Not for the Uninitiated

So the UK has voted for Brexit.  That's the will of the people!  There has been much written and spoken on the outcome of the referendum and I have no wish to continue that specific debate in this post.  However, the Brexit issue has prompted me to concentrate my recent thinking on the role of referenda generally within the nation's governance.  In particular, are we as citizens adequately qualified to make sensible judgements on highly complex socio-economic problems?

Let's take a look at the issue of competence and the role of experts.  There's something rather quaint about making decisions on important issues by combining the expertise of 'experts' with the pragmatism of 'the people'.  The justice system for determining guilt or innocence is a classic example.  Richard Dawkins in his essay "Trial by Jury", questions why in a court of law, twelve jurors selected from 'ordinary people' are preferred to a single 'expert' judge when determining important verdicts affecting people's lives.  From his logical analysis, he concludes:

"And should I be charged with a serious crime, here's how I want to be tried.  If I know myself to be guilty, I'll go with the loose cannon of a jury, the more ignorant, prejudiced and capricious the better.  But if I am innocent........, please give me a judge."

Basically, Dawkins argues that better judgements are likely to be achieved by an 'expert' judge than by a collection of well-intentioned, but collectively influenced, 'amateur' jurors.  In fact, he goes further to suggest that multiple and independent judges might provide an even more reliable verdict.  That seems to make sense to an amateur like me!  " Trial by Jury" is one of the essays included in Richard Dawkins' book, "A Devil's Chaplain", published in 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Devil's_Chaplain.  It is a good read and I recommend it to the enquiring reader.

Let's extend Dawkins' reasoning to referenda.  Why should a slight majority verdict of a sample of the voting public (they don't all vote) produce a better decision than a consensus of independent experts?  I ask this rhetorical question in good faith particularly when the outcomes of so many referenda are rarely resounding YESs or resounding NOs, which begs yet another rhetorical question, why not just toss a coin and save the vast expenditure of an ineffective (in my opinion) democratic process?  I am really not intending to be flippant.  I have a genuine concern about the validity of any decision-making process that purports to produce a simple one-dimensional answer from a multi-dimensional complex problem, particularly when the process is so often underpinned by a plethora of at best inaccurate, and at worst false, arguments.

I am not intending to rubbish our political processes but merely suggesting that some highly complex issues are definitely not for the uninitiated but should perhaps be left to our democratically elected institutions.  Indeed, why not entrust major decisions to elected MPs, guided by cross-party select committees and drawing on the expertise of suitably qualified experts, within and outside government?  I thought that's what parliamentary democracy was all about!

Whether something is right or wrong is a matter of judgement, whether it is correct or incorrect will become apparent in time.

It's the volts that jolts but it's the mills that kills....so what?!

Many years ago when an electrician was installing a new distribution box in my home, he said:

"It's the volts that jolts but it's the mills that kills."

I remember it well because shortly after making the statement he got an electric shock, which fortunately wasn't serious.  High voltage without the ability to deliver high current is normally not a killer.  In the case of the electrician, however, he was lucky because 240 volts from a mains electricity source, which is capable of delivering many amps, thousands of milliamps or 'mills', can cause serious injury and indeed has been known to kill.  Compare that with the 'belt' that I got yesterday when I closed the door on my car, after my teeshirt had rubbed against the seat upholstery causing a static electric discharge of possibly several kilovolts but from a high resistance source capable of delivering a minuscule amount of current.  In that case I experienced a jolt but the consequence was harmless.  So it's volts times amps, which happens to equal power, which determines the lethality of the jolt.

In the military world, there's another well-known saying:

"Threat equals intent times capability."

So a hostile state might hate you vehemently but without the military capability to put their words into action, they do not pose a threat.  Likewise, a neighbouring country might possess formidable weaponry but have no desire to use it against you, in which case the threat to you is minimal.  "Intent" is analogous to "volts", "capability" is analogous to "mills".

There are many other electrical power analogies within life's journeys.  How many people have we met in our lives who are all words (volts) but no action (mills), or conversely have no intention to introduce positive changes (volts) despite having the capability (mills)?  A few prominent politicians spring to mind!  But whilst there might be a degree of self-satisfaction each time we spot an occurrence of human behaviour that follows a very simple and demonstrable relationship, I don't believe it furthers the understanding of the complexities of life.  Indeed, breaking down relationships into manageable chunks, which might follow simple but obvious rules, can, in my opinion, lead to a false sense of security and ignorance.

The economics discipline is full of simple rules that are used in different ways to explain and try to introduce an element of certainty into a chaotic world.  Even the simple laws of supply and demand have been subjected to much criticism by eminent economists who can provide cases where the expected relationships between supply, demand and price do not hold.  Indeed, many would argue that economics per se is case-based rather than rule-based.

It is a rule that Power in Watts = Voltage in Volts x Current in Amps, although there are some assumptions underpinning that statement.  That said, in some cases, the volts will jolt and the mills will kill.  The electrician who installed my distribution box was very lucky because although there were enough mills to kill him, they didn't!

So beware of any physical rule or law that purports to apply to and provide some sort of certainty to societal behaviour.  The perception of certainty kills wisdom!

The Use and Abuse of 'Objectivity'.

My comment to an excellent post published by Humberto Mariotti - Big data: one more illusion (a second look) - was whether it's time to remove 'objectivity' from the English language, or at least redefine it.  Humberto suggested I might like to write a post on my proposal.  Well here it is!

Let's start with a definition of objectivity from macmillandictionary.com:

"A state or situation in which something is based only on facts and evidence."

"....facts and evidence" are, in my opinion, the two nouns that belittle the definition, because both are based on perception.  OK, so let's amend it to "....perceived facts and evidence".  Not sensible, I'm afraid, unless we personalise 'objectivity' to the observer's perception, in which case, by definition, 'objectivity' becomes 'subjectivity'.

Here in the UK, we are being bombarded daily with 'facts and evidence' to encourage us either to vote to stay in the European Union (EU) or conversely, to exit from the EU.  Often the same 'fact' is used to support the two different arguments!  So for example, the UK's net contribution to the EU budget of €7.3bn (a 'fact' that is also disputed!) is seen to the 'remain' group as an 'investment' but to the 'exit' group as a 'cost'.  Numbers might be considered to be as factual as you can get but the way numbers are presented and interpreted is bound to be subjective.

There is a fallacy (in my opinion!) that the aspiration for objectivity can be achieved by obtaining a consensus of opinions and this is an argument used by some for trial by jury.  Richard Dawkins pours scorn on this argument in his essay on the subject, which he concludes as follows:

"If I know myself to be guilty, I'll go with the loose cannon of a jury, the more ignorant, prejudiced and capricious the better.  But if I am innocent [....] please give me a judge."

His disparaging opinion of trial by jury results from his view that the twelve assessments of the jury members locked in a jury room are unlikely to be independent.  Their views can be massively swayed by one or two vocal individuals.  So why should a jury be more 'objective' than a judge?'

Returning to the title - The Use and Abuse of 'Objectivity' - I believe the noun 'objectivity' does have a meaning where it is used to express an aspiration.  We all strive to establish the 'truth' of the world in which we exist and as I have written before, our perceptions are formed by aggregating different perspectives throughout our lives.  We might see our personal subjectivities as objectivities - perception is reality - but the real objective truth, whilst existing, will never be discovered or confirmed by mere homo sapiens.

I can live with that!

Integrating Perspectives - In Search of Reality

I've long since given up publishing regular blog posts - weekly, monthly, whatever.  Some people even do it daily.  It can become a ritual where you are in danger of writing something even if the finished result wasn't worth the effort.  These days it takes an event, or a number of happenings, to stimulate me into action.  This time it was a critical review of one of my previous posts - Whatever Happened to the Balance Scorecard? - as well as cleaning my spectacles and an excellent post by Humberto Mariotti - Why "philosophical consulting"? - that were the catalysts for this post.

The critic of my post on the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), questioned my credentials as an 'expert' on the subject, even though I had never made such a claim.  It got me thinking about perspective - point of view.  Clearly my perspective was different to my critic's but could either be described as 'expert'.  There is no doubt they are different and I suggest there could be many more.  In some respects the *points* of view were very similar in that we were both viewing the usefulness of the BSC from a business perspective but our experiences had been quite different, which had led to entirely different *perceptions*.  I will return to the notion of perception later in this post.

The next event of significance to this post was the cleaning of my spectacles.  My wife has an ultrasonic jewellery cleaner and when she was using it recently, she asked me if I would like to clean my spectacles, which I did.  The result was staggering.  Whilst I clean my specs from time to time using a cloth, I know they had not been thoroughly cleaned for years and I had been thinking I needed my eyes testing and a new prescription.  But when I tried the newly-cleaned glasses it was as though the varifocal lenses were to a new prescription, fully compensating for my eye defects.  I viewed my surroundings with far greater clarity.  At this point, I thought of writing a post, which I'm glad I didn't, using the clean spectacles as a simple example of differing perspectives.  It could have been used as a model to try to explain variations in 'points of view', by viewing the world with different 'lenses'.  But I was in danger of falling into the trap of trying to explain complex behaviours with a simple model, which from my experience rarely works.  Indeed, that could be the major flaw with the Balanced Scorecard!

The final event that prompted me to write this post was when I read Humbert Mariotti's post on "philosophical consulting".  Humberto explains how dangerous it is to make decisions by analysis alone but rather we should use a combination of analytical and intuitive/perceptive thinking.  He explains how difficult this is because from an early age we are taught and encouraged to use analysis (rather than synthesis) to understand and solve problems.

These three events prompted me to think (and write) about perspectives because when examining perspectives, like the BSC example, we tend to be driven by our analytical prowess.  Yes it is important to understand different perspectives, the different 'lenses' that people use to view life's complexities.  But *perspective* is different from *perception*.  Perspective refers to a point of view, whereas perception refers to interpretation through awareness.  Different perspectives help us to create our perceptions.  Perception is not about embracing a single perspective.  It is an integration of different, ideas, values, attributes and experiences, which give rise to an insight.

So what about my example of life's 'lenses'?  Too simple, I'm afraid because to understand different *perceptions* using that rudimentary model would involve exploring and integrating the vision from a plethora of interdependent 'lenses', which destroys the simplicity of the model.

It's yet more food for thought!

Hoodies and Oldies

I am fortunate to live in a city with ethnic, cultural and age diversity.  I believe a balanced demographic provides a richness in society that is not apparent in more close-knit communities.  It is in stark contrast with, for example, the area where my parents lived during the last few decades of their lives, which I won't name for fear of upsetting the natives, but suffice to say it is known by some as "Costa Geriatrica."  In my opinion, the narrowness of their community and in particular the predominance of elderly citizens, accelerated their mental, rather than physical, ageing process.

Diversity has its problems but only for those who don't embrace it and feel more comfortable with a peer group of similar attributes, such as skin colour, religion, place of birth, sporting preference, age, sexuality .... whatever.  The optimum mix of individuals varies dependant upon the type of activity - it's horses for courses.  In the business world, for example, the types of contributors who would be brought together for, say, a company acquisition, would be quite different from a team to promote a new product, or a group engaged in cutting-edge technology Research and Development activities.

I recently witnessed optimal diversity in the animal world when I had the opportunity to accompany a well-respected and highly-competent dog walker.  Big Stan's Dog Walking, http://bigstansdogwalking.co.uk, is a sole trader business, owned and operated by Big Stan, better known to his customers and friends simply as Stan!  To watch Stan walking his dogs is 'diversity in action'!  He collects the dogs, of all breeds, sizes, ages and temperaments, from their homes and they travel in his SUV, without cages, to various local parks.  He groups the dogs for collection into two categories, Hoodies and Oldies.  The 'labels' are misleading because age doesn't really come into it but rather the level of boisterousness - high for Hoodies and not quite so high for Oldies.  The way the different dogs relate to each other and to Stan is a joy to watch.  They are all off the lead and they are well-behaved with no aggression towards each other or other dogs in the park.

That dog-walking experience demonstrated to me more in half a day than many managers learn (or don't!) throughout their careers on organisational dynamics.  A happy team is a productive team, whether it's dogs on a walk or a group of tradespersons building a house.  The labels, such as hoodies, oldies, labrador, poodle, mongrel, carpenter, bricklayer, electrician ...., are interesting but of secondary importance to what, in my opinion, are the prime ingredients for success - diversity and harmony.  Now some would contend that financial incentives also have a part to play but returning to the doggie world and in the words of Josh Billings:

Money will buy a pretty good dog, but it won't buy the wag of his tail.