Episode 133: The Constitution of Knowledge

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Unofficial, reviewed transcript. It may still contain mistakes; check the podcast when wording matters.

Speakers are labeled by first name where identified. Unidentified-speaker labels may refer to different people. Bracketed question marks indicate uncertain wording.

Transcript

[00:00:00]  Unidentified speaker: Hello out there.

[00:00:01]  Peter: This week on The Theory of Anything podcast, Bruce takes a deep dive into the epistemological ideas behind Jonathan Rauch's Constitution of Knowledge. Rauch is a fan of Karl Popper and a former guest on this show, who wrote a book a few years back called The Constitution of Knowledge, where he makes the case that the creation of objective knowledge relies as much on institutions and norms as individuals. In a free society, knowledge emerges not from individual sincerity or authority, but from a social system governed by shared rules. No one has the final say on truth. No person's status or identity grants epistemic authority, and all claims must be open to public criticism. This applies not just to science, but to journalism, law, and all areas where humans seek to fallibly move closer to truth. I enjoyed listening to Bruce here, and I hope someone else out there does too.

[00:01:12]  Bruce: Welcome to The Theory of Anything podcast.

[00:01:14]  Unidentified speaker: Hey, Peter.

[00:01:15]  Unidentified speaker: Hey, Bruce.

[00:01:17]  Bruce: We're gonna do something a little different today. And some may see this as somewhat redundant. We had Jonathan Rauch on the podcast talk about his books, just particularly the book, The Constitution of Knowledge, but to a lesser degree, his book, Cross Purposes, the most recent book. Despite this, and even though honestly, I'm going to review Jonathan Rauch's ideas here, which he does better than I'm going to do. I still felt like I needed to do a separate episode on it, though, to first of all kind of pull it all together, but because I wanted to apply it to our ongoing discussion about static versus dynamic societies, okay? Particularly, I want to emphasize more of The Constitution of Knowledge, that book, because I believe that one in particular is the one that relates to the static versus dynamic societies book and why we got stuck in static societies for hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of years. I also think it teaches us something very important about epistemology, that Popper touches upon, but doesn't dig into nearly enough. The fact that rapid progress comes from a special kind of community rather than from individuals. Let me ask a question to the audience just to get you thinking about this. Think about this for a while, okay? And it's not like this is a question that has right or wrong answer. It does have a right or wrong answer. It's just nobody knows what it is. And anyone who thinks they know what it is probably doesn't know what they're talking about. Suppose we build an AGI tomorrow. Will an AGI be as dogmatic as human beings are?

[00:02:51]  Bruce: Or will the AGI be better at self-criticism than humans are? Put another way, is human dogmatism, which I and Popper have claimed is often a good thing, is human dogmatism so fundamental to general intelligence and to the general intelligence algorithm that AGI's will be dogmatic just like we are? Or are humans primarily dogmatic for other reasons unrelated to the AGI algorithm? And perhaps related to, instead, evolutionary reasons. For example, could it be that humans are dogmatic for evolutionary reasons that are unrelated to us being universal explainers, and that AGI's will be, therefore, a kind of super intelligence compared to us because they are much better at self criticizing their own theories than we are? And maybe even under this way of thinking, that they won't even need a scientific community to start making rapid progress. Is the fact that we humans require a scientific community to make rapid progress a compensating factor for our evolutionary dogmatism? Or is a scientific community required for any person, even an AGI, to make rapid progress? I can't help but feel that this is an interesting question and one that I admit I don't know the answer to and don't believe anybody does know the answer to.

[00:04:15]  Unidentified speaker: Yeah, these are interesting.

[00:04:17]  Peter: You've taken Rauch's ideas and blasted them off into outer space here.

[00:04:23]  Unidentified speaker: You know, wow.

[00:04:25]  Bruce: Now, I do feel there is quite a bit of evidence in various theories out there. There's corroborating evidence for theories that humans are far more innately dogmatic than we need to be. Actually, see episode 113 for at least one theory about why this would be.

[00:04:41]  Unidentified speaker: Okay. We haven't really covered that.

[00:04:42]  Bruce: There's like a ton of theories on this. The one I covered in episode 113 isn't really about that subject.

[00:04:49]  Unidentified speaker: It's just incidentally, it came up.

[00:04:52]  Bruce: And I want to cover some of the theories of human dogmatism in future podcasts, but it hasn't been on my top list of things I want to cover, so it just has never made the cut so far. This makes me think that maybe AGI will be super at self-criticism compared to us, and maybe the institutions built to create the scientific community are necessary compensating factors for humans, but will be less necessary for AGI. I'm saying these theories make me think that sometimes. But I admit it's hard for me to believe that AGI will be so good at self-criticism that they won't need a scientific community.

[00:05:32]  Unidentified speaker: That seems a little silly to me.

[00:05:33]  Bruce: It seems like diversity of thought would be almost or equally valuable to AGI as it would be to us. So I admit that I don't know the answer to this question, and I'm almost of two minds on this, specifically because we have good theories that say both things. And I don't know how you would select between the theories at this point. There's just too many on the table, and they're addressing different problems, and it's just, and they're all a little vague. It's just unclear how to go about it. Perhaps also we'll find that it's not an either or question. Maybe AGI will be dogmatic, but not as dogmatic as us or something like that, something that's a kind of hybrid in between. I see no reason why that couldn't be true. As we'll see, this question has relevance to understanding Rauch's views, which is why I brought it up in this episode, although it's a question that's been on my mind that I wanted to bring up for discussion on the podcast anyhow. Now, Rauch holds a special place in my heart, and I need to probably just bring this up and explain it because it does have some real relevance to my own intellectual journey with critical rationalism. Rauch clearly is a critical rationalist. I don't know if he self-labels that way, but like in the podcast, he outrightly says Popper’s like one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era. And like he’s, there’s— And it's too bad if the Academy downplays that you asked about.

[00:06:59]  Unidentified speaker: Why is the Academy downplay? It's like, do they?

[00:07:01]  Bruce: Oh, that's bad if that's true. You know, like you can see to the degree to which he is a critical rationalist.

[00:07:06]  Unidentified speaker: Okay.

[00:07:06]  Bruce: I recall how I started departing from certain critical CritRat community ideas sometime around episode 53 to 55. That's the episodes on the Brett Hall's theory of intelligence compared to IQ theory. Recall that I had a long discussion with several members of the CritRat community over Brett Hall's theory of intelligence. He argued that universal explainer theory implies that all humans, including apparently mentally challenged and even senile older people, because I specifically asked about those, are actually equally intelligent. What had really struck me was the degree to which many of the CritRats I had interacted with had been willing to ignore all possible tests to their theory. Now, if you'll recall, I had asked one CritRat what sort of evidence would he accept as showing his view to be false. Now, the context here isn't probably what you think. He didn't find IQ correlations impressive. So, we were talking about the fact that there's these correlations, there's this data that you have to explain. Okay, so I asked him, so he pointed out that correlations aren't very impressive. They're only like 30%, you know, like they're not very impressive. So, I asked him, I said, what level of correlation would you find impressive enough to convince you? Which honestly to me seems like a super fair question, okay? And it's not like I'm trying to argue that he's right or wrong or anything. If anything, this is supportive of his view. Like, I'm just trying to say, okay, I can see where you're coming from, but like, what sort of correlation would you say is actually impressive?

[00:08:45]  Unidentified speaker: Okay.

[00:08:47]  Bruce: He very dramatically, and I would say quite proudly, explained to me that there was no possible test outcome that could possibly change his mind. Because if there was a test with a high enough correlating factor to be convincing, he would know for sure there had been cheating on the tests. Thus, he'd still not believe that his theory was wrong. Now, I was shocked at this answer, and I said, okay, what if we put in place very careful anti-cheating measures? Let's imagine, this is just hypothetical, dude, right? Imagine this scenario any way you want. Imagine the most stringent, most amazing anti-cheating measures you can imagine, and some sort of high correlation. Would it then convince you? And he again proudly told me he'd not find any such measures convincing. He'd be sure there must somehow be cheating. It would just convince him of cheating. He then explained that he saw Brett's theory as philosophical, so it wasn't subject to testing anyhow. Now, I documented this conversation at length in Episode 55, if you're curious about it. Now, an answer like this coming from the critical rationalist community, honestly, it was disheartening. I mean, like, we are talking the opposite of critical rationalism here, okay? Especially since there seemed to be something like really strong agreement. Like, this was multiple people I was talking to, and they agreed with him, right? Now, not long after that, I remember feeling disheartened, and I came, I started reading Kindly Inquisitors. I think actually you recommended that book to me, Peter.

[00:10:26]  Bruce: I had already read Constitution of Knowledge at that point, but I was reading Kindly Inquisitors for the first time, and I came across this quote. Quote, the skeptical rule is, no one gets final say. You may claim that a statement is established as knowledge only if it can be debunked in principle and only insofar as it withstands attempts to debunk it. This is more or less what the great 20th century philosopher of science, Karl R. Popper, and his followers have called the principle of falsifiability. Science is distinctive, not because it proves true statements, but because it seeks systemically to disprove, falsify false ones. In practice, of course, it is sometimes hard, if not impossible, to say whether a given statement is falsifiable or not. But what counts is the way the rule directs you to try to act. In principle, if you do not try to check ideas by trying to debunk them, you are not practicing science. You are entitled to claim that a statement is objectively true only insofar as it is both checkable and has stood up to checking and not otherwise. Reading that was like a light coming on for me. It was a reassuring moment. The realization that there were critical rationalists out there that read Popper and had come away with an interpretation way more similar to my own.

[00:11:45]  Peter: Yeah, that book just makes the epistemological case for free speech stronger than anything.

[00:11:52]  Unidentified speaker: It just really links it to critical rationalism, and it's just so well written, and it just...

[00:11:59]  Unidentified speaker: Yeah, I agree.

[00:12:00]  Unidentified speaker: What a good book.

[00:12:00]  Bruce: Probably that book established his career, didn't it? Wasn't that the one that made him famous?

[00:12:05]  Unidentified speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah, it's just a masterpiece of critical rationalism. And I love that it's not like in the weeds with all this esoteric philosophy, or it’s just perfectly aligns with common sense. And I think it could be appreciated by just about anyone.

[00:12:25]  Unidentified speaker: Yeah.

[00:12:26]  Bruce: Now, I'm a much bigger fan of Rauch's book, The Constitution of Knowledge, than even of Kindly Inquisitors. And I should say, I completely agree with you that it's masterclass. It's just the Constitution of Knowledge is even better. To understand, now, it may not be as famous, but it is better. To understand the idea, let's start with the idea from his book. Let's start with the idea of, quote, the marketplace of ideas. Or if you prefer, we can call this a culture of criticism, which might mean the same thing to many people. So Rauch says, quote, When Americans think about how we find truth amid a world full of discordant viewpoints, we usually turn to a metaphor that of the marketplace of ideas. Now, Rauch finds it a useful analogy, but one that you can't take too far. Quote, It's a good metaphor as far as it goes, yet woefully incomplete. But I quote, But ideas in the marketplace do not talk directly to each other, and for the most part, neither do individuals. Rather our conversations are mediated through institutions, like journals and newspapers and social media platforms, and they rely on a dense network of norms and rules, like truthfulness and fact checking, and they depend on expertise of professionals, like peer reviewers and editors, and the entire system rests on a foundation of values, a shared understanding that there is a right and wrong way to make knowledge. Those values and policies and institutions do for knowledge what the US. Constitution does for politics.

[00:13:53]  Bruce: They create a governing structure, forcing social contestation onto peaceful and productive pathways. Rauch points out, by the way, all these quotes I'm using are pretty much exactly the ones that I read to him in the interview and asked him to comment on. Rauch points out that in reality, the whole marketplace of ideas doesn't work well. He uses social media as his prime example. You got to think social media in its early days. It's actually getting better. So you got to think about the wild and woolly early days of social media, particularly around the time of COVID, let's say. Journalism is part of the reality-based community. That's what he calls, instead of saying the scientific community, reality-based community would be the broader, including the scientific community, but includes like journalism and things like that. Okay, and any truth-seeking groups that are using the Constitution of Knowledge. So journalism is part of the reality-based community, according to Rauch, and it has institutions and values to be truth-seeking. Social media did not, and social media quickly filled up with utter crap because the network proliferated not based on how true a story was, but on how enraged it made people. To put another way, social networks on social media preferred falsehoods over truth, and that is what the marketplace of ideas therefore supplied. The net result was a short period of time where social media was dominated by fake news stories and honestly did real harm to society.

[00:15:31]  Bruce: The fact this would be true of nearly— In fact, this would be true of nearly any network that didn't put in place the right kinds of institutions to allow the network to prefer truth. But what do you need to get your network preferring truth? Rauch's key insight comes primarily from Charles Sanders Peirce, who predates Karl Popper and founded the epistemology of pragmatism, which is very instrumentalist and critical rationalist would disagree with. But Popper was a huge fan of Peirce, and Popper clearly borrowed a lot from Peirce. Peirce, therefore, deserves to be thought of as a forerunner to Popper that delved more into the nature of critical truth-seeking communities and how they function. Popper wrote some on the subject as well, though he did it less. Rauch calls these communities the reality-based community, and that's what that term means. It included the scientific community, and even today the scientific community is something of a gold standard. But it also includes scholarship in a field not considered a science, journalism, government organizations that collect intelligence or data, and probably most importantly, law and jurisprudence would count as part of the reality-based community.

[00:16:43]  Peter: I've got to say, Bruce, that word reality-based community makes me bristle a little bit.

[00:16:50]  Unidentified speaker: Fair enough.

[00:16:50]  Bruce: It may not be the best terms.

[00:16:53]  Peter: It seems a little bit too much like an us or them kind of thinking, like there's a community that has almost like a monopoly on rationality.

[00:17:06]  Unidentified speaker: I don't know.

[00:17:07]  Peter: Maybe there is, I guess, but it just, I mean, you can make that case, but I just, just inside, I get, I feel a little icky when I hear that.

[00:17:18]  Unidentified speaker: Yeah. I don't think it's...

[00:17:20]  Unidentified speaker: Do you know what? I do too.

[00:17:22]  Peter: Really how, like, interwoven just moving closer to truth is in this world.

[00:17:32]  Unidentified speaker: Like, there's, everyone is, I mean, if it is, does have validity, I think just about everyone is part, in some ways, part of that community, in some ways not, I suppose.

[00:17:44]  Peter: But it makes it, when you, when I hear that phrase, it makes it sound like it's a, you're either with this, with us or against us kind of a thing.

[00:17:54]  Unidentified speaker: And I just.

[00:17:54]  Bruce: So, I have the same problem with the term reality-based community. I think in context, he never sees it as a specific community, but instead as a series of nodes in some sort of network.

[00:18:07]  Unidentified speaker: Fair enough.

[00:18:08]  Bruce: And he makes a huge case that you can be part of more than one community. So, he would consider religion legitimate, but not the reality-based community. And a person can be both part of religious community, let's say when they go to church, and part of the reality-based community when they become a scientist and they go to work, right?

[00:18:30]  Unidentified speaker: Fair enough.

[00:18:31]  Bruce: And that's what he's trying to generalize the idea of the scientific community. Now, if you think about it, the scientific community, you may not bristle at that, but it's got the same problem, right? Like you could say, you're part of the scientific community and religion isn't or something like that.

[00:18:45]  Unidentified speaker: Yeah, I get it.

[00:18:47]  Bruce: Okay, and so he's trying to generalize it so that we don't have just science. We've also got things like journalism, jurisprudence, things like that, scholarship, right? That you've got a community or a network that is trying to find the truth about something and has a certain epistemology of how they go about it. And religion is not subject to it. Religion is kind of the gold standard example of this, but like any meaning meaning meaning meme would qualify, right? And probably a lot more would qualify. We don't live our lives as part of the scientific community, even if as your day job, you're part of it, right? And this is the point he's trying to make.

[00:19:28]  Peter: Yeah, but then even, okay, to push back a little bit, even within religion, there's so many examples of people arguing and trying to work stuff out and forming consensus. And there's similar processes going on historically in just about any religion.

[00:19:46]  Unidentified speaker: And some religions are more authoritarian than others.

[00:19:49]  Bruce: And you've just studied this recently, so you know exactly what you're talking about, don't you?

[00:19:54]  Unidentified speaker: Well, I'd like to think so. I'd always like to think so.

[00:19:59]  Bruce: You actually took that online class by Bart Ehrman about this, didn't you?

[00:20:04]  Unidentified speaker: I did, yes.

[00:20:05]  Bruce: Yeah, so you're not just saying this off the top of your head. You've got like some real knowledge about what has happened historically here.

[00:20:12]  Unidentified speaker: Yes, I think so.

[00:20:14]  Peter: And the Judeo, I dare say the Judeo-Christian tradition might be stronger on this than...

[00:20:23]  Bruce: Than Rauch is saying.

[00:20:24]  Unidentified speaker: Than other traditions, maybe. Okay. All right.

[00:20:28]  Bruce: So let me just say that I'm not necessarily agreeing with Rauch. I'm doing my best to explain the viewpoint from his book. And he actually makes a number of things that he says that I don't even think I agree with. But I don't think that detracts from what really strikes me as a very valid way to try to generalize Popper's epistemology away from just being about science. And I think we can learn from that. But I think your criticism here is valid for what it's worth, right? And Rauch tries to address, like, tries to pre-think those criticisms and address them.

[00:21:06]  Unidentified speaker: But I'm not convinced he fully does it.

[00:21:08]  Unidentified speaker: Yeah, I'm sure he did. I'm sure he does. He's such a nuanced thinker.

[00:21:13]  Peter: I just meant that just that particular phrase makes me bristle.

[00:21:17]  Bruce: Yeah, fair enough. And you know what it does for me, too. It does come across as sort of like, you're not part of the reality based community.

[00:21:28]  Unidentified speaker: All right.

[00:21:29]  Bruce: So Rauch sees all truth seeking, reality based communities as relying on a constitution, which he sees as analogous to the US Constitution. He is clear that by constitution, he doesn't merely mean the document we know as the Constitution, though that plays an important role, but also all the related institutions that implement the government. However, Rauch seemingly disagrees with Popper that falsification is the center of the epistemological world. Here's a quote from him. Francis Bacon and his followers said that the scientific inquiry is characterized by experimentation. Logical positivists, that it is characterized by verification. Karl Popper and his followers, by falsification. All of them were right some of the time, but not always. So right there, you have him clearly departing from Popper, at least to some degree. And I do want to call that out, okay? I do too, so there's nothing wrong with that. And that doesn't make him not a critical rationalist. He's trying to improve upon Popper's critical rationalism, okay? Then he continues, the better generalization perhaps, better generalization, perhaps the only one broad enough to capture most of what reality-based inquirers do, is that liberal science is characterized by orderly, decentralized and impersonal social adjudication. Thus, Rauch argues for not falsification as central to epistemology, but as a certain institutionally-powered form of social adjudication. Note that in the interview, Rauch surely backed falsification as a huge overwhelming aspect of that.

[00:23:05]  Bruce: And as we'll see, he does work it into his view as relatively central. But he doesn't see it as the central tenet the way Popper did. And it's worth calling that out, okay? Rauch finds the analogy with the Constitution to be better than the Marketplace of Ideas analogy. Quote, in that respect, the political marketplace provides the better metaphor.

[00:23:29]  Unidentified speaker: The US.

[00:23:29]  Bruce: Constitution forces political factions and their agendas into nonstop negotiations, requiring multiple factions to agree in order to make law. Similarly, the Constitution of Knowledge forces epistemic factions and their beliefs into nonstop negotiations, requiring multiple factions to agree in order to make knowledge. Quote, I have supplemented liberal science, as a term, with the term, quote, reality-based community, by which I mean the social network which adheres to liberal science's rules and norms. My hope is that reality-based community, as a term, captures the notion that liberal science is no mere colloquy of individuals, each doing his own thing and occasionally interacting with others, like gas molecules in a balloon or bumper cars at the amusement park, the community's interactions are structured and elaborate, and amount to much more than just the sum of individuals' doings. And the essential enablers, connectors and transmitters are institutions. Institutions propagate and enforce norms and rules, evaluate and certify credentials, set agendas and direct resources, enforce accountability and train future generations to do all those other things and more. As a result, the reality-based community can get at least some traction on almost any claim which its members choose to discuss provided always that they follow the rules.

[00:24:56]  Unidentified speaker: What are the rules?

[00:24:58]  Bruce: Rauch previously mentioned. Rauch breaks this Constitution of Knowledge down into several ideas and institutions. One the fallibilist rule, quote, No one gets the final say. The empirical rule, No one has personal authority. Quote, To be knowledge, a statement must be checked. And it also says that knowledge is always provisional, standing only as long as it withstands checking. That does seem like Popper's falsificationism to me, doesn't it? Rauch also puts a huge emphasis, as does Popper, on theories and criticisms that are intersubjective. Quote, The rules apply to everybody and persons are interchangeable. If your method is valid only for you or your affinity group or people, who believe as you do, then you are not reality-based. Quote, Objectivity, factuality and rationality, they live not just within individual's minds and practices, but on the network. Objectivity, wrote the philosopher Helen E. Longino, is a characteristic of a community's practice of science, rather than of an individual's. Rauch argues that what a reality-based community values is not specific outcomes or endpoint theories, but more they value the overall process. By the way, this is why I did the podcast on Anarcho-Capitalism versus Critical Rationalism prior to this one. I'm trying to drive home this idea that a good open society, what we would call a liberal society, is built the same way on criticisable and error-correctable institutions and processes, not outcomes. And that's what we're after in Critical Rationalism.

[00:26:45]  Bruce: It is not a coincidence that this is very reminiscent of classical liberalism, therefore, which values certain democratic norms over specific electoral outcomes. As we discussed a podcast ago, this is why classical liberalism isn't compatible with anarcho-capitalism, which is outcome-oriented rather than process-oriented. And then Rauch continues, quote, What sets the reality-based community apart is that its members operate and interact on the basis of generally shared, if sometimes also disputed, values and rules. They embrace the authority of those values and rules rather than the authority of any particular individual and tribe, and they hold each other accountable. This is why we can say in Jargon Unavailable to Peirce that they constitute a social network. Or put another way, a reality-based community that follows the Constitution of Knowledge is outcome-neutral and favors the process. But he argues they, in a sense, replace a smaller tribe with a larger, less personal one. Quote, ...but replaces a personal or tribal network with one which is small or local or familiar or familial or private or affiliative, with a liberal network, one which is large and global and impersonal and public and critical. This changes the game. Again, it's hard to miss the parallel here with classical liberal identity, which says being a citizen of the US, this is assuming you're in the US, to be a citizen of the US first and maybe your local tribe second. If it is, or at least equally maybe, if it is outcome neutral, it does at least value certain process-oriented values.

[00:28:25]  Bruce: Rauch gives this list of core commitments that he believes are the core commitments. And he lists it as fallibilism, objectivity, exclusivity, disconfirmation, accountability, pluralism, civility, professionalism, institutionalism, no bullcrapping, and do not block the way of inquiry. This view of rationality makes rationality a function of the network rather than the individual. Quote, the best way to think of rationality and objectivity is not only as attributes of individuals, but also, and primarily, as attributes of the reality-based community as a system, a network. What can the reality-based community address? Here's another quote from Rauch. Can the marketplace of persuasion research—reach, sorry, reach some sort of stable conclusion about a proposition or tackle it in an organized, consensual way? If so, the proposition is grist for the reality-based community, whether or not a clear consensus is reached. This isn't only science, it could even be something like aesthetic or moral knowledge. So another quote from Rauch on this. In this way, the reality-based community can advance not only empirical knowledge, but also aesthetic knowledge and even moral knowledge. The result may not always be a body of hard facts or technical innovations, but it rightfully qualifies as progress towards truth. Again, from Kindly Inquisitors, this is me quoting him in Constitution of Knowledge, quoting himself in Kindly Inquisitors.

[00:29:57]  Bruce: So literally, he says, again, from Kindly Inquisitors, quote, moral knowledge, like other knowledge, is not definitive, but it is generally in over long spans, is generally in over long spans. You can look at it as a tape of a liberal, you can look at a tape of a liberal society's moral development and know which way it is running, usually towards less social violence, more social participation, and a wider circle of dignity and tolerance.

[00:30:23]  Unidentified speaker: That's from The Constitution of Knowledge, page 98 to 99. I didn't get page quotes for most of these quotes, but I did for that one, I guess.

[00:30:31]  Bruce: But according to Rauch, anyhow, this places limits on what the reality-based community can address. Can the reality-based community or classical liberalism address, say, the question of the meaning of life? Rauch answers, no. Given this, Rauch sees both classical liberalism and the reality-based community as intentionally incomplete. Rauch references what he calls the Four Ms. Morality, the question of life and death. Sorry, mortality, the question of life and death. Morality, the question of right and wrong. Murder, or rather the question of suffering, but he just wanted an M-word, and miracles, or lack thereof. Rauch claims the reality-based community and classical liberalism only try to deal with some of these questions, with the reality-based community unable to answer ultimate questions of meaning about life and death, and how to deal with suffering. His argument is that it is part of the design of secularism, that these two sides are incomplete. It built—it built itself upon the idea that we would use something like the reality-based community to answer types of questions that it, um, that is meant to answer, but we leave you to find meaning using your own personal ideas and conscience. Quote, and so we wind up with two quite different modes of thinking, both inherently incomplete. A satisfactory account of the world requires both. A regime which subordinates one to the other, whether theocratic or communistic, cannot be healthy or fully human. That's from cross purposes, by the way, rather than Constitution of Knowledge.

[00:32:12]  Bruce: And quote, I'm obliged to confess that purely secular thinking can get you some distance towards putting morality and mortality on solid footing, but I cannot get all the way there. This is how Rauch makes room for our anarcho-capitalist friends and also a religious person like me, not as best a best theory, but as a valid meaning-making system of beliefs. Initially, Rauch saw this as a mutual non-intervention pact, but he came to realize he was wrong about this. So now going back to quotes, this is from cross purposes again. We have since learned painfully with what an Iraqi or an Afghan, what any Iraqi or Afghan stand can tell you. Airdropping elections and constitutions on a morally unprepared society does not work. At the same time, I didn't foresee the extent to which mainline Protestantism would collapse as a source of public values. And I certainly didn't foresee the extent to which evangelical Protestantism would turn resentful, confrontational and authoritarian. In hindsight too, I did not appreciate the impact of that implicit bargain between American democracy and American Christianity. I would have said that the basic deal, back before he changed his mind, I would have said that the basic deal was to leave each other alone, a wall of separation and all that. Their only bargain, I thought, was to make no bargain. To the greatest extent possible, religion and government should tend to their separate business and not interfere with each other.

[00:33:46]  Bruce: I should note here, this is me talking now, that I personally bristle at people that claim this and find their view to be—and find their view to be humorously naïve. Rauch now agrees with me on this, but he didn't back then. But Rauch continues, Quote, Although there is much merit in mutual non-intervention, I should have paid more attention to the American founders, who, while opposing the admixture of religion with government, warned that republicanism would rely in part on religious underpinnings. John Adams, for instance, famously wrote, We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passion unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our constitution as a whale goes against a net. Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

[00:34:43]  Unidentified speaker: That's also from cross purposes.

[00:34:46]  Bruce: I also see Rauch's theories as probably one of the most important tweaks to Deutsch's theory of static versus dynamic societies. Obviously, Rauch doesn't know anything about Deutsch's theory, but one might read him, I think rightly, as arguing that a mere culture of criticism is simply insufficient to start rapid progress. But if the marketplace of ideas unaided naturally prefers untruth over truth, then that would be a problem you'd have to overcome to overcome a static society. This is how I see Rauch's ideas as related to the static society versus dynamic society discussion. Let's formalize this theory a bit. We might conjecture a theory as something like this, that humans are evolutionarily dogmatic such that we need to first discover special institutions on which to build a scientific community before it becomes possible for rapid progress to be made. If this is true, and we don't know that it is true, it's just a theory, then that would help explain why we got stuck in static societies for so long. It means that it is not possible for rapid progress to begin until certain special institutions are discovered. One might see Jonathan Rauch as making an argument something to that effect. This theory stands possibly in contrast to various theories, all good explanations in their own right, that human beings aren't really very dogmatic.

[00:36:16]  Bruce: Here I'm thinking of Hugo Mercier's theories, which by the way, I think is very good, and I want to do a podcast on it, or Ray Scott Percival's theories, which I also think is very good, and I want to invite him on the show to have a conversation. It's possible that I already am starting to line that up. It's possible that you'll have heard the interview with him before this episode airs. So, or it might even be a way for, there might even be a way for all these theories to be true at once. They don't necessarily have to be seen as, at odds with each other, given some nuance. One of the things that I plan to ask Ray Scott Percival about is to what degree does his theory, his theory is, is that human beings have this natural explanation module that checks how good explanations are, and therefore human beings are not forever closed-minded, which I think is absolutely correct. But I wanted to ask him to what degree would he be accepting of the idea that human beings are also, at least in the short term, maybe even very dogmatic. And I'm curious how he will answer that question. So I was planning to ask him that when we do an interview with him. So if we do an interview and I ask him that, you'll know that was what I was thinking, okay? I'm guessing, and I don't know how he's going to answer, I'm guessing he's going to say that there's no actual conflict here. And I kind of know that because we had a panel discussion he was on on this podcast, and he kind of indicated that. Like, I want to get a little bit more specific with him.

[00:37:40]  Bruce: But like, I kind of think he would not necessarily see his theory as at odds with Rauch's. So it could be that humans have a natural explanation-making module, and also we're dogmatic, and also we needed special kinds of institutions for rapid progress to begin. And that was why we got stuck in static, or one of the reasons why we got stuck in static societies. And that's how I would take Rauch's theory, which I think is important from a critical rational standpoint in its own right, and how I would probably try to tie it into the discussion on static versus dynamic societies. I don't know if I think he's right or not. I guess I'm leaning towards him being right on this, that you need certain kinds of institutions, or else the natural tendency would be for a network of humans to prefer untruth, because it would be based more on what piqued our emotions, rather than based on institutions that drive us towards trying to improve our explanations. And so I do think I currently agree that this is one of the reasons why we got stuck in static societies for a very long time. And I also think that probably means that the idea that you just need a culture of criticism to break out of a static society may just not be true. It may be that there have been many, many, many cultures of criticism, and they did not become dynamic societies, because they were missing the necessary knowledge of how to organize the institutions to be able to start making rapid progress. So anyhow, I'm not 100% sold on that.

[00:39:24]  Bruce: There are certain things about it that I feel a little fishy to me with that explanation. But I guess I'm leaning towards it at this point. And that's it for today.

[00:39:34]  Unidentified speaker: Do you have questions, Peter?

[00:39:36]  Unidentified speaker: No, but the world needs you to keep doing what you're doing, Bruce.

[00:39:41]  Peter: And that you are critically and with minimal dogmatism, dealing with the best, our best theories out there.

[00:39:51]  Unidentified speaker: And please keep it up.

[00:39:54]  Unidentified speaker: All right. Thank you very much.

[00:39:55]  Bruce: I appreciate you saying that.

[00:39:57]  Unidentified speaker: Thank you. All right.

[00:39:58]  Unidentified speaker: Bye bye.

[00:40:06]  Unidentified speaker: Hello again.

[00:40:07]  Peter: If you've made it this far, please consider giving us a nice rating on whatever platform you use, or even making a financial contribution through the link provided in the show notes. As you probably know, we are a podcast loosely tied together by the Popper Deutsch Theory of Knowledge. We believe David Deutsch's Four Strands tie everything together. So we discuss science, knowledge, computation, politics, art, and especially the search for artificial general intelligence. Also, please consider connecting with Bruce on X at BNielson01. Also, please consider joining the Facebook group The Many Worlds of David Deutsch, where Bruce and I first started connecting.

[00:40:50]  Unidentified speaker: Thank you.