Beyond illusions and facts: toward a methodology of dialogue and
dialogue-enhancing environments
Ania Lian,
October 2003 (Houston, TX)
The International Conference on Computers and Philosophy
Australian Nationald University, Canberra, Australia and Rice
University, Houston, Texas, USA
1 November 2003 (Australian time)
Introduction
In this discussion paper I will explore the concepts of illusion and
fact against the context of the debate between Einstein and Bergson on
the issue of scientific method as it applies to the understanding of
time. As the debate shows, Einstein and Bergson, while
seeking to create a break with the world of dogma or absolutes, do so
by turning to concepts which claim validity in frames of logic which
effectively
either depreciate reasoning (as the concept of illusion does)
or over-appreciate it by attributing to it the status of "fact"
(albeit relative). The view presented in this paper is that
the debate between the two scholars reflects intellectual positions
which, in spite of attempts on each side to relativise understandings,
nevertheless leave us little with which to approach questions such as
the nature of thinking and how we should encourage creative and
critical thought. In other words, should we see the process of thinking
as generating illusions or facts?
This
discussion paper offers an alternative approach to the concept of
scientific method, one which explores the idea of dialogue in ways
which do not reduce it just to "people talking". In writing this paper,
I am aware of the limitations of my knowledge of philosophy and the
history of science. Nevertheless, it is my contention that for
as long as we position the process of reasoning (and hence education)
along the divide
between illusions and facts, we fail to understand it and
also fail to facilitate it. This paper therefore proposes a
methodology where the process of
reasoning or
sense-making is not seen as defying the truth or discovering the
truth. Rather, it is seen as an
interaction between the various forms of
perception in terms of which individuals make sense with the
objective of breaking
out of the constraints which prevent this interaction. In
Calhoun's terms, a methodology of this kind seeks to
generate links between what previously was
incommensurable (cf. Calhoun
1995, Critical social theory). The
concept of dialogue which this methodology suggests is not that of
an interaction between individuals, or their views as such, but
between perceptions. This paper
therefore conceptualises all thoughts or experiences as perceptions, be
it the model of quantum physics or our sense of smell
or taste.
Reasoning or
sense-making requires creating
conditions which do not seek to create new
perceptions/understandings as such, but which allow for opening
up familiar schemes of perception to the
possibility of including more or considering more. To
enhance our understandings, it is therefore necessary to revise the
familiar. My view is that we can work only with the familiar. The
unfamiliar is not available to us. The process of reflection is about
making the familiar unfamiliar, and, as a result, changing what
previously was thought to be known. Progress
entails this kind of change.
Since,
as this paper argues, it is perceptions that form us, for dialogue to
happen, it is necessary to allow for the interplay of these perceptions
in ways that help to explore the possibilities and limitations
that they bring with them. This exploration is dialogic.
By
allowing for perceptions to collide and test their
capacities, a dialogue of this kind generates oportunities for creating
a platform for negotiation
between what appears to be incommensurable or
foreign.
The
discussion
which follows this paper illustrates examples of
technology-based environments, including a modest pilot study,
where this concept of dialogue is proposed as a basis for growth
(Ania Lian et al,
2004).
Specifying
the problem
The discussion between Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein
regarding the issue of time is not only complex. It also has a rich
history of reviews and follow-ups (cf. Keith Pearson, Philosophy
and the adventure of the virtual, 2002, NY). From the
perspective of the concept scientific inquiry, the discussion between
Henri Bergson and Albert Einstein can be summarised as follows. While
for Bergson, on the one hand, there is always a reality
that we do not see, for Einstein, on the other hand, what
matters is what we actually can see.
Thus while for Bergson our perceptions generate illusions of reality,
for Einstein reality is relative to what makes it real.
It
is my
view that both scholars, in spite of their attempts to relativise their
beliefs, do so in reference to perspectives which remove from us the
posibility to understand the systems of logic we generate to kegitimise
what we see as true. Should we
treat all systems of logic as equally valid because they are all
equally invalid? Or should we give priority to those which derive their
power from institutions that have money to render them valid? The
philosophical divide in academia flows between these two positions as
if there was no other way.
The
purpose of this discussion paper is not to reflect upon the specific
differences that Einstein and Bergson bring into the concept of time.
Rather, the question that I seek to pose is that of the methodology
which they both adopt in order to
argue their points. From the description so far it appears that both
scholars locate their answers regarding time in a specific
view of reality that they hold. Thus for Bergson, our
measurements do not measure anything that constitutes reality (or even
belongs to it). Rather, they measure the constructs that specific
disciplinary interests create as reality. On the other hand, for
Einstein, our (relative) measurements help us discover reality for what
it is.
In
my view,
the problem is that once we know that reality, in one form
or another, is somehow pre-existing us or existing next to
us, we separate what we do from what
we are.
Thus
if, as Bergson maintains, we investigate illusions, it would follow
that the process helps us little in gaining any understandings of ourselves,
the producers of those illusions. In turn,
while Einstein explores the secrets of Nature, his investment in the
concept of Nature or Universe is so high that to question these would
mean to question methodology that thoroughly sought to get to
"the bottom of things". However, as Bonnie Smith notes, the process of
getting to that bottom
also launders anything that constitutes its producer (see
Bonnie Smith Masculinity
and the Limits of Interpretation). The more investment is
made, the more real the sources of those secrets feel. How can we deny
reality to what we see or, indeed, have measured? Or how can we be
certain of anything if everything can be put to a doubt?
Time
and reality
To follow Bergson's logic, in relation to the concept of
time, we do not measure time but the
specific instants which are artifically abstracted from reality, and to
which we attribute the function of telling time. To defend this
position, Bergson reaches for a dichotomy which distingushes beteween virtual
and hence actual or objective (i.e. recognising
multiplicities) and subjective (discrete),
continuous and discontinuous. Reality hence is
virtual and can be experienced only as an actualisation of the
virtual in the discrete, subjective. The concept of reality
which is virtual allows Bergson to defend the cause of the multiplicity
of coexisting lived times against Einstein's attempts to give time
a capacity to unite all forms of its actualisation in a
single framework, single reality.
In Bergson's view, multiplicity is a function of realities which
individuals occupy. No individual can claim to share the reality of
others. Their individual lives realise forms of life because there is
(one) life (in a form of duration cf. Keith Pearson, Philosophy
and the adventure of the virtual, 2002, NY, p. 60). There
is therefore no specific time reference that can be applied to all
lives because there is one time which we all live but which is
continuous, and, as such no subjective and therefore unmeasurable (cf.
Pearson, p. 60). Measured time is perspectival, a view from
within, experienced and hence immediately imposing its own prejudices.
For
Bergson, therefore, Einstein's famous twin paradox, is
not a reflection of time being affected (e.g. accelerated or
slowed down), as physicists would have it. It is therefore not time that the (conceptual)
twin experiment affects. Rather, as I understand Bergson, the concept
of time as applied by the physicist helps the physicist to
illuminate differences
which he or she measures while attempting to understand specific
changes under specific conditions, like the twin experiment. In this
way, Bergson's methodology helps to shift the question of physics away
from that of the nature of things such as time
toward that of the possibilities which different
forms of measurement offer (cf. Pearson, p. 60). This a
worhwhile perspective because, to follow the matter further, it helps
us escape prejudices or the determinism which measurements impose.
Keith Pearson, in his discussion on the Bergson-Einstein debate,
presents Bergson's view as follows: "In dealing with time
the concern of physics is with the extremities of
time and the illusion is generated that the extremities of
an interval are identical with the interval itself. What takes
place in the intervals - an actual duration - is neglected and lost
sight of, and this means that the continuing of simultaneities can only
take the form of a counting of instants" (p. 58).
It
is also
arguable that to follow Bergson's view consistently, the
physicist does not study the universe but the measurements that
he or she takes for the
universe. As Keith Pearson describes: "Bergson
goes further: it does not matter at what speed time runs, if the number
of extremities is indefinitely increased, or if the intervals
are indefinitely narrowed, these changes would have no great
impact on the calculations of time carried out by the physicist." (p.
58) In other words, no matter how many adjustments a physicist
can make in his or her measurements, he or she will always measure what
they see not what is.
As Pearson repeats after Maritain, "things become what they
actually
are by pasing from one state of actuality to another" (Pearson p. 4).
This explanation echoes Zeno's paradoxes
which question the reality of movement (and, by implication, of time)
i.e. the reality of shifting through time and space, and, hence, the
reality of time and space as divisible categories (cf. Fearn 2001).
For Einstein, Bergson's critique was very problematic as was Bergson's
concept of the philosopher's time which Bergson distinguishes
from the physicist's time. In Bergson's view, while
the physicist's time is a product of a
measurement, the philosopher's time, denies
the physicist the capacity to tell time. All that a
physicist can do is to attribute and compare systems of reference with
none, in fact, reflecting true time. The physicist therefore deals with
an imaginary time (p. 60, 61). On the other hand, the philosopher's
time is a real time which is not measured, it is lived. As I read the discussion, for
Bergson, it would seem, all we know is that we live. The
concept of lived time (actuality perceived) is derived from the
experience of being part of a process of life, a continuity,
duration as Bergson calls it (p. 61-2). Real hence
is actual. On the other hand, imaginery is what changes this reality
(actuality) into something that it is not
(p. 61-2).
For
Bergson, physicists (scientists) construct time as a category which
makes sense to them and which they then naturalise i.e. they
attribute a reality status to those categories. No one, however, can
approach the concept of time without reducing it to events which derive
significance solely from a specific logic applied. There is therefore a
difference between what is lived (real) and what is comprehended
(imaginary, an illusion). As Pearson notes while using
Robin Durie's reflections: "Bergson is not suggesting that from the
perspective of one observer the time lived by another is not real
because it is different to that observer's lived time. His argument
is rather that any time projected by one observer to another
observer's system of reference is an imaginary time since it
is not a time lived by any observer" (Pearson, p. 60-1).
Everything is relational and hence not real.
Here
is the crux of the problem. it would appear that are we all
caught between two worlds, that which is real, and that which is not.
In one of these worlds, what we measure reflects what we have, in the
other, no matter what we measure, the measurementstell us nothing about
what we have got. But, if our attempts to understand are not
much more
than imaginery projections or illusions, is our social reality
therefore constructed
in terms of illusionary understandings? And, if
our measurements do tell us something about the world, learning about
us is a matter of applying the
right ruler? Is our reality therefore a logic we realise, or a
set
of communicated (shared) illussions? Or, as I would like to suggest in
this paper, are we living a reality:
(a) which escapes illusions exactly
through our attempts of seeking to understand, and
(b) where
our measurements tell us more about us rather than about the world that
we live in?
Are we
living in a world of illusions?
What is an illusion? If
an illusion is a product of a belief-system (behaviour) which defies
dialogue, i.e. process which may endanger (Latour)
it, then escaping illusions can be facilitated exactly
by doing the opposite. In this sense, illusion is not simply a form of
artificially abstracted system of beliefs, as Bergson suggests.
Illusion is a refusal to grow, to explore, to do anything other than
remaining in a loop. It is to refuse to do reality checks, to
verify by looking for evidence to the contrary. Illusion is not a
measurement or perception. It is a method of proceeding which is
self-focused and self-perpetuating. An illusion, in this sense of the
word, is not a necessity in which we are caught (cf. Saul, The
unconscious civilization). It is a form of behaviour that
can be avoided by questioning and critical thinking.
This form of thinking is different from that of
Bergson. Bergson introduces the philosopher's time to escape
the determinism of the physicist's time and to regain what the
physicist's measurements miss. As
Pearson writes (cf. also Gunter on Bergson, 1969), "In delineating
the virtual [continuous] and actual [discrete] in this
way, however, Bergson is simply drawing a contrast between
imaginary and real" (p. 62). In
Bergson's view, relativity "puts all times, including mathematical
times, on the same plane" (Pearson, p. 62). In other
words, relativity privileges the physicist's time as that
which is able to tell time. To
counteract this effect, Bergson creates the philosopher's
time which refuses legitimacy to our perceptions. But, if
the philosopher's time is part of those perceptions (see
Pearson p. 62: "Lived time is always a perceived time."), then the philosopher's
time is also an illusion! This is where things get into trouble.
Everything is an illusion! Everything is artificially abstracted
frames
of reference! And, moreover, all illusions are artificially abstracted
from one another hence even the philosopher's time must
be an illusion no matter how real Bergson may want to make it.
This methodology does have serious repercussions.
Can we therefore hurt one another since we are all just simply
illusions of ourselves and the other? Are all our illusions equally
valid and invalid in terms of the philosopher's
time? How can we regain confidence in a world which itself is an
illusion?
Now, do we
still need the philosopher's time in order to resist the
dominance of the factual logic of some forms of science?
How does the philosopher's time help us understand
who we are? It has been the goal of the Renaissance to learn about the
human being. Following Bergson's model it would seem though that
whatever we discover will be just an illusion. And
yet, this kind of conclusion does not sit well with our experiences
which not only are real to us but also give us grounds for rewarding,
punishing, helping, resisting or ignoring each
other. Our world, we all know, is very real to us.
Escaping tautologies
Scheler (1973 in Pearson, p. 69) goes so far in
his support of the philosopher's time that he
is ready to conceive it as being an absolute time: "The time of life is
absolute in the sense that the dimensions of past, present and future
are not simply relative to a particular form or life or living
creature. It suggests rather that the evolution of life is a
unique, irreversible process. This 'life' is one in which the whole
history of the universe participates, and the same events could only
recur 'in artificially isolated systems'" (p. 69). Scheler's reasoning
helps to illustrate the problem in the concept of the philosopher's
time: the concept leads to assumptions which defy
exploration of the sources which validate it. In other words, since all
we can do is observe and hence abstract,
it would be impossible to validate or invalidate Scheler's
statement in any way. For example, it would be impossible
to validate Scheler's assumptions of present, future,
past, or indeed of the universe itself in any other way than through
abstract concepts. These terms describe our condition
rather than anything else. Life just is, Scheler would say. All
is life. It may well be but so what? What does
this resolve other than making a statement which supports a
rather tautological argument of Bergson that we can experience
life forms because of life?
On
the other hand, Einstein denies the philosopher's time
on the grounds that, in his view, it has
no existence or reality i.e. you cannot prove it. But it
does have an existence in Bergson's reality. As Bergson indicates, it
would seem that for Einstein, reality is the product of
a process whereby the truth depends on the measurements which declare
it to be true. But where do these measurements come from? What is it
that validates their reality sufficiently so that they, in turn, can
validate reality? It seems that everything now becomes circular. The
scientist's reality is as real as the measurements which s/he applies
which themselves tell nothing about reality but about specific
processes of validation applied by the
scientist. It would follow that it does not matter whether
we talk about time as being a function of life or as being
a function of the scientist's systems of validation. For both
Einstein and Bergson, time, in fact, is a validated perception. What
would matter therefore is less who is right. Rather, what emerges is
that whether it is the philosopher or the scientist, neither deals with issues which are outside the scope
of schemes of perception in terms of which questions are validated and
new understandings are formed.
But
if this is so, then scientists do not investigate Nature or the
Universe. Rather, they investigate their own perceptions and their own
logics by which they validate whatever understandings they create. The
same goes for philosophers who do not investigate the problem of
existence. Instead, like the scientists, their objects of investigation
are their own systems of perceptions which validate questions and
further understandings which
they formulate or form. But the conclusion is not that the
object of all our inquiry is us. This would be to agree with
Bergson who sees individuals as entities, always "inside a
system, bounded by a specific perspective or horizon of space-time, and
cannot freely move around different systems" (Pearson, p.
60). If this were true, how is this system formed? How do we
learn if we lived in a closed self-referential system?
To
believe Bergson, all attempts to understand generate illusions but, as
argued above, even the concepts of life and illusion themselves are not
immune from this outcome. As a result, we end
up with knowledge which is not about life, and hence never
truly about us, even if it is generated as a result of life. On
the other hand, to believe Einstein, life cannot be believed until it
is proven, even if the process of proving can be only as good as the
applied forms of validation.
Here we end up with knowledge which is not owned by us, but
by the elite that understands the proofs. Either way, it is not
clear why we should think. It is also not clear what
the process of thinking would be or would involve. Would it
be about generating illusions in order to produce new ones, or about
removing illusions in order to obtain proven truths? Is it possible to restore sense
to the process of thinking? A way to do so is suggested below. It
involves shifting the focus
away from the concern with the status of our understandings toward the question about how we
arrive at the understandings that we hold. The difference is that it no
longer matters what validates our
understandings as truthful. Rather, the issue is what is it that our
understandings
help us understand.
Changing
the questions, changing the problems
By replacing the notion of reality as illusion or
validated logics with the concept of reality as an object of dispute
(Bourdieu, 1993, 1991), the concept of reality no longer obliges us to
believe or disbelieve reality, or subject our experiences of
reality to validation. Instead, it orients us to the task of
exploring the understandings we have of reality in relation to their
explanatory and limiting capacities. In this sense, knowledge
is not a product of a rational or irrational mind, but a product of
dialogue
between perspectives which compete for relevance (cf. Calhoun 1995,
Critical
social theory, p. 65). Knowledge, like reality, is an object of dispute
and,
as such, shaped by and shaping our experiences of reality, of us.
It has been said that we are the other. And
indeed, if the other is not taken to mean another human being
but something more like the perceptions in terms of which we act and
organise, then
we can come to appreciate that we are all
connected not as much by life (as in Bergson), or by facts (as in
Einstein), but by our participating in the dispute in regard to what
counts as reality and, as a result, by our
participating in the dispute regarding the
ways in which we should see ourselves and act upon
one another.
The concept of reality as an
object of dispute offers a methodology which gives our actions a
shared ground: we are no longer isolated by reality (as in Bergson) or
caught
in a search for validations, but embedded in the histories of the
struggles
of own making where the
only
object of investigation, as
well as the only tool of investigation,
consists of the various forms of
perception which we make available to ourselves.
In a
methodology of this kind, confrontation between various forms of
perception (which form perspectives) is not generated as a result of
conditions which are external to us (e.g.
geometry of space, as in Einstein, or some form of projection of
understandings which are not real as in Bergson, see p.
16-7). Instead, the model locates the process of
reasoning in an interaction between available various forms
of perception. This interaction is directed toward exploration
of the limitations that
the various combinations allow and,
as a result, toward establishing their
actual power (Rosenfeld in Prigogine and Stengers 1984, p.
264. Order out of chaos).
The process of reasoning or sense-making
therefore is not seen as defying the truth or discovering the
truth. It is about investigating the truths i.e. the forms of legitimation
(power mechanisms), or logics, in terms of which we structure and
evaluate actions. It is therefore not about
separating individuals from reality or from each other, nor about
telling individuals the facts about reality. Rather, it is about
identifying the interplays between various perceptions which
form the pool of resources in terms of which we act upon one
another and in this way construct our realities. The
objective is not to lock action in a subjective or an objective world.
Rather, it is to inquire into the limits and hence into
the actual power that various combinations prevent or open
up.
The forms of legitimation that we
build upon are neither facts nor illusions: they are real. What gives
them the status of reality is their power to
shape us and to shape our actions. We ARE those forms. The
issue is not whether "man is a network
of relations" (cf. Merleau-Ponty,
Phenomenology of Perception, trans. Smith, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962, p. 456).
By shifting the focus of our questions away from
discovering the truth about reality toward the issue of the sources of
logics (perceptions) in terms of which our questions about reality are
structured and evaluated, the world emerges as a space created by an
interplay of perceptions, all competing for space
and thereby for legitimation and presence. In this way, we gain freedom
for exploring our conditions without the restrictions which define us
as separate or as a part of something other than what we create:
reality as our perceptions help us understand it. Our objective
then is not to look for answers that limit our
potential to explore but to engage infinitely diverse forms of
perception with the aim of exploring the kinds of possibilities (and
limitations) that these may generate.
Reality hence is
(legitimised) perceptions. They are real by virtue of the structuring
power that they exert and which cannot be ignored (cf. Bourdieu). Furthermore, these forms are
never reproduced, as the concept of reproduction renders these
forms abstract, disconnected and hence not real (Also,
the idea of reproduction creates a distance between what we are and
what we do hence removing from us the responsibility for our actions: a
kind of "my culture made me do it"). The reality of these forms of perceptions can be
felt, we can test their effects or experiment with them, play.
Understanding or investigating those forces involves such
experimenting. Our reality is as comprehensive as the understandings in
terms of which we act.
Our reality
therefore is not based in some abstract reason (illusion) or external
truths (facts) but in the processes of reasoning that we construct in
order to enhance or increase the reality ("the space") that we live.
The purpose of this reasoning therefore is not to describe reality (as
it is commonly assumed and done) but to enhance it. Its enhancement,
in turn, is a function of the limitations that the
process of reasoning (or sense-making) helps to overcome. Stopping this
enhancement would mean remaining in a loop, in a form of illusion which
defies the reality (legitimacy) of the other.
The concept of dialogue
The concept of dialogue continues
to reappear in various scholars from various traditions (e.g. Gadamer, Freire, Habermas, Latour).
However, in the methodology described in this article, the dialogue
does not happen between individuals but instead involves an interaction
between forms of perceptions in terms of which individuals make sense. This
is a very different concept of dialogue. Here the issue is not to
understand (cf. Gadamer
or even Habermas) or explore crises (cf. Bohm). Rather, it
is to create crises and/or undermine understandings. In this
model, the concepts of difference, collision
or confrontation are not employed to disrupt,
as it is often assumed to be the case with
postmodernism (cf. Calhoun in Alveson 2002), but, in
fact, they are mobilised in order to open up
systems (perceptions) to the possibility
of including more or considering more. In this
sense, what is at stake here is the creation of conditions which help to break familiar loops or familiar logics
of reference. The objective is not to facilitate new
perceptions/understandings as such but to to open up
familiar schemes of perception to facilitate opportunities for
creating different, new, and as yet unfamiliar perceptions. To
appreciate the potential of such conditions, a dialogue of this kind
cannot be reduced to people talking.
Since,
as this paper argues, it is perceptions or prejudices that form us, for
dialogue to happen, it is necessary to allow for the interplay of
these prejudices in ways that help explore the possibilities and
limitations that they bring with
them. This exploration is dialogic. The discussion paper offers
links to practical environments Ania
Lian & Maliwan Buranapatana 2002 (based on work done by Grazia
Scotellaro and Andrew Lian), and Ania Lian and Ania Lian et al 2003
where the model of this concept of dialogue is proposed as a basis for
growth. By allowing for perceptions to collide and test their
capacities, a dialogue of this kind creates oportunities for creating
shared perspectives and hence a shared ground between individuals. The
environments of Narizoma, TNN or the research model proposed by A. Lian
et al, in their structure, all have the potential to help overcome a
number of concerns raised by other scholars who proposed dialogue as a
structure for creating a shared ground. In these environments, success
no longer depends on the individual's good will to understand, but on
the creative organisation of the environments themselves in ways which
would help individuals to confront the diverse forces which underpin
their ways of reasoning and hence of acting.
Learning
in this context is not about acquisition of new knowledge. It is about
reorganising what is known and, as a result, creating new knowledge,
new perceptions. In turn, for the pedagogue, the question to resolve is
not how to make understandings available. Instead, it is how to help
understandings (perceptions) to reveal themselves in contexts which
help to indicate their power by allowing for evaluating
perceptions against one another. For the pedagogue the issue
thus would not be to give knowledge to students but to reflect upon
ways which would help individuals obtain such feedback. Since this task
is a complex one, the conditions must be complex and infinite in their
kind.
Summary
This discussion paper sought to explore the debate
between Bergson and Einstein with the objective of defining a
methodology which would help us understand to understand and
hence facilitate conditions which stimulate the process of reasoning
and hence of critical thinking and growth. However, the critique
proposed in this article suggests that the possibility of creating such
a shared ground is missing in Bergson for whom individuals float in
separate timeslots with no chance of understanding each other or even
themselves. Einstein's physicist, on the other hand, who believes in
the "fiction of the instant" (Pearson, p.
44, "the simultaneity of instants is what is relative" p. 44) and
hence in the logic of his/her own proofs, creates a reality where
differences define us (lock us) rather than help us
escape such definitions.
In
order to escape the illusionary world of Bergson and the factual world
of Einstein, the article shifts away from the question of what is true
and, instead, centres on the methodology of the production of truths.
By adopting this shift, this discussion paper abandons the
question of how reality is and moves toward the problem of the
conditions which help to evaluate forms of perceptions in terms of
which truths appear to be truthful. The end product of this
methodology are no longer
abstract truths which make a claim to the status of truth or
which demand to be seen as illusions. Instead, the outcomes
are new more articulate (Latour)
truths or perceptions whose enhancement also means enhancement of our
intellectual and cultural living space as individuals, groups and as a
society.
October,
2003 (Ania Lian)
PS.
“It
is not I who speak, Gentlemen, but History who speaks through me."
(Fustel de Coulanges)
If we laugh today at the statement
above, how do we ensure we do not function in this tradition? Traditions are stronger than our critical perceptions.
As they say, we often do things that defy reason.
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