We are looking for monocausal, linear relationships in a dynamic, multicausal, non-linear world. If we knock the ball with a certain force from the edge of the table, it will fall to the ground at a precisely calculable speed. From A follows B – quite naturally. Our brain loves such obvious relationships. They enable us to find our way through the world and understand what is happening around us.
If, on the other hand, we knock the same ball off the edge of the table and suddenly face the problem of picking up three bouncing balls from the floor, we will involuntarily wonder where the other two balls come from. Has anyone taken the liberty of joking with us and, unnoticed, thrown two more balls in between? Or was it a rare subspecies of the standard ball type that splits into several smaller balls on contact with the ground? From our limited perspective, the answer is very hard to come by – if at all.
That is, in a nutshell, the world we face every day. The two additional balls can symbolize any situation whose causes are not immediately apparent to us[1].
Note: In order not to be misunderstood at this point – of course in the vast majority of cases only a single ball will touch the ground when we knock down a single one. The analogy presented here is not to be understood as a rejection of classical physical interactions, but rather as a sharpening of awareness for the occurrence of unexpected events[2].
In our example, we naturally expect the combination of our push and the individual ball to cause exactly one ball to fall to the ground. The whole is therefore the sum of its parts.
The idea behind the terms multicausal and nonlinear deserves a closer look.
Multicausal means that a multitude of influences can lead to a specific result. So far, so simple. However, it is not unlikely that we cannot recognize some of these influences at all. This opacity, was described, for example, in 1850 by the French philosopher Frédéric Bastiat in his parable of the broken window as “That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen”[3]. Many of the things we do often have unintended side-effects, of which we are not always aware. Conversely, just as many variables influence our lives which we do not consciously perceive, but which are nevertheless present.
Non-linearity can also be described by the word emergence. Many will have heard of the statement “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” (and not only because I just described the antagonism). One ball suddenly turns into three and nobody really knows how that actually happened. Out of 100 billion neurons in the brain, fascinating structures such as consciousness, the recipe for pizza and depression, emerge. Nevertheless, we still don’t know exactly how consciousness is actually created – only that it exists as an emergent property of all combined neurons.
Our brain therefore does not understand itself and has to cope with a world that is just as poorly understood. Neolithic brains in a digital world. Well, if these are not ideal conditions for complete despair.
At this point, however, one should not lose heart and throw in the towel. As opaque, random and confusing as life may often seem, there are promising ideas that can help us manoeuvre through this maze. I will introduce some of them in detail on the following chapters. But it is possible that not everyone will find what they are looking for. That’s ok. This is the multivariability of life. I don’t claim to offer the solution to the most pressing questions of humanity, but I do offer some inspirational approaches to overcoming the challenges of everyday life.
Speaking of life: I would like to begin by sharpening your awareness of a trivial but at the same time enormously significant relationship. Life is complexity.
It is very easy to declare this statement obvious and without further thought, to put it aside. Of course, each of us knows that life is a string of innumerable facets and that we are never aware of all influences. But do we really know that?
To be able to grasp this fact rationally on the one hand and to act on it at the same time is not automatically identical. Imagine eating in a restaurant and being treated very unfriendly by the waitress. What thoughts go through your mind? Is this person just an unpleasant fellow? An asshole? She can certainly forget the tip. Such thoughts are intuitive, often we don’t think long about why a person behaves in a certain way, especially when we are negatively affected. The reasons for this can be exceptionally diverse. Let us remember Bastiat’s “That Which Is Not Seen”. Perhaps the work of the waitress was preceded by an argument with a colleague or a partner and she was not yet able to deal with it emotionally in an appropriate way. Maybe another guest behaved in an invasive way because he misunderstood her professional hospitality as affection and now she expects a similar treatment if she appears friendly again.
As a matter of fact: we don’t know. It is always only a small excerpt from the lives of others that we perceive and most of the causes of their behaviour are hidden.
But it is not only in relation to strangers that this happens to us, we ourselves also face the daily challenge of mastering our lives on the basis of imperfect information. This statement may also appear very trivial at first glance, but our brain is a true magician when it comes to convincing us that we have more knowledge and therefore more control than we actually possess.
This is also to a large extent the reason for the attractiveness of the utopian promises of various ideologies of salvation or political theories. They wrap a complex world in handy, beautifully labeled boxes and provide exactly the answers we so long for. Knowing what is good or bad creates security and structure.
If we were more aware of the manifold ways and abbreviations the human mind takes to have as little effort as possible and to continuously surrender ourselves to the illusion of understanding the world, things might have been different in the history of humanity. Had. Perhaps. Possibly. The thinking in conjunctives is extremely luring for those who are not completely satisfied with their current life situation. But who is?
The human mind is driven by the need to recognize meaning in one’s own and others’ actions. We can hardly bear to find ourselves in situations whose causes are not apparent to us. Our mind searches for linear relationships in a complex, non-linear world. No wonder that so many regularly despair over it.
How do we find the balance between aspiration and reality?
Footnotes
[1] Boeing, G. (2016). “Visual Analysis of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems: Chaos, Fractals, Self-Similarity and the Limits of Prediction”. Systems. 4 (4): 37.
[2] Technically speaking, this example is somewhat shortened anyway, because it assumes linear proportionality. A change in the impact force causes a proportional change in the speed at which it moves towards the ground. However, not every linear change is necessarily proportional, even if every proportionality also implies linearity. However, this should not be a hindrance for the fundamental understanding.
[3] Bastiat, Frédéric (1850). That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen
