This talk is intended to provide some background about the working hypothesis Piet is using in the VR lab. And by background, I mean one relevant to a contemplative spirituality orientation, since that's my own emphasis here. I can't tell you what the working hypothesis means or how to use it, that's up to you and your collaboration with Piet. What I'm trying to do here, as in other talks I've given, is just to provide some background pointers. My comments will be pretty obvious, but I hope they will still help to catalyze and focus some discussion points for us. So the part of the hypothesis I'm covering reads "all that Is, is already complete". Many of you have been asking lately what that means, and interestingly, some of you have already moved on to the next point, which is how you should work with it. What sort of methodology would seem to make sense here? I think Piet was indicating that there is some kind of visible maturation in the VR lab work, centering around taking that next step... finding a good way of working with the hypothesis.

For now, today, what I really want to concentrate on is just the meaning of this term "complete", saying that everything is complete or --- as some of you have paraphrased it --- "perfect" or something of a similar nature. So what does a statement of that sort mean? And how should you work with it? What should your methodology be in going forward? So as part of my attempt to answer those questions, as far as a tradition of contemplative spirituality can, I would like to ask a different question: who are the 'we' who are doing this? Who are 'you'?

So, 'you' are young, at least at heart, fresh, honest, interested, eager, sincere -- those sorts of things. I will therefore call each of you Mr. or Ms. Candid. We can assume you're interested in exploring a new perspective on things, otherwise you probably wouldn't be in a forum like this one. And your challenge then, is to figure out the meaning and use of the working hypothesis. Typically, when you take on a thing like that, since it's so different from what you ordinarily encounter, you'll be guided both by other people --- the people you are working with, perhaps --- and by your own ideas, and as I will try to indicating this little talk, tendencies --- proto-ideas, reactive mind tendencies --- hiding behind your conscious understanding. So in a sense, there will be a number of kinds of guides that will be leading you forward. Whether the aid comes from an external or internal source, we typically personalize it as being a kind of tutor or guide. We won't really worry about whether it's an external or internal tutor. And we will call your guide Pangloss.

This external or internal Pangloss is giving you direction or guidance, and will probably have some intriguing thoughts about what it means to say that everything is complete or perfect. And some of those ideas may play out along the following lines:

• "Everything is good or perfect somehow" (I use the word 'somehow' because there are a lot of different ways of filling in that notion). So by saying that everything is good or perfect, what I mean to say here is that all the conditions or circumstances that you find yourself in the midst of in life, are somehow good, perfect, complete, etc.. It's a circumstance-based and quality-based comment.
• A second possibility is that if things that arise are in some sense not good or perfect or complete by ordinary estimations, then at least they should be seen as being as perfect as they can be, given some kind of higher context or rationale. Here the suggestion is that we look at the things we are in the midst of as being part of some larger Good or larger harmony. There are lots of variations on this theme. So the first idea (previous paragraph) is to interpret your circumstances as being good, just to see them that way. And if you can't, then the second idea kicks in which is to see them as being part of some larger scheme, perhaps one that you are not fully aware of.
• The third interpretation we might get from our Pangloss guide is that we should, as a result of the first two points I've mentioned here, try to work with our attitudes and see things in a more positive light.

So we have three possibilities: the first is the position that everything is just straightforwardly good, or if not straightforwardly so then in terms of some kind of more convoluted way of seeing, perhaps based on some sort of philosophical or religious rationale, and as a result, we should practice attitude adjustment (to work with the mind to see in that way). This is all part of a Pangloss view... Pangloss indicates that the working hypothesis is primarily about circumstances having positive qualities and deserving a positive evaluation (despite the fact that appearances may seem otherwise to you); and the circumstances are part of some kind of higher rationale, sometimes working to what I here call the "highest good possible"... which is to say, even if things don't look perfect, they may still be as perfect as they can be under the circumstance. This latter is an optimization issue. And in the third is as I was just saying, a kind of attitude adjustment or mind control. I will just summarize all three of these as constituting a "Pangloss view".

So here I'm talking about the Pangloss view's tendencies, source and consequences. The word "Pangloss" view, if you break it down, has two meanings in English... depending on what you think its true etymology is. There are two possibilities. The first is:

 

The other is:

"All talk" (you get the idea)

Whichever of those interpretations of Pangloss turns out to be the right one linguistically, the result is somewhat the same for our purposes. Panglossian tendencies, Panglossian ways of unpacking the working hypothesis, can amount to being just superficial ways of taking everything that comes up, and can amount to basically not much more than a kind of talk. So in a sense, it's an easy point to take. But the main point of this presentation is that we don't take that point far enough, or take it to heart sufficiently. If your WH investigation follows the path of Mr. or Ms. Candid, in Voltaire's black humor novel Candide, the consequences could be terrible.

I don't know how many of you remember this little novel that Voltaire wrote back in the 1750s, but the basic thrust of it was that this kind of superficial gloss or optimism that people sometimes talk themselves into or allow themselves to be talked into, perhaps in even from a sincere desire to be open to or appreciative of life or to explore life more as we are here in our Qwaq forums, can lead us to tolerating the intolerable. To rationalizing what is basically unacceptable. To make decisions and choices that are really quite foolish. Et cetera. So in Voltaire's case, the young character Candide, the young man going out into the world for the first time, and being influenced by his tutor Pangloss, ends up suffering every imaginable torture and misfortune. Everything bad ends up happening to him --- Voltaire really delights in visiting every possible kind of misfortune on poor Candide and his colleagues as they travel all around the world, meaning that they see the whole world, there is no country that they don't visit or people that they don't interact with... and basically there's no story or angle on the world that they don't encounter that doesn't end up being this kind of rationale or bogus perspective on what amounts to being dismal or inhumane. So there are a lot of terrible consequences, including man's inhumanity to man. This is not a small matter that I'm raising here, there's a real danger at issue and that could be present in our own use of the working hypothesis. So we have to be a bit careful.

Candor is a good thing, a willingness to see what is actually present and to be frank and upfront about it... but it may be easily co-opted by tendencies to buy into an appealing answer or meaning. Why? Basically the answer is that we like to have a way of assessing things, a label for things or a word or judgment... we like to know. And preferably we like to know something nice. We don't like to "not know" since that would be scary. We want to be honest and realistic, sure, but life is for a complicated so we often jump at ready answers and sometimes positive ones are preferred in particular. Such rationalizing is a "fill in" effect of some sort. We don't know, and so we fill in a rationalization or judgment or perspective.

Is this kind of fill-in effect an evolutionary adaptation? Does it have some kind of cognitive basis? I'm not sure. I would leave that to those of you who are trained in those fields. In any case, the contemplative traditions that I've studied say that there is definitely a fill-in effect of this sort... we like to jump in with a meaning or description or label or valuation. So we need to find these Panglossian tendencies in ourselves --- that's the first point!

The second point is that we need to see, directly, in a very concrete way, that they are limiting, pernicious, even in some sense evil or immoral. Then, somewhat counterintuitively, we need to connect to them --- and by that I mean rather than just jettisoning them, we need to hold onto them in a compassionate way. But we need to resist running with them. So if you see your mind indulging in these fill-in effects, you need to notice that that is happening, and you need to stay with the mind's movement but not identify with it or indulge it. You just need to be in its presence, directly.

Finally, and most importantly, you need to "hold open" to the thing that goes most against our grain, which is the "not knowing". You need to be willing to "not know".

This advice, which comes down to us from the ancient traditions, it's not mind control. It's not attitude adjustment. It's not taking a positive view of things or looking at them in a certain predetermined way. One could easily interpret the working hypothesis is saying that we should look in a kind of positive, upbeat, optimistic way at what arises around us. That would be attitude adjustment or perception adjustment. What I'm recommending is not that at all. But it helps us appreciate what is beyond the limiting influence of these subtle mistaken filling tendencies. So you shouldn't try to fill in the blank of "what is" or how it is or why it's good, you should simply become aware of these tendencies to jump at an answer, and resist the panic that ensues from not knowing. We may have very little conscious experience of staying with "not knowing" because we've resisted it so concertedly in the past. So we become aware of these tendencies, we resist the panic that feeds them, and the desire to keep jumping and spinning optimistic stories. We just don't need the optimistic stories.

In this way, an apparent nonanswer to the working hypothesis question --- and by "nonanswer" I mean a refusal to give a Panglossian answer --- could become the best answer. This is true both regarding what the working hypothesis means, and also regarding our methodology or way of approaching it. So I'm basically giving a counterintuitive answer to the question of what the working hypothesis means and how we should use it.

As a result of taking the approach I'm suggesting, you can actually improve on Voltaire's Mr. or Ms. Candid, who only after many chapters of being tormented as a result of these mistaken fill-in tendencies and optimism, recommended by his "tutor", finally got out from under the tutor's influence and came to see that the best we can do is to deal with life in an empirically honest, nonideological and modest way. That was the best that Voltaire's Candide could see as he finally disentangled himself from his tutor's influence. Very late in the story, he... after being driven literally from pillar to post... he makes a person that in Voltaire's novel is referred to as the Turk, and the Turk seems to be doing okay, not starving as poor Candide was at that point in the story. Candide says to him "you must have a vast estate". Here Candide is still thinking somewhat optimistically, a vestigial habit, he still taking a bright view assuming that the Turk must be rich or something. But the Turk essentially says "on the contrary":

"I have no more than twenty acres of ground," he replied, "the whole of which I cultivate myself with the help of my children;" (he doesn't have any slaves or servants, his whole family is fully engaged in taking care of basic survival). He goes on to say:

"our labor keeps off from us three great evils--idleness, vice, and want." Note that he's not saying that life is great, wonderful or perfect, he's just saying that he can avoid these three circumstantial evils.

“Candide, as he was returning home, made profound reflections on the Turk's discourse.” As the story goes on, he proposes to his fellow misadventurers, after many terrible travails, that they settle down to basics. So based on hearing this Turk's comments, he gets a new idea, finally, and suggests they settle down and take care of business. But Pangloss, still can't learn... he listens to Candide's suggestions, and says:

"[See, this proves my point!] There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of {his girl friend}; had you not been put into the Inquisition {and tortured terribly}; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep {and the sheep were carrying fantastic riches}, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts."

"Excellently observed," answered Candide; "but let us cultivate our garden." {he's not buying into the grand optimistic visions anymore, he just makes a wry comment and then recommends instead a more straightforward, clear-seeing approach}

If you yourselves deal with the Pangloss in yourself, you can use the working hypothesis to actually improve on Candide's (Voltaire's) belatedly mature final understanding. What I mean by that is that you can go beyond ideas of any kind, even the sober realistic ones Candide reaches at the end of the story. You can do even better than what he called "observe". But you have to watch out, because there is always a Pangloss waiting back in the wings of your own reactive mind. So I say as a title here it's "simple" to do what I'm talking about, but it's not necessarily "easy". My comments are simple. But actually working with your own mind's tendencies is not easy. If you try, you may make some headway toward understanding this mysterious working hypothesis. But if you skip dealing with Pangloss, I think nothing will work at all, and probably a lot of bad things will ensue.

So... any comments or questions?

Andrew: well... first of all, (00:24:47) when you started to talk about Pangloss, I have to admit that I felt a certain degree of excitement. I was thinking it was fantastic... I had this collection of tendencies, like what you said about Pangloss, and initially it I thought this was a great thing, but something didn't seem quite right until you explained it, and I thought okay, maybe this isn't such a great thing. I was really happy when you described Mr. Candid, I was thinking that's kind of nice... but I think it's really helpful to see this.

Steven: the thrust of the novel is different than the thrust of my talk. In Voltaire's time, there were a number of people --- for reasons that we can no longer totally relate to -- who wanted to argue that the world was basically perfect. Often this idea was based on the Christian perspective: since the world is created by God, and in some sense governed by God, God must be working to the best possible good. Voltaire wrote an earlier novel called The Poem on a line of reasoning of this sort by Alexander Pope, basically arguing for an optimistic view. And then he wrote another novel called Candide, probably referring in a very critical way to an optimism that he saw present in the German philosopher Leibniz. Leibniz was arguing that God must necessarily be working toward the best of all possible worlds, and if we see things in the world that seem flawed or undesirable to us, that probably means we are either mistaken or haven't considered things correctly -- we haven't seen how things lead to other things and don't really understand God's plan --- or we have to realize that God is working for the best of all possible worlds, "possible" here meaning given the circumstances, given whatever constraints are operative (and that's a longer story than we can get into here) God is working for an optimization of the good and the minimization of the bad. I don't know to what extent nowadays we are thinking in something like those terms. We might be... we might implicitly have some Leibnizian notion like that, even if we've never read Leibniz at all, but whether we do or not, I think there are other ways in which we are buying into a Panglossian position. Because I think the mind just works that way. And that was my concern here.

Doug: Steven, this may be a minor point, but I missed the logic of the garden and returning to farming came in.

Steven: okay, what I was saying is that in Voltaire's novel, we have kind of arc or trajectory of development. We start with the young man who's like a bright shiny penny, "newly minted", just starting out in the world and eager to explore all of its wonders and to appreciate all of its goodness. But he is being tutored from the beginning by a Pangloss guide. And that leads to more trouble than one can easily imagine. He gets robbed repeatedly, tortured, thrown in prison, hanged --- Voltaire seems to love this sort of dark humor, so he really beats his protagonist up as much as possible. And at the end, Candide learns to stop listening to Pangloss, to grandly optimistic glossy takes on the world (takes like what we might mistakenly make of the WoK working hypothesis). In the process, he simply settles for taking care of business, not thinking that the world is great or that it is even good, but that we must simply avoid the world's ills. And to grow food to feed ourselves... to not be idle but to be productively occupied, perhaps mind our own business, et cetera. So he becomes somewhat shielded from the temptation to indulge in glossy perspectives and ideologies. So "cultivate your garden" is about that maturation. You see the world as it is --- hence the "candid" name --- rather than seeing in the Panglossian way, and seeing the world candidly, you see the basic necessities of life and you deal with them. So I'm saying that's a good result, all the more so because it emphasizes an empirical approach, but it's not the best way. We can go even further, or land on an even more basic perspective, however you want to look at the sort of development implied by the working hypothesis. (00:30:50)

Doug: so it's part of a dialectic, with another step to come?

Steven: you can take step past where he was left. Yes, it's a kind of dialectic --- you can get beyond merely observing life in a sober way, and actually observe life in a way that goes beyond all meanings. Because even in Candide's final take on the world, there are still a lot of ways in which he's "filling in". He's no longer buying his tutor's line, but he still buying lots of subtle things that the mind is filling in about how the world really is. And I'm saying that in using the working hypothesis, you have a chance to actually see something that really is quite wonderful --- here I'm allowing myself that characterization. It's a wonder and a goodness, perhaps, that's only available to a mind that doesn't deal in "fill-in's" of any kind. It's willing to just hold open and "not know". This is a possibility that never occurred to Voltaire --- he was living within a certain cultural milieu that didn't comprehend that option.

Doug: and he lives such a highly civilized life in many ways, certainly way beyond the garden in any simple sense.

Steven: yes. But he was also a gardener.

Doug: a ha, I didn't know that.

Steven: oh yes, he was quite an enthusiastic gardener. Perhaps that's where he got the idea, I don't know. Partly he was a refugee from court society and from Paris -- he got kicked out so many times, as you probably recall. He was such a rascal, he was constantly getting into trouble and then being driven out by the authorities or other people in power, either the Church or some secular leader, or both. So he often ended up out in the countryside somewhere, and he did become an avid gardener.

Doug: my feeling has always been there is a... but we are drawn both to the "garden" side of life, and to the urban civilized side of life. And finding a balance is hard.

Steven: yes. What I'm talking about most is finding a balance of that sort, as you say, and also to something further --- like the Garden of Eden was. The Garden of Eden wasn't an ordinary garden. In a sense the working hypothesis is like an entry back into the Garden of Eden prior to the error involved in the knowledge of "eating the Apple". So there's another Garden here, if we want to use that metaphor. The working hypothesis is taking us back to a fresh perspective, beyond all ordinary meanings.

Doug: thank you, that's helpful.

Bob: Steven, would you have some way that we can recognize when the Panglossian attitude... when we are taken over by it?

Steven: yes. Step one is to be given some sort of teaching that would aid that, to help us become aware of the danger. Step two is to actually see a case of it in your own functioning. And you can't force that to happen, necessarily. All you can do is to receive the suggestion... and then consider it from time to time, and then at unpredictable moments you'll actually notice: "oh, here I'm buying into the Pangloss approach!". If this happens once, it can happen twice. The more we see those kinds of tendencies in our own mind, or in another person for that matter -- I mean, we can help each other in that respect -- we can take some notes and say "okay, here's an example", then from there things get easier. The first step is the hardest. That's probably not the kind of answer you were looking for, but I think it's a realistic description of how this process usually plays out.

Bob: thanks.

Steven: another answer a different nature would simply be to undertake classical contemplative training, where you are actually learning to deal with reactive tendencies (that would be part of ethical training, for instance)... so that would be one whole approach, you just learn to deal with the mind's selfishness and jealousy and envy and anger --- that kind of thing. Then you would undergo other kinds of training where you actually learn to bring the mind to a point, or to help it focus on some simple thing, like a flower or a rock, or the wall in front of you. And then every time the mind starts jumping around and making up big stories, it becomes obvious because the idea was supposed to be to just see the rock or whatever. It becomes obvious in the context of the stated point of the practice. There are other kinds of trainings, but here, in our VR explorations, we are not talking about traditional mind training to any great extent. We're talking more about "considering" or contemplating the working hypothesis. If you're also doing some meditation practice or something like that at home, that's nice, but as far as I know it is not asking that of you. So what I'm suggesting is that you simply, at a minimum, contemplate and explore the working hypothesis in a way that involves awareness of the Pangloss error, the danger of it. And gradually you will notice an example of it in yourself, or perhaps in your interactions inside the forum. And then you'll just take it from there. Your insight will build. If you also have the traditional training, then that's nice too, but I didn't give that kind of answer to your question first because it's not the main one we are emphasizing here.

Heloisa: let me just ask you this question, to see if I really understanding the meaning of Panglossing. When you say it emphasizes the optimism and the good aspects of life, wouldn't that be something that you fall into a dual way of looking at reality, because at the same time it implies a denial of what is not good? Because if everything is good, you've kind of denied the other aspect.

Steven: yes, someone could easily take the perspective you mention. I was sticking fairly closely to the story of Candide, because it's an example of a possible interpretation of the working hypothesis that we're using in these VR spaces. Because in the working hypothesis, we are not saying that there is a primordial good side or bright side and a primordial dark side... working hypothesis just says that everything is --- and then you fill in the blank with some term like "complete" or "perfect" or "harmonious". You are offering another possible working hypothesis, I think, which would be equally or even more interesting to pursue. I'm just emphasizing one that's more parallel to the hypothesis we've used so far.

Heloisa: I see... I was just wanting to know about this "Panglossing" --- isn't that the excessively optimistic view? And then Candide follows that it gets into so much trouble?

Steven: that's right, he keeps getting into trouble. But the tutor, Pangloss, says "this is wonderful, that you were just hanged,", or "it's wonderful that you just killed this priest and now must flee into the countryside and nearly die from starvation", etc.... that is, "wonderful" because of some rationale or other. He keeps coming up with rationalizations. So he's not saying that there's a dark side and a light side and they have to be in balance, he saying that everything is the best possible because --- and then he fills in some silly story to make the case. And this is something that we all do. We might look at the working hypothesis and then use it as a way of taking in the world, is it like rose-tinted glasses... that's really the point I'm making. If the working hypothesis becomes rose-tinted glasses, then we look out at the world and we say "well, it doesn't look good to me, but I should see it as good anyway". But in fact we should not see it as good, we should see it as we see it. That's why Voltaire's main character was called "Candid", he's trying to be honest but his honesty just keeps being tainted or confused by Pangloss. We should learn to see the world as we see it, and this includes being willing to say "this is really bad or inappropriate". The working hypothesis is not contradicted by those judgments, it comes out best when we are as honest and clear seeing as we can be. And as candid as we can be. But that really means going beyond Voltaire's Candide, because in the story he could still not go beyond the way the ordinary mind fills in judgments. He just settled for ordinary sober judgments, where as you need to go even beyond those... they're still constructions to some extent.

Heloisa: yes, I agree. I never saw the working hypothesis is like using those rose-tinted glasses... that wouldn't be completeness. That isn't the way I was looking at the working hypothesis at all. So we must notice in ourselves when we have the tendencies to fall into this trap.

Steven: exactly. It may be that none of you have that tendency, but that would be unusual. (Laughs)

Heloisa: (Laughs) I think we do have it, but we're not aware of it when it happens. It's good to be aware of it because it does happen to all of us.

Steven: yes, this is difficult.

Doug: okay, I've got another question. What should I be making of the asymmetry in the argument? In the sense that cultivating the Garden is in opposition to the Panglossian view... what about the alternative, that everything is as terrible as it possibly can be? Why do we leave that out?

Steven: (laughs) well I don't know. I'm certainly not going to talk you out of it.

Doug: well you would try to, just like you talked me out of the Panglossian view.

Steven: well, I would talk you out of any gloss. The whole point of what I'm saying in this talk is that we are eager to figure out what the working hypothesis means... we've been churning away on that. "What could it possibly mean? Might it be this? Might it be that?" What meaning does it have? What we don't understand easily, because it's so different from the way we ordinarily think, is that "meanings" are all of a certain sort. Whether we say it means this or that, we're basically saying it has to be a meaning, and that's something that the mind lands on as a way of categorizing what is present. But no meaning will work here. In a sense, the meaning of the working hypothesis is beyond meanings, certainly beyond glosses and rationalizations and ideologies.

Doug: I think that in the time in which we live, there are a lot of people who see everything as being absolutely as terrible as it possibly could be.

Steven: oh yes, there are such people. And we ourselves probably fall into that perspective from time to time. The world is rather difficult nowadays, and there are dire aspects that can easily color our perception across the board. But then again, we have to realize that the same point applies --- and perhaps this bears on the asymmetry you were mentioning --- we have to actually catch ourselves doing that. In any case, I think the meaning of the working hypothesis is not a meaning at all in the ordinary sense, rosie or dark. And to understand that, we have to see the way in which we make meanings and the way we keep resorting to them. This is obvious, I know. I'm just starting at the beginning here.

Piet: I may have some lag in my connection, but let me try... I have sent out a couple of messages, in which I contrasted three different views: the first one I called pragmatic, the second idealistic and the third one the working hypothesis. And it seems like your description is a nice example of number one, the pragmatic, being the final Candide, and number two, idealistic, being Pangloss.

Steven: yes.

Piet: and the way I got to that is that I started with the scientist's attitude,, the hard-nosed scientist who says "well, we have to be pragmatic, science shows what reality is and everything else is superstition"... whether it is idealistic or communist or Christian or whatever. So starting from that caricature, I then brought in those two positions, and it's intriguing to see your parallel with Voltaire. I will have to go back and read that again.

Steven: yes, your analysis seems exactly comparable. In a sense the only point I'm making here is just that the tendency to go in one of those directions is so insidious, it's very deep-rooted.

Leonore: I would like to add another bit of experience... much of this talk was about the danger of wanting to attach meaning to everything, and I actually think that what sometimes happens in my life is an opposite tendency that perhaps sometimes can be just as detrimental or rigid: the refusal to attach meaning to things. I think sometimes this attempt to hold things open and to value the state of not knowing can also grow into something that is too much of a project, or is rigid and actually instead of really opening up things can close things down.

Steven: interesting. Can you say more about that, Leonore?

Leonore: the only thing that comes to mind right now is that really identifying with that notion of "I don't know", "there is this thing and I don't know it", or "it doesn't really have a meaning" or "I don't know what kind of meaning it has" --- can very quickly shift into a place of "I'm a poor little thing that doesn't know anything!".

Steven: (laughs). Right!

Leonore: or can somehow shift into also a position of helplessness. It inhibits going about one's business or maybe you give up the need for knowing something, or you give up the need for attaching meaning to something, but that opens up some other feeling of neediness in another place.

Steven: right, good point! That's worth a fair amount of exploration in its own right. I doubt that in a few minutes we have left today we can do justice to that issue, but it is a very important issue. So we'll have to come back to that.

Doug: yeah, I love that idea of the unwillingness to attach meaning to anything. I think that we are surrounded by that attitude.

Steven: yeah, well that would itself be an indulgence in a certain kind of rationale or ideology. Learning to see what the mind is doing includes learning to see the way in which the mind is taking an overly simplistic approach to what I'm recommending. So yeah, that's another important area to investigate.

Doug: I'm amazed, as I look at the clock, at how long we've been here and how fast the time is gone.

Jill: yeah, I was going to try to get in there a little bit, because Steven and I found the talk really interesting, and this conversation about knowing and not knowing... and it seems like it's a hard conversation to have without talking about courage and fear.

Steven: yes, exactly.

Jill: to sustain curiosity... the non-Panglossian position requires a certain courage, and a collapse into fear --- I think we often don't recognize when we are afraid, we just collapse into these rigid ways of being.

Steven: yeah, we need to see that much more clearly. I chose this story because I think each of you literally is a kind of "candid" person, there's a point to seeing ourselves as young and adventurous and open, willing to experience something totally new. So each of you is that. And at the same time there is in us a fear... it's literally a panic, at the prospect of doing what is really required. Candide is eager to follow Pangloss, partly because Pangloss sounds so seductive, so encouraging. It's wonderful to have that optimistic, enthusiastic message... but Candide also follows Pangloss in some ways because the alternative would be terror. If you really had to accept that terrible things are terrible, that really would be (terrible). We are afraid, it's difficult to even notice sometimes that we are jumping out of fear, when we think we are just seeing things in a positive way or even an accurate way. But it's good for each of you to be Candide. It's nothing to be ashamed about. I'm just saying you can do better than he did, and go further.

{closing comment:}

Steven: anyway, I didn't think this would occupy as for too long, I just wanted to start here because anything I say in subsequent Saturday talks will probably have to be based to some extent on this and on my previous Sunday talk on Aristotle's "Man on the rack" thought experiment. But admittedly it's not a very complicated point I'm making, so if there's nothing else that anyone wants to bring up, we can just stop for now.