April 2006, rev August 2009Plato quotes Socrates as saying "the unexamined life is not worthliving." Part of what he meant was that the proper role of humans is tothink, just as the proper role of anteaters is to poke their nosesinto anthills.A lot of ancient philosophy had the quality — and Idon't mean this in an insulting way — of the kind of conversationsfreshmen have late at night in common rooms:What is our purpose? Well, we humans areas conspicuously different from other animals as the anteater.In our case the distinguishing feature is the ability to reason.So obviously that is what we should be doing, and a human whodoesn't is doing a bad job of being human — is no better than ananimal.Now we'd give a different answer. At least, someone Socrates's agewould. We'd ask why we even suppose we have a "purpose" in life.We may be better adapted for some things than others; wemay be happier doing things we're adapted for; but why assumepurpose?The history of ideasis a history of gradually discarding the assumption that it's allabout us. No, it turns out, the earth is not the center of theuniverse — not even the center of the solar system. No, it turnsout, humans are not created by God in his own image; they're justone species among many, descended not merely from apes, but frommicroorganisms. Even the concept of "me" turns out to be fuzzyaround the edges if you examine it closely.The idea that we're the center of things is difficult to discard.So difficult that there's probably room to discard more. RichardDawkins made another step in that direction only in the last severaldecades, with the idea of the selfish gene. No, it turnsout, we're not even the protagonists: we're just the latest modelvehicle our genes have constructed to travel around in. And havingkids is our genes heading for the lifeboats. Readingthat book snapped my brain out of its previous way of thinking theway Darwin's must have when it first appeared.(Few people can experience now what Darwin's contemporaries didwhen The Origin of Species was first published, because everyonenow is raised either to take evolution for granted, or to regardit as a heresy. No one encounters the idea of natural selection forthe first time as an adult.)So if you want to discover things that have been overlooked tillnow, one really good place to look is in our blind spot: in ournatural, naive belief that it's all about us. And expect to encounterferocious opposition if you do.Conversely, if you have to choose between two theories, prefer theone that doesn't center on you.This principle isn't only for big ideas. It works in everyday life,too. For example, suppose you're saving a piece of cake in the fridge, and youcome home one day to find your housemate has eatenit. Two possible theories:a) Your housemate did it deliberately to upset you. He knewyou were saving that piece of cake.b) Your housemate was hungry.I say pick b. No one knows who said "never attribute to malice whatcan be explained by incompetence," but it is a powerful idea.Its more general version is our answer to the Greeks:Don't see purpose where there isn't.Or better still, the positive version:See randomness.
