The Individuality of a Thinking Human Being

[Charles R. Anderson]

Preface

This is the third essay I am posting from my blog, Reasoned Thoughts. This essay was an important step in my elaborating my thoughts on the wealth of individuality in human beings, even before we consider their thinking patterns and much more so after we consider that. This bears strongly on the value that other people give us in their role as thinkers and simply by enriching our lives with their differing capabilities. It is also an important factor in understanding the sexuality of human beings, which is a topic I will keep on my blog and not import here.

This essay was posted on 19 March 2005. There are no changes.

The Individuality of a Thinking Human Being

Of course, every human being is very distinguishable from anyone else. But those who think deeply and over sustained periods of time, both understand many more things and make many more judgments and choices. This increases their complexity immensely over that which they would have simply as the product of genetic code or as a result of the interaction of their genetic code with their environment to produce a biochemical system of great complexity. Even this baseline biochemical complexity is huge compared to that of engineering materials whose complexity I discussed in a previous essay. The body itself is a composite material, not with 2 or 6 chemicals in the mix as in an engineering material, but with tens of thousands of chemicals in the mix. In itself, this is nothing to make light of. Nonetheless, it is the operation of our mind that raises the level of complexity and of individuality of each thinking person to mind-boggling heights. Those of us who think are convolutions of convolutions of ideas and emotions in which the complexity grows exponentially. The more you think, the larger the time constant.

Before thinking more about the effects of thinking upon one's richness of properties, I do not want to make light of the differences that exist in our complex biochemistries. We come into the world with many differences. We generally look different. Babies immediately have different temperaments from one another. My first daughter was impatient and demanding from at least her 2nd day of life, while my second daughter was laid back and quiet from her 2nd day of life. Those character differences have not changed over the course of about 20 years. We know that some babies develop allergies to certain foods, while others do not. Some people may die from eating nuts or fish, while most of us are fine. Some people are cured by a medicine, while someone else is killed by it. Some people survive yellow fever, while others do not. Some people have the cycle cell anemia adaptation to malaria, while most do not. Some people have a great sense of smell, while others do not. Some people feel tickled easily, some do not. Some people learn best visually, some learn best aurally. Some people can cut through the complexity of much detail and see what is essential to solve a very complex problem. Others are faster than they are at solving relatively simple and well-formed problems, but they cannot solve the creative problems that require them to isolate the essentials from a complex situation. Of course, some people can leap 38 inches off the ground, while others cannot. Some are quick sprinters, some are better in marathons. Some people are incredibly flexible, while others are stiff. Some have great rhythm and others are beat-impaired. Some enjoy the complexity of a great symphony, while others enjoy a screamer with a strong beat in the foreground. Some are more the slave of pheromones than are others. There are those only attracted to the opposite sex, those attracted only to members of the same sex, and some who are attracted to members of both sexes. Some are pessimists and some are optimists. Much of this differentiation is likely to be due to the wide ranging biochemical structures of each individual's body. While the music we like is also a function of our conscious choices, it may well be partially a function of our biochemistries as well.

These biochemical differences are themselves important. By taking advantage of them, we can assemble teams of incredible athletes for football or swimming. We can figure that no matter how bad the epidemic, some part of the population will survive. Our differences may make one person better suited to be a soldier than another, one a better scientist, another a better farmer, another a better actor, et cetera. Of course, one may be better at any of these jobs with thought, but some require different temperaments than others, some quick thinking, and some deeper thinking with plenty of time. Some jobs are inherently aural, some inherently visual. Some suite a quiet person, some require someone very outgoing. Our differences rooted in our distinct biochemistries better enable us to specialize. This is somewhat analogous to building a technological society upon specialized engineering materials. You cannot build cities simply upon a single low-carbon alloy steel. It takes many specialized alloys, as well as many glasses, ceramics, semiconductors, inorganic compounds, and polymers. Similarly, we can take tremendous advantage of our biochemical differences to increase the likelihood that we can find the right person for the sales job, the bank manager job, the ladies hairdresser, the pharmacist, the teacher, the street paver, and the telephone lineman. We should not forget that many of these differences may actually have been selected by the evolutionary process because it was useful to man that there be a great range of natural abilities, temperaments, outlooks, and sexualities.

As important as our biochemical differences may be, we add to these the tremendous differences in how we utilize such capability as each of our mind's holds. As we focus our attention upon identifying the nature of reality and from that investigation select our values, we more and more develop an individual nature. Some of this individuality comes from what aspects of reality we focus our effort upon. Some comes from how rigorously we critically evaluate what we think is true. The degree to which we can think independently is a key factor. Another is how well do we learn from what others have already learned. Everyone of us could spend his lifetime simply trying to reinvent the wheel or learning how to make flint weapons, if we did not learn from others. We also benefit from recognizing the advantages of trade for acquiring goods and services from those best able to provide them.

We have to learn how to trade with others for their ideas, services, and goods, as well. This includes such complex issues as granting them the necessary freedom of conscience to develop their ideas and choose their values, so that we will have these available to us at a later time as potential trade items. Again, to make this possible, we need to extend the same sense of tolerance to them that we will need them to extend to us. We live in a complex world which we will inevitably make mistakes in trying to understand. So will our fellow man. If we are too eager to evaluate these errors as evil, then we will act to stamp out the development of new ideas, which often pick a path through errors to final enlightenment. Since the world is complex, the first person to understand something may have a hard time convincing everyone else that he does understand it. They may well react with intolerance for the heresy of the new idea, as they did when the idea that the earth was the center of the universe was challenged. They did this when bacteria were understood to cause many of the deaths previously attributed to the wise hand of God. We also benefit in our own rich mental complexity when we are cognizant that the very individuality of man causes others to sometimes irritate us, but also makes their mental efforts complementary to ours and improves the chances that they may have some ideas we may never have. Tolerance recognizes individuality. Intolerance defies that fact of reality. Tolerance aids the interactive process of learning with and from others, while intolerance is the path to dogma and ignorance.

To the extent that a man wants to maximize the richness of his mind through understanding as much as possible about our complex reality and the complexity of others and their interactions, he will value the trade of ideas with others. To the extent that he recognizes the futility of having to figure out everything without help, he will value the individuality of others. He will grant them the freedom of conscience to make their own choices and to evaluate ideas in their way, because he knows he will benefit from at least some of the ideas of others to the extent of many lifetimes of learning on his own.

Objectivists are likely to recognize this intellectual advantage given them by Ayn Rand, but they too often do not recognize that we have the advantage of many other life-enhancing ideas from many other people as well. They fail to note that if Americans did not have a very substantial commitment to tolerance, Ayn Rand's ideas would have been stamped out. She and all of her followers would have been hunted down and killed. Yet, how commonly they call Objectivism a closed philosophical system, which accommodates only those who are virtual clones of Ayn Rand and cannot make manifest their own individuality. The individualist thinker is not tolerated by them, though Objectivism supposedly values the individual life as the source of all value and the individual as the holder of all value. Well, the individual is the source of all reasoning! The individual is also the source of all error, but retains the ability to correct each error and to proceed to a pretty accurate perception of reality. Just as Ayn Rand made great advances over the philosophy of Aristotle, someday, one hopes that someone else will greatly advance Ayn Rand's understanding of philosophy. We should be tolerant enough that such an advance is allowed to happen and that we can recognize it when it has happened.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Charles,

You wrote some very interesting things in this essay. To start with, the following lines jumped out at me:

Babies immediately have different temperaments from one another. My first daughter was impatient and demanding from at least her 2nd day of life, while my second daughter was laid back and quiet from her 2nd day of life. Those character differences have not changed over the course of about 20 years.

However, you continued as if these innate temperaments were biochemical only. (You didn't claim that outright, but that is the impression I got.) Could there not also be something more will-oriented or life-oriented - more biological? Something beyond genes and more to do with the organization of them - the life that organizes them?

The whole area of innate characteristics is not discussed much among Objectivists. I think this stems from years of pretending that it does not exist. Anyway, innate differences is - in itself - a good argument for tolerance, in addition to benefits we receive.

I want to look at this from the lens of intolerance, though. Why is a person intolerant? You mentioned several benefits from tolerance, yet there exists an intolerant temperament in some people. It seems to have been innate before they started growing up, although that is mere speculation.

For example, in Objectivism, I look at a few people who used to be friends with Barbara Branden and David Kelley. These people were extremely intolerant of anyone who disagreed with them. If anyone criticized BB or DK, they got their head taken off. Then when these people decided to take a stand against BB and DK, they are now intolerant of anyone who disagrees with their present view. They even changed most all of their friends.

What I see in this is a huge lack of value for ideas and an enormous value put on temperament. The facts speak for this. Their ideas changed but their intolerance did not.

It is a pretty safe bet to say about these people that in the future, they will probably hold different ideas than the ones they now do, but they will continue to be intolerant - and they will become estranged from most of the people who are now close to them and will acquire a new set of friends and supporters. If I were a betting man, I would put good money on it.

To speculate on why these people are intolerant, I believe that maybe their innate temperament leans in this direction. they were that way as children. But then I have to shift the burden to them - to their choices in life. From what I see, they want power and influence - and to be recognized as authorities. Philosophical ideas are not used predominantly as a form of understanding. Ideas are merely a means for gaining power.

That is what makes these people intolerant. Any disagreement with them makes them feel that their esteem is diminished in the eyes of their followers. (However, there are "safe" nonessential topics where their followers and others can disagree with them to provide an aura of objectivity. These are mostly used to form a smokescreen to hide the social manipulations.)

Also, I have noticed some intolerant Objectivists who are highly insecure and are underachievers in life.

As a general observation, I think it is safe to say that tolerance and a healthy self-esteem go hand-in-hand, while intolerance is related to unhealthy surges of emotional excess (usually negative emotions) or a poor self-image.

You also wrote:

Just as Ayn Rand made great advances over the philosophy of Aristotle, someday, one hopes that someone else will greatly advance Ayn Rand's understanding of philosophy. We should be tolerant enough that such an advance is allowed to happen and that we can recognize it when it has happened.

Amen.

Michael

[Charles R. Anderson]

Michael,

Thanks for your comments.

I figure that there is a great deal of differential biochemistry going on in people from early in their lives. This unique personal biochemistry interacts with their life-long history of rational and irrational choices to give each individual a bewildering variety. I do not in any way wish to downplay the importance of the conscious choices people make or to suppose that one's consciousness is ineffective. However, our consciousness is tied to our unique body biochemistry in a very complex manner and we do not understand more than the most superficial aspects of it.

Not only are we born with a unique biochemistry, but that biochemistry can change over a lifetime. Some things do tend to be constants, but others may change. For instance, puberty, childbirth, and menopause certainly can change a person's biochemistry and have a big impact upon their lives. Some people have more dominant senses of touch, some of smell, some of sight, some of hearing, and some of tongue movements. I suspect that some of the cause for this is individual differences in their biochemistry. By this, I simply mean all of the chemistry that makes a person work and live.

In addition to the chemistry of the living human being as a background phenomenon due to the nature of human life, it is also clear that a person's thoughts actually have the power to change their biochemistry. The hard thinking person actually increases the number of certain biochemical structures in his brain, for instance. So now we really have a very complex system made individual at the moment of birth and developing along various complex pathways due to life events and due to one's thinking.

I do not believe that all rational people would tend to become similar, which some people have tried to claim as an argument against rational behavior. They start different and they only become more different as they think, even as they think rationally.

Some people simply want everyone else to be like them and for everyone else to love them. When others are not like them and do not love them, they can become very upset. These are people who cannot cope with the reality that just as they are a unique individual, so are other people. This desire that others be like them is one I have heard over and over among Objectivists. In many cases, they angrily reject the thought of finding any value in others who may have only slight disagreements with them. Every disagreement is of crisis proportions. They seek to gather together around a dogma that they can all agree on so they will not have to deal with differences. Differences in thought really scare them, so when they discover a difference of thought, they become unrealistically angry. This is fear and a lack of self-esteem acting up.

This is not unique to certain Objectivists, however. There are also people who are racists due to their fears of differences. There are people who are homophobes due to their fears. There are many who gather around a church belief to clutch others who share their same viewpoint. There are many, many cults. There are people who simply feel great comfort in having many things agreed upon. They feel great comfort that marriage should have one and only one meaning. They feel great comfort in everyone following the latest fashions in dressing. They cling to corporate cultures, which often do not make sense.

People are very commonly afraid of the differences between themselves and others. When those differences are not suppressed, they often dislike those who will not suppress them. On the other hand, they often have a great desire to be around others who will join them in suppressing their own differences. For instance, people differ very greatly in their sexuality, but they are usually pathetically commited to trying to appear to be normal in every way, or if different than normal, at least to be what everyone thinks they should be. That people are not so normal sexually is very clear on the Internet. This huge Internet sexual activity is all made possible by the belief that the individual is anonymous on the Internet or only dealing with those who share his sexual interests. On the Internet, they can explore their natural sexual variety with much less fear of being seen as different. In fact, they can seek out those few who are somewhat like them.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Charles,

A few comments. You wrote:

... it is also clear that a person's thoughts actually have the power to change their biochemistry.

I agree, but I would only add the qualifier that this is only valid within a small parameter. It is a flexibility, not a possibility for metamorphosis. This is a nitpick, but it is important. The most obvious example is that a gay person will not change his biochemical sexual reactions merely with thinking.

I read a word the other day that I liked. A human being can bend his nature with conscious thought. But he cannot reverse it. Like your daughters. Your first daughter can learn to put a lid on it as she grows up, but the pot always will be on the fire. I believe that she can turn the fire down to low with learning and decision, but she will never turn it off.

Another point is that your article focused on differences, but obviously human beings have similarities. A huge misunderstanding of Objectivism and life in general is made by those who do not recognize the true nature of some of these similarities.

For example, in general human beings like to herd (or flock). A person who denies this, thinking that he is completely individual (Atlas-style), will be attracted to a tribe where he can pay lip service to individuality, but where others make many of his decisions for him. A person of solid self-esteem recognizes this herding urge and develops a network of solid friendships based on appreciation of both similarities and differences.

One example I can think of is Dragonfly. (Let me borrow you for a sec, bro.) He and I approach philosophy from different angles that sometimes clash, yet as I have learned to know him over time, I have gained a deep appreciation for his intelligence and good will (even when Rand-bashing - which I perceive as more of a reaction to the bombastic rhetoric - both from her and others - than actual contempt). He's also a wonderful painter.

We are cyber-friends and I have no doubt that he would be a wonderful neighbor that I would be proud to have in my circle if we lived near each other. If you look at our exchanges on this forum, you will see that we are often at odds, yet there is a healthy mutual respect in place.

If either of us were insecure or religious in our thinking, demanding total compliance to some arbitrary standard or other, we would both be the poorer for it and probably despise each other. What I most appreciate about Dragonfly is that he makes me check my premises all the time. He makes me think - and I have no fear or laziness when it comes to thinking.

The interesting part about this is that the tribal element in missing from a friendship like ours. Thus there is no urge to dominate the other and exert power or leadership. It is just a friendly exchange of ideas because we both strongly feel that ideas are important. The quality level of the thinking is high and that makes it even more valuable.

Trouncing a superficial thinker is a game for power-mongers. It is an attempt to get people to conform by intimidation, not thinking. I have little use in my life for people who value this. My love of ideas is motivated by the urge to understand, not compete with other people.

You mentioned the differences in sexuality that the Internet releases because of anonymity. I have a strong criticism against conformity against normal society. One phase of my life was as an artist - music and motion pictures. In Brazilian society, artists are seen as promiscuous and depraved because they are outspoken about sexuality and their lives are lived out in the news. I see this kind of attitude here in the USA, but on a lower scale.

I always told my Brazilian critics (especially the family members of my exes) that artists are not crazy for real. Normal people are. For instance, putting a gun in the roof of your mouth and pulling the trigger is crazy for real. How many artists do that? Precious few. How many businessmen and workers do that? Hmmmmmm... Also, how many artists will marry a woman, have children, then go out and pay for sex with a transvestite, then carry Aids back to their wife and not tell her? That's absolutely nuts. And how many businessmen and workers do that? (In Brazil, that is probably more of a problem than here in the USA.)

How many artists have children who carry a gun into a school and start firing at teachers and students. Aren't these the children of businessmen and workers - those who have conformed to society?

I could go on, but the point is that enforcing conformity is nothing more than a disrespectful way to control people. Most of these normal people go to churches and organizations (Rotary, Masons, etc.) where conformity is drilled into them. Objectivists have these organizations too, and some who are trying to become established.

The problem happens when these people snap.

True people of self-esteem are not afraid of who they are, nor are they afraid to tell others of goodwill. When a hostile crowd is large, maybe it is not a good idea to hang around. The best thing to do is stay away from large irrational crowds - and build places where both differences and similarities are celebrated (but within some parameters like respect for reason and goodwill).

Incidentally, that's what we are doing here at OL.

Michael

[Charles R. Anderson]

I discussed the wonderful wealth of people's differences because I was in many ways on a crusade to try to get people to understand the value of tolerance, the need to express one's individuality, the fact that people have value to us in part because of their differences, and because of my interest in sexuality. However, I by no means wish to give the impression that no two people share many values or traits. There is, however, a sad tendency for people to suppress their differences in an effort to find common ground and acceptance by others. This is very often unhealthy.

It is great to find values and interests you share with others. Fortunately, this is in some ways easier now and in some ways it is harder. Because of the relatively advanced state of our society, we have the time and can access many more activities. There are many more people around us than there were hundreds of years ago and communication is much better. So, each of us is likely to be more different than people were historically. We do not all get up before dawn and work in the fields until darkness falls. We are more differentiated by activities. We are also more differentiated by knowledge. These things make it harder for a man to fit in with his immediate neighbor, but he has more neighbors and via the Internet, he can develop many friendships at a distance. Of course, these friendships are based on some common interests and values, but they may not cover the complete breadth of a person's character, values, and interests.

I made a point recently on a list that one of the wonders of capitalism is that it enables people, as different as they are, to find a way to interact without the use of force with people with whom they may share values ranging from many to very few. In any other form of society, one is required either to suppress those whose values differ from your own or be suppressed by them. This is not a great choice!

On your comments on thinking affecting biochemistry as a limited effect, I fully agree with you. It is limited and this makes the underlying effects of our differing biochemistries (genes, testosterone presently and in the womb, endorphin production, the physical organization of our nervous system, etc.) very important. In all this, I am taking a very broad brush when I write of our biochemistry. There is then the development of the mind by our choices and some measure of feedback to our biochemistry. While our mind has a great deal of control over our body, so too does our body exercise some control of our minds. At the least, it places some bounds on what our minds can do with our bodies without paying too high an emotional toll.

We are wonderfully complex systems and it is really mind-boggling from the scientific standpoint. Scientists like to simplify and control systems to get and evaluate scientific knowledge. The human being as a system for scientific study is incredibly tough.

Yes, I agree that intolerance is often a result of a lack of self-esteem. It is probably more generally a result of feeling threatened. In a primitive and violent society, everyone constantly feels threatened. Under these conditions, many people will feel intolerance, perhaps even including people of fairly sound self-esteem. With intolerant Objectivists, we see many who suffer a lack of self-esteem, but I also think that some may simply be mistaken in thinking that they live in a very hostile world and are constantly under attack. Certainly, there are elements of hostility for any Objectivist and I am sure that there are plenty who really do feel a great sense of threat from this. Some of the threat is real and, I am inclined to think, some of it is exaggerated.

Clearly, the school of thought that every false idea is a great threat to myself as a person, is a manifestation of a kind of fear. People's fear levels differ greatly on many things. As a kid, I loved to play hard-hitting tackle football, while many other kids were afraid of being hurt. Many guys in college got medical deferments or went abroad to escape the Vietnam draft, while I reported for induction. Some people can face physical danger, but they cannot stand up to peer pressure. A person of my acquaintance is so terrified for the fate of Israel that her opinions of tolerance, benevolence, Objectivism as an open system, TOC, and David Kelley have recently changed greatly in response to that fear. She perceives ARI as more pro-Israel, so all of the ARI dogma is suddenly correct. People can be driven by fears, even those who claim to be absolutely committed to rationality.