“These towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas sit at the heart of M16, or the Eagle Nebula. The aptly named Pillars of Creation, featured in this stunning Hubble image, are part of an active star-forming region within the nebula and hide newborn stars in their wispy columns.
Stretching roughly 4 to 5 light-years, the Pillars of Creation are a fascinating but relatively small feature of the entire Eagle Nebula, which spans 70 by 55 light-years …[and] is located some 6,500 – 7,000 light years from Earth.” [1]
Source: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-pillars-of-creation
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Looking outward to space gives us perspective, of our own smallness but also our uniqueness. And we start to get glimpses of the foundations of our universe, what underpins everything.
Let’s return to that first question, the only question: how should we live today. In this world, right now, today. We cannot hope to answer this without understanding the world and ourselves; which in turn is something we cannot hope to do unless we understand how see the world and ourselves.
And now we have made progress. Because over the past four Essays we need have given ourselves a working framework, through which to see the world, through which we can employ to interrogate everything we learn.
There are, in fact, [seven] anchor points, broad but important assumptions, to conceptualise and internalise:
- : Hardware: physically, mentally, as humans essentially we haven’t changed for 50,000 years.[1] This is our hardware.
- Our brains are wired to survive in a physically dangerous world which no longer exists and our emotions are therefore often counterproductive if they are not understood and managed.
- Tribes are our world. We long to be in groups, feel immense loyalty to those around us and are prone to innate distrust of outsiders.
- We are wired for comfort and gluttony for sensible evolutionary reasons.
This is what we are.
- Meanwhile the software upon which we run is a function of ideas and cultural foundations built over millennia impose mental straightjackets on us. How we evaluate the world is fundamentally different depending on our cultural heritage.
This is who we are.
- the dragons upon which we ride. We can, at best, hope to nudge our dragons in certain directions and hope they take some notice. We often live in a delusion that our conscious selves are in control, a delusion reinforced by our day to day actions with others who appear entirely rational. But like everyone they are playing an act, refined over lifetimes.
This is how we think and feel.
- : the physical and human worlds are connected between and within themselves in ways so deep we will always struggle to perceive. We delineate the way we view the world into subjects, into science and arts – divided into neat boxes, of biology or physics, of history or music. Many of us will dedicate our lives to living in just one of these boxes. These distinctions are artificial. We should endeavour to think in terms of systems.
The world is a system of which we ourselves are intrinsically a part.
- : there is a continual tension, a balance between change and continuity. Certain forces act as glue, binding physical and human systems as they are, locking them in for extended periods. Others act as agitation, pulling elements apart and engendering change. When change occurs, it can be sudden and dramatic. The trigger for such shifts may be small, or the outcome of seemingly arbitrary conditions with profound consequences. Critically we must break the illusion that our particular reality, the state of the world as it is right now, is necessarily how it had to be.
We should think in terms of equilibria, and how equilibria can shift.
- : waves run through the world and through us. They are the movement of our particles; of our thinking. By perceiving this we begin to understand that we are the function of the past. Our thinking, our behaviour is rooted in our evolutionarily and cultural heritage. It is influenced heavily by our direct family, our immediate ancestors – with their own personal life stories and baggage, that is passed down. And in turn we pass the waves down to the future, to our descendants. We can influence these waves; only in the form of subtle nudges, but such nudges will echo into eternity.
The world, and ourselves, are wavelengths.
- : our perspectives are limited in space and time. We see only fragments of the world, and only caricatures of other people’s worldviews. We struggle to perceive change, or to understand the baselines against how we should measure change because of our limits in perceiving time.
We see only what is in front of us, and reference this against yardsticks of our own making.
These anchor points provide a framework, broad and malleable but useful, that we can use to view the world. It’s not precise or refined. But it gives us something to go on, and if we apply it we will start to see the world much more clearly for what it is. It is, in other words, useable.
The framework is by nature limited to being an approximation. We can only form an incomplete, patchy picture of the whole in our minds – and at any one moment we can only recall and consider a single element of this picture.
And here we have a daunting challenge. How, as regular people, can we properly and completely perceive this complex world when our information is so fragmented and our data sources biased. In this world of overwhelming information, how can we possibly form useful conclusions? How can we form views in the knowledge-limited domains of our own minds?
The answer is to construct models.
Models in our minds.
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Mind models are detailed visualisations of different possible explanations for a question. Once built we can turn over in our hands, feel their weight and texture, examine them from every angle. We can hold these models, these possibilities, to the mirror and perceive their reflections, their opposite. We can interrogate how we feel about the model. We can break down the components of the model and stress test it by asking what would need to occur for the possibility it describes to be true. Mind models go beyond simply making a particular argument. They must not only explain the specific point they are making but instead present an overarching construct which also explains counter arguments. Indeed, to hold particular validity a mind model will not only explain why counter arguments are wrong but why people believe in them.
Only once we have taken the time to create at least two or more of such mind models for any given issue can we make judgement on which is correct.
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A simple example would be gauging whether science or religion explain the universe more credibly. Take the religious view of the world – perceive this as a model; feel its shape, its weight. Do the same for science. Immediately we can see what has gone into forming both. The former is based on thousands of years or human wondering, of our desire to impose hope over fear, to place meaning on a seemingly capricious, chaotic world. The latter, a far more recently built model, based on a desire to seek truth and understanding via objectivity.
When comparing two models and one of them not only explains its own narrative of the world, but also plausibly explains the reason for the existence of the other model itself this is a compelling piece of evidence. Among many things it explains, science presents legitimate bases for the existence of religion. In evolutionary terms early societies strengthened by the inner skeleton of a guiding worldview and moral framework, particularly one which emphasised the importance of individuals subordinating their own objectives in the interests of the collective, would have possessed a profound advantage. Throughout history elites have been better able to ensure acquiescent populations through religion mand therefore control power structures. In psychological terms religion is indeed a powerful opiate to dull the pain and anxiety which stems from being self-aware and it allows people to keep going even in the face of extreme hardships. Religion in turn presents no such explanation for science.
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Now let’s take the example of climate change. We can discuss whether it is real, whether or not it is caused by humans, and, whether we should make it a global priority reverse the build-up greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The first two questions have clear answers and we need not waste our time considering. The third is more complex and, while still the consensus view is now that we quite clearly should allocate substantial time, energy and money to trying to mitigate climate change, or adapt to it, it warrants further exploration.
First, we need to explain why this is an important question when conventional wisdom now emphasises the overriding importance of action on climate change. Even asking the question is perhaps a waste of time we do not have or, worse, a dangerous line of questioning which gives oxygen to climate denial. The question is important, quite simply, because as a global society we will be allocating huge resources over the coming decades, resources which could be applied elsewhere in ways which could make a substantial difference to great sections of society. Millions of lives are at stake – so we had better ensure we have thought this through properly, and with an Overview mindset.
The exact choice is as follows: we should make it a global priority to reverse the build-up of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, to the extent that it takes precedent over other issues. Note the specificity of the point – it is not “should we subsidise renewable energy” or any one of another sub-questions – and its objectivity (greenhouse gas concentrations are either going up or down, and they can be measured).
[also: this is important because we have a lack of information – even if we think it is evident that it is a big problem etc. We trust in science – but unlike a plain ]
And now lets step out of the Overview way of thinking and into our model building mindset. We will get out our toolbox and construct the two most solid models we possibly can – one for and one against the motion of whether
So, to be clear we are now stepping out of our Overview mindset and into model building. We have our toolbox and we are going to go about constructing the most robust and multi-dimensional models we can in both respects.
Let’s start with the argument against making this choice. While it is undoubted that greenhouses gases affect the climate and that global warming is being caused by emissions caused by humans the consequent damage is a future problem that, translated into today’s terms, is dwarfed by other costs. Poverty, for instance kills millions [stat] every year, and anything that holds back progress to prosperity is therefore by definition a killer. Wealthier societies are much better placed to withstand the effects of climate change.
Furthermore, the adverse affects of climate change may be overstated [data – eg hurricanes not getting worse?]. While the scientific establishment has reached a consensus on then need to aggressively fight climate change groupthink and our need to conform has turned this into a religion. Anyone suggesting a need for moderation in our approach, or at least to better articulate the costs of action on climate, are accused of being a denier – a heretic, in other words. Likely in the pay of the fossil fuel industry; even when such people are demonstrably not [examples]. [also: scientists, politicians, clean energy lobbyists: they are actually incentivised to perpetuate the myth]. [and also the watermelons argument?]
And yet carbon dioxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere, with concentrations in late 2020 of just under 413 parts per million. Our society has formed an obsession with this single threat – this trace gas – which obscures the costs of many others – aside from poverty reduction we should not forget the possibility of a nuclear or biological warfare catastrophe, the risks to our specie’s survival posed by AI or increasing pandemics.
Psychologically we are prone to assume we are living in a time of extraordinary potency; a great crossroads and a life or death struggle. This is the basis of doomsday cults throughout time. The cause is part ego; we need to feel we are part of something, that we have a purpose that is aligned with something significant. Existential. It is part our evolution, our hardwiring to see threats to our life.
And we are attracted to things that seem “natural”, in harmony with the planet. This explains the backing for inefficient, marginal technologies such as wind and solar power. As they operate they produce no obvious dirty output – no smoke, hardly any noise – as well as no invisible emissions of greenhouse gases. And yet their construction requires huge quantities of resources – their environmental footprint is obscured from view but nonetheless real in the form of landscapes scarred from strip mining. Of lives ruined through the use of child labour in unlicensed artisanal production of the specific metals required for the vast fleets of wind turbines, solar panels and batteries the world demands. And these are power sources will remain expensive, unreliable – marginal on the grid, which needs to be kept live through the only real and reliable power source – fossil fuels.
So, how does this mind model look?
It is an argument that is precise in its practical dimensions – it is not denying climate change is caused by human activity, but it is specifically explaining that prioritising action to reduce emissions is extremely harmful because of the resources it sucks from other, more important ends. And it has deeper dimensions: it explains why a large proportion of the world’s population believe in and perpetuate a myth, because of issues related to groupthink, our tendency to assume we live at a time of great importance in history, our desire to do good and support natural solutions.
This mind model has some weight to it.
Now, stop again. You have looked at the model from various angles. Now sense how this mind model makes you feel.
Because most of us believe very strongly in the overriding need to fight climate change it might make us feel angry; perhaps bursting with counterarguments – the most obvious of which is that the model is contradicted by the vast bulk of current science. But consider that the model does present an explanation for this – that we have a psychological and cultural framework that can promote what are effectively large-scale delusions. As a combined society we have got things really wrong in the past – we fail to see financial crashes and have overestimated certain threats (those old enough will remember the “millennium bug” with perhaps some nostalgia.
Consider this also: if the model is correct, and we come to recognise this, that is really good news. Vast resources which would have been consumed with a needless repurposing of the world’s economy to reduce emissions can instead be allocated to lifting people out of poverty or making us resilient against the other multiple threats we face.
Again, however, thinking this through may create friction, a mild form of pain, inside you.
[alternatively it may make you feel comfortable, energised – if yuou are in alignment with it etc]
The point here is to be aware of that feeling. Log it and note it as evidence in analysing the model. It might actually be evidence of some level of veracity in arguments presented. If you find yourself looking to counter the model, to find evidence to counter it, to smash it, then perhaps it does raise some points about the quasi-religious nature of the fight against climate change. It might explain why there is such a body of evidence coalesced around the view that we should reduce emissions at all costs.
If you can suspend your judgement, engage your perception, then you will now not only understand how the model looks, but how it feels too.
Ok, pause there. Take a breath.
Because now we are starting over. We are going to build the counter model.
*
The second model starts with this: climate change represents a potentially existential risk to us; its danger is primarily in the future and there is uncertainly on exactly what the consequences will be. However, as we have seen, systems can be inherently fissile, they can go through phase transitions to entirely new conditions. Life on Earth is a single, fragile system, dependent upon very precise climatic conditions.
As we saw in the System of the World Earth’s climate system appears to be characterised by more positive feedback loops than negative ones. This is crucial, and unfortunate. Ice melts and the world traps more heat, so the more ice melts. Tundra melts and releases methane, a greenhouse gas many more times potent that carbon dioxide. [2]
We are truly on a knife edge, and anything threatening this must be treated with the utmost precaution. [to add in: data on Venus or Mars, or other planets and a comparison to Earth]
It is demonstrable that a vast majority of the scientific community supports the need for urgent action on climate. According to NASA multiple studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals1 show that 97 percent or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree: Climate-warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.[3] This in itself does not necessarily substantiate the truth of a position; groupthink is a real danger. But the fact that so many scientists in varied disciplines have independently observed the impacts of climate change upon their own areas of study is important.
[nb: need to make the link between a scientific consensus on anthropogenic induced CC and why this is a risk – data on cost to economy etc but make this more real by talking about people actually dying of heatstroke, in the shade. See Ezra Klein podcast].
Well informed sceptics will point to areas where the data are more blurry – establishing whether or not extreme weather events have got more regular or severe in recent decades is challenging, and positively identifying climate change as the culprit even more so. But such arguments are by nature backward looking; they ignore the stark reality of what the future is likely to hold if we stay with our current trajectory. Crucially, they ignore the fact that the power of compound interest will work against us. Any in any case the over-arching long-term trends are clear, unequivocal. [insert 100 year graph on temperature changes etc]
Investment should be undertaken now, even if it represents a sizeable proportion of our total budgets or it will be far more expensive – crippling in fact – in future. The power of compound interest can work for or against us.
Furthermore, many of the investments we need to make are not really costs at all because increasingly environmentally friendly technologies are the cheapest and best options available in any case. By 2019 renewable energy was the cheapest form of energy for two-thirds of the world’s population.[4] The enduring image of wind and solar power as a marginal, inefficient technology, a hippy dream that will provide only token amounts of power while blighting our landscapes is now a highly damaging untruth – a misunderstanding perpetuated even by well- informed and intentioned sceptics. In 2019 97% of net energy capacity additions in developed countries were renewable, and 3% were fossil fuels.[5] This fundamental truth about the singular fact or where we obtain our power has implications in much wider senses.
Indeed, this blows apart the whole myth of a perceived trade-off between economic development and environmental stewardship. This notion, that it is not possible for people to emerge from poverty and to prosper without pollution stems from one, specific happenstance: that that it was energy in fossil form that fuelled the industrial revolution, that phase transition which irrevocably changed our society, propelling us out of the daily toil of the agrarian feudal world and ultimately into the world of our own. Oil, coal and fossil gas: these are truly extraordinarily useful forms of energy but come at the cost of intense localised pollution, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. Two and a half century of well-funded interests have worked into our psyche the belief that prosperity can only be achieved through the potency of fossil fuels and that cleaning up has a cost.
This is similar to the domination of the agricultural world that chemical companies have based on the perception that we can only feed the world by dosing the soil with massive amounts of herbicide and pesticide. And because of our baselines, our limits of seeing change over time, we see this as how it has always been, how it will always be. In fact, to a large degree there is no such trade off – a clean energy system just represents better technology, that will bring cheaper reliable power, with no localised pollutants as well as no greenhouse gas emissions. To take a single example: solar power allows children who previously had no access to electricity to study at night without the health and safety issues of burning kerosene in their homes.
Spent wisely, every dollar spent on renewable energy will create multiples of this value to the economy and society. Investment in renewables will generate material value to the economy and society quickly, and with high impact. In 2020 The International Renewable Energy Agency (“IRENA”) estimated that such measures could stimulate global GDP gains of almost $100 trillion above a business-as-usual scenario by 2050, while quadrupling the number of jobs in the sector to 42 million, helping to reduce the energy industry’s CO2 emissions by 70% and leading to significant improvements in global health and welfare. [6]
Given the scale of the challenge it will be necessary to invest in some technologies which represent a genuine dead loss to society – for instance simply capturing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and locking it away underground may be needed at large scale. But the point remains that in many ways the investments required to mitigate and adapt to climate change are simply good investments.
So, how does this model explain itself. First, in respect of groupthink: science is based on the premise of seeking through, of objectivity. Scientists if anything are incentivised to seek to counter the consensus: if anyone could prove that the basis of the human-induced climate change argument was flawed they would earn great fame (not to mention have the happy status of being a bearer of really good news). Scientists are not paid or incentivised to perpetuate a global warming myth. Further, researchers in extremely varied disciplines are seeing the effects of climate change in real time across the globe [add in examples].
And how does the model explain the counter model? There is always an attraction to a certain type of person, an intellectual, to be the contrarian. This temptation is amplified because of the extent of the consensus position: given the vast numbers of people parroting the climate narrative it is natural that a motivated and well-informed sceptic will see multiple lines of attack, particularly against emotionally-based green arguments, or those that are genuinely simply a trojan horse for a left wing agenda. Such contrarians tend to be white, middle aged and somewhat backward looking – suspicious of the progressive movement, emphasising the importance of common sense, a hard look at the underlying science. They focus on whether the climate has actually changed that much, and also that the climate changes continually in any case. This misses the need to look to the future, to understand the nature of compound interest. It explains why such sceptics fundamentally misjudge the cost / benefit analysis of renewable energy against conventional forms.
OK, let’s step back and assess this model. Like the first it is sophisticated: it not only presents a deep, scientific basis in its practical dimensions it also explains itself, why it is based on legitimate foundations, and a credible explanation for the existence of a counter model.
And how does it make you feel? If it makes you feel relief, comfort, that it has validated your worldview then take note of this. Consider again, however, that if this model is correct it is in many ways very bad news – we do indeed need to re-wire our society from the bottom up (though as the model points out, in certain respects this may be easier and much less costly than people realise). In that respect be aware that perhaps your feeling of positivity is another indication of the power of the role that ego plays – we celebrate being right over something that is deeply worrying. Conversely, you may feel agitation because you feel that this model represents another manifestation of a damaging mass delusion. If that is the case then try to dig down to understand what is driving your agitation – does ego play a role? Do you want to prove yourself right against great odds? Do you feel uncomfortable because the drip feed of evidence supporting the climate thesis is proving harder to refute?
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In this case the second model appears persuasive to me.
Given that the great majority of people will agree and will not have changed their mind as a result of this exercise it is natural to question why we should bother. If you are already a committed and knowledgeable climate activist this exercise may have felt like a waste of time.
Let me explain why this example highlights the importance of forming mind models even for a question that appeared already settled.
First, it shines a light on the importance of questioning the effort to combat climate change because of the resources it will take and which has very real consequences. Second, you now have a much better appreciation of the complexity of the issue, the role that bias and our own agenda play, and what drives other people’s thinking. Third, your conviction now carries much more weight. You can take go forward knowing that you have examined the arguments objectively and have banished any niggling feelings you had that perhaps by advocating for climate action you were just going with the conventional flow. Now, more assure in your position and your motivation you will be able to react with less defensiveness, less anger to contrary views, in understanding of how such views are defined.
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If you can feel with great certainly that you have examined something with objectivity and not only see how it is factually wrong, but also why there is a logical explanation for people wanting to believe it, then this gives credence to the view that the model is false. However, you should also check that there are no reasons why you would particularly want it to be wrong.
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But there is a more subtle point.
Contemplate the weight that you felt of those models. Think about how they made you feel. Consider this: whichever model you carry, for any issue, has weight. And you carry that weight with you continuously. You have assumed its emotional burden and your identity may be based upon it. The intellectual effort of continually defending your model is exhausting. By making the model real, by feeling its weight, you can appreciate the burden this creates. Until now this model has been silently built within you.
But by perceiving it, by externalising it, you have realised you are not it. Feel the relief of the unburdening. You might fight, might die for this model, but it is not you.
You have liberated yourself.
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Perceiving these models is a function of finding stillness.
Become aware of your breath; its rhythm. Perceive and not judge. And start to achieve perspective.
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Inhale. Become aware of your surroundings; wherever you are, right now. Exhale, slowly. Note the noises; perhaps there is traffic, birdsong, voices. Expand your awareness outwards, into your environment. Breathe. Let yourself dissolve. Because when we get out of our own way we take away the biggest obstacle to our own perception. That mass, that calcified hulk of judgement of baggage, gifted by our ancestors via our parents, added to by ourselves over the course of our lives to-date. Judgement of others, or ourselves. Those great stalactites, grown drip-by-drip through emotion. Breathe.
And pictures, sounds, smells, emerge. We feel the weight of the world – not an encumbrance, but as how it is. Solid rock of a depth and breadth that defines the term “vast”. Painted with this film of life; teeming and chattering in a continual morphological flow. As our perception grows, as we get out of our won way, we let in more. Become more attuned.
We start to realise that the unnerving “extraordinary times” we think we live in are in fact perfectly ordinary times, when you consider the true nature of reality. The global pandemic of 2020 rocked society seemingly to its core. Yet such events in our globalised world, with the constant liminal interactions between humans and nature, are inevitable.
And perhaps we can start to elevate our perspective again. As we go on and begin to move into Part II, towards actually viewing the world, we need to take on a level of acceptance. Acceptance that we will be seeing a world as it is, not as how we want it to be. This will take us to difficult places. When we open our eyes, we realise that until now we have only been seeing what we want to see – that where we live is constant, has always been and will always be. But now we start to understand vulnerability in a way we did not previously. Vulnerability of our system, of ourselves as living creatures. The certainty that we will cease to exist as individuals, juxtaposed with the possibility that we could do so as a species.
Become aware of the anxiety this realisation provokes. Have no fear; in Part III we will learn not only to live with these feelings, but to use this understanding of vulnerability as a driving force in your life. But for now use the energy this sensation, this awareness creates. And understand that what we need to do right now is simply to perceive.
For now, just see.
See yourself; be aware of what you think, what you feel. Feel and weigh your biases; but have no judgement. You are what you are for a reason. See your life flowing around you. The orbit of your friends, family, community. See yourself passing through the seasons of your life, as your corner of the Earth passes through its. See ourselves collectively as a global society.
The Pillars of Creation, those towering tendrils of cosmic gas three times larger than our entire solar system, are so called because of the stars being born within them. But the NASA scientists who named them were also making reference to a deep Christian tradition and imagery of pillars that hold up the very foundation of the world. In an 1857 sermon the London pastor Charles Haddon Spurgeon referred to the birth of Christ in these terms: “And now wonder, ye angels, the Infinite has become an infant; he, upon whose shoulders the universe doth hang, hangs at his mother’s breast; he who created all things, and bears up the pillars of creation”. [insert footnote]
Now you are seeing us. Seeing us on our planet.
Our home.
The only home we have.
And now we can start to view the world as it is.
* End of Part I *
[1] Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond, Vintage, 1997, page [x].
[2] Methane is between 28 and 34 times more potent that CO2 in its global warming potential when measured over 100 years. However, given the timescale in which we have to reverse global warming is measured in a limited number of decades, it is more relevant to use a 20 year period for comparison – and on this timescale methane is between 84 and 86 times as potent. Refer to: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf.
[3] Refer to: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
[4] BNEF Fact Book, (April 2020), page 29.
[5] Power Transition Trends, BNEF, September 2020, page 11.
[6] Refer to: https://www.irena.org/newsroom/pressreleases/2020/Apr/Renewable-energy-can-support-resilient-and-equitable-recovery
[1] Refer to: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-pillars-of-creation