I am writing a long form piece about my deep understanding of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and I found myself having to justify my reductive Three Peoples theory. Why Three Peoples? Why not forty-two?
The answer is that three is about as far as you can go. If you have a rule of one, then you are probably a solipsist, that cannot understand anything except yourself. If you have a rule of two, then you are probably in the world of "us" and "them," of battling against the "other" as our lefty friends do. But then,
But the fact is that we humans like three. For example:
The answer is simple. Physics begins with a problem, e.g., the revolution of the stars, or the fall of a cannon ball. Chemistry begins with the need to understand what the heck is going on when you mix copper and tin to make bronze. Or you muck around with cast iron and get wrought iron. Or you wonder what it would take to turn lead into gold. Do we have a unified theory of the sciences that encompasses everything from mechanics to gene splicing? Not really. Our various theories work within certain parameters; we don't really try to unify them together unless we are philosophers.
What happens in the pursuit of knowledge is that, as we acquire more knowledge, we subdivide subjects. So Physics is now a whole rabbit warren of subtopics from particle physics to electronics.
Really, all human knowledge is about rules of thumb that we construct to enable us to understand and exploit apparent regularities in the way the world works. We don't have to understand the why, just the how. And this issues from the typical problem of any animal: something unexpected happens, and that might be dangerous. So you have to try to "understand" the unexpected event, to embed it in the rest of your knowledge about the world, and hopefully make it fit.
Of course, we humans always lust after a complete Theory of Everything that completely explains the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. But the truth is that, for everyday life, such a Theory of Everything is a waste of time, or worse, a possible disaster. For while you stop work to try and figure it out -- a kind of shelter in place -- you still need to put food on the table. Our current lockdown in the middle of the Wu Flu epidemic illustrates the limits of such an idea. We cannot just sit around twiddling our thumbs and arguing about whether Trump acted too soon or too late until scientists come up with a vaccine. We have to buy groceries, grow food, pay the rent, drill for oil, raise the kids. Or we'll all die waiting for the answer.
This illustrates the fundamental dilemma at the core of our life experience as conscious beings. We would like to know what it's all about. Of course we do, because we would like to know that what we are doing as we live our lives is beneficial and useful in the long run. What would be the point if we were to discover that we had got it all wrong and our lives were all in vain? The philosopher Lina Lamont knew that when she said: "if we bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, it makes us feel as though our hard work ain't been all in vain for nothin'."
Alas, we do not know the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and we don't know if our lives have been all in vain for nothing, so we make it up as we go along, and one thing that seems to be helpful is the Rule of Threes: simple enough to remember, but complicated enough to persuade ourselves that we really do begin to understand the whole world out there.
Or at least the pretense of understanding.
The answer is that three is about as far as you can go. If you have a rule of one, then you are probably a solipsist, that cannot understand anything except yourself. If you have a rule of two, then you are probably in the world of "us" and "them," of battling against the "other" as our lefty friends do. But then,
Why the number three? Because with anything more complicated you will lose your audience.But then I thought that I needed something more to justify myself. After all, just in psychology alone you have all kinds of developmental theories. Piaget has four levels; Kohlberg has three. But Clare Graves had eight levels in his theory.
But the fact is that we humans like three. For example:
- Time: Past, Present and Future.
- Science: Physics, Chemistry and Biology.
- Social Science: Anthropology, Sociology, Economics.
- Trivium: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric.
- Greats: History, Philosophy, Literature.
- Modern Greats: Philosophy, Politics, Economics.
The answer is simple. Physics begins with a problem, e.g., the revolution of the stars, or the fall of a cannon ball. Chemistry begins with the need to understand what the heck is going on when you mix copper and tin to make bronze. Or you muck around with cast iron and get wrought iron. Or you wonder what it would take to turn lead into gold. Do we have a unified theory of the sciences that encompasses everything from mechanics to gene splicing? Not really. Our various theories work within certain parameters; we don't really try to unify them together unless we are philosophers.
What happens in the pursuit of knowledge is that, as we acquire more knowledge, we subdivide subjects. So Physics is now a whole rabbit warren of subtopics from particle physics to electronics.
Really, all human knowledge is about rules of thumb that we construct to enable us to understand and exploit apparent regularities in the way the world works. We don't have to understand the why, just the how. And this issues from the typical problem of any animal: something unexpected happens, and that might be dangerous. So you have to try to "understand" the unexpected event, to embed it in the rest of your knowledge about the world, and hopefully make it fit.
Of course, we humans always lust after a complete Theory of Everything that completely explains the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. But the truth is that, for everyday life, such a Theory of Everything is a waste of time, or worse, a possible disaster. For while you stop work to try and figure it out -- a kind of shelter in place -- you still need to put food on the table. Our current lockdown in the middle of the Wu Flu epidemic illustrates the limits of such an idea. We cannot just sit around twiddling our thumbs and arguing about whether Trump acted too soon or too late until scientists come up with a vaccine. We have to buy groceries, grow food, pay the rent, drill for oil, raise the kids. Or we'll all die waiting for the answer.
This illustrates the fundamental dilemma at the core of our life experience as conscious beings. We would like to know what it's all about. Of course we do, because we would like to know that what we are doing as we live our lives is beneficial and useful in the long run. What would be the point if we were to discover that we had got it all wrong and our lives were all in vain? The philosopher Lina Lamont knew that when she said: "if we bring a little joy into your humdrum lives, it makes us feel as though our hard work ain't been all in vain for nothin'."
Alas, we do not know the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, and we don't know if our lives have been all in vain for nothing, so we make it up as we go along, and one thing that seems to be helpful is the Rule of Threes: simple enough to remember, but complicated enough to persuade ourselves that we really do begin to understand the whole world out there.
Or at least the pretense of understanding.
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