The establishment of Hubble’s law supports what is, to my mind, one of the most attractive theories of how our universe works. The law says that the distances to other galaxies tend to grow exponentially, and we know it because the Doppler effect shifts the light coming from them (treated as a wave) towards red, much as we hear the sound of a vehicle driving away from us. Put another way, we can look at the sky on a starry night and imagine everything moving away from us.
If everything is moving away from us, does that mean we are the centre of the universe?
As great as that sounds, the universe is considered isotropic and homogeneous: there is no centre, and no place that is special or different on a large scale. It makes no difference whether we are in our solar system or in some other system in Andromeda; looking at the sky would mean seeing everything move away.
These counterintuitive ways of thinking about how the universe works have only been possible thanks to millions of human minds that have shared, argued over and tested new ideas. As a species we went from thinking we were the centre of the solar system to understanding that in the universe and in time we are a tiny and practically insignificant point.
And yet something in the last decade seems to be changing the way we think, in a far less organic way. The internet and social media have changed our lives in many ways: feeding our biases and egos, throwing unmanageable amounts of information at us, letting us act without having to put a face to our opinions and comments, and finally making us forget that we are really far from knowing it all, let alone being the centre of the universe.
At some point it became normal to open the comments on a Facebook post or the replies on Twitter and see so many people debating, arguing, attacking and even insulting each other because they fervently believe one opinion is valid above all others. This would not be a serious problem if it stayed on social media, but nothing could be further from the truth. The behaviour of the masses can now, more than ever, be swayed by the opinion of a few people, or by some idea that gains strength retweet after retweet. The elections in the United States or the protests in my country, Guatemala, show that whatever the context, origin or truthfulness of a post, it can become powerful.
My aim in this post is not at all to say what may be right or wrong, because I think it is more than clear that agreeing is a complicated thing nowadays. What I really want is simply to call for self-examination: that we question our own thoughts, reflect on what we post, and try to consider the effects of our words in comments or reactions to opinions that differ from ours.
Winning and losing
Is imposing our point of view really the only and best way to win? Wouldn’t learning in itself be more important than winning?
This typical dichotomy closes the door on great possibilities. If we manage to win and impose our own argument on someone else’s aggressively, the other person will feel attacked and will naturally defend themselves as if it were a personal attack, and at that point there would be no way to truly convince them, or even to reach an agreement. On the other hand, if we lose under this starkly opposed way of thinking, we fail to value the knowledge someone else could be passing on to us, which would give our own way of thinking firmer foundations to rest on.
In his book Creativity, Inc., Ed Catmull mentions one of Steve Jobs’s best-known qualities, his intensity when arguing for and defending an idea, but he explains that over the years he noticed Jobs didn’t care whether those ideas were entirely his own, only that they were the best. That is, when in the middle of an argument he discovered someone had a better argument than his, he would simply change his mind on the spot and start defending the new idea with the same intensity as the old one. Being right came second to having the best reason.
Humility
Going into a discussion with prejudices or predispositions can very easily keep a conversation from being rich in ideas, because we will constantly find ways to contradict or dismiss other people’s arguments without even paying attention to the ones that could enrich our own way of thinking. We may even listen attentively and diplomatically, but with the sole intention of finding a gap that feeds our biases, and end up falling into unethical manipulation. What we should really do is weigh the ideas put to us against our own, and see the chance of finding new and better ways of thinking.
When Socrates realised that all the knowledge he had acquired only allowed him to be sure of how much he did not know, all that was left for him was to think that famous phrase.
Objectivity
There are too many fallacies nowadays: ideas that seem to make sense simply because they feed a popular notion already in our minds, or because their very structure is appealing. It is up to us to truly analyse whether an argument is valid and can stand on its own, no matter who it comes from or under what conditions it was made. We are emotional beings, and although our nature clearly tends to bring personal matters into every discussion, it is essential to focus on the main point being debated or presented if we really want to get the most out of a debate or a discussion.
Personally, I have noticed that I often disagree with an idea not because it is bad or wrong, but simply because I don’t yet know enough of the details to take in a new model of thought.
Empathy
The most important, to my mind, of the aspects presented here: putting ourselves in other people’s shoes may be the only way to understand why an idea is being defended the way it is.
Our era is clearly shaping what will be the future of our species as a whole. The polarisation of ideas, that bundle of packaged ways of thinking that seems to be turning into a paradigm, into a way of splitting into predetermined sides whose discussions reach critical points of stubbornness, seems very unhealthy for humanity. Yuval Noah Harari and Michael Sandel, in their books 21 Lessons for the 21st Century and The Tyranny of Merit respectively, show fundamental matters on which we must agree as a species, setting our differences aside before the damage is irreversible. Matters so complex and important that they could only be discussed with empathy.
Changing one’s mind should not be considered a weakness. Thinking the same as or differently from others should not be a rule set in stone. Discussing openly, questioning ideas and testing laws have been pillars of human progress, so today more than ever it is important that we keep doing so objectively, because it is clear to us that a virus may not tell a conservative from a liberal, and that right and left alike need a planet Earth on which to exist.