Human beings are problem solvers. I have argued, however, that when humans make decisions they never have all the information they need in order to know for certain what outcome will result from the action they take. That is, they must make decisions where “something is missing” from the picture they are observing. (See “What is Missing?” posted on February 1, 2008.) They must solve their problem or make their decision based upon incomplete information.
The assumption here is that if a person facing a problem had complete information about the decision he/she faced there would really be no problem making a decision for the appropriate decision would be obvious. There would only be one ‘best’ decision. So, if people had complete information pertaining to every decision they had to make thereby making each decision obvious, the world would be deterministic for everything would have already been determined.
If a person does not have complete information, the decision that needs to be made is not obvious. The problem solver, therefore, is confronted with at least several possible outcomes from any solution that might be decided upon. We can say that the outcome of the decision is uncertain. Since human beings do not have complete information about anything, we can say that all of their decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty.
One model of the process of problem solving/decision making under uncertainty is as follows. First, for a given solution or action, the decision maker must state all of the possible outcomes that could result from that solution/action. Then the decision maker must determine how likely it is for each possible outcome to occur. Here the term ‘probability’ is introduced for what the decision maker must do is assign, subjectively, the likelihood that an outcome will happen relative to the likelihood that all the other outcomes might happen. Thus, the decision maker could argue that in two out of four days, it will be sunny; in one out of four days it will be cloudy but it will not rain; and in one out of four days it will rain. These assignments are subjective because they represent ‘the degree of belief’ that the individual has concerning the likelihood of each possible outcome occurring. The decision maker must do this kind of analysis for all the possible solutions/actions that he/she is considering concerning the problem under review. The general decision rule is to choose the solution/action that provides the problem solver with the ‘best’ expected outcome from all the solutions/actions considered.
In our previous post, it was argued that the world is sufficiently ordered so that human beings can solve problems in ways that contribute to the survival and evolution of their species. That is, humans can build models to predict outcomes that contributed to their welfare. We can extend this argument one step further: the world is sufficiently ordered so that human beings can build models that produce probabilistic predictions so that they can survive and evolve.
Working in a world of uncertainty means that people are not going to find the correct solutions or make the right decisions every time they have to produce a solution or make a decision. Because of this, individuals really need to focus on the process of problem solving or decision making rather than upon just a specific outcome at a particular time. In other words, a person needs a methodology of problem solving that is used and refined over and over again. An individual also needs to internalize the use of a probabilistic approach. Human beings crave certainty and even when using a probabilistic approach they tend to use too narrow a range of possible outcomes in their problem solving. Humans must accept the fact that they don’t have complete information and learn to be as comfortable as possible knowing that this is how life is.
The problem solver must also accept the fact that they cannot judge the results of a probabilistic system over the short term because in the short run one can always be overwhelmed by the randomness that seems to be present in the world. That is because we, as humans, know so little about the world, it can seem, at times, to be very chaotic. It has been argued that to find order we must really search for it because it is not altogether obvious. (See post of February 8, 2008, “On ‘On Looking into the Abyss.”) So, human beings must find systems that seem to work and stick with them over time. Again, the process is crucial, not a specific outcome.
Belonging to a community can play a very important role in the models one chooses and in the persistence with which one sticks with these models. For example, belonging to a church implies that you spend time with other people who roughly believe the same things that you do. This is important for a community like this has models that ‘work’ (if they don’t work the community would disappear) and that provides a support system to help people through those times when the models don’t seem to be working. Belonging to such a community also helps one to ‘believe’ in what lies behind the models.
In this respect we can examine the wager attributed to Blaise Pascal. Ian Hacking has argued that this wager should be expressed as follows: “As Pascal sees it, you either act with complete indifference to God, or you act in a way that you will, in due course, believe in his existence and his edicts….One cannot decide to believe in God. One can decide to act so that one will very probably come to believe in God. Pascal call that the wager that God is. To wager that He is not is to stop bothering about such things.” (“The Emergence of Probability,” Second Edition, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006) p. 66) In other words, a person bets on the existence of God by joining a church, thereby putting themselves in a position where it is possible for them to believe. By living their life within that community they are more likely to believe in God and in the models of the church than if they were not a member of such a community.
This is an entirely different picture of the commitment one makes to God than is presented by some existentialist thinkers. The image I had of this commitment, coming from the period of time when I was caught up in the existential way of thinking, was of a person standing on a totally barren hilltop at night with thousands of stars shining in the sky. This isolated, alienated person had to make a decision, had to decide all by himself whether or not he believed in God. It is his existential moment. Once this individual makes a choice, then he must live out that existence every day…the choice was his and his alone…it was his selection of being.
The action words, however, are ‘isolated’ and ‘alienated.’ The existent had to do it all by himself. No one else could choose for him. No one could live for him. But, this image does not work if one has internalized a probabilistic approach to the world. There is no process here. There is no methodology to work with. There is no trying and testing of the system. There is no support for the ‘down’ times. The focus is on the Abyss and not on the order that exists within creation.
Pascal argues that the individual needs to pick a way of life that one would like to live. But, this requires other individuals that are living the life that one would like to emulate. Once a choice is made one puts oneself into a position where they are living with those they would like to emulate and in doing so they have role models and a support system that helps them to keep their eyes on the process and not on the randomness. In this way, faith is built and lived. And this is our topic for the next post.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Problem Solving: The Most Human of Activities
Why is it important that creation is sufficiently ordered? The answer given last week is that creation has to have enough order to it so that human beings can solve problems and make decisions. One must immediately expand this, however, to include all living things because without sufficient order to creation, life, at least in the forms we know it, would not be able to survive and even thrive. Human beings are not the exception. It is just that humans have taken this problem solving ability to the highest level of any species that is known.
If creation were chaotic so that nothing followed from anything else, even the simplest forms of life, whose whole existence is nothing more than a reaction to stimuli, could not survive because there could be no necessary consistency to their reactions. Living and surviving is based on developing responses to repeated patterns in the environment. Without being able to find patterns living things could not survive, let alone evolve into more advanced species. Order is needed so that living creatures can survive and grow, can have offspring and evolve.
This skill evolved many years ago and the ability to solve more and more difficult problems resulted in a species that was better able than others to survive and prosper. The Hominid species, in its present form, survived and has survived spectacularly. Investigators have identified about 20 hominid species that lived at various times and they have estimated that the total number of Hominid species peaked about 2 million years ago. Modern humans are the sole surviving representative of the hominid linage. (pages 52-3) [All references are to J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen, “Alone in the World: Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology,” The Gifford Lectures (Spring 2004), published b. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2006.]
To survive a species must possess some talent(s) or skill(s) that help to account for its survival. The specific talent that seems to have contributed the most to this success of the human species is the ability it has to solve problems. This skill has allowed human beings to become self reflective in that they are the only species to be able to experience guilt, shame, and pride. They are able to anticipate events far into the future. They can invent metaphors and analogies. They speak a language with a grammar. And, they reason about hypothetical circumstances. These are talents that make humans unique among all species. (page 36)
Furthermore, human communities formed and transmitted these talents through cultural evolution that brought more complex and sophisticated cultures into being. Change was always occurring and new structures constantly emerged. (page 38) Special attention is given to the period ranging from 45,000 to 35,000 years ago. It seems that during this time period, human consciousness and intelligence emerged, and along with it, creative, artistic, and religious imaginations. This is referred to as the Upper Paleolithic revolution, the cultural ‘big bang’. From this period the rest, as they say, is history. (pages 64 and 66)
But, what is problem solving? Let’s take the very simple example of a man walking in the woods after there has been a fresh snowfall. The man sees an area of snow where it appears as if someone or something has been walking. The tracks in the snow, however, do not appear to be made by a human being because the pattern is not one of a two-footed mammal walking upright, but of a four-footed beast ambling through the snow with the stomach dragging in the snow from time-to-time. Could it have been a deer? No, the man concludes that the tracks have been made by a bear. He removes himself from the area.
The process here is that the human being observes something…the snow has been disturbed. Furthermore, the disturbance seems to be in the pattern of tracks that a living thing might have caused. The man instinctively finds a model that could apply to this situation. The model must be able to make some predictions as to what kind of living thing would have created the specific tracks that are observed. The tracks could have been made by a human being. The tracks could have been made by a deer. The tracks could have been made by a bear. Focusing on the specific tracks that he observes, he assigns probabilities as to the likelihood of each of the possible causes. He decides that the most likely creature that could have produced these tracks is a bear and bears attack human beings…so…he makes the decision to leave the area.
Arguably, this example describes the problem solving process, one that results in a decision. Simplifying the process, the man observed some information (the disturbance of the snow), he selects a model that seemed to be appropriate to the situation, he made some forecasts, he applied probabilities to the possible outcomes, and then he made a decision based on the likelihood of each possible action he could take given the expected outcomes.
What are the crucial elements in this process that are specifically tied to human problem solving and decision making? Humans can invent ‘metaphors and analogies’ or models, they can deal with ‘hypothetical circumstances’ like the existence of different types of causes and different possible actions that can be taken, and they ‘anticipate’ or predict the future. Furthermore, human beings can do this without complete knowledge of the specific situation they face! That is, creation is sufficiently ordered so that they can make relatively adequate decisions without knowing the whole story. They can act even though they know that ‘something is missing’. (See posting of February 1, 2008, “What is Missing?”)
For now, two comments need to be made about the models that a problem solver uses. Since the problem solver uses models to make forecasts of outcomes upon which his/her decisions are based, the models must be grounded in their ability to perform. That is, a model must help an individual make good decisions. David Tracy writes that, for a given situation, a model must be relatively adequate which means that it must be logically consistent and must be able to forecast as least as well as any other logically consistent model used in a situation like the one being considered. Problem solving/decision making is not just an intellectual exercise. Actions are taken and actions have consequences. The objective is to make better and better decisions and solve more and more difficult problems.
The second comment relates to the structure of the model that the problem solver uses. When we use the term model we most often think of logically formal models or mathematical models. But, formal or mathematical models are adequate only for a limited number of situations, usually situations where only a few causative factors are relevant and the relationship between the relevant factors is fairly clear. But, the vast majority of situations faced by human beings are not of this kind. Many of them contain far too many potentially causative factors for the individual to mentally process and use and the relationships between the relative factors tend to be very complex and uncertain. Human beings have developed many different ways to model relationships given these vague and ambiguous situations. They use stories and narratives, fables and proverbs, rules of thumb and superstitions, to just name a few. In using their abilities to abstract from reality, humans build models of all sorts to assist them to solve the problems they face from those pertaining to daily life, to building organizational structures, to science, to discussing mysteries, to religion…to everything that concerns them.
If creation were chaotic so that nothing followed from anything else, even the simplest forms of life, whose whole existence is nothing more than a reaction to stimuli, could not survive because there could be no necessary consistency to their reactions. Living and surviving is based on developing responses to repeated patterns in the environment. Without being able to find patterns living things could not survive, let alone evolve into more advanced species. Order is needed so that living creatures can survive and grow, can have offspring and evolve.
This skill evolved many years ago and the ability to solve more and more difficult problems resulted in a species that was better able than others to survive and prosper. The Hominid species, in its present form, survived and has survived spectacularly. Investigators have identified about 20 hominid species that lived at various times and they have estimated that the total number of Hominid species peaked about 2 million years ago. Modern humans are the sole surviving representative of the hominid linage. (pages 52-3) [All references are to J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen, “Alone in the World: Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology,” The Gifford Lectures (Spring 2004), published b. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2006.]
To survive a species must possess some talent(s) or skill(s) that help to account for its survival. The specific talent that seems to have contributed the most to this success of the human species is the ability it has to solve problems. This skill has allowed human beings to become self reflective in that they are the only species to be able to experience guilt, shame, and pride. They are able to anticipate events far into the future. They can invent metaphors and analogies. They speak a language with a grammar. And, they reason about hypothetical circumstances. These are talents that make humans unique among all species. (page 36)
Furthermore, human communities formed and transmitted these talents through cultural evolution that brought more complex and sophisticated cultures into being. Change was always occurring and new structures constantly emerged. (page 38) Special attention is given to the period ranging from 45,000 to 35,000 years ago. It seems that during this time period, human consciousness and intelligence emerged, and along with it, creative, artistic, and religious imaginations. This is referred to as the Upper Paleolithic revolution, the cultural ‘big bang’. From this period the rest, as they say, is history. (pages 64 and 66)
But, what is problem solving? Let’s take the very simple example of a man walking in the woods after there has been a fresh snowfall. The man sees an area of snow where it appears as if someone or something has been walking. The tracks in the snow, however, do not appear to be made by a human being because the pattern is not one of a two-footed mammal walking upright, but of a four-footed beast ambling through the snow with the stomach dragging in the snow from time-to-time. Could it have been a deer? No, the man concludes that the tracks have been made by a bear. He removes himself from the area.
The process here is that the human being observes something…the snow has been disturbed. Furthermore, the disturbance seems to be in the pattern of tracks that a living thing might have caused. The man instinctively finds a model that could apply to this situation. The model must be able to make some predictions as to what kind of living thing would have created the specific tracks that are observed. The tracks could have been made by a human being. The tracks could have been made by a deer. The tracks could have been made by a bear. Focusing on the specific tracks that he observes, he assigns probabilities as to the likelihood of each of the possible causes. He decides that the most likely creature that could have produced these tracks is a bear and bears attack human beings…so…he makes the decision to leave the area.
Arguably, this example describes the problem solving process, one that results in a decision. Simplifying the process, the man observed some information (the disturbance of the snow), he selects a model that seemed to be appropriate to the situation, he made some forecasts, he applied probabilities to the possible outcomes, and then he made a decision based on the likelihood of each possible action he could take given the expected outcomes.
What are the crucial elements in this process that are specifically tied to human problem solving and decision making? Humans can invent ‘metaphors and analogies’ or models, they can deal with ‘hypothetical circumstances’ like the existence of different types of causes and different possible actions that can be taken, and they ‘anticipate’ or predict the future. Furthermore, human beings can do this without complete knowledge of the specific situation they face! That is, creation is sufficiently ordered so that they can make relatively adequate decisions without knowing the whole story. They can act even though they know that ‘something is missing’. (See posting of February 1, 2008, “What is Missing?”)
For now, two comments need to be made about the models that a problem solver uses. Since the problem solver uses models to make forecasts of outcomes upon which his/her decisions are based, the models must be grounded in their ability to perform. That is, a model must help an individual make good decisions. David Tracy writes that, for a given situation, a model must be relatively adequate which means that it must be logically consistent and must be able to forecast as least as well as any other logically consistent model used in a situation like the one being considered. Problem solving/decision making is not just an intellectual exercise. Actions are taken and actions have consequences. The objective is to make better and better decisions and solve more and more difficult problems.
The second comment relates to the structure of the model that the problem solver uses. When we use the term model we most often think of logically formal models or mathematical models. But, formal or mathematical models are adequate only for a limited number of situations, usually situations where only a few causative factors are relevant and the relationship between the relevant factors is fairly clear. But, the vast majority of situations faced by human beings are not of this kind. Many of them contain far too many potentially causative factors for the individual to mentally process and use and the relationships between the relative factors tend to be very complex and uncertain. Human beings have developed many different ways to model relationships given these vague and ambiguous situations. They use stories and narratives, fables and proverbs, rules of thumb and superstitions, to just name a few. In using their abilities to abstract from reality, humans build models of all sorts to assist them to solve the problems they face from those pertaining to daily life, to building organizational structures, to science, to discussing mysteries, to religion…to everything that concerns them.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Sufficient Order
Why is there apparent order to creation rather than chaos? This seems to be a corollary to the famous question Ludwig Wittgenstein ask: “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” In the February 8 post, I ended up talking about order but all that was said is that, by looking for order in creation, we can find order, although it is not always easy to do. Finding order in creation is important for two reasons. First, as discussed in that earlier post, the apparent absence of order can be disturbing, but it can also be interesting and can lead to a fascination with the Abyss. Second, finding order is necessary to be able to problem solve and this is the thing that human beings do best. This will be discussed in the next post.
So, we look for order…and we find order. Not an all encompassing order because we human beings are incapable of finding any all encompassing order. We do not have the computing skills to collect, process, store, or use with feedback all the information that we need. We are bounded, rationally. Thus, we are always working with an amount of information that is (often far) less than what we need in order to perceive an all encompassing order. Humans do observe or identify sufficient order to make decisions and solve more and more difficult problems. And, this has allowed them to evolve and progress from a very primitive stage of development to the situation they now find themselves occupying.
We cannot ascertain how early in their history human beings recognized order, whether implicitly or explicitly. The recognition had to have been there, since order allows for practical problem solving and so is beneficial to the survival of the species. The appearance of a lack of order leads to uncertainty and anxiety and requires another kind of problem solving if one is not to be drawn into the Abyss. A response to the problem solving effort of human beings within the context of no apparent order can be religious in nature. (We will discuss this aspect of human development in the February 29 posting.) The fact that order is not obvious in all situations leads to a constant tension between direct problem solving and the kind of problem solving needed to deal with those situations in which order seems to be absent. It is a tension that has never been resolved, even up to this day.
A belief in order is important to us as human beings and it needs to be a part of our communal belief systems in order for cultures to thrive or survive. Unless a society can adequately solve problems and go on to solve more and more difficult problems, it will either decay or be surpassed by other cultures or societies that are better at solving problems. So, I would argue that we need to have in our world view some belief (implicitly or explicitly) that there is order in the world and that we are a part of that order.
The Jewish/Christian tradition contains a belief that creation is ordered; and this belief is presented at the very beginning of its “book”. What do we read in the first chapter of the first book in the Bible? We read an imaginative rendering of the creation of the earth…and it is a very ordered rendering. The world was created, we are told, in a set amount of time and in a specific order. There is nothing haphazard or chaotic in this creation…it is very structured. And, note, this world was created ‘out of the chaos.’ That is, the distinction is made between what was created and the chaos, and it can be concluded from this that creation, the world, is not, at its foundation, chaotic!
Note also that the rendering starts out with the words, “In the beginning, God…” This is important because it shows that to the author(s), the existence of God is an assumption…God’s existence does not need to be proved. God is right there from the very beginning of the story. This narrative then tells us, right up front, that there is a God, that this God created the world we live in, and that the world is ordered. And, we are also told that God looked at this creation and called it “good” which implies that the creation was as God wanted it.
Now, since creation is ordered, human beings can be held accountable for their decisions. That is, they are responsible for what they do. Why is this? Well, if you don’t have order and everything is chaotic then people can have no idea what the results of their actions will be and hence no one can say that they are responsible for what they do. To be held accountable, people must be able to forecast what might result from the actions they take. Only by forecasting the possible outcomes of their actions can they make an informed decision as to what they should do in a specific situation. In this respect, there must be sufficient order in the world for cause-and-effect to work. Only if there is order can there be a cause for every effect.
But, a new issue has been introduced into the argument. I intentionally introduced the phrase ‘possible outcomes.’ We are back to the human condition that was mentioned in the second paragraph above. Human brains have limited computing power. That is, human decision making is bounded because human beings never have all of the information they need to make a decision. In other words, they do not have complete information pertaining to the full cause-and-effect relationships that exist in any specific situation. They must make decisions in the face of uncertainty of outcomes. We don’t know exactly what outcome will occur given a specific action because so many other things that we can’t identify might impact the result of our decision. A forecast of possible outcomes can only be probabilistic.
Does the bible story include any consideration of this aspect of the human condition? Yes, it does. We must move into the story of the Garden of Eden to pick up this aspect of human existence. God indicates that there are certain trees in the Garden from which the human beings are not allowed to eat. One of these trees is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Some interpreters argue that this tree is really the Tree of the Knowledge of Everything, because if one knows everything there is to know about Good and Evil, then one knows everything. And, why doesn’t God want human beings to know everything? We are told that if human beings know everything then they would be like god! The further implication of this is that God is the only one who knows everything…that is one thing that makes God, God. Thus, human beings are faced with having to live their lives with only incomplete information and this, of course, means that all decision making is made under conditions of uncertainty.
Therefore, we see at the very beginning of the foundational literature of the Jewish/Christian Bible the following beliefs: God exists; there is order in God’s creation; this order means that human beings can be held accountable for their actions; and human beings do not have all the information they need when making a decision so that decisions have to be made in the face of uncertainty. This last belief does not relieve human beings from the responsibility for the decisions that they make. This is because there is sufficient order in creation so that humans are expected to make the ‘best’ decision that they can make most of the time. We will, of course, come back to this point again!
We cannot leave this story line without bringing up one more aspect of human decision making: human beings do make decisions that are not always in their best interest. This raises the question as to whether or not there might exist something either within the individual human or within creation that distracts humans from making the ‘best’ decisions. We are told that Eve (the first woman) was confronted by a serpent. She was persuaded by the serpent to eat a certain apple, a fruit that God had told the humans that they would die if they ate of it. But, the serpent also told Eve that God did not really mean that they would die if they ate of the apple and he was right! God did not mean that they would die physically…only that they would die in a spiritual sense. This opens the door to the possibility that there might exist outside influences that distract individuals so that they make decisions that are not in their best interest. These influences might be called serpents, the devil, Satan, or something else. We will have to hold the discussion of this topic till later.
So, we look for order…and we find order. Not an all encompassing order because we human beings are incapable of finding any all encompassing order. We do not have the computing skills to collect, process, store, or use with feedback all the information that we need. We are bounded, rationally. Thus, we are always working with an amount of information that is (often far) less than what we need in order to perceive an all encompassing order. Humans do observe or identify sufficient order to make decisions and solve more and more difficult problems. And, this has allowed them to evolve and progress from a very primitive stage of development to the situation they now find themselves occupying.
We cannot ascertain how early in their history human beings recognized order, whether implicitly or explicitly. The recognition had to have been there, since order allows for practical problem solving and so is beneficial to the survival of the species. The appearance of a lack of order leads to uncertainty and anxiety and requires another kind of problem solving if one is not to be drawn into the Abyss. A response to the problem solving effort of human beings within the context of no apparent order can be religious in nature. (We will discuss this aspect of human development in the February 29 posting.) The fact that order is not obvious in all situations leads to a constant tension between direct problem solving and the kind of problem solving needed to deal with those situations in which order seems to be absent. It is a tension that has never been resolved, even up to this day.
A belief in order is important to us as human beings and it needs to be a part of our communal belief systems in order for cultures to thrive or survive. Unless a society can adequately solve problems and go on to solve more and more difficult problems, it will either decay or be surpassed by other cultures or societies that are better at solving problems. So, I would argue that we need to have in our world view some belief (implicitly or explicitly) that there is order in the world and that we are a part of that order.
The Jewish/Christian tradition contains a belief that creation is ordered; and this belief is presented at the very beginning of its “book”. What do we read in the first chapter of the first book in the Bible? We read an imaginative rendering of the creation of the earth…and it is a very ordered rendering. The world was created, we are told, in a set amount of time and in a specific order. There is nothing haphazard or chaotic in this creation…it is very structured. And, note, this world was created ‘out of the chaos.’ That is, the distinction is made between what was created and the chaos, and it can be concluded from this that creation, the world, is not, at its foundation, chaotic!
Note also that the rendering starts out with the words, “In the beginning, God…” This is important because it shows that to the author(s), the existence of God is an assumption…God’s existence does not need to be proved. God is right there from the very beginning of the story. This narrative then tells us, right up front, that there is a God, that this God created the world we live in, and that the world is ordered. And, we are also told that God looked at this creation and called it “good” which implies that the creation was as God wanted it.
Now, since creation is ordered, human beings can be held accountable for their decisions. That is, they are responsible for what they do. Why is this? Well, if you don’t have order and everything is chaotic then people can have no idea what the results of their actions will be and hence no one can say that they are responsible for what they do. To be held accountable, people must be able to forecast what might result from the actions they take. Only by forecasting the possible outcomes of their actions can they make an informed decision as to what they should do in a specific situation. In this respect, there must be sufficient order in the world for cause-and-effect to work. Only if there is order can there be a cause for every effect.
But, a new issue has been introduced into the argument. I intentionally introduced the phrase ‘possible outcomes.’ We are back to the human condition that was mentioned in the second paragraph above. Human brains have limited computing power. That is, human decision making is bounded because human beings never have all of the information they need to make a decision. In other words, they do not have complete information pertaining to the full cause-and-effect relationships that exist in any specific situation. They must make decisions in the face of uncertainty of outcomes. We don’t know exactly what outcome will occur given a specific action because so many other things that we can’t identify might impact the result of our decision. A forecast of possible outcomes can only be probabilistic.
Does the bible story include any consideration of this aspect of the human condition? Yes, it does. We must move into the story of the Garden of Eden to pick up this aspect of human existence. God indicates that there are certain trees in the Garden from which the human beings are not allowed to eat. One of these trees is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Some interpreters argue that this tree is really the Tree of the Knowledge of Everything, because if one knows everything there is to know about Good and Evil, then one knows everything. And, why doesn’t God want human beings to know everything? We are told that if human beings know everything then they would be like god! The further implication of this is that God is the only one who knows everything…that is one thing that makes God, God. Thus, human beings are faced with having to live their lives with only incomplete information and this, of course, means that all decision making is made under conditions of uncertainty.
Therefore, we see at the very beginning of the foundational literature of the Jewish/Christian Bible the following beliefs: God exists; there is order in God’s creation; this order means that human beings can be held accountable for their actions; and human beings do not have all the information they need when making a decision so that decisions have to be made in the face of uncertainty. This last belief does not relieve human beings from the responsibility for the decisions that they make. This is because there is sufficient order in creation so that humans are expected to make the ‘best’ decision that they can make most of the time. We will, of course, come back to this point again!
We cannot leave this story line without bringing up one more aspect of human decision making: human beings do make decisions that are not always in their best interest. This raises the question as to whether or not there might exist something either within the individual human or within creation that distracts humans from making the ‘best’ decisions. We are told that Eve (the first woman) was confronted by a serpent. She was persuaded by the serpent to eat a certain apple, a fruit that God had told the humans that they would die if they ate of it. But, the serpent also told Eve that God did not really mean that they would die if they ate of the apple and he was right! God did not mean that they would die physically…only that they would die in a spiritual sense. This opens the door to the possibility that there might exist outside influences that distract individuals so that they make decisions that are not in their best interest. These influences might be called serpents, the devil, Satan, or something else. We will have to hold the discussion of this topic till later.
Friday, February 8, 2008
On "On Looking Into the Abyss"
In the last posting, “What’s Missing?”, we discussed the fact that we, as humans, know so little about creation. We are limited, not only by our computing ability, our ability to collect, process, store, use, and feedback information, but also by our inability to even know what questions to ask to better understand the world. This condition is the basis for many of our anxieties about life and meaning and is also the foundation for how we attempt to resolve these feelings. As the philosopher Hilary Putnam writes, referencing Stanley Cavell, the basic situation humans find themselves in, is that they must go through life with ‘no guarantees.’
One response to this condition has been the body of literature that emphasis the emptiness or meaningless of life where people feel separated, alone, alienated. Gertrude Himmelfarb discusses this view of life in her essay “On Looking into the Abyss,” a reflection on Lionel Trilling’s essay, “On the Teaching of Modern Literature.” (Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Looking into the Abyss, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994.) Whereas Trilling, in his teaching, was attempting to get his students to “look into the Abyss” and through formal, precise, and serious academic discourse “vitiate the works” and “bring about precisely the opposite of their intended effect,” Himmelfarb observes a new approach to this literature. She sees individuals that not only find the Abyss ‘interesting’ and ‘exciting’ but rather than being turned off by their professors, now follow this attraction into the Abyss, ‘dutifully and gladly’.
Himmelfarb goes on to argue that to many ‘intellectuals’ of the last half of the 20th century, the ‘look into the Abyss’ became a word game, something that people could ‘play around with.’ Their approach was a game that could be played in the classroom or the office or in journal articles or in books and it could lead to tenure or recognition or fame and a pleasant life style. Did it matter to them what the teaching resulted in? Seemingly not. Richard Rorty, for example, argued that if someone did not like the conclusions they were getting from a particular world view they should just change the assumptions that supported this world view until they got a world view that produced the results they wanted. Did it matter whether or not the new world view could help the individual make good decisions or solve difficult problems? Apparently not, for Rorty doesn’t consider the use of the world views in actual decision making or problem solving. It seems that all that matters is for one to have the right or correct conclusions.
A telling example of this approach is presented in David Mamet’s play, “Oleana”. There are two characters in this play, a professor who, we find out, is up for tenure and one of his students. The professor is ‘post modern’ in the sense that he promotes the idea that there is no truth. The student, very much in awe of the professor, is the first of her family to go to college and, to her and her family, getting a college education is the pathway to being successful in the modern world.
Standing in the path of the student is ‘the Abyss’. The professor has put this in front of her; she is intrigued by it and is succumbing to it. The meeting between the professor and his student is in his office and she has come to him because she is conflicted. And, here in the first act, the professor is in the dominant party in the discussion and he sticks to the ‘party line.’
In the second act, the roles are reversed. The world view of the student has collapsed after the meeting with the professor and, in an attempt to grasp onto something, she joined a group that promised her ideological certainty, ‘guarantees’. She has paid back the professor who had destroyed her vision; she made sure that he did not get tenure. We had seen as the first act progressed, that the professor acted as if there were some ‘real truth’ in the world outside his office. His wife, tenure, his house and car were all very important to him. They represented ‘truth’ in the sense that he acted as if his decisions about these mattered. Here we see that outside of his office the professor did have a world view in which some things are more important than others: Some world views are better than others!
A second example is the true story that was first a book, but was then turned into the movie “Into the Wild”. This story is about a young college student who becomes fascinated by the abyss and the unfairness of the world. He arrives at this position using the same literature that Lionel Trilling presented to his students. The student is drawn into a destructive search for separation as a result of his alienation from family and society. He must get away and go ‘into the wild’. Along his journey from college to the Alaskan wild, we see him engaging with people, we see him use his gifts, we see him help others, yet ‘the Abyss’ draws him on. The end…he dies alone in the wilderness.
In these two works we see different responses to the ‘lack of guarantees’. At one extreme, a young student defaults into a group that eliminates her uncertainty. It is a group that presents to her ‘ends’ that she can subscribe to and then gives her the ‘fundamentals’ of an approach to achieve those ends. As she destroys the career of the professor that led her to her disillusionment she cannot be argued with, she can exhibit no sympathy. She is a true believer. At the other end of the spectrum, a young student seeks nothingness…nihilism. To him, there is just a void. The pull of the abyss is strong and he finds it and experiences it, even in spite of his obvious ability to make friends, help people, and act morally.
What is the issue here? To me, the issue is one of how we deal with the fact that in every situation we face we must face it with only incomplete information. Every world view, every model or schema we use to solve problems with is tentative and fallible. There is no certainty to life! There are no guarantees!
So, the first choice, as represented by the student in David Mamet’s play, is not a realistic option. World views, models, religions, or political movements that promise certainty must be strongly enforced and controlled in order to eliminate all possible sources of contradiction. The second choice, nihilism, as represented by the behavior of the student in the book and movie “Into the Wild”, is either partially or totally self-destructive of the individual. The consequence of such behavior is waste.
Human beings are problem solvers; it is the part of their nature that distinguishes them from all other species. To be a problem solver, an individual must use the incomplete information available to her/him to build or borrow models or schema which can be used to make predictions about future outcomes that result from the decisions they make. This is important because people make decisions based on predictions about what outcomes might be expected from given actions. But, there are no guarantees in any of the models or schema that are used: all decision making is done under uncertainty. The bottom line is that we must learn to live with this deficiency…we cannot control for it.
Furthermore, order in the world is not obvious it must be looked for. Models and schema can only be constructed by identifying ‘regularities’ that exist within the world. It is always easy to say that there is no order in the world. It is always easy to say that things are meaningless. And, the bigger the picture we work with, say all creation, the easier it is to despair that there is no order. But, fruitful problem solving deals with ‘smaller’ problems…problems that can be managed. It is then through the cumulative effect of constructing more and more models that a ‘macro’ picture of the world can be constructed. We have faith that there is order because we work with models that help us to make better decisions or solve more difficult problems. Still, since all models are tentative and fallible it is easy to find fault with them: any model can be dismissed as ‘wrong’, especially in the most complex situations, those pertaining to human beings and relationships between human beings. Here the models tend to take the form of stories and narratives, incorporating myth, analogical reasoning and metaphors. We must realize, however, that some models are better than others and we can’t just default to ‘looking into the Abyss’ if we want to live as full and meaningful lives as we can. This conclusion will lead us into many more future discussions.
One response to this condition has been the body of literature that emphasis the emptiness or meaningless of life where people feel separated, alone, alienated. Gertrude Himmelfarb discusses this view of life in her essay “On Looking into the Abyss,” a reflection on Lionel Trilling’s essay, “On the Teaching of Modern Literature.” (Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Looking into the Abyss, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994.) Whereas Trilling, in his teaching, was attempting to get his students to “look into the Abyss” and through formal, precise, and serious academic discourse “vitiate the works” and “bring about precisely the opposite of their intended effect,” Himmelfarb observes a new approach to this literature. She sees individuals that not only find the Abyss ‘interesting’ and ‘exciting’ but rather than being turned off by their professors, now follow this attraction into the Abyss, ‘dutifully and gladly’.
Himmelfarb goes on to argue that to many ‘intellectuals’ of the last half of the 20th century, the ‘look into the Abyss’ became a word game, something that people could ‘play around with.’ Their approach was a game that could be played in the classroom or the office or in journal articles or in books and it could lead to tenure or recognition or fame and a pleasant life style. Did it matter to them what the teaching resulted in? Seemingly not. Richard Rorty, for example, argued that if someone did not like the conclusions they were getting from a particular world view they should just change the assumptions that supported this world view until they got a world view that produced the results they wanted. Did it matter whether or not the new world view could help the individual make good decisions or solve difficult problems? Apparently not, for Rorty doesn’t consider the use of the world views in actual decision making or problem solving. It seems that all that matters is for one to have the right or correct conclusions.
A telling example of this approach is presented in David Mamet’s play, “Oleana”. There are two characters in this play, a professor who, we find out, is up for tenure and one of his students. The professor is ‘post modern’ in the sense that he promotes the idea that there is no truth. The student, very much in awe of the professor, is the first of her family to go to college and, to her and her family, getting a college education is the pathway to being successful in the modern world.
Standing in the path of the student is ‘the Abyss’. The professor has put this in front of her; she is intrigued by it and is succumbing to it. The meeting between the professor and his student is in his office and she has come to him because she is conflicted. And, here in the first act, the professor is in the dominant party in the discussion and he sticks to the ‘party line.’
In the second act, the roles are reversed. The world view of the student has collapsed after the meeting with the professor and, in an attempt to grasp onto something, she joined a group that promised her ideological certainty, ‘guarantees’. She has paid back the professor who had destroyed her vision; she made sure that he did not get tenure. We had seen as the first act progressed, that the professor acted as if there were some ‘real truth’ in the world outside his office. His wife, tenure, his house and car were all very important to him. They represented ‘truth’ in the sense that he acted as if his decisions about these mattered. Here we see that outside of his office the professor did have a world view in which some things are more important than others: Some world views are better than others!
A second example is the true story that was first a book, but was then turned into the movie “Into the Wild”. This story is about a young college student who becomes fascinated by the abyss and the unfairness of the world. He arrives at this position using the same literature that Lionel Trilling presented to his students. The student is drawn into a destructive search for separation as a result of his alienation from family and society. He must get away and go ‘into the wild’. Along his journey from college to the Alaskan wild, we see him engaging with people, we see him use his gifts, we see him help others, yet ‘the Abyss’ draws him on. The end…he dies alone in the wilderness.
In these two works we see different responses to the ‘lack of guarantees’. At one extreme, a young student defaults into a group that eliminates her uncertainty. It is a group that presents to her ‘ends’ that she can subscribe to and then gives her the ‘fundamentals’ of an approach to achieve those ends. As she destroys the career of the professor that led her to her disillusionment she cannot be argued with, she can exhibit no sympathy. She is a true believer. At the other end of the spectrum, a young student seeks nothingness…nihilism. To him, there is just a void. The pull of the abyss is strong and he finds it and experiences it, even in spite of his obvious ability to make friends, help people, and act morally.
What is the issue here? To me, the issue is one of how we deal with the fact that in every situation we face we must face it with only incomplete information. Every world view, every model or schema we use to solve problems with is tentative and fallible. There is no certainty to life! There are no guarantees!
So, the first choice, as represented by the student in David Mamet’s play, is not a realistic option. World views, models, religions, or political movements that promise certainty must be strongly enforced and controlled in order to eliminate all possible sources of contradiction. The second choice, nihilism, as represented by the behavior of the student in the book and movie “Into the Wild”, is either partially or totally self-destructive of the individual. The consequence of such behavior is waste.
Human beings are problem solvers; it is the part of their nature that distinguishes them from all other species. To be a problem solver, an individual must use the incomplete information available to her/him to build or borrow models or schema which can be used to make predictions about future outcomes that result from the decisions they make. This is important because people make decisions based on predictions about what outcomes might be expected from given actions. But, there are no guarantees in any of the models or schema that are used: all decision making is done under uncertainty. The bottom line is that we must learn to live with this deficiency…we cannot control for it.
Furthermore, order in the world is not obvious it must be looked for. Models and schema can only be constructed by identifying ‘regularities’ that exist within the world. It is always easy to say that there is no order in the world. It is always easy to say that things are meaningless. And, the bigger the picture we work with, say all creation, the easier it is to despair that there is no order. But, fruitful problem solving deals with ‘smaller’ problems…problems that can be managed. It is then through the cumulative effect of constructing more and more models that a ‘macro’ picture of the world can be constructed. We have faith that there is order because we work with models that help us to make better decisions or solve more difficult problems. Still, since all models are tentative and fallible it is easy to find fault with them: any model can be dismissed as ‘wrong’, especially in the most complex situations, those pertaining to human beings and relationships between human beings. Here the models tend to take the form of stories and narratives, incorporating myth, analogical reasoning and metaphors. We must realize, however, that some models are better than others and we can’t just default to ‘looking into the Abyss’ if we want to live as full and meaningful lives as we can. This conclusion will lead us into many more future discussions.
Friday, February 1, 2008
What’s Missing?
In 2007, I went to a marvelous art exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a major exhibition of the work of Andrew Wyeth. I was expecting to be pleasantly entertained by the works on display and to renew memories of paintings, some of which, I had seen many times before. I considered Wyeth a ‘realistic’ painter with some existential leanings, whose work expressed longing, loneliness, and a world that was rather bleak. Little did I know that I would come away from the exhibit with a completely different view of Wyeth and what one could take away from his art work.
The epiphany came when I got to the work called Groundhog Day and read the commentary that accompanied it. After experiencing this I had to obtain the book associated with the exhibition, Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2005) and especially read an analysis of Groundhog Day by Kathleen A. Foster titled “Meaning and Medium in Wyeth’s Art: Revisiting Groundhog Day.” In this essay, Ms. Foster took me beyond the seemingly simple and realistic world of Groundhog Day and informed me about what was behind the painting; what was missing in the final presentation. I found the revelations enlightening and, in many cases, mind boggling.
To begin with the title of the work, Groundhog Day, seems to suggest “a very particular day—February 2, 1959—and the timeless distillation of days past and future, of lives played out in this place.” (Page 85: all page references are to the book referenced above.) Yet, we learn that the name of the painting does not refer to the day the painting was done or a day the artist might have been trying to capture. The painting was named by Wyeth’s wife Betsy and is named for the day that the painting was completed. In effect, the title of the painting has very little, if anything, to do with the work itself. Therefore, can one argue that the name of the painting has absolutely nothing to do with the painting itself…or, is it part of the meaning?
The scene depicted in the painting appears to be a serene picture with the immediate focus in the forefront of an ivory plate, coffee cup and saucer and a knife on a grayish (because it is not in the direct light) table top. Behind the table is wall paper and above the table and setting is a window that dominates the picture. Through the window we see a fence with barbed wire and the end of a tree trunk that has been sawed and has a very jagged edge where the two parts of the trunk were violently separated because the saw did not cut all the way through the trunk. The sun is relatively low in the sky because the shadows are closer to the horizontal than the vertical…it is getting on in the afternoon. The whole picture seems benign except for the jagged edge observed on the severed tree trunk. An interpretation: “peace” with “violence suppressed.” (85)
We learn from Foster that there are sixty surviving studies and related works that “reveal the metamorphosis of this image and suggests the layered content of the painting.” (85) For example, we learn that the place at the table is set for Karl Kuerner who was a brutal character himself, a veteran of the German army in WWI. He was a machine-gunner, deer slayer, hog butcher, and master of death. He was a surrogate father to Wyeth after Wyeth’s father was killed: here is the absence of the surrogate father representing the absence of the real father? (86)
The initial drawings of the room showed the wife Anna in the corner with a dog curled up on the cushion next to her. A table is barely hinted at. (88) The early drawings were done quickly and scribbled and different schemes were tried…one in which Anna is done in silhouette against the window. But, Anna proves to be too restless, too inaccessible. (90) Anna is drawn with the dog (the violent foil to Anna’s domesticity) and then the dog becomes more and more important…more and more intense. (91) Now the window creeps in…the dog and the window…the inside and the outside…the bright, cold, wild, unfriendly outside and the calm and snug inside…the dangerous and the less free. (92) The dog disappears! There is just the window and the outside captures more sunlight and the interior becomes darker.
Then, Wyeth gets interested in the table…and the plate, the cup and the knife. Representations of Anna are found as freshly baked German bread or flowers on the teacup, but, in the final, Anna is not remembered on the table. (94) From there Wyeth focuses on the wallpaper. The existence of Anna is seen now in the wallpaper…an expression of Anna for the pattern reflects Pennsylvania German peasant taste in modern mode…determinedly gay and yet somehow forlorn in its promise of springtime and domestic tranquility. The wallpaper is all that remains of Anna in the final rendition of the picture. (95)
Attention moves to the log outside. Soon the dog is moved outside and the dog appears in front of the log. Then focus is placed on the jagged log and the light is changed to emphasize the ‘bared fangs’ of the splintered log. (99) But, now Wyeth starts to remove things…he knows too much!
The final painting is slightly ‘off center’. He telescopes space and makes the surface of the painting ‘two-dimensional’. The conventional rules of perspective are ignored for the diagonals of the interior never resolve into a single vanishing point. Instead, they suggest multiple viewpoints. (101) Tension in the room is therefore increased. Long shadows on the grass imply that the sun is low in the sky while the bars on the wall seem to indicate sun from an earlier time in the day: late and early…fall and spring?
The terrain rises outside the window and blocks any concept of distance…and to the left at the top, there are some ‘tormented trees’ and darkness. Is the wind blowing in an ominous fashion to indicate something unsettled in the future? (102) Peace and orderliness prevail inside while there is a menacing energy, puzzling shadows and disturbed trees outside. Again, late and early…fall and spring? The picture is made up of cross-currents and contradictions. Yet, so much is missing!
And, this was what struck me so. Not the picture itself. Not the tension. Not the apparent realistic nature of the painting. What struck me was that there is so much about the picture that isn’t there. In fact, just looking at the picture and studying it and analyzing it doesn’t get you anywhere near the richness and depth of what is really present (implicitly as well as explicitly). The essence of the picture, which is done in realistic detail, is not solely captured in what is present in the picture…but must include what is missing!
We are dealing with a situation in which Wyeth is, in a sense, god. The painting that Wyeth completed is the ‘world’ as Wyeth presents it to us. Wyeth is the only one who has complete information as to what should be in the picture and what is implied in the picture. We only have incomplete information. We don’t know what the clues are in the information that is given to us in the picture. Is there meaning there? Is there order there? What about Anna? What about Karl? What about the dog? And, so on and so on.
We have the studies that Wyeth created in order to develop the final rendition of Groundhog Day. We have things that Wyeth has said or has written about the painting. We have the interpretation given to the work by trained experts like Kathleen Foster. And, we have our own experience that we bring to the vision and analysis of the painting. But, we still have to wonder, “What is missing?” We can ask questions about the meaning of the picture and the objects that are in the picture, but, we never know what the questions are that we should be asking if we want to more fully understand the painting.
This is what is true of all the situations that we face in life. We can argue that ‘there is nothing there’ and interpret the pictures in terms of existential angst and alienation. Or we can look at the world as one of Wyeth’s paintings arguing that ‘there is something there’; it is just that there is so much more to see in it than we, at present, can see. As Jacob Bronowski wrote, “order is hard to find, one must work to find it.” And, that is our task…to observe the creation that we are a part of and seek to find order in it, realizing, of course, that we can never see it all…we look through a glass darkly.
The epiphany came when I got to the work called Groundhog Day and read the commentary that accompanied it. After experiencing this I had to obtain the book associated with the exhibition, Andrew Wyeth: Memory and Magic (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2005) and especially read an analysis of Groundhog Day by Kathleen A. Foster titled “Meaning and Medium in Wyeth’s Art: Revisiting Groundhog Day.” In this essay, Ms. Foster took me beyond the seemingly simple and realistic world of Groundhog Day and informed me about what was behind the painting; what was missing in the final presentation. I found the revelations enlightening and, in many cases, mind boggling.
To begin with the title of the work, Groundhog Day, seems to suggest “a very particular day—February 2, 1959—and the timeless distillation of days past and future, of lives played out in this place.” (Page 85: all page references are to the book referenced above.) Yet, we learn that the name of the painting does not refer to the day the painting was done or a day the artist might have been trying to capture. The painting was named by Wyeth’s wife Betsy and is named for the day that the painting was completed. In effect, the title of the painting has very little, if anything, to do with the work itself. Therefore, can one argue that the name of the painting has absolutely nothing to do with the painting itself…or, is it part of the meaning?
The scene depicted in the painting appears to be a serene picture with the immediate focus in the forefront of an ivory plate, coffee cup and saucer and a knife on a grayish (because it is not in the direct light) table top. Behind the table is wall paper and above the table and setting is a window that dominates the picture. Through the window we see a fence with barbed wire and the end of a tree trunk that has been sawed and has a very jagged edge where the two parts of the trunk were violently separated because the saw did not cut all the way through the trunk. The sun is relatively low in the sky because the shadows are closer to the horizontal than the vertical…it is getting on in the afternoon. The whole picture seems benign except for the jagged edge observed on the severed tree trunk. An interpretation: “peace” with “violence suppressed.” (85)
We learn from Foster that there are sixty surviving studies and related works that “reveal the metamorphosis of this image and suggests the layered content of the painting.” (85) For example, we learn that the place at the table is set for Karl Kuerner who was a brutal character himself, a veteran of the German army in WWI. He was a machine-gunner, deer slayer, hog butcher, and master of death. He was a surrogate father to Wyeth after Wyeth’s father was killed: here is the absence of the surrogate father representing the absence of the real father? (86)
The initial drawings of the room showed the wife Anna in the corner with a dog curled up on the cushion next to her. A table is barely hinted at. (88) The early drawings were done quickly and scribbled and different schemes were tried…one in which Anna is done in silhouette against the window. But, Anna proves to be too restless, too inaccessible. (90) Anna is drawn with the dog (the violent foil to Anna’s domesticity) and then the dog becomes more and more important…more and more intense. (91) Now the window creeps in…the dog and the window…the inside and the outside…the bright, cold, wild, unfriendly outside and the calm and snug inside…the dangerous and the less free. (92) The dog disappears! There is just the window and the outside captures more sunlight and the interior becomes darker.
Then, Wyeth gets interested in the table…and the plate, the cup and the knife. Representations of Anna are found as freshly baked German bread or flowers on the teacup, but, in the final, Anna is not remembered on the table. (94) From there Wyeth focuses on the wallpaper. The existence of Anna is seen now in the wallpaper…an expression of Anna for the pattern reflects Pennsylvania German peasant taste in modern mode…determinedly gay and yet somehow forlorn in its promise of springtime and domestic tranquility. The wallpaper is all that remains of Anna in the final rendition of the picture. (95)
Attention moves to the log outside. Soon the dog is moved outside and the dog appears in front of the log. Then focus is placed on the jagged log and the light is changed to emphasize the ‘bared fangs’ of the splintered log. (99) But, now Wyeth starts to remove things…he knows too much!
The final painting is slightly ‘off center’. He telescopes space and makes the surface of the painting ‘two-dimensional’. The conventional rules of perspective are ignored for the diagonals of the interior never resolve into a single vanishing point. Instead, they suggest multiple viewpoints. (101) Tension in the room is therefore increased. Long shadows on the grass imply that the sun is low in the sky while the bars on the wall seem to indicate sun from an earlier time in the day: late and early…fall and spring?
The terrain rises outside the window and blocks any concept of distance…and to the left at the top, there are some ‘tormented trees’ and darkness. Is the wind blowing in an ominous fashion to indicate something unsettled in the future? (102) Peace and orderliness prevail inside while there is a menacing energy, puzzling shadows and disturbed trees outside. Again, late and early…fall and spring? The picture is made up of cross-currents and contradictions. Yet, so much is missing!
And, this was what struck me so. Not the picture itself. Not the tension. Not the apparent realistic nature of the painting. What struck me was that there is so much about the picture that isn’t there. In fact, just looking at the picture and studying it and analyzing it doesn’t get you anywhere near the richness and depth of what is really present (implicitly as well as explicitly). The essence of the picture, which is done in realistic detail, is not solely captured in what is present in the picture…but must include what is missing!
We are dealing with a situation in which Wyeth is, in a sense, god. The painting that Wyeth completed is the ‘world’ as Wyeth presents it to us. Wyeth is the only one who has complete information as to what should be in the picture and what is implied in the picture. We only have incomplete information. We don’t know what the clues are in the information that is given to us in the picture. Is there meaning there? Is there order there? What about Anna? What about Karl? What about the dog? And, so on and so on.
We have the studies that Wyeth created in order to develop the final rendition of Groundhog Day. We have things that Wyeth has said or has written about the painting. We have the interpretation given to the work by trained experts like Kathleen Foster. And, we have our own experience that we bring to the vision and analysis of the painting. But, we still have to wonder, “What is missing?” We can ask questions about the meaning of the picture and the objects that are in the picture, but, we never know what the questions are that we should be asking if we want to more fully understand the painting.
This is what is true of all the situations that we face in life. We can argue that ‘there is nothing there’ and interpret the pictures in terms of existential angst and alienation. Or we can look at the world as one of Wyeth’s paintings arguing that ‘there is something there’; it is just that there is so much more to see in it than we, at present, can see. As Jacob Bronowski wrote, “order is hard to find, one must work to find it.” And, that is our task…to observe the creation that we are a part of and seek to find order in it, realizing, of course, that we can never see it all…we look through a glass darkly.
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