The wrong reasons to believe in Analytic Idealism, or me

Believing the right thing—the right theory, idea, or principle—for the wrong reasons can sometimes be as bad, or even worse, than believing the wrong thing. The right belief for the wrong reasons is never truly transformative, never really sinks into the core of our being, and may even create cognitive dissonances that make it harder to navigate life than under the guidance of untrue beliefs. 

In my social media interactions over the years, I have come to realise that a small but significant minority of people who endorse my views, or even merely respect me as a public intellectual, do so for the wrong reasons. While keenly aware that what I'll say below can only reduce—never boost—my audience and book sales, my commitment to truth and honesty is too overwhelming for me to overlook this issue. Therefore, here are some of the wrong reasons for you to take Analytic Idealism seriously, or even respect me as a public intellectual.

I believe Bernardo because he is anti-mainstream

While I am very critical of mainstream physicalism, I am so because of objective reasons, such as physicalism's internal inconsistency, empirical inadequacy, lack of conceptual parsimony, and glaring lack of explanatory power. I do not do so merely because physicalism happens to be the mainstream view. There are many—perhaps even most—mainstream views, beyond metaphysics, that are reasonable and well-based empirically, so I happily endorse them. Let me repeat this for clarity: I believe that a lot of mainstream thinking is largely correct, this being partly the reason why it is mainstream.

I have nothing fundamentally against the mere fact that some idea is mainstream; only against unreason. As a matter of fact, I hope that Analytic Idealism will, one day, become mainstream. That's what I am working for, so how could I be fundamentally against 'mainstreaming'? If reason prevails in mainstream thinking, then hurray for mainstream thinking!

I believe Bernardo because he is anti-science

I am not, and have never been, anti-science; much to the contrary. Even a cursory look at any single piece I've written—let alone the body of my work—will reveal that I systematically base my views on scientific results, as divulged in papers published in respected scientific journals. I take science very seriously. My first job title at CERN was 'scientist,' and I am rather proud of it. Science has been my life.

It is true that I have strongly criticised certain pieces of scientific work and—perhaps even more conspicuously—certain scientists. I am comfortable admitting that some of the scientists I've come across in my public-facing work have, in my opinion, deliberately misled the public, even outright lied. There are dishonest scientists out there, and I have met at least two. I am also comfortable admitting that there is plenty of published science that is flat-out wrong, sloppy, valueless, even dangerous. And I will point out those flaws at every opportunity I get. Does this mean that I am anti-science? Precisely not. Peer-review and peer-criticism are foundations of science, so my criticisms are part of the scientific method. They are intended to improve science, not destroy it. They reflect my commitment to science, not my rejection of it.

Aside from everything that is wrong in science—after all, it is a human activity susceptible to the gamut of human vices—there is a lot that is right. We owe a whole lot to science today, including the device you are using to read this, the medical procedure that has saved your life (and mine) at some point in the past, our understanding of the cosmos—which is today far broader than it was a mere century ago—and so many other facets of life that we take entirely for granted. If you bet on science, flawed as it is, you are overwhelmingly more likely to get it right than wrong. That you could sometimes get it wrong does not contradict the statement.

I believe in Analytic Idealism because it denies the myth of facts or objective truths

Analytic Idealism does no such thing, much to the contrary. It is a realist philosophy: there is an external world out there, whose nature and behaviour does not dependent on our preferences, wishes, views, opinions, morning affirmations, or even presence. It's a world that is what it is and does what it does, in the way it does it, regardless of whether we like it or not, witness it or not, believe it or not. Yes, it is a mental—an experiential—world, but its mentation does not depend on ours. As such, from our point of view, it is truly an objective world.

The things that are the case about the world are objective facts. That the world is mental does not deny the existence of such facts; it does not render the reality of the world dependent on our personal opinions. Beyond opinions there are facts, and when the opinions do not correspond to these facts, the opinions are simply wrong and that's all there is to it.

Analytic Idealism maintains that the colloquially 'physical' world—i.e., the things we perceive around us—is indeed merely a personal perspective, a dashboard representation created by us. But the real world that underlies perception—the thing that is perceived, that modulates the states of our perception—is not perspectival or relative; it is absolute and cares not about our perspective, just as the sky outside the airplane doesn't care about the airplane's dashboard indications: it is what it is regardless of perspective.

It is thus a vulgar and pernicious misunderstanding of Analytic Idealism to think that it is a relativist philosophy, either metaphysically or morally. It is no such a thing. Under Analytic Idealism there is a reality out there that doesn't depend on our views or opinions in the least bit. Under Analytic Idealism there are such things as facts, wrong opinions, lies and misrepresentations. Under Analytic Idealism there are objective criteria of truth, and there is such a thing as truth.

I believe Bernardo because he is anti-authority, in the sense of so-called 'experts'

I am surely anti-authoritarianism—i.e., against the misuse of authority for the sake of personal power over others—but certainly not anti-authority. Human knowledge has advanced to the point where no human being can master every bit of information and reasoning required to form a strictly independent opinion about everything that matters. It is fatally naive to think that one can always trust one's own call on every matter, above the opinion of experts who have dedicated their lives to studying the particular matter at hand. We must delegate certain judgments, and when we do so, we must rely on the expertise of others: the authority of the doctor that operates on your child (or would you prefer to cut into your child yourself?), of the pilot that flies your parents home (or would you prefer to pilot the airplane yourself?), of the technician that installs your home's electrical systems (or would you prefer to grab the wires yourself?), and so on.

None of the above means that authority is always right; it obviously isn't, for humans are fallible. There are many cases in which judgment calls made by authorities have gone very wrong. And you will often see me calling those out, criticising them strongly. This, too, is part of the game of improving the reliability of authority, not of trying to get rid of it. The more one knows, the more one realises how much one doesn't know. I know enough to know that I must rely on other people's expertise in a great many scenarios that are integral to life.

The thing that seems to get lost on people sometimes is this: statistically, we are better off trusting authority. Yes, authorities can make terrible judgment calls sometimes and, as a consequence, someone dies on an operating table, in a plane crash, or in a house fire. But if Joe the gardener, as much as we love him, were always the one performing the operation, flying the airplane, or installing your home's electrical system, then people would die almost every time they would undergo an operation, fly on an airplane, or flip a switch at home. Relying on authority and expertise is statistically best, and it is based on statistics that we must make social choices, not individual or anecdotal cases. Thus, no, I am not anti-authority or anti-expertise; I'm a little smarter than that.

As a matter of fact, I think the social backlash against authority and expertise that we are witnessing today is very dangerous. The other day someone showed me a comment that we moderated away on an Essentia Foundation posting, because we didn't want to let the commenter make a fool of himself. I don't recall his exact words, so I will paraphrase:

These experts are all full of shit, they can't think straight. It is so obvious that science is wrong about even the most basic things. For instance, this notion that space is a vacuum surrounding the Earth—if it were so, the air would be sucked into space and there would be no atmosphere! It's so obviously wrong, I don't know why people trust anything experts say.

No, this isn't from a completely uneducated farmer or fisherman in a far-away land; it is from someone educated and engaged enough to follow Essentia Foundation. Not only was this person utterly unable to understand how much he doesn't understand what is going on, he was also arrogant enough to think others understand even less. This combination of ignorance and hubris would be comical if it weren't so extraordinarily dangerous in a democracy, where every vote counts the same. Social media is giving clueless hubris—rooted in the Dunning-Kruger effect—a megaphone.

As much as I am aware that the popularity of my own views and philosophy largely rides on this dangerous wave of skepticism against expertise and authority, I do not espouse or support it. I don't do what I do so to 'stick it to the man,' or get some kind of vindictive catharsis at the expense of elites (though I do confess to being a natural anti-elitist), or 'put the authorities in their place,' or any other emotion-driven objective disguised as reason; I do it because I think my metaphysical views make more sense than the current alternatives; that's all. The mature attitude here is critical respect for authority: I will choose to trust the consensus among experts if I am not qualified to know better (even though I know that the experts can get it wrong, for they are humans too, and I consciously accept that risk); but if I am qualified—not because I read Joe the gardener's latest social media post, but because I studied the extant literature in depth and have the intellectual background required to evaluate it—then I will be critical of such consensus if I conclude that it is wrong. My criticism will then add a voice to the cultural debate and, perhaps, shift the consensus view among experts, just as Analytic Idealism is doing today. Again, this is an attempt to improve the reliability of authority, not to get rid of it.

So what, then, are the good reasons to endorse Analytic Idealism?

There is only one good reason: it is because it makes better rational sense than the alternatives; that's it; it's that simple and uncomplicated. Nothing else is a valid reason to espouse Analytic Idealism or trust what I have to say. If you do so for any other reason, may this brief essay be an invitation to you to reconsider your views and, if need be, abandon your current opinion of me and my work.