Useful Bollocks

Lucky Mammal Looking For Purpose

The reality is we are rats that got lucky.  Our ancestors spotted the potential of tool using early on and we have been reaping the benefits ever since.  We have created a materially very comfortable if a bit confusing world to live in and are doing rather nicely thank you.  Especially compared to being chased across the savanna by hyenas.  If flint were just a bit less available, we might still be doing that.


Looked at from that perspective we are all basically the spoilt brat offspring of tougher ancestors who despite our feeble physical and mental powers can look forward to a long life of plentiful meals and as many reproductive opportunities as we care to take advantage of.  We are one lucky set of mammals.

But that isn't how we choose to look at ourselves.  We are very good at coming up with stories that make us much more important and significant than we really are and that give our lives a purpose that it doesn't really have.  The most obvious of these is religion.  This places us at centre stage at the cost of just about every atom of logic available.  This is a cost a great many people are happy to pay.  Politics - or at least the ideological side of politics - does the same to a lesser extent.   It doesn't require quite the surrender of rationality that religion does, but it is still a distorting lens through which to see the world.  A third, and less obvious, way we delude ourselves is self help or self improvement activities and its associated food fads and pop psychology.

I think my first two examples are obvious and in need no justification.  The third one maybe doesn't ring true immediately.  Haven't notions like organic food being more healthy been scientifically proved?  (Answer - no.)  And isn't there evidence behind the advice in the books on the self improvement shelf?  (Again, no.)

To take the organic food example, the idea that organic food is somehow better is a belief just as irrational as anything a holy book has come up with.  It may well be the case that organic food actually does promote good health and long life.  I don't know one way or the other and neither does anyone else.   That isn't the reason people eat it.  It appeals because we like the idea of getting a reward in return for a sacrifice.  We go to a special shop, or a special section of a shop, and pay a bit more.  Surely we deserve to get something out of the extra care and attention we have put in?

That is a powerful feeling, and the emotional pay off might well be worth it in itself.  I'd not even be surprised if the belief that organic food is better might create a sense of well being that leads to the benefits claimed on its behalf.  So even if the belief behind organic food turns out to be wrong in its details it still might be a beneficial belief to hold.

Holding beneficial but wrong beliefs is a bit more prevalent when you look around you than you imagine.  For example I started this blog post with the sincere belief that it was going to take me 15 minutes to finish it.  It is now looking more like 30 minutes, which would have put me off starting it.

The thing that triggered this post off was starting to listen again to Brian Tracy's Time Power.  (At double speed, naturally.)  He starts the book off with some strong claims about how much time he can save you by following his tips.  He makes these claims very quantitative and very compelling.  Do as he says and you will get an extra 2 hours of productive time per day.

Of course a moment's thought will tell you that he cannot possibly have any way of coming up with that figure.  But it sounds believable.  You want to believe it.  In fact, it sounds positively plausible.  I am planning all the things I can do with that extra time already.  The point is that this belief is a going to be a positive help in bringing about what I want to achieve, which is better use of my time.  So although like most self help stuff it is basically bollocks, it is useful bollocks.   And I have decided to believe it.


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