All Life Is Problem Solving

In this blog I continue my discussion of reflexivity by clarifying the differences between sequential and simultaneous reflexivity. If reflexivity is sequential, then the effects of our actions on the world and on our thinking at a later time, that is, “the interference” is sequential. Specifically, we cognize and come to an understanding of situation A, including developing expectations about how we can impact that situation in our favor by acting. We then act creating situation B; we may or may not meet our expectations. Whether our expectations are met or not however, we now have situation B to cognize and understand. And so we proceed through life. Now, in this, there is no special ontological or epistemological problem of “reflexivity.” Yes, as early reflexivity thinkers have pointed out, we can act in such a way as to cause a prediction, that would have been false, to come true. We can also act in such a way to cause a prediction, that would have been true, to become false. But when this sort of thing happens, and goes against what we intend, it is not due to some new idea about “reflexivity,” but rather to the fact that we’ve made an error in our expectations, an error in our theories about the world, and when we acted upon those mistaken theories we helped to create a new situation characterized by results that are unexpected and perhaps unpleasant. We can view this as “interference” in the sense that our actions, based on our mistaken understanding, change reality in a way different from the change that would have resulted if we had a true understanding of reality and acted on the basis of it. But this kind of “interference” is only the situation that results from error, and then from acting on the basis of error. Such “interference” is not even exclusive to social situations and the social sciences. If we approach a natural phenomenon and develop a mistaken understanding of it, and then act on the basis of that misunderstanding, we may well change reality in a different way than if we had acted upon the basis of a true understanding.

Let’s look at Soros’s example of the statement “You are my enemy.” He says: “That may be true or false, depending on how you react to it.” But while that’s so, Soros’s point doesn’t speak to the issue of whether it is true that you are my enemy before I act, or at the point I declare that you are. Clearly, the possibility is there that my belief may be either true of false at that point, completely apart from the issue of the impact I make by calling you an enemy. This second issue is the issue of impact and it arises only after the issue of truth of the original belief. Now, once my declaration is made, this second issue comes to the fore, and one aspect of impact is whether a belief that you are my enemy after my act of calling you that is true or false. And that is a separate and different question of fact than the first one, however much one believes that declarations of this kind either reinforce enmity or create enmity where none existed before. Of course, errors about facts or expected facts can have an impact on what the facts become. And if I call you an enemy falsely, you may become one. But that doesn’t mean I made a true judgment when I first called you one.

In short, “interference” in a sequential context introduces no new philosophical, ontological, or epistemological problems. Soros seems to think that it does because actions and reactions among people incorporating errors in expectations create a situation in which there is (The Crash of 2008, p. 29) “an element of genuine indeterminacy into the course of events. This renders the situation unpredictable on the basis of scientific law.” However, even though this point is true, it introduces no new problems into science or social science. Many, including Popper, have recognized that there will always be indeterminacy in the course of human events. That is part of Popper’s attack on historicism and the historicists. However, the fact that sequences of human interaction are indeterminate and unpredictable doesn’t distinguish the social sciences from the natural sciences. Often we think that courses of events studied by the natural sciences are highly predictable, because we have in mind chemical reactions, or Newtonian views of the operation of the Solar System which employ a deterministic theory. However, natural scientists often have to recognize indeterminacies in certain areas of Physics and Chemistry, in Biology and Neurorology, climatology, and other natural sciences. The absence of an ability to predict sequences of events is also not the same as an inability to uncover scientific laws. Those are often highly contextual in character and are not about the time course of dynamical systems.

Soro’s second kind of “simultaneous reflexivity” is quite different from “sequential reflexivity.” The difference is the conjecture that there is simultaneous “interference” between cognition and manipulation in human interaction. Due to this simultaneity, truth becomes a problem, because any view of reality we formulate through thought is continuously subject to simultaneously occurring action that is continuously modifying the world that our views are about. Our views can’t correspond to reality because as soon as they are formulated, reality changes due to the effects of our simultaneously occurring actions. So, our views of reality must always be in error because reality is indeterminate at any point in time.

In view of this, I think the idea of simultaneous reflexivity is much more radical than that of sequential reflexivity, and is much more significant, if one is seeking a new paradigm. However, I also think that it is not clearly explained by Soros, and that it is quite hard to develop without contradiction. Specifically, if the cognitive and manipulative functions are in continuous interaction and there are no temporal distinctions to be made such that we can point to sequential occurrences of cognitive and manipulative events (as is required by this point of view), then how can we talk about cognition influencing manipulation and reality and vice versa? In order to talk about influence, cause, feedback effects, or dynamics, we need time periods because such effects are not instantaneous and need time to manifest themselves. In short, I think Soros’s idea of “simultaneous reflexivity” is a bridge too far. It postulates influence without the passage of time needed for influence to be felt and change to occur, and that is a logical impossibility.

In this and my previous post, I’ve analyzed Soros’s reflexivity idea and concluded that simultaneous reflexivity involves an irreducible contradiction, while sequential reflexivity is valid, but is not a new idea offering anything in the way of a new philosophical, ontological, or epistemological approach. However, this criticism is not meant to cast doubt on the general pattern of Soros’s analysis of bubbles, booms, and busts, or his analyses of political bubbles created through attempts to use manipulation to undermine the effectiveness of cognition in getting closer to the truth, using reflexivity. In my next blog, I’ll comment on why I think his applications of sequential reflexivity to various social phenomena are valuable, despite his conceptual problems with “reflexivity.”