Aggregation of the Mind
By Steve Rensberry
Thinking in the aggregate is a nearly ubiquitous and irresistible human impulse, an impulse born perhaps in an increasingly complex, changing world that requires quick decisions and survival smarts. We plug people into groups, draw inferences based on averages, then move on as if all is well. But is it rational, and does it lend itself to the making of accurate, humane, and meaningful life decisions? This essay will explore the premise that such thinking is neither rational nor beneficial, and that ultimately all assessments of human beings that lean on aggregate statistical analysis, and other forms of abstract generalization, are in essence subtle and damaging forms of dehumanization. Philosophically, attempts to establish a conclusive interpretation for any individual human action by employing aggregate based calculations and related assumptions is an ontological nightmare, not unlike the epistemological quagmire we find ourselves in with platonism, structuralism and moral absolutism.
The term aggregate
is used in different ways by different groups, one being the concept
of aggregate demand or aggregate supply in macroeconomics, signifying
some comprehensive or total value. People working in statistics, in
the credit industry, or in the fields of predictive analytics and
actuarial science also make extensive use of aggregate concepts. As
used here, aggregate thinking is defined as the practice, whether
codified into a mathematical formula or through simple every-day
observation, of simply grouping and making assumptions about
individual human beings derived from an analysis of the many,
ostensibly to predict some future outcome, level of risk or value.
How does such
thinking differ from the formation of the common stereotype, or
prejudicial thinking in general, both of which are almost universally
deplored? I would suggest that they differ only on a very superficial
level. Judgments which seem entirely arbitrary, lacking any kind of
statistical support or detailed argument, certainly appear
more prejudicial. But garnish them with even the slightest
amount of statistical reasoning, however superfluous, and the
acceptance level rises accordingly. Conflating the abstract with the
particular, and the realm of thought with flesh-and-blood existence,
seems particularly easy when the subject of our analysis is of a
conceptual nature, such as people, or society, as
opposed to a living, breathing, individual human.
What choices do we
have, really, when assessing our fellow human beings? We can consider
individual people as entirely unique, living, breathing, sentient
creatures, each with his or her own 100-percent unique life
experiences, level of intelligence and genetic predisposition; or we
can view them as something lesser, in the abstract, as just one part
of a large group, defining them according to some mathematical
algorithm or set of averages -- or generalization -- which assume
that similar creatures think and reason in 100-percent identical
ways.
Consider a group of
100 people. If 80 people out of this 100 are determined to have X
characteristic, and if all those who have X characteristic engage in
Y, can we take each of these 100 individuals in isolation and say
that each of them has an 80 percent chance of engaging in Y? Not
without committing a number of logical fallacies we can't. We commit
the fallacy of division when we say that something which is true for
the whole is necessarily true for each or some of its parts. We
commit the ecological fallacy when we infer that statistics involving
an individual can be deduced from inference for some group to which
an individual belongs. The fallacy of composition involves falsely
reasoning that what is true for a part is also true for the whole.
The informal fallacy of hasty generalization is made when a
conclusion is reached without consideration of all variables, which
in this case would be those unique to a specific individual.
Put another way, is
it fair to assume that each and every person in a group with
predominantly similar characteristics carries the same degree of risk
that the entire group does, in the aggregate? Most of us would say
no, yet this type of assumption is exactly what happens in all sorts
of enterprises -- in the field of insurance and actuarial science, in
the determination of credit scores, in setting security clearances,
in establishing citizenship, indeed with just about everything and
anything that requires certification or a license. Conformity,
predictability and risk aversion may be the underlying motives, but
at what cost? One could make the point that the fundamental nature of
organized society itself, governed by a universal set of rules and
regulations, is all about the common good, and with it the
implicit expectation that individuals will accept some degree of
sacrifice and individualism to maintain the dominant ideal. But
how far is too far, and when does mass conformity and
group-think overwhelm that which makes us truly human?
Requiring people to
sacrifice their individuality on the altar of the abstract, the
aggregate, and the hypothetical seems to me to be fraught with
dangers, among them deindividuation, defined in social psychology
circles as the loss of self-awareness in groups and the diminishing
of a person's sense of individuality. The belief that such states are
a factor in antisocial behavior has been explored by a number of
researchers, among them French psychologist Gustave Le Bon who
described it as a process whereby individuals' minds become dominated
by a “unanimous, emotional, and intellectually weak” collective
mindset, leading to a loss of individual responsibility
In a 2002 working
paper series for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, writer Thomas
Garrett points to another danger, this one involving the use of
regression analysis and
consumer sentiment indices, and how the use of data aggregation can
lead to misleading conclusions about individual economic behavior.
The irony of formal regression analysis as it relates to economics is
that it still involves a form of objectification, by treating a
person as a mere variable. As commonly defined, regression analysis
is simply a statistical forecasting method used to estimate the
effect that an independent variable has on a dependent variable.
Garrett states:
"Every field of economics uses aggregated data to test
hypotheses about the behavior of individuals. Examples in
macroeconomics include the use of aggregate consumption and income to
test the permanent income hypothesis (Hall, 1978), and forecasting
national personal consumption expenditures using consumer sentiment
indices (Caroll, et al. 1994: Bram and Ludvigson, 1998). The use of
aggregate data to explain individual behavior makes the assumption
that the hypothesized relationship between the economic variables in
question is homogeneous across all individuals. When the behavior of
economic agents is not the same, a regression analysis using
aggregated data can provide conclusions regarding economic
relationships that are different than if less aggregated data were
used."
Jean JacquesRousseau, in The Social Contract and Discourses, parses the
foundation that we give to a very old ideal – the idea of "the
strong" – seen by some (in particular the strong) as the
implicit arbitrator of morality and an element of that class of
things considered to be truly real.
Rousseau writes:
"The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master,
unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.
Hence the right of the strongest, which though to all seemingly meant
ironically, is really laid down as a fundamental principal. But are
we never to have an explanation of this phrase? Force is a physical
power, and I fail to see what moral effect it can have. To yield to
force is an act of necessity, not of will – at the most, an act of
prudence. In what sense can it be a duty? Suppose for a moment that
this so-called 'right' exists. I maintain that the sole result is a
mass of inexplicable nonsense. For, if force creates right, the
effect changes with the cause; every force that is greater than the
first succeeds to its right. As soon as it is possible to disobey
with impunity, disobedience is legitimate; and the strongest being
always in the right, the only thing that matters is to act so as to
become the strongest."
Where Rousseau
questions the idea of force making right, we may just as well
question the utilitarian idea of the right action always being that
which results in the greatest good for the greatest number. In either
case, we are dealing with non-physical elements of discourse, and the
impossible challenge of determining what is infinitely “right”
and what is infinitely “good” apart from complete omniscience,
and against the great expanse of time.
The common
denominator that aggregate statistical analysis, regression analysis,
and utilitarian ethics all share is a reliance on non-concrete,
abstract, absolutist thinking, and on the belief that it is possible
to accurately define and relate to human beings as static things,
things which can and
should be compared to some abstract infinite quality existing
entirely outside of normal time and space. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum described the process of objectification as something that
occurs when a person is used as a tool, as something that is owned or
interchangeable, or as something that may be destroyed without any
additional permission needed. Similar to the concept of
dehumanization, objectification negates the feelings and humanness of
an individual, either indirectly or directly, through various levels
of oversimplification and denial.
The debate over the
role and reality of the immaterial is an old one and entails a number
of metaphysical positions which I think are worth summarizing. They
include:
Platonism:
Abstract objects exist
in a non-physical and non-mental realm outside of normal time and
space. (Historical Platonism adherents: Plato, Numenius, Plotinus,
Augustine, Ploclus. Modern platonism, small "p" adherents:
Bernard Bolzano, Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell,
Alonzo Church, Kurt Gödel, W.V. Quine, Hilary Putnam, George Bealer
and Edward Zalta).
Nominalism
(anti-realism): Universal entities and abstract objects do not
formally exist, as do particular concrete entities and objects.
(Francis Bacon, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and
Nelson Goodman.)
Conceptualism
(mentalism, psychologism): Abstract objects such as numbers do in
fact exist, not as independent entities but as mental constructs.
(Locke, Husserl, Brouwer, Heyting, Noam Chomsky, Fodor).
Immanent realism
(moderate realism): Universals exist, not in some external reality
beyond time and space but within the physical world of particulars.
(Aristotle, D.M. Armstrong).
Nihilism:
Nothing actually exists. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Stanley Rosen, Martin
Heidegger).
Naturalism: mind and non-material values are a product of
matter. (John Dewey, Sidney Hook, Roy Wood Sellars, Francis Bacon,
Voltaire, Paul Kurtz)
Idealism: Mind or spirit constitutes the fundamental reality.
(Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich
Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer).
Objective idealism: Material objects do not exist
independently of human perception. Spiritual realities are
independent from human consciousness. (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph
Shelling, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Plato)
Solipsism: Knowledge outside
of one's one mind is uncertain. Only one's mind is sure to exist.
(René Descartes, Gorgias of Leontini, George Berkeley).
Common senserealism (Naïve Realism): Material
objects do in fact exist.(J.J. Gibson, William Mace, Claire Michaels,
Edward Reed, Robert Show, Michael Turvey, Carol Fowler).
Existentialism:
All
thinking must begin with the living, existing, feeling human being,
and not with some abstract essence. (Søren Kierkegaard,
Jean-Paul Satre, Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven, Franz Kafka,
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Albert Camus, Eugène Ionesco).
Moral Absolutism: The acceptance of or belief in absolute principles
in political, philosophical, ethical or theological matters.
Structuralism: Elements of human culture must be understood in
terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or
structure (wikipedia). Simon Blackburn: Structuralism is "the
belief that phenomenon of human life are not intelligible except
through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure,
and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are
constant laws of abstract culture."
Theories concerning
the ultimate nature of reality can be broken down furthermore into
several other basic categories. These include monism, representing
the view that reality is fundamentally one process or being
(Parmenides, Hegel); pluralism, which see ultimate reality as
flexible, incomplete and unknowable; and dualism, which sees reality
as split between the eternal and unchanging realm of ideas or forms
(Plato) and the ever-changing, temporal realm of human experience.
We may also view
such differences in terms of idealism, realism and pragmatism.
Idealists emphasize the role of mind and the relationship between the
knower and the things known. Realists treat the mind as secondary and
separate the knower from the world he or she inhabits. And
pragmatists reject both views and instead embrace the idea that
thoughts and things are fundamentally inseparable in a world of pure
experience.
Still others have
parsed the differences into those of mysticism, emphasizing the
oneness of reality; materialism, focusing on matter as the stuff
which ultimate reality is made of; and supernaturalism, which
presupposes a higher being or beings who transcends the natural realm
and who created and sustains all that exists.
It stands to reason
that modern, densely populated societies need some measure of order
and rules in order to function, especially with creatures who are
unpredictable at best and dangerously self-serving, exploitive and
violent at worst. But on what foundation should such rules be
created, and just how far can we go in treating people as numbers
before we cease to treat them as people at all? Should there be some
measure of objectivity and concreteness in the process, or must we
resign ourselves to generalizations and aggregate-based assumptions
for the sake of efficiency and order, for lack of viable options?
I think the answer
is most certainly yes, there should be some extraordinary
level of concreteness to that which informs our choices; and no, I do
not believe that we ought to resign ourselves to thinking in the
aggregate merely because it is too time consuming or too difficult to
reason otherwise. Individual human beings deserve to be treated as
individual human beings, in all their complexity, with all their
imperfections, and taking into account all that impacts their choices
in the way of culture, genetics and environment. Thinking in the
aggregate may be a natural and almost irresistible human impulse, but
so might be a deeply-rooted and irrational fear of uncertainty -- a
fear that has effectively been codified into almost every institution
that surround us.
Given the bigger
picture, it behooves us to make peace with uncertainty, make greater
exceptions for environmental anomalies and human individuality, aim
for general compliance rather than total conformity, and pursue
empathy rather than penalty.
British philosopher
Alan Watts, in his acclaimed 1951 work, The Wisdom of Insecurity:A Message for an Age of Anxiety, writes: “The 'primary
consciousness,' the basic mind which knows reality rather than ideas
about it, does not know the future. It lives completely in the
present, and perceives nothing more than what is at this
moment. The ingenious brain, however, looks at that part of present
experience called memory, and by studying it is able to make
predictions. These predictions are, relatively, so accurate and
reliable (e.g. 'everyone will die') that the future assumes a high
degree of reality -- so high that the present loses its value. But
the future is still not here, and cannot become a part of experienced
reality until it is present. Since what we know of the future is made
up of purely abstract and logical elements -- inferences, guesses,
deductions -- it cannot be eaten, felt, smelled, seen, heard or
otherwise enjoyed. To pursue it is to pursue a constantly retreating
phantom, and the faster you chase it, the faster it runs ahead. This
is why all the affairs of civilization are rushed, why hardly anyone
enjoys what he has, and is forever seeking more and more. Happiness,
then, will consist, not of solid and substantial realities, but of
such abstract and superficial things as promises, hopes, and
assurances.”
Treating human
beings as human beings also demands a certain understanding with
respect to choice and free will. Yes, we may feel as though we
have choice, but it is a choice stripped of the power to manifest
much of what the will desires. People don't choose to be born in an
imperfect world. They don't choose to grow old, to have a will and
desires that exceed the capability of the physical universe to
fulfill. Nor do they choose to have bodies that are susceptible to
disease, infection and death. They don't choose the parents who will
rear them, nor do they choose the home and environment they will
spend their days in as children. It may be easy, simple, and quick to
ignore the bigger picture, to see human beings as isolated pockets of
infinite knowledge with infinite responsibility for every action they
take, but it would not be accurate. Much has been made of a study by
German scientists Hans Helmut Kornhuber and Lüder Deecke regarding
a phenomenon known as “readiness potential,” which suggests that
the unconscious mind may actually initiate action prior to one's
conscious awareness of it. Subsequent studies by Benjamin Libet in
the 1980s and by John-Dylan Haynes in 2008 using MRI technology has
led to similar conclusions. While such studies do not conclusively
prove that free will is merely an illusion, they do present a
challenge to our traditional understanding of it. As Canadian
transhumanist and bioethicist George Dvorsky writes in a Jan. 4, 2013
article for the blog io9: “What would really settle the issue would
be the ability for neuroscientists to predict the actual outcome of
more complex decisions prior to the subject being aware of it
themselves. That would, in a very true sense, prove that free will is
indeed an illusion.” (See: Scientific Evidence That You Probably Don't Have Free Will).
The concepts of
risk and probability, as they relate to individual
human action, are two other ideas that are ripe for
reassessment. While the human condition may compel us to quickly
assess the probability of theoretical future events and matters
affecting our safety, the mere desire for certainty ought not lead us
to the dehumanization of our fellow human beings. Yes, we can
determine the relative likelihood of a group of people
behaving in a certain way through aggregate analysis, but what is not
so easy to determine is the degree to which a specific individual
within that group will behave in a certain way. The concept of
bounded rationality is one that may
have bearing on our propensity to jump to conclusions and generalize,
with respect to assessments of probability and risk. As listed in the
Cambridge Dictionary: “Bounded rationality is the theory
that people can understand only a limited amount of information
within a limited amount of time, and for this reason they do not
always make the best decisions, especially in complicated
situations.” The concept of of bounded rationality differs from
“rationality as optimization,” in that the process of
optimization is seen as a constraint rather than an enabler.
Platonism, with a
small “p,” asserts that abstract objects are objective, timeless
entities, totally separate from the physical world, even from the
symbols that people use in describing them. Structuralism is a method
of interpretation that focuses on a broader conceptual system that
supposedly underlies individual human cognition and behavior. And
absolutism presupposes the existence of infinitely fixed principles
that are above and behind all individual existential realities. While
such ideas may sound nice and feel good to those seeking assurance,
they exact a heavy toll – stripping humanity of the innate
unpredictability, the non-linear processes that reflect our various
states of consciousness, the mystery embodied in our range of
desires, and the exceedingly complex and symbiotic mind-body
relationship that all but makes us who we are.
For further reading
Against Prediction Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age
The Curse of the Baby Boomers
By John FitzGerald
Aggregation and the Separateness of Persons
By Iwao Hirose
By Bernard E. Harcourt
The Curse of the Baby Boomers
By John FitzGerald
Aggregation and the Separateness of Persons
By Iwao Hirose