Knowing the Unknown: Part 3 - Convincing Others

Before I continue to the next section, I want to provide an additional scenario that I had not considered, thanks to feedback I received. When talking about rituals, I indicated that there are two ways in which to approach rituals.

1. Rituals that have a sound theory behind them and are applicable even today
2. Rituals that were created to satisfy certain social and political constraints over time that may not be applicable once such constraints are removed and hence should be considered as historical.

There is a third possibility and covers actually a fairly major chunk of rituals that are currently being followed - they are the ones that have a sound theory but then were misinterpreted or embellished over time such that the original meaning got lost in the translation. Many rituals nowadays are often condemned blasphemed by various political and religious leaders of modern times by looking at the misinterpretation and not the root cause. As science (or Thiruvalluvar) will tell you, it is crucial to analyze the source of a statement than take it at face value based on who said it.

A true example to this scenario is the one I mentioned for the second scenario - "Sprinkling water around your plate before eating". The current interpretation is that it was done to avoid insects from getting into your banana leaf plate (as was used in older times and even recently in marriages) while eating and to kind of form a moat. As I have been corrected, the real interpretation is apparently different and has a inner symbolism that has since been replaced by the more 'modern' theory. So, take the newer meaning as the truth (even though it may appeal more to a modern reader) is still ignoring or at least failing to analyze the original thought behind the ritual.

That corrected, let me get back to the third part of the series.

Once a person convinces himself that either his observations, spiritual philosophy, or rituals address the fear or curiosity that he has developed towards the unknown, he proceeds to the next natural step as a social being - convince others or at least let others know of his thoughts and opinions. This could either be to reassure himself that his theory or belief is accurate either by checking against someone's thought process or to bring someone on board to his own thoughts, or to just simply share his new-found knowledge.

Now, one can go about convincing others in a few ways.

Conversion

First is a path followed by many new religious zealots. They want to enthusiastically convey their new found knowledge to others. Most times it starts with the joy they found by their own experience and want to convey this to others. If the person is convinced of what they hear from the evangelist, then it becomes willful conversion - a change in their internal faith. On the other hand, if the person is enticed to be convinced - either by way of other social, political, and even ritualistic benefits, then it in a sense becomes a forced conversion.

Christianity is known to follow this path of religious propagation, mostly starting in a benign manner. Most colonial systems started with missionaries trying to preach the way of a new faith - be it the East or the West (USA in particular). However, in many cases, it has unfortunately taken more political tones that resulted in more forceful measures, as we shall see later. Other religions have similar concepts of conversion as well.

Superstition

In the last post I indicated that all empirical study is not necessarily good. In fact, as Sherlock Holmes says, "it is a capital mistake to adjust the facts to suit a theory instead of a theory to suit the facts". Many a times, one may come to believe that a certain theory they built is good, with minimal data points. Such theories based on insufficient data points often result in superstition. An excellent example of this are ones that we perform when we are watching important sports events - be it Cricket or Baseball. When we see a batsman getting out because we sat in a particular position or we drank a particular drink, we try to do it again and again hoping the favorable result will be repeated. Silly as it may sound, many superstitions do begin that way.

Theory

On the other hand, we may realize that the data points that we have so far is insufficient and may go on to get more or try to come up with a theory that would take into consideration, other angles as well. This gives rise to modern scientific theories, which are then put to test rigorously. Sometimes, such theories may even be created without data points, such as in case of Einstein's famous relativity theory, which was proved long after he was dead.

All the three attempts - conversion, superstition, and theories are created in an effort to convince others of what we know or at least give enough information to others so that they will be as convinced as us.

Conducted at a healthy level, such attempts help share and propagate knowledge gained by one person or group to others, thus building the overall wisdom of community. However, not all efforts are benign, as we shall see in the next post.