Explanatory frameworks
Frameworks that explain the world. Geography, history, free will, economics. Planning, spontaneity, and serendipity.
I often find myself trying to understand and process the world through frameworks. Frameworks, like calculus, serve as tools to reduce the infinitely complex into more understandable and measurable variables or components.
Especially on long distance runs, I tend to mull over rough, simplistic frameworks to explain a recurring question that is perpetually top of mind – if I had a child, how would I attempt to explain the world to him/her?
Perhaps geography? To understand the world, you must understand the mountain ranges, and the rivers, the oceans, and the climates. All animal and plant behavior flows from reaction to the physical world.
Maybe economics? To understand the world, you must understand how society uses its limited resources, namely the four factors of production (land, labor, capital, and enterprise). All human behavior flows from the necessity of commerce to perpetuate the species.
Behavior? To understand the world, you must understand that behavior is not a function of free will, but rather a cocktail of two primary ingredients 1) nature – genetic, biological, chemical, and physical material; and 2) nurture – cultural, geographical, demographical, and institutional material.
Maybe substances? To understand the world, you must understand that there are 3 substances – perishable (plants and animals), eternal (heavenly bodies), and immutable (time and motion).
Perhaps the uniqueness of homo sapiens? To understand the world, you must understand that homo sapiens are distinct in their ability to collaborate flexibly and in large numbers. It is this ability that has led them to their position as the most dominant species on earth.
Maybe the repetition of history? To understand the world, you must understand that history repeats itself, both on macro and micro levels. The experiences of your country have been had by countries before. The experiences you will have will be yours, but many people before you have had approximate experiences.
Cognitive closure
Questions are like breadcrumbs leading to some destination. But the destination is usually either a mirage (we believe it exists, when it doesn't or can't), or a pit stop on the trail to other streams of exploration.
On my runs, "if I had a child, how would I attempt to explain the world to him/her," is usually followed by, "why do I desire to understand the world?"
In metaphysics, Aristotle posits that there is a desire in humans, a force which urges them on toward knowledge. We desire wisdom and so pursue knowledge for its own sake.
But then another question, the bread crumbs stretching out now to the horizon of contemplation – is accumulated knowledge simply caused by the desire for the delight of achieved wisdom, or by some more practical and biological need for control?
I recently turned to Google to explore the desire to understand.
A Google search for answers
The first result was a New Yorker article, written by Maria Konnikova in 2013.
She writes, "In 1972, the psychologist Jerome Kagan posited that uncertainty resolution was one of the foremost determinants of our behavior... We want, in other words, to achieve “cognitive closure.”
The term cognitive closure stood out to me for its desirability, but also for its impossibility. It was coined by the social psychologist Arie Kruglanski, who defined it as," “individuals’ desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity."
How much time should we devote to creating cognitive closure, to planning our lives, to applying frameworks?
Planning vs. Spontaneity and Serendipity
In 1994, Jeff Bezos drove across the northern plains from New York to Seattle and founded Amazon. In his pre-Amazon career, he'd been a consultant and hedge fund analyst, and his decision to start Amazon stemmed from a highly calculated bet on a market tailwind (ecommerce) and a gap in the market (ecommerce in the mid 90's was a generally poor customer experience). There are many lessons in the founding of any successful company. In an age where massive corporations are founded seemingly by accident, and often on a simple intuition that turns out to be a highly scalable application, a compelling lesson from Amazon's founding is the degree of planning and research that contributed to the founding thesis. Realizing the opportunity (creating the world's biggest store), by executing a clear strategy (huge investments in lowering costs, increasing selection, and faster delivery) was the original game plan. It wasn't stumbled upon.
In 1974, Dolly Parton prepared to leave the Porter Waggoner show. For a couple of years, her relationship with the man who helped catapult her career had begun to fray, and as as an ode their relationship, and as a farewell to Porter, she would sit down one night and write "I will always love you." Although the song did well when it was initially released, it wouldn't become the singularly important love song that it is today for another eighteen years, when in 1992, Kevin Costner argued adamantly to record producer Clive Davis and singer/actress Whitney Houston that the song be recorded in the Bodyguard, a film Costner co-produced and starred. Houston's rendition of the song has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling song by a female artist of all time. In post-modernist age that values and rewards Amazon-esque risk arbitrage above all else, the lesson of "I will always love you," is that cultures are often changed by acts of creative spontaneity and ensuing serendipity.
What takeaways should be communicated to a child? How can they influence explanatory frameworks? Look for problems that are painful for millions of people and solve them and society will reward you? Create works that are beautiful and speak to your most authentic feeling, and you will participate in the evolution of culture? Plan your life and you will optimize for successful outcomes? Live your life spontaneously, and you will encounter experiences and sensations that may in some cases feel transcendent.
What's love got to do with it?
And what about love as a framework? How might I talk about love to a child?
Perhaps love explains the world through the reality of its opposite: hate. To understand the world, you must understand that the world we inhabit is a spectrum spanning love and hate. It is your orientation on this spectrum that will shape your life.
When I was an infant, my father rocked my in our hammock and said to me, "So Fynn, what do you think about the war in Vietnam?" As I reflect on that question now, I turn to frameworks, and the pursuit continues.