Last week I listed the “seven wonders of the ancient world”, the judgments that come with the territory of being alive. This week I cover some uniquely human dilemmas. Anatomically we are just another medium sized mammal. But mentally we have an exceptionally strong ability to manipulate symbols and thus concepts and images of things beyond the reach of our senses. And so we end up dealing with questions that other creatures don’t understand, questions about how to deal with our complex thoughts and emotions.
Here are my seven wonders of the modern (human) world:
1. DUG (Delayed Uncertain Gratification) Dilemma: Whether or not to wait for something. (Should I aim for long-term or short-term gratification?) Nature for the most part is short-sighted, but humans are short-sighted, imagining and aspiring to achieve long-term goals even at the cost of short-term sacrifices. Sometimes the sacrifices pay off and sometimes they don’t. Should you have that other piece of cake, smoke those cigarettes, invest in that new business, go into debt to get a college degree? A bird in the hand is only sometimes better than two in the bush. Perseverance only sometimes furthers your purpose. It is darkest before dawn but also before death. Of course, sometimes we wonder if a sacrifice is worth it, because sometimes it isn’t.
2. The dilemma of the bi-worldists: to be realistic or not. (Should I focus on sensory evidence or my mind’s interpretation?) We humans live in two worlds: the world we see when we open our eyes (the real world) and the world we see when we close them (our dreams, visions) . and delusions). Should you fight for your dream job, company, partner, partnership, or presidential candidate, or should you work with what you’ve got? Sometimes it’s worth dreaming and sometimes it’s worth accepting reality as it is, and often it’s hard to know when to do what. Keep your eyes on the prize? Which one? Accept things as they are? What things in particular?
3. Player’s dilemma: whether or not there is something to learn here. (Should I repent or just move on?) We humans can reflect, replay past disappointments, and regret what we did wrong. But not all disappointments are our fault. The regret we feel is sometimes helpful in helping us learn a lesson. And sometimes it’s worse than useless because there really is no lesson to learn. Sometimes the alarm we feel about how things have turned out is a false alarm, and sometimes it’s the wake-up call we need to learn not to make the mistake again. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” they say, often claiming that it was Einstein who said it first. I doubt he did, because that quote borders on insanity. If you bet at 80% odds and win at 20% odds, is it crazy to bet again at 80% odds? If your child’s chemotherapy didn’t work, would you stop chemotherapy? Just maybe. We are all players, we make bets and we try to learn from the results, but sometimes we bet wrong on whether there is something to learn from the bets we have made. What’s written on the wall? What message from God or the universe? Sometimes it’s hard to know.
4. Dilemma of the lip: whether to express it or not. (Should I reveal or hide this?) Within ourselves or in communication with others we wonder whether to draw attention to something. For example, if it’s a bad thing, will it draw attention to it and lead to an improvement, or will it just make the problem worse? Loose lips sink and save ships. Tight lips save and destroy lives. Sometimes exposing a problem to the light of day dissipates it; sometimes it makes it grow. Sometimes burying a problem makes it rot, and sometimes it festers. Honesty is just sometimes the best policy, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, a metal-liar, a liar on the ambiguous merit of lying.
5. The carrot and stick dilemma: whether to encourage or discourage action and to what extent. (Should I reward or punish?) To move things all we can do is push or pull to varying degrees. To persuade people we use a combination of carrots and sticks. Sometimes offering rewards inspires people to try harder, and sometimes it reassures them to try less. Sometimes the threat of punishment makes people try harder, and sometimes it scares or frustrates them into trying less. We try to figure out how to praise without spoiling, how to blame without breeding resentment. It’s not always easy to know when to do what. Good cops persuade, but so do bad cops. Tough love is not the answer, it is the question: when to be tough and when to be loving. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, but even more so with droppings, and what works on flies may or may not work on the people you’re trying to persuade.
6. Tab dilemma: whether or not to keep track of who owes what. (Is it better to treat this as a business or a love relationship?) Well, in business you keep track of who owes whom. In friendship, love and family you don’t do it, you just give yourself and assume that everything will be fine. Sometimes we are professionals when love is required and sometimes we love when in reality it would be better to treat the relationship as a business. As Paul Simon sings, “negotiations and love songs are often mistaken for the same thing.” The Book of Job teaches us that if we love God unconditionally, we will be rewarded tenfold, which is actually an appropriately ironic mixed message. Moral issues offer a parallel: there is the morality of the head, where you professionally calculate what is fair, and then there is the morality of the heart, where you focus on giving your loved ones what they want, even if it is costing others an enormous amount. The classic brain-breaker: Would you sacrifice your own child to save a hundred lives? The head says yes, the heart says no.
7. Rutgroove Dilemma: To ask or not. (Am I deciding or am I deciding?) Our bi-worldliness gives us the option to explore more widely than other creatures, to think about what could be and what could have been, in a word, to wonder. The mother of all wonders then is whether to wonder or not. Have you already decided what you are going to do or are you still deciding, wondering which is the right path? If you’re in a rhythm, shut up, get on with your weaving, don’t ask why, navigate, settle in, don’t worry, be happy. However, if perhaps your rhythm is really a routine, ask yourself, worry, hesitate, reinterpret, visit alternative scenarios. It’s terrible to waste a groove wondering, but it’s also terrible to navigate a bad rut. Our unique human powers of wonder lead to two opposing attitudes about the future. A vision in the mind’s eye can come so strong that we come to believe in destiny. But the mind’s eye can also wander. Without the mind’s eye, we would never have wondered if the future is predestined or realized that it is not. Given the inherent uncertainty about the future, what seems like a significant problem today may become no problem tomorrow, and what seems insignificant today may become a big problem tomorrow. We can only guess what to wonder and worry about, and sometimes we are wrong.
There are my current non-definitive lists: the seven wonders of the ancient (all life) and modern (human life) worlds. I’ve thought a lot about how these questions interrelate, how the lines between them blur, and how they came to be in the first place. I also openly wonder if the charts are as clear and clean as they can be and creatively doubt they are, although I still have to make a difficult judgment call that doesn’t fit into these categories.
I’d appreciate suggestions for other universal hard judgments, but also examples of particular hard judgments that you think don’t fit my categories. If you send me your suggestions by email, I will give you feedback personally.
And I will soon show that all these wonders are the product of a central feature of the universe: emergence: the way in which the interaction of parts at one level leads to forms at a higher level, forms that change the rules of causality. This pattern shows up down to the level of thermodynamics, the way that interactions of molecules lead to a higher-level population effect called entropy. But it also operates down to the ways individual humans behave differently from groups of individuals. More on that another time.
Here are the hard judgment calls again for quick reference:
Seven wonders of the ancient and modern world
Of the ancient world (all life)
1. Porcupine dilemma: to combine or not with this. (Should it be open or closed to interact with something outside?)
2. Dilemma of the conjoined twins: to stay or not with this. (Should I stay or leave an existing interaction?)
3. The aphid dilemma: whether or not to be consistent here. (Should I be constant or vary a behavior?)
4. Serenity Prayer dilemma: whether or not to try to change this. (Should I impose or accommodate now?)
5. Missile defense dilemma: whether or not to pay attention to this. (Am I getting a signal or just picking up noise?)?6. Croaker’s dilemma: Whether to point or not. (Is it time to scream or is it time to hide?)
7. Slime’s dilemma: whether to act on behalf of the individual or the collective. (Should I put myself first or not, is it me time or us time?)
Of the modern world (human life)
1. DUG (Delayed Uncertain Gratification) Dilemma: Whether or not to wait for something. (Should I aim for long-term or short-term gratification?)
2. The dilemma of the bi-worldists: to be realistic or not. (Should I focus on my sensory data or my mental images?)
3. Player’s dilemma: whether or not there is something to learn here. (Should I repent or just move on?)
4. Dilemma of the lip: whether to express it or not. (Should I reveal or hide this?)
5. The carrot and stick dilemma: whether to encourage or discourage action and to what extent. (Should I reward or punish?)
6. Tab dilemma: whether or not to keep track of who owes what. (Is it better to treat this as a business or a love relationship?)
7. Rutgroove Dilemma: To ask or not. (Am I determined or determined?)