The TheoPrac Spectrum

The manner in which the inner mind perceives the outside world is inextricably linked to our sense of time, which in turn is heavily influenced by the temporal nature of our work. By limiting our roles in society, our culture is encouraging the development of two distinct mindsets: exclusively future- and present-minded. Finding a balanced temporal perspective to life is more than just beneficial to the individual. It is of utmost importance to the survival of our species, because many of the acute problems that we face today may be attributed to tunnel-vision: we are enculturated to see only problems of a specific time-scale and we tune out of our consciousness the problems that should also be salient. To mount an adequate moral response to society’s problems, we must wisely distribute the weight of our effort between short-term measures that alleviate present problems, and long-term projects to better understand the fundamental cause of our oldest, most persistent problems. The failure of the modern artistic media to convey the importance of a multi-temporal approach to life, is ultimately a reflection of the profound difficulty in translating four-dimensional ideas to a largely two-dimensional media. This problem of visualizing information requires urgent attention and redress.

By focusing on our individual sense of time, I wish to address the internal monologue within (I dare say) almost all of us – the monologue that speaks quietly of the conflict between selfish desire and social conscience, the theory of life and its practice. I came to this university with the fire of ambition, and a relentless, overpowering drive to succeed in my chosen field: physics. I thought physics was the be-all-end-all, that what I hoped to accomplish mattered in the grand scheme of everythingness. In many respects, I still do! But that fire is now tempered by a newly-developed caution. The way I perceive science and its relationship with the outside world has been changing gradually, irreversibly. When once I held the simplistic view that all scientific knowledge was intrinsically valuable, now I recognize my naivety. I even welcome the occasional doubt that flits across my mind. I believed that physics was the most direct means through which I could translate my ideas to reality and thus contribute to society. However, in physics, the most intellectually stimulating ideas that have really caught my imagination, are often the most abstract. Frequently, the intended applications of these revolutionary ideas are out-of-this-world, amazing, and yet cannot address the more pressing problems that humanity faces. Inspiration comes in many guises; I had not thought that my intellect and social conscience, from which I derive all my inspiration, would ever conflict. This is the bitter irony. Over the past two years, this conflict has been a source of profound confusion; I suspect that I will continue to grapple with my confusion for the rest of my life.

My inner struggle has led me to an important realization, about the manner in which our inner mind perceives the outside world, and how this perception is colored by a single individual choice. When I chose to become a physicist, I had no idea about the implications of my decision that were beyond the obvious: financial prospects (poor), intellectual stimuli (high), place of work (mobile), ambition (sky-high). What was not obvious to me, should have been: when we make a choice about our professional careers, we are implicitly making a decision about where our desires stand in relationship with our sense of time. The urgency, or lack thereof, with which we regard the fulfillment of our individual wants is of fundamental importance in the way we view the world, because a signficant part of the motivations that drive us are derived from personal satisfaction. Furthermore, I claim that the manner in which modern societies define the roles that different occupations play, perpetuates a mindset that is skewed towards solving either the problems of the now, or the problems of the future, but rarely both in concert. This maladaptive trend is detrimental to the survival of the human species, because the acute problems that the we face today are often of disparate time-scales. The great challenge, then, is to bridge the culturally-constructed gap between the people who are trained by habit to acknowledge only the present, and those who acknowledge only the future.

While the motivations and ambitions that drive a person are exceedingly complex, I believe that most of them can be derived from polar tendencies of the human nature: the need to understand unfamiliar phenomena and theorize about how it works, and the need for action in practical matters, such as making a living. On a temporal scale, our thereotical and practical natures are completely different. The practical person focuses on the urgency of the moment, while the theoretical person gains a broader temporal perspective by keeping oneself detached from the phenomenon that is being observed. Motivated by convenience, I hereby name Theo and Prac as the abstract personifications of our theoretical and practical natures respectively.

Prac is breathless urgency in motion. A typical Prac is Sarah, a medical doctor working in the emergency ward of Thornton Hospital. For Sarah, every moment is focused in sharp relief, and the nature of her work requires that she is constantly living on the ‘edge’. Since Sarah directly utilizes her skills on her patients, she is intimately involved in the process of life-saving. Sarah is proud to be a doctor, and she has good reason to be. The daily confirmation of the validity of her medical knowledge is immediately gratifying at the most basic, somatic level.

Theo is of a different breed, altogether. In studying a natural or social phenomenon with the aim of creating a theory to explain it, one necessarily distances oneself from the urgency of the moment, to gain a broader temporal perspective of the phenomenon. Take the case of Leslie, a virologist who has developed a theory about the mutation pattern of the influenza virus in the case of an epidemic. For Leslie, the definitive test of his theory will not occur unless (or until) this epidemic occurs. Unlike Sarah, Leslie is spatially and temporally disconnected from the gratification of his effort. Leslie must have faith that the truth of his theory will survive the test of time, and while he does not wish an epidemic on the lot of humanity, he nevertheless believes his work is intrinsically valuable as a preparatory measure. For Theo-minded people, the gratification they seek is more intellectual and abstract in nature.

Inherent in these definitions are the disparate time-scales that are the quintessential difference between Theo and Prac. No one person could be purely one, or the other. No one should be. The human being - part Theo, part Prac - is thus conflicted. The push and pull between these opposing tendencies suggest a persistent state of flux and confusion: this is the TheoPrac Spectrum. Where do you stand?

Our position on the Spectrum is a product of individual choice and external influences. Culture, the “webs of significance (that man) himself has spun [Geertz]”, plays a major role. In many modern societies characterized by extensive specialization of labor, the mind-boggling variety of occupations begs for a system of broad categorization. Categorization helps people to make sense of the great number of choices available to them, and allows them to take intermediate steps from broad categories to narrower ones. Ironically, while this categorization effectively aids people to choose their eventual area of specialization, it is also dangerously maladaptive. Through categorization, these societies encourage people to pidgeon-hole themselves in narrowly-defined roles that very often lie on opposite ends of the TheoPrac Spectrum: “Are you a scientist, or an engineer? Academic, or teacher? Theoretical, or applied mathematician? Artist, or humanist? Biologist, or doctor?”

I argue that these labels, with their associated “webs of significance”, are misused by many people to construct a largely superficial self-identity. For Sarah and Leslie, their roles as doctor and virologist, respectively, are clearly delineated. The pride they have for their work is an extension of the pride they have for their self-identities, which, ironically, are largely cultural constructs and devoid of real individualism. From the softest of insinuations to the most direct methods of persuasion, the culture that we live in delivers an immense social pressure to conform to certain molds of the ideal professional. Such was the case in the nineteenth century, when the railway was introduced in the United States. Nye attributed the rapid acceptance of the railway into American culture to the “technological sublime” [Nye, 60]. The sublime is a combination of awe, reverence, and fear; the technological sublime to is a unique kind of sublime. The awe induced by seeing an immense and dynamic technology (such as the railway) has deeper connotations: it has become also a celebration of the triumph of human imagination over nature. Such was the strength of the symbol of the railway, that the American people associated wealth, success and respectability to many professions related to the railway. The railway, then, was the ideal.

This historical case study is instructive to modern America, where the technological sublime has merely shifted to different, subtler technologies. For example, the explosion of research activity in the biological sciences is a testament to the feelings of sublime over several major breakthroughs, such as the decoding of D.N.A. Nature, our oldest enemy is still here, and it wears the face of disease and old age. The old paranoia is now translated to a great social pressure on the younger generation to assume the mantle of biologist and savior. When personal choice has succumbed, unknowingly, to social pressure, there will eventually be deep-seated feelings of resentment and confusion. The trap is laid. Who will recognize it for what it is?

Once one consciously and publicly chooses a culturally-defined label, it is not easy to break out of the mold. Why would anyone want to? There is no confusion, no moral dilemma, only a comforting certitude in one’s ambition and place in society. The lives of great scientists, artists or humanists provide a clear template to which one could live one’s life emulating towards without shame or fear of criticism. These are the culturally-directed passions of our youth. I too have had heroes: physicists whose intellect and personality captivate. We first learn to stand under the shadows of giants. We strive to follow in their footsteps. But when does admiration end and the erosion of self-identity begin? It is so easy to cross this precarious line, and much harder to deconstruct these superficial, culturally-constructed identities that are so deeply ingrained in modern-speak-thought. To make a sensible claim for self-identity, it is necessary to rebuild the individual from first principles. Our building blocks are our own.

There is a danger to never breaking out of the mold and stagnating on the TheoPrac Spectrum. Ehrlich insightfully argues that human beings have adapted, through Darwinian natural selection, to become very adept at tuning a constant stimulus out of their consciousness. This process, called ‘habituation’, developed as a way for our ancestors, who lived in precarious times, to better perceive new threats or opportunities [Ehrlich, 135]. I wish to extend the concept of ‘habituation’ even further. Prac-minded individuals have adapted, through competency selection, to become very good at tuning out phenomena that occur at larger time-scales from their consciousness. By competency selection, I mean that the abilities to focus on the moment and ignore all distractions make Prac an effective worker in Prac’s chosen field. Conversely, Theo-minded individuals thrive by tuning out the urgency of the moment and focusing on the broader temporal perspective. Hence, two kinds of mindsets develop: exclusively present-minded or future-minded.

The survival of the human species hinges upon the ability of individuals to recognize and embrace both their theoretical and practical sides, because the acute problems that humanity faces today have two widely-separated time scales: compare the urgency of the problems of malnutrition, poverty and disease, with the deleterious changes to our environment that are cumulative in effect and hence less salient. To mount a sufficiently robust response to these problems, we need to combine in a new synthesis elements of both Theo and Prac. It will not do to be just one and not the other. Present-minded and future-minded individuals suffer from ‘tunnel-vision’: the inability to see beyond the small temporal dimension that they thrive in. A host of serious problems exist precisely because of this selective ignorance. For example, Prac-minded slash-and-burn farmers in Indonesia destroy large regions of tropical forests, pollute the atmosphere, and in many cases, cannot even sustain the yield of the soil for the next generation of crops. The loss of biodiversity and the deterioration of the natural environment are long-term problems that the farmers selectively ignore. Another case in point is the use of the atom bomb during World War II. Many eminent Theo-minded physicists involved in creating the bomb grapple with the morality of their actions only after the detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer, the figurehead of the Manhattan Project, publicly stated that “… the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose.” So confident were these physicists in the ability of the bomb to affect broad strokes in history, that they were rendered ethically blind! It was only after the deaths that the moral implications became real, pressing and overwhelming.

If our social conscience compels us, individually, to embrace both our theoretical and practical natures, an important question arises: does the individual have any credible hope in making a difference? Will the complexity and the sheer mind-numbing scale of our problems overwhelm our tiny shreds of goodwill? Hopelessness is as much an impediment to humanitarianism as inability. I claim that this bleak outlook is completely unnecessary: human ingenuity will surprise all, once again.

The first objection to developing a social conscience is the problem of scale. Dillard makes a poetic, moving commentary on the statistical insignificance of our efforts (and our very existence). The staggering statistics - numbering the deaths caused by many natural disasters - seemingly diminish the importance of any relief effort. It is easy to dismiss these more Prac-like efforts as noble, but ultimately futile. Relief efforts are a knee-jerk response to the urgency of the moment, and merely alleviate the symptons of an older, scarier problem: will the human race continue to be helpless against the senseless brutality of the natural world? Dillard offers a word of caution: when numbers threaten to overwhelm our grasp of reality, when in our desperation we start to visualize the drowning of thousands as “lots and lots of dots, in blue water, …our minds must not go slack… we agree that we want to think straight” [Dillard, 97]. Statistical insignificance is the immature person’s excuse for inaction. While statistics are useful for giving us a new perspective, any conclusion that is derived purely from numbers is worthy of skepticism. Few things are entirely quantifiable; the consequences of acts of compassion are not one of them. What is needed is a multi-temporal approach to solving large-scale, complex problems: alleviate the symptons now, with the eventual goal of creating a theory that will address the root of the problems.

However, many of these theories will fail. Calvino claims that the modern age is burdened with “a doughy mass of events without form or direction, which surrounds, submerges, crushes all reasoning” [Calvino, 146]. As a consequence, he suggests that our theories have lost all their vaunted predictive powers in the face of such complex social dynamics. The problem is that while we can reasonably predict the individual behavior of components of a system, their aggregate behavior is much harder to predict because of the interactions between each component. This is a major stumbling block in the attempt to understand and propose solutions to complex social problems such as poverty and discrimination. The problem of complexity is evident in virtually all disciplines of the social and physical sciences, and brings into question the intrinsic limitations of our most fundamental scientific theories. Is the Theo-minded individual able to surpass this limitation and make any significant contribution to society?

I do not believe the reductionist approach in science, which involves reducing a complex phenomenon into its components, is intrinsically flawed. It is important that we continually strive to connect together scientific disciplines of different levels of complexity into one coherent whole. There may be large gaps in our current understanding between physics and chemistry, or between consciousness and the science of neurons. These gaps require a leap of faith: we acknowledge our ignorance, and move on. I do not believe that this gaps are insoluble. On the contrary, I am confident that human ingenuity will eventually find surprising answers to our oldest problems. Perhaps the only flaw to the reductionist approach is its grand ambition; we may not find those answers anytime in the near future. Often, these gaps are just too prohibitively large. Consequently, as a practical matter, it also becomes important to study the science of complexity directly, as we are more likely to produce results that we can use today. Even when deciding what fields of research are worth the effort, I emphasize the importance of a balanced, multi-temporal outlook.

The science of complexity is an exciting, vibrant field of research, and much of this intellectual excitement is captured in the early history of chaos theory. When Lorenz tried to model the weather with a set of three non-linear equations that described the way air moves in the atmosphere, he found to his dismay that the model showed wildly unpredictable behavior. The smallest difference in the initial starting conditions of his calculations led to extremely divergent results. Hence the term “chaos” was coined. More than a decade later, Feigenbaum began a revolution in chaos theory by finding patterns in the most improbable of places! From these patterns, he discovered two new universal constants, which are as basic to chaos as the π is to circles. The universality of the Feigenbaum constants is extremely remarkable, in the sense that they could be applied to any and all chaotic systems of a certain type, no matter what the structure of the system is. Consequently, the constants have been confirmed beautifully in a diverse range of experiments, including those on nonlinear electronic circuits and the convection of fluids [Strogatz].

There is growing evidence that suggests a very profound truth: even in the most complex of scientific phenomenon, we are able to find universal patterns that can be described not just qualitatively, but quantitatively. A quantitative description allows scientists to make accurate, verifiable predictions. It is a testament to the versatility of science, that by temporarily ignoring the individual behavior of components and studying the properties of the system as a whole, we are able to better understand complex phenomenon. My optimism is shared by Watts, who believes that the study of the science of networks – systems of interconnected objects that are continuously evolving – will have very broad applications in all the sciences. In particular, the evidence points to the universality of the small-world phenomenon, which was originally a bold sociological hypothesis about the underlying interconnections between anybody in the human society [Watts, 138]. The emergence of the small-world phenomenon in disciplines outside sociology supports, again, the claim of universal patterns in complexity. It is in the search for these universal patterns that a Theo-minded individual can hope to address real problems in society.

My optimism in the versatility of science is tempered by the age-old problem of education. It is not a trivial matter to inculcate, in the young, a multi-temporal perspective to life. Many of the problems in a multi-temporal education can be attributed to the “confusing and unsatisfying state of art in our world” [Dissanayake, 33]. Dissanayake makes an insightful claim about the vital importance of art to the survival of the human species. The purpose of art is to pick out and make salient the institutions in our culture that are essential for the culture’s preservation. However, in many modern societies where luxuries and leisure activities are excessively abundant, there is an illusion - fostered by blind hope - that individual survival can be taken for granted. Art has lost its original purpose, and has maladapted to conform to the short attention span that is characteristic of pop culture, or to the limited notions of high art. Many people have thus been enculturated to a new, narrow definition of art: as a form of entertainment, and no longer an indicator of what we should pay attention to, for our own survival.

More fundamental to the issue at hand is the inability of art to effectively convey multi-temporal ideas to large groups of people. Tufte ends his book on ‘Envisioning Information’ with a very revealing admission: “This profound and informed frustation reflects the essential dilemma of narrative designs – how to reduce the magnificent four-dimensional reality of time and three-space into little marks on paper flatlands [Tufte, 119].” Our education system is heavily dependent on the verbal communication between lecturer and student, and the ‘paper flatlands’ of textbooks. Verbal instruction has many strengths; however, it will always be limited by the linearity of its presentation, and its inability to convey visually-rich information. In trying to convey a four-dimensional idea through a two-dimensional landscape, there have been various successes through creative techniques in visualization. Unfortunately, these successes are limited because they almost invariably rely on the viewer expending an extra amount of effort in the interpretation, and the patience of the masses is unforgivingly short. Tufte expresses the realistic hope that futuristic computer visualizations will boost our capabilities to convey four-dimensional information. We have arrived at a remarkable, and surprising conclusion: the broader conflict between Theo and Prac, and the failure to convey multi-temporal ideas in the education system, are problems that are best approached by improving the methods through which we visualize information.

Let’s get to work.