you to other problems that crop up as a consequence of your worldview. If you are sick, avoiding talking about it is irresponsible, both for you and for others that care about you. So there needs to be a balance of truth to our mental models, but while balancing that with utility.

Conclusion

It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own little world. It’s easy to believe your problems are insurmountable. Take a step back and reframe your problem to it’s relevant scope and you will find many insurmountable problems are easy to resolve.