The Cthulhu You Never Knew; the final fate of H.P. Lovecraft

The Creeping Realization...

While searching the library stacks of old Miskatonic University I began to experience a growing dread that welled higher and higher into my throat until my tongue almost swelled to the size of an unholy kumquat and blocked my windpipe. Man was never meant to ponder such things as exist beyond our daily vision even with glasses or contacts and those poor souls who do oft are driven mad! MAD! What was it that created such terror as had never been experienced by a living man outside of the stomach of one of the Old Ones? It was the question that was burning in my mind, threatening to paralyze me and rob the last vestiges of my sanity, though admittedly that would only be a misdemeanor - NO stay focused. Could it indeed be true? The fright is almost too much to bear but before I succumb I will struggle to share my tale with those who might one day be able to find the answer where I have not.

It is an old one and it reaches to the very heart of creation itself – Is The flying Spaghetti Monster the modern manifestation of Cthulhu? There I have said it. I hope that by breaching a wall not meant to be scaled that I have not doomed you as well through the knowing - well not the knowing exactly, more just the mentioning. There is probably little time left but before I am swallowed whole either in the vile tentacles of a herring-breathed monster or nurtured in the loving embrace of His noodley appendages I will rush to complete my story. Please forgive me for my haste and lack of a cogent story line. But man's terror when eying the abyss does not lend itself to linear narrative.

Could Cthulhu be primitive man’s attempt to describe TFSM? It stands to reason. Consider for a moment that the ancients had not yet tasted of the wheaty bounty that is pasta. Seeing his Noodley appendages might they not have mistaken them for the tentacles of a sea creature? Perhaps a faint hint of anchovies in his divine pesto made them wonder. Or might the name Cthulhu itself be spaghetti in an ancient tongue when one's mouth is filled with his bounty? The mind screams with the implications of it all. To see his strange visage gliding among the clouds they no doubt might have feared the worst. Having eaten so many spaghetti o's as a child I know that I would! Perhaps his attempts to communicate with them were misinterpreted. When he tried to explain the joys of national talk-like-a-pirate-day, did they think he meant for them to make war on their neighbors? Did the tense of 'to eat' get mistranslated leading to all those stories of souls like so many jelly beans? One hopes against hope that this is not so.

But you no doubt wonder about the dichotomy that threatens this dread theory. Cthulhu is considered evil (or at least extremely nonchalant about all those souls he devours...) while TFSM is benignity and creator incarnate - defender against evolution. How could such a thing be reconciled? Wait! Maybe we could separate the ancient accounts of Cthulhu’s hatefulness, recurrent smiting, and unfortunate appetite for souls and TFSM’s benevolence into separate accounts or books. One could be a testament to the old and one the new. No, alas this could not work for surely no rational being would believe that two such differing personalities could be the same. Or would they? Is there no precedent for this? My mind fails me for somewhere in a dark corner, a flicker of remembrance comes and then is gone. No matter, I have no time to write such stories of sufficient length and complexity that there internal inconsistencies might be missed. Perhaps extensive family tree discussions might cloud their minds and cause people to miss any discordant facts.

Alas the union of Cthulhu with TFSM will take the efforts of greater men than I. Perhaps Asylum Seeker or Ste Brian will succeed where I have failed. For now I take solace in but one thing – since I do not live in Afghanistan, I can record this saga in the comfort of knowing that 20 years in prison is not the best for which I can hope…

Oh my! He is here now and more terrifing than an HR Giger painting, or even more terrible - trying to explain having an HR Giger painting to your mother. I am doomed. What's that you say great tentacle-faced Old One? Gear Head ED shall suffer greatly for spoiling your surprise. Perhaps he will be trapped in one of your gastric diverticuli so as to be digested even more slowly?... EEWWW! Or, even worse, OH NO NOT THAT - forced to work in the G.W. Bush library until he reaches the post meltdown retirement age! My mind snaps, and darkness ensues...

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Happy Halloween!

Rascal's Ante: A Mutant's Response to Pascal's Wager

Pascal's 17th century wager is often cited as a logical argument in favor of belief in a Christian God and is one of the earliest known arguments using what is essentially games theory. It has often seemed strange to me that people feel compelled to create logic driven arguments for what essentially comes down to 'believe it or not' but some of my friends and I had some fun with this one both pro and con because we love to argue about almost everything. (This argument is meant for entertainment purposes only... really! Apply your tongue firmly against your cheek before you read any more.)

The wager:

What follows is an essential restatement of the wager although Pascal himself tended to emphasize the positive aspects rather than the possibility of hell (another aspect which separates him from some of his modern analogs). The wager states that reason requires one to believe in (a Christian) god because either God exists or does not. If God exists and one bets against his existence one loses the infinite prize of eternal life with God. If God exists and one bets for God then the reward is infinite. If God doesn't exist and you vote for him you have lost nothing. If God doesn't exist and you don't believe then again you have lost nothing. Therefore, in Pascal's wager all possible options are contained in a 2 x 2 matrix but all the weight resides in two of the cells – infinite joy or infinite sorrow. Ergo, prudence argues for betting on God's existence for no other reason than the fact that the stakes are so high if you are wrong.

It is not a particularly pious form of spirituality but it has a certain cynical logic to it. And in fairness to Pascal, there is an important caveat which he stressed but many modern co-opters fail to mention. He did not consider this an end but merely the beginning of a search for faith. A seed as it were.

The Critical Central Assumption: God beyond Reason

Like most broad-stroke philosophies this one only makes sense if certain assumptions or premises are factual. If these premises are false then Pascal's assertion is meaningless or even potentially harmful. What is the lynch pin of Pascal's wager? Quite simply, the wager is based upon the assumption that God is beyond reason. But I will argue that if the Bible is true, which must be the case for the wager to have the infinite value Pascal describes, the central premise of Pascal's assertion must be false. I refer to this as Rascal's Ante (as opposed to my auntie's for she would be very upset with me). If the Bible is not true then the promise of eternal life central to the wager is invalid, rendering the foundations of Pascal's argument meaningless. I will endeavor to show that God cannot be beyond reason if the Bible is true. Let me repeat: Pascal asserts that reason and observation of the natural world alone are incapable of revealing the true nature of the universe (and God) which only can be gleaned through religion and faith. Since God is beyond reason, then faith in God as a matter of course must become reasonable because of the stakes in the wager – eternal life vs death. But a cursory reading of the Bible can refute this cornerstone of the argument of God being beyond reason and observation. In fact, for the Bible to be true as written God must not be beyond reason.

Rascal's Ante: Refuting the Central Assumption: God within reason:

The Bible makes explicit statements about the nature of Man which contradicts Pascal's argument. Christian doctrine states that Man was created in God's image - Genesis 1:26: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (Here it is reasonable to assume that God is speaking metaphorically rather than literally.) If this is so (and if not, then Christian doctrine is false and therefore Christianity includes false doctrine, a possibility to which we will return later), then reason can be used to assess the core of religion. How? If Man is created in God's image, then it is reasonable and logical to conclude that at least some of God's characteristics can be reasonably inferred by a study of Man's characteristics which is a proven scientific method for categorizing related species. For Man to be made in God's image then Man must share some of the traits that God processes or values. As Man is often a curious, pensive and skeptical creature constantly searching to learn and unravel the nature of existence (central components of our being), and if created in the image of God, is it not reasonable to assume that these traits, if not actually 'God like', are at least favored traits by God? Since Man was not created in the image of sheep it seems reasonable to state that mindless following of the herd is not God-like behavior. God of course cannot by definition be a follower or a sheep – who would God follow? If God created the universe then it is obvious that God is a self-starter who favors his own council. These traits and many others are reasonable assumptions based upon statements made in the Bible. Nor were we created in the image of a slug, cow, sponge or any other incurious creature and so on.

The Bible provides additional ammunition to the claim that we can reasonably make some determinations about God: God is defined as a perfect being. This will have importance later on in the discussion but for now it is sufficient to remember that God, as a perfect being, cannot have any traits that humans consider imperfect in themselves as they are created in God's image which must be the wellspring of our understanding of perfection if the Bible is true. God must be incapable of imperfection. (a bit of a theological conundrum right there. An existential version of the classic rock too big to carry argument that we all had as kids. If God is all powerful can God be imperfect if desired? ). If not, then Christian doctrine is false and the wager is invalid.

Potential Objections:

• Some may retort that the Bible also includes examples of God demanding blind obedience of his creation such as Abraham and Isaac, or Moses striking the rock twice instead of once to start the flow of water, however, in all these cases, God directly communicated with the individual in question leaving no doubt as to his existence (assuming Biblical accuracy).
• A second line of argument could be that not all of God can be discerned from a study of Man because Man, a corporal entity, is by definition less than God. True, but logic would not suggest that attributes conflicting with Man's traits should be considered as central to God's 'personality'. Such conflicts would be indicative of imperfection which would negate Biblical doctrine. Inviolate Biblical doctrine is central to Pascal's wager.
  
• A third objection is the translation of 'in his image'. One cannot rationally assume that this implies physical likeness to a non-corporeal being so is it reasonable to assume that this is a somewhat metaphorical statement. And if this translation is false it a priori calls the Bible into question.
• A fourth objection might be the notion of original sin. Clearly God did not make Man identical in thinking to himself (or did He? The Old Testament reveals many examples of what we would certainly think of as fairly human reactions often lacking in obvious empathy) or the Bible's doctrine of infallibility would be void. Frankly however, original sin is a problem for Christianity for the accounting of the events in the Garden of Eden reads like a behavioral experiment testing 'nurture over nature' which suggests the possibility of a non-beneficent God testing an interesting subject.
  
• Pliny you are a @#%%#%^!* toad! A potential objection but hardly proof of illogical argument.
  

Implications of a God Within Reason:

If Man's appetite for knowledge is not patterned after God then Pascal's assertion might be proven partially right – at least as far as reason being of no help in making determinations about religion. But his wager would lose its luster for if false, Pascal's probability of a favorable outcome would become invalid whether God existed or not.

Why? Because if Man is not patterned after God then Christian doctrine is false and no reasonable determination as to what, if any, part of it could be reasonably used to guide behavior and belief (up to and including even a belief in God). If this central tenant were wrong then it would be reasonable to assume that other central doctrines were also flawed and might justly be ignored if logic is our guide. The possibility of false doctrine adds considerably to the complexity of deciding to believe purely on logical grounds since the infinite reward, so critical to the original wager, is invalidated.

In the case of an extant God and a false doctrine, then the doctrine can provide no reliable and rational insight into God's wishes. One would be better off not betting at all and merely living a decent life and letting the chips fall as they may because the probability of following false doctrines (with potentially dire consequences) is indeterminable. This approach would minimize conflicts with the living irrespective of any postmortem considerations. There would be no rational way to be sure of what God wants of us and we would be better served to live life as we see fit and at least be judged on our true merits if at all. And an extant God would of course know this and recognize the confusion created by false doctrine if God were benign or caring. If not, then there would be no reasonable way to choose amongst the various doctrines in order to try to divine the hidden path that God would prefer one to take.

If God did not exist (proof enough to repudiate all Christian doctrine with no additions) then again one is better off living a decent life and devoting no resources to false belief structures which will return no benefits. Pascal and his modern parrots wrongly state that there is no cost to belief if false. Resources, time and angst associated with the support of a false religion is quite a burden even excluding the ripple effect on others of potential prejudices and persecutions predicated on false doctrines. Resources spent on non-existent souls would be better applied to shared problems that are more amenable to reason.

More Patterns for Living:

However, if Man is patterned after God as can be reasonably inferred from the Bible, then it is reasonable to infer God values curiosity and intellect. Why? Because ignorance and sheepish devotion are the tools used by human tyrants and con artists not divine beneficence. If so, then one is likely to use these mental talents to consider the plethora of divergent sects within Christianity as well as the even bigger problem of other major religions. Logical analysis of this conundrum leaves one faced with at least 7 choices, none of which favors blind obedience: 1) the variation in religions is a false construct created by men which obfuscates God's truth; 2) The variations are the work of an evil analog to God meant to obfuscate truth; 3) God is not benevolent; 4) the variations are indicative of competing gods; 5) God is not around; 6) it's all made up, or 7) skeptical beings are an undesirable mutation.

1. The variation in religions is a false construct created by men which obfuscates God's truth: If this scenario is true and faced with an absence of overt and objective clues to the truth left in plain sight by God for the benefit of his curious and skeptical progeny, then it is reasonable to conclude that a God favoring reason would 1) possibly be testing our reasoning skills, and/or 2) understand the dilemma faced by humans and make some accommodation. In such a case a rational being would be unable to reasonably sort out which doctrines (institutionalized over centuries) were false and would be forced to use reason and observable facts to guide behavior even if the facts did not support the demonstrable existence of God. This is consistent with a God who is perfect and therefore required to be far more loving, understanding and compassionate than humans who are less than perfect. Humans cannot, by Bible definition, be more just and forgiving than God and since some humans have demonstrated love and compassion to those who reject their values or even harm them, a God as described by the Bible must be even more compassionate if the Bible is correct. So if the Bible is true, a perfect God could not hold his creation to a standard less perfect than they themselves can exercise. If not, then God is imperfect, Christian doctrine is false and Pascal's wager is invalidated. A God valuing reason would be most pleased with the individual who refused to be cowered by superstition, false loyalty or absent evidence.
2. The variations are the work of an evil analog to God meant to obfuscate truth: If an evil analog of God (let's call him Satan for purposes of convention) is able to proliferate all the false religions and create an extraordinary tapestry of data across dozens of scientific disciplines comprehensive enough to fool the most intelligent of men while God does nothing to dissuade the inquisitive mind, then Christian doctrine is in crisis. Or God, having made us in His image would have to be an ignorant dullard incapable of reason which seems unlikely of a universal creator (though it might account for the seeming evolutionary cut and pasting seen in living organisms allowing for a new theory of 'somewhat intelligent design'.) No entity save God himself is described as having such power in the Bible. So for this scenario to be true, then either the doctrine is wrong about Man's relationship to God and intellect, skepticism and curiosity are not valued traits, or it is falsifying and minimizing the threat posed by Satan. Or it is misrepresenting the very nature of Satan by describing him as a fallen angel. Even more difficult is the fact that the false beliefs strewn about could be any (or even all) of the faiths. How is a rational being to navigate this greatest of minefields? Again living a decent (and secular) life is the most reasonable course. God would know of Man's dilemma and the confusion sown in Satan's wake and if at all merciful, show compassion to his confused flock. This is required of a perfect God who made us in his image: since imperfect humans are capable of such selfless compassion, a perfect God must be more so. And if unable to defeat the power of evil then we would all be toast anyway so living a falsely pious life would an expensive waste of effort unless Satan himself gets religion or turns out to have a lot more of Milton in him than Augustine or Tim LaHaye.
   
3. The variations are indicative of competing gods: If so then all bets are off because the rational being has no way to determine which gods to follow if any. Clearly the existence of multiple gods would falsify Christian doctrine (predicated on only one, albeit one wearing many hats.) and call in to question the validity and reasonableness of expecting whether a god who has been thusly misrepresented is able or willing to care for believers for all time which is the crux of Pascal's assertion. The Bible itself hints at the possibility of other gods. The Ten Commandments warn against 'having any other gods before me'. The commandment is not implicitly clear as to whether other gods exist or merely are wrongly worshiped. Moses' encounter with the Egyptian priests (the fighting serpents) also is suggestive of either competing gods or the existence of magic which many contemporary Christians rail against. Once again, a decent life devoid of religious entanglements is the reasonable choice in this scenario.
4. God is not benevolent: This scenario is a particular bummer. Essentially the same scenario as # 2 with the same reasonable approach and outcome with even less of an upside to pious devotion. The Bible itself hints at this possibility by positing an all knowing and all seeing God who clearly would have known the results of the Garden of Eden experiment before hand. To what benign purpose would setting up two innocents to fail contribute? This does not mean that God would have to be a mean god, merely apathetic to the plight of humanity. This is not an unreasonable possibility based upon historical events in human history. This scenario would also include the experimenter God who's interest in humanity would be dispassionate.
   
5. God is not around: This does not have mean that one must agree with anything said by Nietche. God might be away or otherwise engaged, possibly even off somewhere blowing cosmic bubbles that will become new universes. The rational selection remains the secular and decent life filled with questions and concrete pursuits which would likely impress such a builder god more than coming back to find a stagnant world filled with doe-eyed acolytes or perhaps God would not care either way.
6. It's all made up: A reasonable person might rationally come to the conclusion that all is fiction based upon the extant conflicting doctrines. It is more reasonable to conclude that because so many people vehemently believe in mutually exclusive faiths, it is an indication of a human origin for all religion as opposed to an explanation requiring a loving and compassionate god associated with only one. Why? Because a reasonable person would expect a God having any interest in his children to help show the way to truth a bit more clearly than a bronze age anthology, oft rabidly quoted by strange men whose chief attributes seem to be a loud voice, an obsession with money, the power to completely suspend credulity and the ability to convert His name from one to two, or even three syllables. Here again, the decent self-directed life is the best wager.
7. Skeptical beings are an undesirable mutation. If this is a case and you happen to be one of the sorry mutants you may as well just eat right, exercise and live a decent life and enjoy what you can because you will eventually be culled from the flock because like Thomas or Moses, you will at some time test the limits or start a blog and get smacked down hard. You won't be able to help it. It's in your nature...
   

In summary, it is more rational, based upon either the truth or fiction of the Bible, to conclude that a decent life spent without religious encumberment (as if God does not exist in Christian form) is a more rational wager and strategy than Pascal's assertion whether or not the Christian God is, or is not, the one true God. If the Bible is true then Man patterned after God will not believe the contents of the Bible which are in conflict with empirical evidence. This creates a fatal exception requiring a hard psychic reboot. After the restart it is best to avoid the affected program and quietly go about your business. Or buy a Mac. Others may disagree of course... about the Mac, I mean...

Have fun with this one!

The Mind Killer: Cognitive Biases Enrolled in the Service of Fear

“Fear is the mind killer...” Frank Herbert, 'Dune'

There was a highly regarded woman who was buried in Eastern Oregon a week or so back. There was no national media attention. Millions of dollars were not donated to the Red Cross for her family or the families of those who died like her. Nations will not be invaded in her name, and civil rights will not be revoked to punish anyone suspected in her death or the 16,000 or so that will die violently like her this year. You see she did not die in the Pentagon or the WTC but joined the 84,770 killed on our nation's highways by drunk drivers in the years 2001-2006 and the roughly 33,000 that joined or will join them in 2007-2008. 2973 people died during the terrorist attacks in NYC and Washington DC in Sept of 2001. But 40 times more people have been killed by drunk drivers or in drunk driving accidents since 2001 than on 9/11/2001 by terrorists and 5.5x will die in this year alone. Drunk drivers account for between 30-40% of all traffic fatalities. So more than 80x more people died on U.S. roads in the last 6-7 years than died on 9/11/2001.

According to the EPA, between 8000 and 45,000 Americans will die each year from radon-induced lung cancer (best estimate 21,000).

So then explain why people who have no trouble getting into a car or going down into their basements are still afraid to visit NYC, or sheepishly disrobe in front of rent-a-cops in the airport while relinquishing their toothpaste without complaint? In Washington State when the Governor suggested that road blocks be instituted to catch drunks, the citizenry was up in arms about this 'unnecessary intrusion without just cause', yet body scans and pat downs for random airline passengers fails to start a traveler's revolt. Based upon factual risk assessment something is greatly amiss.

Don't get me wrong. The attacks on the WTC and Pentagon were unspeakable acts of evil. But the deaths of the innocents killed by drunk drivers are no less tragic than any other violent death. Each year hundreds of people die in fires, accidents, crimes, etc. Their terror, suffering and tragedy for those left behind is no less than those who died in the WTC.

Fear is a very useful evolutionary facet that comes in quite handy and was critical for our early survival. But like most things fear is a double-edged sword. In appropriate doses it protects us from harm and rash decisions but in larger doses it can paralyze us or serve us up to those who use fear as a tool of manipulation and control. Fear is a great motivator and properly nurtured you can use it to make people do almost anything. Use fear to turn the heat up just a bit at a time and you can boil a lot of frogs. Just ask Karl Rove (spit).

Why are we so obsessed with one event? I think the answer is a combination of cognitive vulnerabilities exploited by masters of manipulation and poor leadership. The later two aspects will no doubt be debated but the first is pretty well described. It is there that I will concentrate my efforts and leave the others for a later time.

Availability:

We have talked about this one before. The endless repetition of the images of the burning towers and their collapse reinforces this heuristic and makes it seem as if the threat is omnipresent. It's easier for people to recall those images and fears than a picture of a twisted auto after a fatal car crash. People were repelled but could not look away. The coverage provided a sense of intimacy that made people feel as if they were in the heat of the calamity. This sense of vulnerability resulted in a feeling that everyone was at risk – even in small towns that I am sure OBL and company would miss on a geography test.

Neglect of Probability:

The facts speak for themselves. Terrorists appear to be a lot less of a threat to your survival than 'Joe six-pack behind the wheel'. Factual risk assessment proves this point for now. People have a very poor appreciation of probability and tend to believe that vivid or negative events occur at a much higher rate than is true. Ironically the number of people actually at risk from an event or decision seems to have a minimal affect on decision weight (called scope neglect). This may help explain why we fuss about terrorists and ignore drunk drivers.

Causality and Hindsight Bias:

How many times have we heard this; “There have been no terrorist attacks in this country since 9/11; therefore, our security efforts are worth the cost.” This is a classic logic failure based upon an assumption which may or may not be true. Remember that the claim could have been made that 'since the WTC bombing of 1993 our security efforts have protected America' right up to 8:46 am EST, September 11, 2001. The point of this is not to bash the Bush administration but to point out that the explanation as to why we haven't been attacked yet again is multi-factorial and causality has not been established. Prudence demands that all possible explanations be explored including the unholy patience of this enemy. What are the dangers of misplaced causality? As it turns out they may be huge.

Let's examine another vicarious moment in American history - The Challenger explosion and the destruction of the Columbia. Lots of school kids got to watch the Challenger explode, heard possibly the greatest understatement in history (the NASA spokesperson saying 'obviously a major malfunction' as bits of the shuttle blasted in all directions), and saw the bits fall to the sea. The recriminations flew for months and included Richard Feynman's classic o-ring dunking and the dull thud his sample o-ring made on the floor after a few moments in cold water (Rogers et. al. 1986.). The o-rings were fixed and the shuttle went back into space. So what was the problem with that? Hindsight bias was strongly at work. Everyone 'knew' that NASA had been lazy or negligent in not fixing the o-rings before the fatal flight. In reality that is unfair. UNFAIR! Seven astronauts died how can that be unfair? Because of the effects of hindsight bias. The space shuttle is an engineering marvel. It also has the largest number of single point failure modes (single problem or malfunction leading to mission loss) of any machine in existence. Prior to Challenger exploding, o-ring problems were only one of several possible mission loss risk factors. Without the benefit of hindsight, improving the safety of the shuttle would have required addressing ALL of the risks of equal gravity – something that NASA had expressed to Congress and the administration hoping for some funds. But absent exploding shuttles it was not a national priority at the time.

The o-ring problem may have been solved but another single point failure mode killed Columbia leading to another patch-work fix and the ultimate quiet decision to terminate the shuttle program.

The moral of the story; hindsight bias can affect future decisions even in cases where causality is determined for a specific instance (we know the o-ring killed Challenger but concentrating efforts to fix that problem did not save Columbia). It does this by preventing people from a thorough risk assessment and accounting for the true probability and predictability of similar risks. The fact that something happens does not imply that it was reasonably predictable based upon pre-disaster models – the assumption of increased predictability of past events is another classic cognitive bias (one that greatly complicates civil liability law). One type of attack may have been thwarted by these airline security measures but equating that with improved overall security is false as the Columbia loss demonstrates. How much of a patchwork solution is making you undress for airline security? Hard to tell, but it is interesting that the cargo stored in the hold of the airliner (whose owners required you to roll onto your back and submit before boarding) is still not screened...

Complicating all these discussions of hindsight and causality is the next topic: the risk and effect of exceptionally rare but extremely catastrophic events, or Black Swans.

Black Swans:

Nassim Nicholas Taleb characterized this bias in his book 'The Black Swan'. In it he discusses the difficulty of dealing with risk assessments in circumstances where the majority of negative risk comes from one extreme case – i.e. a black swan. Was 9/11 a black swan? Of course it was. The problem is how likely are and how do you prevent future such events and will there nature necessarily be predictable from assessments of previous events. Placing too much emphasis on the value of hindsight is dangerous. Fischhoff (1982) described this issue well:

"When we attempt to understand past events, we implicitly test the hypotheses or rules we use both to interpret and to anticipate the world around us. If, in hindsight, we systematically underestimate the surprises that the past held and holds for us, we are subjecting those hypotheses to inordinately weak tests and, presumably, finding little reason to change them."

In other words we assume that future events will look much like past ones. We assume that we can easily predict them so pay little attention to the possibility of similar but nonidentical events making it much harder to predict them while living under a false sense of security.

In a wonderful paper on cognitive bias in global risk assessment in 2006, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:

“After September 11th, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration prohibited box-cutters on airplanes. The hindsight bias rendered the event too predictable in retrospect, permitting the angry victims to find it the result of 'negligence' - such as intelligence agencies' failure to distinguish warnings of Al Qaeda activity amid a thousand other warnings. We learned not to allow hijacked planes to overfly our cities. We did not learn the lesson: "Black Swans occur; do what you can to prepare for the unanticipated." “

At this point you may be wondering which side of the fence I am on. Am I arguing for restraint in concerns regarding terrorism because of the obvious tendency to neglect the true probability of genuine risks such as drunk drivers? Or am I saying that we need to be even more vigilant to major catastrophes because of the unrecognized risk of 'Black Swan' events such as the WTC attack? In fact I support both but not in the way we have thus far approached the problems. The truth is this. Terrorism is a real threat but it should be incorporated into our assessment and response to a wide range of dangers we face in life. We need a measured response to terrorism in light of the fact that, thus far, the risk is less than many common dangers. By the same token we need to prepare, as Yudkowsky suggested, for the the real possibility of terrorist Black Swan events by preparing as best we can for the unexpected. What does that mean. First of all we are unlikely to be able to prevent all such attacks by a resourceful enemy. We should not worry so much about the fact that it will happen again and go on with life as best we can with a slight up tic in daily risk. We need to concentrate not on how they might attack us but rather on assessing where such attacks would be most devastating then take steps to mitigate those risks. We cannot be everywhere at once. We need to concentrate on those areas where the overall risk to the nation as a whole is greatest. What will be hard is that if we are honest in this assessment we will probably find out that limited loss of life situations are less of a threat than certain infrastructure attacks that could impact millions.

We need to make our judgments based not upon irrational fear and emotion but on careful deliberation. True risk assessment and assumption will make us better able to counter those whose reactionary response is to throw the baby out with the bath water and curtail liberties unnecessarily. Our response should be “true patriots carefully assess the risks and act as if they have a spine!” Or “true patriots do not cower in the presence of false risks”. True patriots are not afraid to analyze the nature and rationality of their fears and accordingly act as adults.

These are tough calls and preparing in this way ideally will be a thankless job. As Taleb notes in his book:

“It is difficult to motivate people in the prevention of Black Swans... Prevention is not easily perceived, measured, or rewarded; it is generally a silent and thankless activity. Just consider that a costly measure is taken to stave off such an event. One can easily compute the costs while the results are hard to determine. How can one tell its effectiveness, whether the measure was successful or if it just coincided with no particular accident? ... Job performance assessments in these matters are not just tricky, but may be biased in favor of the observed "acts of heroism". History books do not account for heroic preventive measures. “

Realizing how we can be manipulated and deceived is the first step in correcting the problem. In closing I will avail myself of one of the four quotes that hang in my office: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” (FDR's 1rst inaugural – talk about leadership in a crisis). 9/11 didn't change everything – our response and continued obsession with it did. And if that is true, and if as Shakespeare said in Julius Caesar, “the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves”, then we can do something to banish this pernicious fear that continues to eat away at everything we hold dear.

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A Word of Caution. Cognitive biases are a very real part of human decision-making and can be quite deleterious. But like all things they need to be viewed in moderation and we should realize that although human decision bias is present in almost all decisions, its relative importance to the final outcome and its impact on decisions varies from case to case. Some decisions are complex and nuanced and as such, are vulnerable to cognitive bias – others are straight forward or involve such a preponderance of evidence that bias is a trivial component. Learning the difference is critical.