Mutual Improvement

New Series: Mutual Improvement Club

I've been reading a number of books in the general field of "mutual improvement" lately.  A few of them include: Influence, Introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Dianetics, Strangers to Ourselves, How To Solve It, The Art of Living, What We Believe But Cannot Prove, The Millionaire Course, etc.  My coworkers at the Robot Co-op have been reading a different subset of books on the same topics.  From math to psychology to cults to Buddhism to science, they span across a number of ideas and topics, but I can't help but believe that there's a strong common thread between them all.

I'm going to attempt to announce a new book or movie or documentary or hero every month that is in some way related to the ambiguous thesis of this blog: that by combining ideas from different fields we can make progress towards a richer understanding of ourselves, our peers, our culture, and the world, with the ultimate goal of using that understanding (whether logical or emotional) to engage with live more richly.  It's difficult to talk about these things without sounding really cheesy, so another one of my goals is to keep the tone and vocabulary of these discussions as unpretentious and concrete as possible.  Staying grounded in the real and tangible is something I'm going to have to remind myself to do often.

Anyone that wants to read or tag along is welcome.  I'll announce the first book in this series tomorrow.

New Series: Cognitive Biases

My favorite page on Wikipedia is their list of cognitive biases.  I've gone to it probably a hundred times, each time trying to understand better what's so fascinating about it.  My tentative conclusion is that I have a suspicion that all of our problems and questions are a result of the brain's attempt to be practical and efficient.  Cognitive biases are the tools that allow us to make decisions, find patterns, and live in a world of ambiguity without being bogged down by infinite possibilities and paralysis.  The cost, however, is that these biases are both our greatest strength and our greatest weakness. 

During this series of posts, I'd like to walk through each of the biases one-by-one, in each case stating the bias, its strengths, and its weaknesses in the hopes that we can learn to recognize the tools that we use and learn when the tools might get in the way and harm us rather than help us.

The founding father of Mutual Improvement

Benjamin Franklin was a young man on the move. In 1727, at age 21, Franklin settled in Philadelphia and was looking to jump-start his career. He had learned the trade of printing under an oppressive apprenticeship to his brother starting when he was just 12. At 15, Franklin fled New York City, leaving his indentured position without permission and travelled first to Philadelphia and then to London. For a young man from the new colonies, he'd seen much of the world, but he was nowhere near where he wanted to be in terms of his career or his impact on the world.

To bootstrap his success as well as to entertain and improve himself, Franklin created "the Junto", sometimes also called the "leather apron society". It was a club established to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy and to exchange knowledge of business affairs, which took as it's goal the "mutual improvement" of its members. In his Autobiography, Franklin described it thusly:

I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased.

The Junto was one part Toastmasters, one part Rotary Club, but its civic output was amazing. Members of the Junto gave America the model for the first public lending library, the first volunteer fire departments, the first public hospital, paved streets, and the University of Pennsylvania. The Junto also served as a model for the American Philosophical Society which Franklin later helped establish.

Aside from the accomplishments, what seems striking today about Franklin's creation was the intermingling of personal development and mutual aid. Franklin's Junto was unabashedly interested in personal success, yet the members show a deep understanding that their reputations and happiness would be best served by helping others.

To qualify as a member, Franklin proposed 4 questions:

1. Have you any particular disrespect to any present members? Answer. I have not
   
2. Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general, of what profession or religion soever? Answer. I do.
   
3. Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Answer. No.
   
4. Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others? Answer. Yes.
   

Found in Franklin's papers, dated 1728 was a list of questions Franklin developed to guide the discussions at Junto meetings. They are listed below:

1. Have you met with any thing in the author you last read, remarkable, or suitable to be communicated to the Junto? particularly in history, morality, poetry, physics, travels, mechanic arts, or other parts of knowledge?
2. What new story have you lately heard agreeable for telling in conversation?
3. Hath any citizen in your knowledge failed in his business lately, and what have you heard of the cause?
4. Have you lately heard of any citizen’s thriving well, and by what means?
5. Have you lately heard how any present rich man, here or elsewhere, got his estate?
6. Do you know of any fellow citizen, who has lately done a worthy action, deserving praise and imitation? or who has committed an error proper for us to be warned against and avoid?
7. What unhappy effects of intemperance have you lately observed or heard? of imprudence? of passion? or of any other vice or folly?
8. What happy effects of temperance? of prudence? of moderation? or of any other virtue?
9. Have you or any of your acquaintance been lately sick or wounded? If so, what remedies were used, and what were their effects?
10. Who do you know that are shortly going [on] voyages or journeys, if one should have occasion to send by them?
11. Do you think of any thing at present, in which the Junto may be serviceable to mankind? to their country, to their friends, or to themselves?
12. Hath any deserving stranger arrived in town since last meeting, that you heard of? and what have you heard or observed of his character or merits? and whether think you, it lies in the power of the Junto to oblige him, or encourage him as he deserves?
13. Do you know of any deserving young beginner lately set up, whom it lies in the power of the Junto any way to encourage?
14. Have you lately observed any defect in the laws, of which it would be proper to move the legislature an amendment? Or do you know of any beneficial law that is wanting?
15. Have you lately observed any encroachment on the just liberties of the people?
16. Hath any body attacked your reputation lately? and what can the Junto do towards securing it?
17. Is there any man whose friendship you want, and which the Junto, or any of them, can procure for you?
18. Have you lately heard any member’s character attacked, and how have you defended it?
19. Hath any man injured you, from whom it is in the power of the Junto to procure redress?
20. In what manner can the Junto, or any of them, assist you in any of your honourable designs?
21. Have you any weighty affair in hand, in which you think the advice of the Junto may be of service?
22. What benefits have you lately received from any man not present?
23. Is there any difficulty in matters of opinion, of justice, and injustice, which you would gladly have discussed at this time?
24. Do you see any thing amiss in the present customs or proceedings of the Junto, which might be amended?

Book Report

Following the chain of citations in a book you enjoy can be a great way to deepen your knowledge about a subject. Some time ago, I read Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller Blink. As you may know, it is a book about how human judgment often functions instinctually, in a "blink" of an eye, rather than through a more drawn out cognitive process. It is full of great examples drawn from police work, real estate, aesthetics, and employment of how this process works (and sometimes fails). For me, it put me on a path toward rethinking my thinking and wanting to get a better understanding of my "feelings".

That book by Gladwell, along with the recommendation of a friend, led me to read Strangers to Ourselves by Timothy Wilson. In many ways, Wilson's book is about the same process Gladwell discusses, and Gladwell cites Wilson's work in Blink. Strangers to Ourselves discusses what Wilson calls the "evolutionary unconscious" a system we all rely on to do many of the things we think of as "being human". This brain network, far older than our neo-cortex, is responsible for allowing most of our senses to work in concert, but also for things like goal setting and decision-making. People who pride themselves on rationality might be surprised to learn that much of what they consider to be "rational" is actually transpiring on a sub-conscious level. Were we to ever meet someone lacking this "evolutionary unconscious" not only would they seem to lack the basic judgment we look for in other human beings -- they'd likely also be unable to see in 3 dimensions or keep their balance. While the functioning of the "neo-cortex" (our "new brain") gives us all sorts of mastery over language and argumentation, Wilson points out how it also leads to run-away confabulation. While the "evolutionary unconscious" makes snap decisions, our neocortex is capable of inventing some fairly loopy rationalizations for what transpired on a subconscious level.

One area Wilson explores that was particularly interesting to me was how it can be difficult to "know ourselves" because so much of who we are is shaped by unconscious processes we are not aware of, nor have any sort of direct access to. Ever have the feeling of really knowing who you are when you are around a close friend or loved one? That may be due to the ability to read the other person's reactions to yourself -- giving you the closest read on yourself you may be able to get. Wilson points out this is also the main value of therapy: it doesn't matter so much what form of training the therapist has bought into, the main value is in experiencing another persons largely subconscious reactions to what you have to say.

Wilson's book led me back toward one more book both he and Gladwell discuss, Antonio Demasio's Descarte's Error. At the heart of Demasio's work is what he call's the "somatic marker hypothesis" -- a fancy way of describing a "gut feeling" that helps us make decisions. Demasio discusses the case histories and experiments with individuals who have suffered brain lesions that have damaged parts of their brain involved in the sort of involuntary processing that Gladwell and Wilson describe. From this experimental record, Demasio argues that it is an error to think that what we think of as "being rational" is something apart from our feelings or emotions. Instead, we rely on "bodystate feelings" to feedback and feed-forward information that is crucial to forming sound judgment.

Our culture doesn't always reward emotion or feeling in decision-making or public deliberation -- it can seem like someone is "melting down" or "getting angry" when "bodystate" is visibile on the face of a leader -- but it's worth remembering that what we prize about good judgment relies on a whole interplay of feeling to reach decisions.