The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

Some years ago I read a book titled The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, a collection of ramblings by Richard Feynman. This man's mind was brilliant and insightful, and this book captures something of that insight and of his inquisitive yet whimsical personality.

I see that it is now available on GoogleBooks. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is well worth reading. It can also be found on Amazon.com for a reasonable price.

Below is an excerpt:

p. 110-111

"I believe that we should demand that people try in their own minds to obtain for themselves a more consistent picture of their own world; that they not permit themselves the luxury of having their brain cut in four pieces or two pieces even, and on one side they believe this and on the other side they believe that, but never try to compare the two points of view.

Because we have learned that, by trying to put the points of view that we have in our head together and comparing one to the other, we make some progress in understanding and appreciating where we are and what we are. And I believe that science has remained irrelevant because we wait until somebody asks us questions or until we are invited to give a speech on Einstein's theory to people who don't understand Newtonian mechanics, but we never are invited to give an attack on faith healing, or on astrology-on what is the scientific view of astrology today.

I think that we must mainly write some articles. Now what would happen? The person who believes in astrology will have to learn some astronomy. The person who believes in faith healing may have to learn some medicine, because of the arguments going back and forth; and some biology. In other words, it will be necessary that science become relevant. The remark which I read somewhere, that science is all right so long as it doesn't attack religion, was the clue that I needed to understand the problem.

As long as it doesn't attack religion it need not be paid attention to and nobody has to learn anything. So it can be cut off from modern society except for its applications, and thus be isolated. And then we have this terrible struggle to try to explain things to people who have no reason to want to know. But if they want to defend their own point of view, they will have to learn what yours is a little bit.

So I suggest, maybe incorrectly and perhaps wrongly, that we are too polite. There was in the past an era of conversation on these matters. It was felt by the church that Galileo's views attacked the Church. It is not felt by the Church today that the scientific views attack the Church. Nobody is worrying about it. Nobody attacks; I mean, nobody writes trying to explain the inconsistencies between theological views and the scientific views held by different people today-or even the inconsistencies sometimes held by the same scientists between his religious and scientific beliefs.

Now the next subject, and the last main subject that I want to talk about, is the one I really consider the most important and the most serious. And that has to do with the question of uncertainty and doubt. A scientist is never certain. We all know that. We know that all our statements are approximate statements with different degrees of certainty; that when a statement is made, the question is not whether it is true or false but rather how likely it is to be true or false.

"Does God exist?" "When put in the questional form, how likely is it?" It makes such a terrifying transformation of the religious point of view, and that is why the religious point of view is unscientific. We must discuss each question within the uncertainties that are allowed. And as evidence grows it increases the probability perhaps that some idea is right, or decreases it. But it never makes absolutely certain one way or the other. Now we have found that this is of paramount importance in order to progress. We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And the question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty."

Pornography, Alcohol, and Children

Pornography is a popular topic for religious attack. Not entirely by coincidence, what is commonly called pornography is ubiquitous on the Internet. But why should erotic depictions of human beings engaged in various sexual activities be frowned upon in the first place? We are sexual beings. Sex is a basic fact of our very existence, not some deviant behavior reserved to perversely twisted members of our population. A very basic aspect of our being is that sexual stimulation is pleasurable.

Sexual repression promulgated by religion might have its roots in a plague of sexually transmitted diseases long ago, either as a direct reaction to the conscious realization that sex led to the diseases, or as an institutional effort to bring the problem under control, or perhaps both.

Today we understand sexually transmitted diseases, their transmission mechanisms, and precautions we can take against them. As informed adults, whether or not disease originated it, why should we continue to carry this sexually repressive baggage?

The notion of “protecting our children” from explicit sexual depictions, or even of any knowledge of sex at all until they reach a certain magical age, after which they’re suddenly expected to be ready for this knowledge, also is ludicrous. Children naturally develop sexual feelings at a fairly early age and begin to act on them. Somehow many forget this by the time they reach adulthood and don’t recognize this in their own children. They often react in disbelief and anger when they learn that their children explore and experiment sexually, usually with themselves and/or others in their own age group, often well before puberty. But this is actually normal and healthy human behavior that would be far better served if parents communicated with their children about it, educating and equipping them for responsible conduct in that area; rather than living as so many seem to, in denial of it, or believing that it’s somehow a “sin”. While it might not be appropriate to actively encourage sexual experimentation by their children, neither is it appropriate to saddle them with shame and guilt over it, as they will carry this forward into adulthood.

Similarly, absolute prohibition against restaurants serving wine or beer to anyone under some magical age, even when their parents are present, probably does more harm than good. As a result, when kids do become “of age”, they often end up engaging in drinking orgies to indulge in what has been denied them up to that time, sometimes with dire consequences. If instead they were introduced to wine and beer as a normal part of their upbringing, along with appropriate guidance for responsible consumption and behavior with respect to alcoholic beverages generally, by the time they reached adulthood, it would be no big deal – just part of life, and they’d likely be better equipped to handle it responsibly.

Childhood is the time when our foundational understanding of our world develops. The vast majority of us are born with a burning, passionate intelligence and curiosity about our world and incredible abilities to absorb and categorize information. The conduct of the parents in response to this curiosity and the questions that arise from it is critical at this stage. It can promote the healthy development of an intelligent mind, or it can damage that intelligence irreparably.

Some parents actively discourage their children from “asking too many questions” or “thinking too much”. Frankly, this practice is stupid, and can do tremendous harm to the child’s social and intellectual development. Some parents feel threatened if their child asks a question to which they don’t know the answer, and may lash out in response. This is an abusive parental behavior.

Effective parents, faced with a question to which they don’t know the answer, readily acknowledge their own ignorance on the matter. They’re more likely to respond with something like “I don’t know, let’s find out”, and proceed to research the question together with the child, subject of course to that child’s attention span. The result is that not only has the question been answered, both the parent and child having learned something in the process; but also the child has been shown several important things: that parents don’t know everything and shouldn’t be expected to, that it’s reasonable and proper to admit to not knowing something, and perhaps most importantly, how to find information. In today’s Internet environment, such research can be conducted quickly and conveniently.

Many of the ideas presented in this blog are outside of many people’s accepted world view, but despite this (or perhaps because of it), they merit serious consideration, particularly by those very people. We can better ourselves if we frequently examine our own ideas and behaviors, try to step outside of our usual frame of reference, ask ourselves honestly whether these ideas make objective sense to us or whether they should be discarded or adjusted; whether we are happy with our behaviors or whether we need to alter our habits, and work to make the necessary changes. As an ethical guideline, introspection is primary. Teaching this to our children, by example and explanation, helps them to be better people as well.