MAY 30, 2022 – “Just a sec,” I said, pretending to take a big swig of lemonade but really only gathering my thoughts. I liked the familiar manner of the alien’s communication. It was reassuring, given that the creature’s physical aspect bore no resemblance to any Hollywood conception of space aliens, good or evil: it wasn’t slimy and it lacked a humanoid face and anatomy.
I swallowed demonstratively. With the authority that accompanies projected confidence, real or feigned, I continued.
“Any reasonable member of our species must accept the principle that any conclusion must stand on logic. But logic, in turn, must emanate from a valid premise. The validity of a premise depends on facts. And there’s the rub . . . Plus, we still have to take religion into account, and that for many humans, the non-factual, non-logical concept that many matters must be taken as a matter of faith.”
“I hate to interrupt, since you seem to think you’re on a roll,” said the alien, “but all this—except religion, whatever that’s about—is elementary where I come from . . .”
“Really?” My reflexive response struck me as dumb the instant I said it. I felt the blood rush to my ears in embarrassment. To this point I’d been worried about being too pessimistic, too optimistic, and wanted to be sticking to ‘Goldilocks’ territory. I hadn’t considered the risk of appearing too dumb. Would the alien decide that the entire human race was too stupid not to be wiped out?
The alien graciously allowed me to re-organize my thoughts. I again reminded myself that without the prod and shackles of time, the creature had unlimited patience. But was that true, if, as the thing had expressed at the outset, it contemplated the possibility of wiping out our species?
“Sorry,” I said. “I think I interrupted you . . .”
“Not a problem. I was simply reminding you that my form of being is inherently fact-based and logic driven about everything. I know how valid premises are formed, how reason works, why resulting conclusions are reliable. Nevertheless, I’m curious how you humans form your ideas and act upon them.”
So, I was a lab rat, is what it came down to. This realization knocked my confidence—and authority—down a few notches. But damn, I thought. We humans are resilient. We bounce back. We fight back. Time to demonstrate this thing of pure facts and reason that imperfect though we are, we humans have pride in ourselves.
“Fair enough,” I continued. “What I wanted to say is that our big challenge is the knowledge that data are multi-faceted. This being an imperfect planet, we must sort among a spectrum of data—inaccurate, complete, incomplete, contextual, out-of-contextual, outlying, manipulated, and so on. We’ve invented computers that can vastly leverage our brains for the acquisition, storage, retrieval, and assessment of data, but in so many arenas, we’re still really poor at grappling with data. Consequently, we’re prone to making all sorts of mistakes in the opposite end of our decision-making, namely, our conclusions.” (Cont.)
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
