Sensory Deprivation

A friend and I recently decided to spend 40hrs being blind followed by 40hrs being deaf to learn about disabilities and ourselves. This experiment is a part of my quest for new experiences. To simulate deafness we used earpugs + earmuffs and to go blind we wrapped our faces in bandage tape. The idea was to try and live 'regular' lives for the 40hr period. This means things like catching public transport, eating out, walking down busy streets, attending social gatherings etc.  This is what is was like:

Being hearing impaired:

Being hearing impaired was a thoroughly frustrating experience. Conversations were limited to one person at a time and to environments without any background noise. When crowded environments were unavoidable it was tiring trying to listen to what people were saying. In everyday life I don't think that we 'listen' very much at all - we just 'hear'. To actually 'listen'; to squint your eyes in concentration, tilt your ears and body towards the noise in question and concentrate on the sounds;  is usually unnecessary with functioning auditory senses. When you're hearing impaired however this type of listening takes up a large part of your day - And it is exhausting!

Eventually you end up just giving up and hoping that you don't miss anything juicy or important and most of the time this strategy works. There were a few amusing moments where I would mishear things and confidently try and join in the conversations only to realise that I was being massively irrelevant. There were other times where I would get asked questions but not realise that I was being spoken to at all. One of the few upsides of being hearing impaired is the lack of expectation to contribute to conversations. Occasionally I would hear the murmurings of a conversation but have no desire to contribute to the conversation, it was nice to just sit there saying nothing and know that nobody will call you antisocial. Being hearing impaired  amounts to a fairly significant decrease in social interactions - whether you like it or not.

Outside of social scenarios there were moments where the quiet was nice; when it is night time and everyone else is in bed it's calming to only be able to hear your own breathing and nothing else, but overall I wouldn't come close to saying that being hearing impaired is desirable in any way. 

Being Blind:

Being blind was a strange and challenging experience. The most poignant memory of those 40hrs is feeling distinctly robotic. I was completely reliant on Scotty for cues about my surroundings and listening and obeying his directions became the most meaningful part of my own existence for a while. I'm sure that actual blind people don't always feel this way; surely with time one can learn how to develop real independence, but for us  the 40hrs of being blind translated to '40hrs of surrendering all control of your life to another person'.

The first hurdle to overcome was anxiousness. It is tempting to create mental maps of locations, to predict upcoming obstacles, and to move accordingly: But this is a bad idea. The best state of mind to be in is of relaxed obedience. It takes a fair bit of self-assurance and trust in the other person to reach this point, but it is well worth it.

The next hurdle is boredom. Contrary to my optimistic wishes being blind did not inspire me to engage in lengthy sessions of introspection and philosophy. Time seemed to pass incredibly slowly and I found that it was best to be constantly doing something stimulating to keep myself amused. You might think that something like walking might be a good way to fill the time, but you would be wrong. After the initial apprehension has been overcome walking becomes supremely tedious. When you have zero knowledge about your surroundings walking reduces to what, in essence, it really is: moving the muscles in your legs in an organised way.

Despite these hurdles there were definite moments of realisation that made being blind a valuable experience. One of my favourite parts about being blind was not giving a toss about what anybody thought of me. It's near-impossible to feel self-conscious or embarrassed when you can't see people's reactions to you. Instead you adopt the false, yet comforting, reasoning of: If I can't see them then they can't see me. It's a fairly liberating sort of feeling and one that I'd like to bring back with me to my regular life. Complete imperturbability - That's the aim.

Strangely, when I look at the photos of the places that I went when I was blind I feel as if they happened to someone else. Through my 40hrs being blind I instinctively started painting myself imaginary scenery around me and when I remember those few days I remember the imaginary landscapes I'd conjured up rather than the images that reflect reality. I feel like there are arguments to be made here about reality and perception. . . but I'll leave them for another time.

Some other interesting experiences that we had being blind and deaf were:

Travelling in cars:  Motion sickness kicks in very quickly when blind.

Going to the toilet blind:  The perpetual nervous wipe. . .

Social Interactions:  Being social isn't awful when blind, but gestures are certainly a problem. Blind Scotty was at a restaurant and decided to point to the meal he wanted on the menu (joking obviously). He ended up pointing directly at my friend's boobs. It was pretty amusing. He didn't end up getting boobs though. Just pizza.

Seeing Toucans. . . . everywhere: Because being blind provides absolutely nothing to look up we came up with an inside joke to make it a bit more bearable. In short we imagined toucans.

Here are some pictures  of what we got up to:

Some thougths about Utilitarianism and the Felicific Calculus.

CENTRAL TENET OF HEDONISTIC UTILITARIANISM: Morally right acts increase aggregate happiness. Happiness is measured as a subjective experience of pleasure.  

  

Assuming that we are trying to be perfect Utilitarians:

P1 - We should aim to perform perfect felicific calculus's. (see here)

P2 - Perfect felicific calculus's are conducted with a complete knowledge of all the 'relevant facts' involved.

P3 - We are ignorant about what the 'relevant facts' in a scenario will be until we encounter the scenario in which the felicific calculus is required.

C1 - Therefore ANY fact should be considered valuable because it is a potentially 'relevant fact'. (And the possession of 'relevant facts' is a necessary condition for conducting a reliable felicific calculus)

C2 - Therefore we should aim to gather as many facts about the world as possible.

P4 - We gather facts about the world through our direct and indirect experiences.

C3 - Therefore we should maximise our direct and indirect experiences.

We can reach C2 and C3 through the uncontroversial P1. I am concerned, however, with the implications of C3 and whether or not it is compatible with the central tenets of Utilitarianism.

I am defining 'direct experiences' as being something that we intimately experience and interpret into knowledge ourselves, i.e. learning about Japanese culture through going to Japan. Indirect experiences are equally important when the direct experience is not available; an example of an indirect experience might be reading a book about Japanese culture. In the second example the reader gains a direct experience of 'book-reading' and an indirect experience of Japanese culture. I cannot perceive of any other way that we might come to gain knowledge other than through direct and indirect experiences. I admit that just because someone has an experience it doesn't mean that it necessarily translates to knowledge. There are often examples of experience without knowledge (caused through a failure to observe or synthesize information). But there are never cases of knowledge without experience (excepting perhaps ingrained biological 'knowledge'). 

In order for experiences to be effectively turned into knowledge one must possess what I'd like to call 'philosophical virtues', or in other words one must be inclined to understand the world in a certain way. This idea falls broadly under the umbrella of Virtue Epistemology. Virtue Epistemology is a relatively new strand of philosophy that looks at the way that we understand the world and turn our observations into knowledge. Virtue Epistemologists follow in the Aristotelian tradition of looking at the quality of the reasons behind the judgement rather than the consequences of the judgement itself. It might seem bizarre to introduce something like virtues into a consequentialist theory however I believe it is entirely appropriate. Instead of defining virtues as things like courage, honesty, integrity, etc, I would like to define virtues as being 'tendencies to view the world such that sufficient data is obtained in order to conduct a felicific calculus'. Valued qualities in making a judgement might include things such as conscientiousness or open-mindedness. Another virtue might include the capacity to recognize unreliable evidence, e.g. testimony. It is these 'epistemological virtues' that mark the difference between those that can effectively conduct a felicific calculus and those that cannot. 

Provided that one possesses these aforementioned virtues there is no reason why every new experience couldn't provide the agent with a greater knowledge-bank to be used in future decision making. In fact, if one accepts the central tenet of hedonistic utilitarianism and the links between the premises above, one is obliged to have as many of these new experiences as possible. This is, I guess, the crux of my argument.

What happens, however, when one is faced with a choice between an option that will definitively increase pleasure and another option that will definitively increase knowledge?  The essence of utilitarianism is to increase total pleasure, however, as we have seen, this entails that knowledge be maximised too. How, given our ignorance of future states, should we decide on a course of action in such circumstances? 

For example imagine that you are at a Chinese restaurant and are offered either ice cream (your current favourite desert) or a traditional Chinese desert in which you know nothing about whatsoever. As far as you know the pleasure that you will receive from eating the traditional Chinese desert is a mystery - It might be horrible, or it might replace ice-cream as your favourite. In trying to be the best Utilitarian that you can be, what should you do?

I would argue that one should try the mystery Chinese desert even though there is a risk of discovering that it gives less pleasure than the ice-cream. The reason is that the world contains an admittedly large, but still finite, amount of experiences that can be had. This means that it is very likely than many experiences will be had more than once. If utilitarianism is adopted as a life-long system of morality acting in accordance with C3 (and hence maximising new experiences) this makes it more likely that felicific calculus's will be accurately conducted in the future.  Every new experience gives knowledge about a previously mysterious variable. This is how I propose that the alleged epistemological deficiencies of the utilitarian can be countered. One should only be deficient in knowledge of the pleasure potential of a particular course of action once per each unique action. This is because after acknowledging that they do not know whether the action beings about pleasure or not they will choose above all other options it in order to gain knowledge about it. 

There is one important exception that I make to this rule. This exception applies to choices between courses of action that have already been experienced and are known to be pleasurable and courses of action that have not been directly experienced but that one has reason to believe (through indirect knowledge) that the experience would be unpleasant. To return to the Chinese Restaurant example this would be a scenario in which your choice is still between the ice-cream and the traditional Chinese desert except that this time you are not in complete ignorance in regards to the Chinese dish. Your friend who is accompanying you says that he once had it and found it unpleasant. Here you are in a very difficult position. Whilst you know that things like 'taste' are quite subjective you also acknowledge that hitherto your food preferences have been very similar to this person. You do not like the idea of subjecting yourself to easily avoidable (and perhaps likely) displeasure, yet at the same time you recognise this moment as an opportunity to increase your knowledge about the world.

In these circumstances I would argue that it doesn't matter which option is chosen - the formula's can step aside here.There are merits to trying new things, however it is rash to deny pleasure for the sake of new experiences in all situations. There will be times in which one simply wants the pleasure of a comforting and familiar taste and doesn't like the potential risk for having an unpleasant experience. The decision to settle for such a thing is understandable and justifiable.

The decision making apparatus I would suggest in conjunction with the felicific calculus would look something like this:

Decision making matrix with 2 variables.	Have directly experienced and is pleasant.	Have directly experienced and is unpleasant.	Have indirectly experienced and is thought to be pleasant.	Have indirectly experienced and is thought to be unpleasant.	Have not experienced in any way.
Have directly experienced and is pleasant.	1. Apply Felicific calculus.	Choose the pleasant option.	Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.	Choose either option. Both are valuable.	Choose the unexperienced option.
Have directly experienced and is unpleasant.	2. Choose the pleasant option.	6. Apply Felicific calculus.	Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.	Choose the option that you know indirectly to be unpleasant.	Choose the unexperienced option.
Have indirectly experienced and is thought to be pleasant.	3. Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.	7. Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.	10. Apply Felicific calculus.	Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.	Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.
Have indirectly experienced and is thought to be unpleasant.	4. Choose either option. Both are valuable.	8. Choose the option that you know indirectly to be unpleasant.	11. Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.	13. Apply Felicific calculus.	Choose the unexperienced option.
Have not experienced in any way.	5. Choose the unexperienced option.	9. Choose the unexperienced option.	12. Choose the option that you know indirectly to be pleasant.	14. Choose the unexperienced option.	15. Choose at random.

EXPLANATIONS:

 Squares 1, 6, 10, 13 and 15 are straight-forward decisions and can be made fairly easily provided tha tone possesses the epistemological virtues required to conduct an accurate felicific calculus.

Square 15 is similarly straight-forward - when choosing in absolute ignorance it really doesn't matter which path is chosen.

Decisions made in squares 2 and 11 show that, all other factors being equal, pleasure is chosen over displeasure.  

Decisions made in squares 3 and 7 show that paths that are indirectly known to be pleasurable should always be chosen. This is because it turns indirect knowledge into direct knowledge and because pleasure is, of course, a worthy goal.

The proposed decision to be made in square 8 shows that direct knowledge is taken to be more trustworthy than indirect knowledge. For this reason indirect displeasure is chosen for there is a chance that the knowledge received is faulty and, in fact, the path may prove to be pleasurable.

In square 5 I suggest that one should choose the unknown experience. This is because going from no knowledge whatsoever to direct knowledge represents a very valuable move.  

Square 9 is a rather intuitive decision - if you know that one of the options is certainly unpleasant you might as well try your luck with absolute chance.

In square 12 I advocate that that the indirectly experienced pleasurable experience be chosen over the unknown experience. This is because it I consider direct experiences to be the most valuable type. Although taking a risk on the unknown option may pay pleasurable dividends there is the risk that it may not. Conversely there is a good chance that the indirectly pleasurable experience may turn out to be directly pleasurable. And a move from indirect to direct knowledge is valuable in itself.

Square 14 is again rather intuitive. Whatever option is chosen there will be the benefit of gaining direct knowledge. It makes sense to take a risk on the mystery choice rather than accepting what will probably be an unpleasant experience.

Square 4 is the most interesting square on the matrix. It is what might be called the 'freedom square'. When one is faced with this type of decision I do not think that there is any more merit in either option than the other. It is certainly a noble move to choose the indirectly unpleasant experience in order to fully understand whether it is unpleasant it actually is (and how unpleasant it is), however when faced with the competing choice of definitive pleasure it is entirely acceptable to forgo such a choice.

I imagine that a person who chooses to live this way for an entire lifetime would have an immense range of pleasant and unpleasant experiences; she would be vastly knowledgeable and quite different to the typical portrayal of the shallow, pleasure seeking utilitarian stuck on an endless hedonic treadmill. I believe that the move I have just made from P1 to C3 is a necessary, albeit not revolutionary, move that needs to made to increase the legitimacy of utilitarianism. Ascertaining how widespread pleasure is best achieved is a vast empirical challenge and requires a great deal of inter-disciplinary knowledge from biology to psychology to cultural studies and beyond. Whatever criticisms that you may have towards utilitarianism any claim that it is overly simple is simply false.  

I believe that something along the lines of the argument I have just presented must be adopted if one is seriously considering adopting utilitarianism as a long term morality. I have begun opening myself up to a range of new experiences recently as part or my moral and personal development. It's incredible how often something that something you have avoided because of mere heresy turns out to be quite pleasurable. Recent examples include going vegetarian - I suspected it would be awful and difficult when really it just forced me to make more creative (and still delicious) meals. Another beneficial example of actively pursuing new experiences has been forcing myself to read things that I'd heard negative reviews about. I read 'The Moral Landscape' by Sam Harris recently and actually quite enjoyed it despite all the negative reviews I'd read. Sure, it wasn't perfect but it wasn't horrible any where near as horrible as some of the reviews I'd read. The same goes for Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. . . sort of. . . well actually as it turned out the hearsay I heard was partly true - I got a little overwhelmed and bored by the sheer size of the thing; BUT, nevertheless I can now actively participate in conversations about Rand and Harris without merely regurgitating common-places. Maximising experiences not only helps you be a better utilitarian it also helps fight the spread of dogmatic belief!

#45 - Screaming at the Moon.

I've just come back from visiting some friends and family on the Sunshine Coast. The highlight of my trip was yelling at the moon with a close friend. I'll explain:


I've always had a curious sort of nature. I get an immense satisfaction from experiencing new things, new ideas, and new people. It feels like the best type of self development - Every time I have a new experience I become a more rich and interesting person, even if the experience isn't pleasant. Experiences can also be the most direct path to knowledge provided that you manage to have a 'pure' experience uninhibited by expectations or prejudice. I plan to eventually write extensively about how 'experience seeking' is an essential brick on the road to happiness because while other (perhaps more novel ideas) have come and gone my intuition that experiences are inherently valuable has been one of the most enduring sentiments I've ever had. 

Anyway. My close friend that I was visiting shares my passion for experiencing new things so we always seem to have memorable times together. This time was no exception. I remember realizing about 6 months ago that I couldn't remember the last time that I had yelled as loud as I possibly could. . . It occurred to me that I'd probably never tried to do this at all. For some reason this fact thoroughly irritated me. Why hadn't I done this before? Probably because I'd never been brave enough to do it (people might come running to investigate the noise), or maybe because I'd never been given a reason to yell like that. Both excuses, however, seem equally pitiful. 

So why did I want to yell like this so badly? To me the desire seems obvious, but not everyone understands so I'll try to explain. If I am going to be spending a lot of time on this earth (which I plan to do) I want to know as much about myself as I can. The more I know about myself the more informed my choices will be about how to best live my life. And the only way to know more about myself is to ask more questions. When asking more questions about myself there is no question too small that I will try and answer. And today's question was simply:

What does it feel like to yell as loud as your body will allow?

I posed this question to my friend and he didn't know either. But he wanted to find out as passionately as I did so we set out to find a memorable spot to try it. We were walking along the beach at the time and we found a large circle of sandcastles. Within that circle of sandcastles was another circle of sandcastles and then a smaller circle again. It looked like a miniature arena - Perfect. 

The moon was almost full and brilliantly bright and I was filled with anticipation and adrenaline. And I yelled. I forced out the loudest yell I could manage and felt my throat burn with the effort. My friend did the same. It was supremely satisfying and. . . .  not nearly as loud as I'd hoped. I'd expected a sort of 'DRAGON-SHOUT' style, 120 Decibel plus, gargantuan bellow but maybe I'd expected too much. Nevertheless I'm so glad I tried it and I encourage you all to go and do it for yourself.















( ^^ It was like this. But better)
 
I plan to continue my search for new experiences; things that I can do that will teach me things about myself that maybe I haven't done simply because people might think that it's strange or pointless. Have you got any ideas?