Reasons and Demons
Seeing Different Worlds
Conspiracy theories have been on my mind recently. A few days ago I thought of someone who used to follow one of my blogs and looked him up out of curiosity. I remembered he had taken me to task for criticizing 9/11 truthers. Upset that I had dared to call this an X-Files type conspiracy, he demanded I produce proof that 9/11 was not an inside job. Apparently, he was not aware that the burden of proof lies on those who make claims - it is not on everyone else to disprove it.1 In any case, I looked up the old so-and-so, to discover his most recent post was…a rant that COVID-19 was a bioweapon. And, he gushed, “I could be wrong, but at this point, no one will ever convince me” otherwise.2
Then, a couple days later, I got a few emails from a Substack I was following called “The Wise Wolf of Wall Street” (I no longer follow this Substack for reasons that will become apparent shortly). In two rapid succession posts the author declared he was a dead man because he had posted that the CIA was behind Bitcoin and our tech overlords (Elon Musk?) wanted him dead; random people on the street were telling him he would be silenced (because COVID vaccine and mind control chips); and he was going to leave his webcam on so the world would know he was right. The posts had been removed from Substack the following morning, while the webcam link simply showed somebody’s bedroom. Suffice it to say, I no longer follow the “Wise” Wolf.3
What is one to make of this? I thought of the phrase “Those who dance are considered insane by those who can’t hear the music” and briefly considered that maybe I am the unreasonable one, but decided against it, Principle Skinner style.4 Is it possible that these folks are right and there is a lot more going on than meets the eye? Sure - literally almost anything is possible.5 Possible, however, does not equal plausible, much less probable. It is possible Bigfoot is a surviving species of hominid (since the planet was once overrun with other species). It is not probable, given the lack of actual evidence.6
Reality can look very different to different people. For some the world is mundane, for some it is enchanted; for some it a delight, for some it is terrifying. A fair number of people see the world differently because of drugs, mental illness, or both. A friend recently told me, after consuming a substance, he had an “argument with his soul” and then “transformed” into a dragon and flew around his apartment. Supposedly his roommate saw him in dragon form. I did not respond to this, in part because I’m not sure what one is supposed to say.7 Another friend I know has displayed signs of psychosis, possibly THC related. True psychosis is not cute, nor is it cinematic. It is a profoundly frightening, and sad, thing to watch in action.8
Yet, I sense something much deeper is afoot here than drug abuse. Is it a coincidence that conspiracy theories have mushroomed in the aftermath of the ‘Death’ of God or that the theorists have adopted an almost religious-like fervor? What is more religious than an unashamed “no one will ever convince me otherwise” after all? The clue, I think, lies in the all too human aphorism “everything happens for a reason.” Or, to frame it in question form as I once saw on a dating site, does everything happen for a reason? The answer may be revealing.
In his magnificent book The Soul of the Marionette the British philosopher John Gray writes of the madness that author Philip K. Dick (of Man in the High Castle and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? fame) descended into. Gray’s excursus is fascinating, but a few lines here will make my point:
But his was paranoia of a peculiar kind, one that articulated an entire world-view - a highly distinctive version of Gnosticism. With its vision of the world as being ruled by an evil demiurge Gnosticism is, in effect, the metaphysical version of paranoia. Paranoid delusion is often a reaction against insignificance - the sense, often well founded, of counting for nothing in the world. Dick’s paranoia was of this kind. By seeking a sense of significance, he became familiar with the dark side of a world where nothing is without meaning.
Dick could not accept that his life was shaped by a succession of random events - the death of his twin sister, a routine visit by the FBI, a commonplace break-in. He looked for design in everything that happened to him - above all his mental breakdown.
Dick trod a path that has been followed by many before him. Like human beings in every age he wanted to believe that the events of his life formed part of a pattern. So he created a story in which his life was shaped by secret agencies, some of them from beyond the human world. Dick found himself stuck in such a place - not the radiant, meaning-filled cosmos he was looking for, but a dark prison. Scrawled on the walls were messages, some of which would appear later in the pages of his books.
There is a pattern here: if you aim to exorcize mystery from your mind, you end up - like Philip K. Dick - locked in a paranoid universe and possessed by demons.
Two things could be said here. One, is that in the age of the Internet we are all Dicks now.9 Second, is that we are still living in what Carl Sagan called the Demon-Haunted World. The quest for meaning, the quest for explanation, is a dangerous one. It is deeply human (arguably it is what makes us human) but when it goes awry it can quite literally drive one into insanity. Why?
It may well be that the human brain is perched on the edge of a precipice, primed for delusion. Partially this is because the brain is fragile - a stroke or other injury, especially in the right hemisphere, can cause bizarre disruptions to one’s worldview.10 Yet, it isn’t just illness or injury - even healthy brains are prone to what is called apophenia, or “patternicity.” We are literally wired to see patterns in the world, whether they are there or not. We connect dots whether there are actual lines there or not.
Michael Shermer goes a step further, dubbing this human trait “agenticity” and proposing it as a broader explanation for religion and supernaturalism. My sense is this goes too far, if only because I am suspicious of theories of everything,11 but nonetheless it is certainly pointing in the right direction.
Let’s return to the question: Does everything happen for a reason? Does everything mean something? There are two ways to approach this. On the one hand, things happen because of causes and conditions (good Buddhist terminology that). This is really just another way of saying that the world is intelligible, which is arguably just a way of saying that the world is the world. On that level - yes, things happen for “reasons” and they “mean” something.
The problem is what we mean by “reason” and “meaning.” The fact that the world is intelligible doesn’t mean that we can make sense of it or be satisfied by the explanation. I’m wary of appealing to quantum physics (the meme that never dies), but if it has taught us anything, it is that nature’s intrinsic intelligibilities are under no obligation to condescend to the limitations of human understandings. Our minds have natural limits, and to Gray’s point, we run great risks in seeking to drive out mystery in our zeal for explanation.
Moreover, explanation comes in different types. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, once noted that even as we trace deeper and deeper levels physical order in the universe, we are reminded constantly of the harsh absence of moral order. The world, he noted sagely, is generally indifferent to the fate of persons, subjects like ourselves. Agenticity tries to close the gap by framing explanations in subjective, personal, intentional - agential - terms, rather than simply causes and conditions. At least in this respect, supernaturalism and conspiracy theories are cut from the same cloth.
This is all understandable and quite human - we all have this propensity. Even Richard Dawkins, who has lashed out at intelligent design his whole career, showed a surprising degree of openness to the simulation ‘hypothesis’ in a conversation with Brian Greene.12 For that matter, I am a spiritual, arguably even religious person - does that make me just another febrile soul, genuflecting before the demons?
Maybe, probably, and definitely in the past. Still, for all that, I am attracted to a different strain of spirituality, one that is actually quite prominent in the mystics of the various traditions: one that finds the sacred in the everyday and the extraordinary in the mundane, one that sees the world we already know everyday as enchanted. The world as it is can be viewed with awe, wonder, and humility, without appealing to mysterious “theys and thems” pulling strings somewhere.13 The real miracle is ever before us. Better to respect the mystery, kneel in humility, and then go about the hard work of being a good person.
That’s reason enough for me.
This is what is referred to as the Sagan Standard. I also encourage people to remember Hanlon’s Razor - never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
Part of what makes a mind “open” is at least paying lip service to the theoretical possibility that one could, at least in principle, be convinced otherwise. This was an epic Freudian slip.
Reading back through older posts I quickly realized the ‘Wise’ Wolf’s worldview issummarized by a nocturnal animal and excrement. I have accepted I have an issue where I will often read one good Substack post and hit subscribe without doing further diligence. Ditto for Kindle downloads - I inadvertently downloaded a book recently in which the author repeatedly uses the phrase “redpilled.” Oops.
Square circles are not possible. You’re welcome.
Little known fact: when I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be a cryptozoologist.
If I had to, I probably would have settled on “Good for you” and promptly changed the subject.
I’ve had brief bouts of paranoia myself. It isn’t fun.
See what I did there? That’s a triple entendre if you look carefully.
Iain McGilchrist documents a number of interesting cases in The Matter With Things.
Rarely can things be boiled down to just one explanatory factor. Shermer himself is justifiably skeptical of Terror Management Theory, but alas his own skeptical spotlight flickers here.
More on that here - Greene and Dawkins were discussing Nick Bostrom’s ideas. While this may seem to undermine Dawkin’s skepticism of intelligent design - the simulation hypothesis quite literally is an intelligent design theory - its fair to point out Dawkins has always acknowledged some aspects of nature do indeed look as if they are designed. The broader context of the conversation reveals Dawkins and Greene were suggesting the proposed designer wasn’t actually very good, a semi-intelligent designer at best. This arguably fits with better what we actually observe.
This was delightfully satirized in The X-Files episode “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” (some of the new episodes were great).