G.K. Chesterton: Reason and Madness

WaterLungs

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess players do... Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine... He was damned by John Calvin... Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion... The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits... The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason... Materialists and madmen never have doubts... Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have the mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity.”
― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

1. Radical skepticism will make you question everything: I don't know that I even know nothing about nothing.
2. We lose the ability to take the world for granted and stop believing in those common sense truisms we all agree on NOT QUESTIONING, for discussion sake - to avoid falling into a maddening relativism.
3. But does Reason really make you mad as you become too REASONABLE? i.e. the mathematical genius who's deeply in touch with the uncertainty principle, or any other mathematical principle that describes reality as unpredictable and chaotic? Butterfly effect, etc.
3.1 Belief systems have the ability to reduce uncertainty, to make the world look less chaotic, help us regulate our stress and anxiety levels;
3.1.1. BUT is knowledge about the uncertainty and unpredictability of the world enough to make you Mad? I don't think so. We need to understand madness in all levels of analysis too(cellular, muticellular, organism, multiorganism), not just an epistomological perspective of mental illness, even though it can contribute to it or maybe the consequence of a certain neurological condition? - as a consequence or epiphenomenon of a neurological disorder, not the cause of a neurological disorder.
4. There's an idea of the crazy mathematician, but these are rare instances of madness perpetuated by popular culture: most mathematicians possess (in different degrees) a negative capability to deal with uncertainty. Most mathematicians who do research, work with a sense of resignation because they are trying to solve "impossible problems", knowing they'll probably never find an answer to those questions.
4.1 I think Chesterton was trying to criticize a naive reductionist view of science. The science/logician who gets mad because he's trying to reduce reality to an equation but the task is so great the he becomes mad: but modern science is not 100% reductionist,i.e. butterfly effect - where a small change in initial conditions can have great consequences in a posterior state within a system. A small oscillation in air pressure in Brazil could give rise to a storm in Tahiti.

"Conclusion": I think Chesterton is wrong, making a faulty generalization. Both mathematicians, philosophers and artists have to deal with high level abstractions and uncertainty, mystery is part of their day-to-day lives.

Do you agree or disagree with my view? If you think I'm wrong, I would appreciate you could help me see things more clearly. Thank you for reading.

javi2541997

We lose the ability to take the world for granted and stop believing in those common sense truisms we all agree on NOT QUESTIONING, for discussion sake - to avoid falling into a maddening relativism. — WaterLungs

Examples of which common sense we (supposedly) all are agree?

to avoid falling into a maddening relativism. — WaterLungs

I think you will like check this article in relation of your questions and debate: http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html

WaterLungs

↪javi2541997

First of all, thank you taking the time to answer. I'll read the article very carefully.

Examples of which common sense we (supposedly) all are agree?

to avoid falling into a maddening relativism. — WaterLungs

Answer: When we stop thinking about the ultimate nature of reality and grab a cup of coffee, accepting it's real enough from a pragmatic point-of-view. This acceptance is not an epistemological agreement between everyone... but a common sense acceptance that we need to suspend disbelief temporarily, to continue living life without questioning everything. Otherwise we couldn't leave our beds, because we would be trying to rationally justify/find a reason or a purpose to every single action we take. Here nature is important, were alive because breathing is automatic and doesn't depend on rational deliberations: a radical skeptic would die if breathing depended on his epistemological certainties.
- I think Hume describes this much better than me:

“Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? ... I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends. And when, after three or four hours' amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”

TheMadFool

Poets do not go mad; but chess players do... — WaterLungs

Is G. K. Chesterton mad? How did he chance upon this sparkling nugget of exquisite wisdom? Poetry or Reason?

javi2541997

but a common sense acceptance that we need to suspend disbelief temporarily, to continue living life without questioning everything. Otherwise we couldn't leave our beds, because we would be trying to rationally justify/find a reason or a purpose to every single action we take. Here nature is important, were alive because breathing is automatic and doesn't depend on rational deliberations: a radical skeptic would die if breathing depended on his epistemological certainties.
- I think Hume describes this much better than me: — WaterLungs

Interesting point of view. So you think basically that common and custom things we do all day shouldn’t be questioned because they are already accepted. Yes. It is true that David Hume explained this situation better but I guess his intention was literally the opposite. When Hume wrote the next example: if I put my hand in a hot pot I will burn my hand all the times I do so but this is reason is something the custom of doing it gave to me I guess he was still questioning everything despite can be mad as you say.
Not questioning everything around us could make us being simple

Why do I live?
Why do I dream?
Why do some people die younger than others?
Why do I debate?

Etc...

WaterLungs

↪javi2541997

I believe we should question everything, even common sense claims, no stone should be left unturned but, when it comes to living our lives, to live a balanced healthy life, we need to have the ability to temporarily leave the world of philosophical enquiry and, by accepting that it's probably impossible to reach epistemological absolute certainties, live life as someone who takes things for granted, who accepts that we can't be sure about the ultimate answers.
- To make a coffee you have to act as someone who believes that coffee is real, not real in the ultimate metaphysical/epistemological sense, but real ENOUGH in the sense that:
"Ok, it could be a dream and this cup of coffee might not be real but it's nice to have a coffee in the morning - thought Waterlungs, taking a sip from a warm cup of coffee, as he contemplates the sunshine with a profound gaze, while he listens to some pretentious obscure jazz album, which gives him a sense of moral superiority, feeling that life is worth living."

- I probably misread Hume because I lack a philosophical education, I only know some out of context citations. So he might not agree with my view and I probably misused his views for my argument sake.
- When I mean we take some things for granted for discussion sake is that, when we have a discussion, we believe that we can be understood by others and that we can understand what they mean. Otherwise, it would be absurd to have a conversation if we thought no one would understand what we mean.

WaterLungs

↪TheMadFool

I don't know to be honest.

TheMadFool

↪WaterLungs

To be fair though, there's a "sense" in which the great (was he great?) G. K. Chesterton is right on the money. The world, if you haven't already noticed, is mind-bogglingly complex and by "complex" I mean take the most difficult problem you ever faced - could be a concept, a book, a puzzle, your tax returns, whathaveyou - and multiply that by infinity. That's how complex the universe is.

Given this is what the lowly human brain is faced with, it needs to be, what's the word, feminine/receptive in order to take it all in an stay sane rather than masculine/projective like when we demand that the world obey every single rigid rule of reason and when that fails and failure is certain, the inevitable happens...we lose our minds.

Ciceronianus

↪WaterLungs

Chesterton is an amusing writer, but never careful in thought or analysis. He is, for the most part, glib. His writing is breezy and superficial, and sometimes witty. He would have been great fun as a conversationalist, particularly after a few drinks. He is first and foremost an apologist, and apologists very rarely engage in more than special pleading.

WaterLungs

↪TheMadFool

I agree with you but is reason alone capable of making us lose our minds? I'm not sure about that, it's a small minority of artists like Van Gogh or mathematicians like John Nash who go mad. I think it's more influenced by a neurological condition than an epistemological position, for example that of a radical skeptic. Maybe it's the loss of an "intuitive mechanism" to take the world for granted + being psychologically prone to believe in skeptical ideas? I don't know.
Poetry or Reason? Maybe reason because people with a certain temperament, more prone to madness, are attracted to mathematics? - this is pure speculation.

javi2541997

- To make a coffee you have to act as someone who believes that coffee is real, not real in the ultimate metaphysical/epistemological sense, but real ENOUGH in the sense that: — WaterLungs

I understand your point and what are you trying to explain. I guess when I am making a coffee I believe in it in a tangible aspect. The colour, the smell, the taste, etc... of the coffee. Nevertheless, despite it could be so twisted, that coffee and all of the characteristics can drive to me to a metaphysical behaviour. For example: While I am drinking this coffee it gives me memories of when I was in Chicago summer holidays. Nostalgia. so they are sometimes so connected.
I guess the important fact here is try to put a division between the reality as it is (enough believe) and then all the metaphysical/epistemological experience.

WaterLungs

↪Ciceronianus the White

I researched "special pleading": argument in which the speaker deliberately ignores aspects that are unfavourable to their point of view. / A form of confirmation bias.

It's possible that he's doing special pleading but, if we took his claim seriously, not as a superficial or merely glib, do you think there's some truth to what he says? And if there's no truth to it, why is it wrong to consider reason the path to madness? What do you think he chooses consciously to ignore?

TheMadFool

artists like Van Gogh [or mathematicians like John Nash] who go mad — WaterLungs

I'm going against my instincts not to generalize but it seems exceptions don't imply the absence of a dependable generalization. I mean by focusing on Vincent Van Gogh, an exception, you're wilfully and dangerously ignoring the vast majority of artists who are mentally healthier than the lot of mathematicians.

WaterLungs

↪javi2541997

So the difference between everyday experience and metaphysical "transcendence" is a matter of intensity, not of quality? For example, during hallucinations we feel colors more vividly, the same colors of our day-to-day experience, but in a more intense way. Those same colors of everyday life are experienced with more intensity, giving a "metaphysical tone" to the experience like something that feels extraordinary? Or making us realize there's no difference between the common and the metaphysical? Both common and extraordinary experiences belong to the same spectrum of experiences with a continuity?
- So in that sense its useful to separate the social inter-subjective reality we live in (not reality as it is, but as we experience it) from the metaphysical/epistemological realm? But if they are continuous, should we artificially separate them? Why? I don't know, maybe we should live in harmony with both?
- I think my view about taking things for granted is trying to unify the metaphysical realm we probably can't understand with the not so "common day-to-day experience".

Thank you for the feedback, it's helping me make some new interesting connections.

WaterLungs

↪TheMadFool

seems exceptions don't imply the absence of a dependable generalization.

- this is a very good point and I agree with you. But what I failed to state more clearly doesn't go against this point.

What you said reminds of me of the Survivorship bias: we only focus on the winners, forgetting how many people have to lose to "produce" one winner:
- Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to some false conclusions in several different ways. It is a form of selection bias.

The truth is I haven't checked medical records/statistics to see the the number of cases of madness in this two "different" groups, namely, mathematicians and artists:
- First Problem: Define what madness is, I don't believe it's merely a social construct, there's a biological reality to it, but still it's very difficult to define, since in psychological/medical literature a disease is defined by it's symptoms and it's possible cures - a functional definition. This goes against my belief that it's not a social construct, but it's very hard to define what "madness" is.
- Second Problem: What makes an artist or a mathematician? Someone with an artistic or mathematical inclination is not an artist or mathematician? They have to be professionals? To have a relevant impact in knowledge creation to be a "true" mathematician?
- Third Problem: What's the difference between an artist and a mathematician? Can we be both at the same time? Da Vinci was, to a certain extent. Is he the exception or the rule? Maybe most people share both traits, but since they weren't as good as Da Vinci, they were forgotten.

javi2541997

For example, during hallucinations we feel colors more vividly, the same colors of our day-to-day experience, but in a more intense way.
those same colors of everyday life are experienced with more intensity, giving a "metaphysical tone" the experience like something magical? Or making us realize there's no difference between the common and the metaphysical? But a spectrum of experiences with a continuity? — WaterLungs

Well I think this happens because we are making our brain to work/act faster than actually it does. If we see the colours more vividly is due to a distorted perception of reality. I even think taking drugs or whatever stimulation don’t provide us the fact of living metaphysical experiences. Keep in mind that there are people who take a lot of drugs but do not perceive this dilemma we are talking about.
This context depends in every human knowledge and their development. If we say there is a metaphysical world we previously think about it. It is an effort to go farther than tangible reality.
Colours are there and will be there. The different spectrums of experience will depend about our behaviour.

180 Proof

↪Ciceronianus the White

:up:

Tom Storm

"Conclusion": I think Chesterton is wrong, making a faulty generalization. Both mathematicians, philosophers and artists have to deal with high level abstractions and uncertainty, mystery is part of their day-to-day lives.

Do you agree or disagree with my view? If you think I'm wrong, I would appreciate you could help me see things more clearly. Thank you for reading. — WaterLungs

Chesterton as a writer was a witty polemicist and not someone I would go to to learn psychological truths about human beings. His comments sound like good, old fashioned bullshit and fits into C's whole shtick of making impactful, paradoxical statements that seem like insights. But in the end there is no evidence, no attempt at precision or definitions (as has already been said), so pretty much worthless. How would we even test such a claim? I think it's the kind of opinion that often undergirds a romantic view of truth - that poetic insights are deeper and somehow more authentic and grounding than those acquired by reason, which lead us to banal tautologies and rob the world of the numinous. The New Age movement used to be constipated by views like these.

Ciceronianus

↪WaterLungs

Well, being glib, he provides no definitions, no explanations and no evidence. Neither does he make an argument. He proclaims, declares. It's not clear what he means by "reason" or, for that matter, "imagination." Why would reason, by ordinary definition the power to think, understand and form judgments rationally, lead to insanity? Why would imagination do so?

He seems to mistake "reason" for "logic." The "logic" he refers to seems to be merely the process of selecting a premise, however unreasonable, and inferring the unreasonable from it. We can only guess from his dismissive and conclusory claims that he has fabricated a parody of reason.

I know of no basis on which to maintain reason leads to insanity, and he provides no basis.

WaterLungs

↪Ciceronianus the White

Thank your for your answer, I think your position is quite reasonable.

WaterLungs

↪Tom Storm

I don't think poetic insights are incompatible with reason, but I agree that pure aesthetic play in philosophy becomes frustrating because many times there's no way to understand what a romantic is trying to express, hiding behind vagueness, while using interchangeably the concepts of "truth", "being" and authenticity" - it can get very murky and confusing, even though I don't doubt their good intentions.

This is the best definition I found of a romantic view of reason:
"Human lives take place in the same intimate unconsciousness as the lives of animals. The same profound laws, which govern the instincts of animals from the outside, also govern the intelligence of man from the outside, which seems to be nothing more than an instinct in formation, an unconscious dog like every instinct, less perfect because it has not yet been formed.

«Everything comes from reasonless», it is said in Greek Anthology. And, in fact, everything comes from reasonless. Outside of mathematics that has nothing to do with nothing but dead numbers and empty formulas, and so it can be perfectly logical, science is nothing but a children's game at dusk, wanting to catch bird shadows and stop grass shadows in the wind."
- Bernardo Soares, The Book of Disquiet [Used Google Translator to translate from Portuguese, english is not my first language]

According to this view, reason is nothing but an instinct yet to be fully formed. I don't agree, but I can see why it's so appealing to many people, mostly artists. Modern society is obsessed with authenticity and self-fulfillment, to fulfill one's potential is seen as the highest value. To fail in life is to fail to fulfill your own potential by not finding who you truly are - to avoid this, you need to listen your passions, to your heart, not to reason. In this way of life, the romantic artist became the paradigm of the life that should be modeled, a search for aesthetic differentiation, one's own originality, "that which makes me different from you". An empty lifestyle if you ask me, it can lead to moral relativism and isolation. How can one reach one's potential without being inserted in a community? I don't see how. Sorry for this pseudo-intellectual rant.

WaterLungs

↪javi2541997

Curious, because it reminds me of a dilemma I heard in a Sam Harris podcast: If, from a neurological point of view, there's no way to differentiate from a state of enlightenment produced by a drug or by a lifetime of "hard ascetic work", how could we differentiate these experiences from a qualitative perspective? Of course, from an ethical point of view, they are completely different ways of life, even though the the result might be the same.

Tom Storm

I don't think poetic insights are incompatible with reason, — WaterLungs

Neither do I but they are often positioned in this way. The great battle between Enlightenment and Romanticism.

Modern society is obsessed with authenticity and self-fulfillment, to fulfill one's potential is seen as the highest value. — WaterLungs

Very true. Is this what happens when religion fades?

How can one reach one's potential without being inserted in a community? — WaterLungs

Community is not very popular with some people who prefer individualism. Reaching 'one's potential' is a meaningless notion. 'Reaching some potential' might be more accurate but downbeat. We are potentially many people - opportunity, effort, luck, all play a role.

Sorry for this pseudo-intellectual rant. — WaterLungs

Why should you be the only one here to apologize for this? :wink:

javi2541997

Sam Harris podcas — WaterLungs

I never heard about him until this moment. The podcasts look so interesting. Also I see he has books with striking titles. I will check it out deeper in the following days.

T H E

↪WaterLungs

I agree that Chesterton is wrong, but then he's also fooling around.

Radical skepticism is something like a pose, IMO. Genuine doubt is paralyzing. Theoretical (facetious, insincere) doubt is a clever game.

http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/peirce/peirce_print.pdf

TheMadFool

What you said reminds of me of the Survivorship bias: we only focus on the winners, forgetting how many people have to lose to "produce" one winner:
- Survivorship bias or survival bias is the logical error of concentrating on the people or things that made it past some selection process and overlooking those that did not, typically because of their lack of visibility. This can lead to some false conclusions in several different ways. It is a form of selection bias. — WaterLungs

Firstly, I didn't claim anything at all. It was G. K. Chesterton who thought "poets do not go mad; chess players do" or something along those lines and his take on it isn't based on statistics, a necessity if your allegation that he's guilty of survivorship bias is to make sense.

G. K. Chesterton formed his opinion from an analysis of the mindset of poets and chess players and the categories of people they stand for and I'm simply following his lead. G. K. Chesterton did not come to the conclusion that "poets do not go mad; chess players do" based on a statistical analysis of poets and chess players. Ergo, no way survivorship bias has any relevance to G. K. Chesterton's views on this issue.

That said, you probably thought of survivorship bias because of the direction our conversation took with my comment on "exceptions" and "generalizations".

Survivorship bias is about how "survivors" (those who make it big) give us the wrong picture as regards the perils inherent in the activity the "survivors" participate in and madness is one. Many "poets" and "chess players" may have fallen to insanity and that wouldn't show up in our investigation if we only focus on the successful.

Yet, comparing the "survivors" of two categories, as is the case when we study successful "poets" and "chess players" together, has its own story to tell. My hunch is that more eminent "chess players" have mental issues than great "poets" and this fact serves as the basis of a cogent statistical argument.

Plus, if there's a survivorship bias, it applies to both categories - the crème de la crème of "poets" and "chess players" are the subgroups we've decided to concentrate on. You know, of course, that when a certain factor is present in equal measure in both categories that we're doing a comparative study on, it no longer matters or doesn't skew the results or simply put the bias doesn't lead to erroneous conclusions.

The truth is I haven't checked medical records/statistics to see the the number of cases of madness in this two "different" groups, namely, mathematicians and artists:
- First Problem: Define what madness is, I don't believe it's merely a social construct, there's a biological reality to it, but still it's very difficult to define, since in psychological/medical literature a disease is defined by it's symptoms and it's possible cures - a functional definition. This goes against my belief that it's not a social construct, but it's very hard to define what "madness" is. — WaterLungs

Indeed, definitions are always a problem but we can avoid that pitfall of confusion by sticking to psychiatric definitions for they probably were the ones G.K. Chesterton himself used when he made the comparison between "poets" and "chess players" and how the latter class of people were more likely to go cuckoo.

- Second Problem: What makes an artist or a mathematician? Someone with an artistic or mathematical inclination is not an artist or mathematician? They have to be professionals? To have a relevant impact in knowledge creation to be a "true" mathematician? — WaterLungs

There can be no doubt on that front. "Chess players" depend on logic, thinking inside a box, not crossing boundaries that logic sets up - that's where their daily bread comes from. "Poets" are more about unrestricted creativty, thinking outside the box. crossing boundaries wherever they happen to encounter one.

- Third Problem: What's the difference between an artist and a mathematician? Can we be both at the same time? Da Vinci was, to a certain extent. Is he the exception or the rule? Maybe most people share both traits, but since they weren't as good as Da Vinci, they were forgotten — WaterLungs

There can be "poetic chess players" and such people would be mighty interesting to follow on twitter I suppose. How do they manage two opposing forces inside them? The "chess player" in them would want to follow rules, adopt a formulaic approach to life and so on while the "poet" in them would be happy to break rules, try out the novel, the unorthodox, the radical.

unenlightened

We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. — David Hume

Hume is neither glib, nor an apologist. And Chesterton is right in his observation that it is the logician more so than the artist that is vulnerable to madness. It is one who tries to make reason the master and eliminate passion, that ends up in trouble. And this is no off-hand remark of Chesterton's, but the direction of much of his writing. He is not anti-rational at all, but anti rationalism, the folly that makes rationality its passion, and thereby undermines itself.

javi2541997

↪unenlightened

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them. — David Hume

Interesting quote from David Hume. Probably I accidentally enter in a tangent but this quote reminds me the Goya’s painting called The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters.
It is free interpretation but probably this painting shows how dangerous could be our world if our reason is sleeping?

[img]http://

unenlightened

↪javi2541997

It is a commonplace notion, but if you go looking for the monstrous in humanity, you find it in such reasoned solutions to life's problems as the gas chamber and the torture chamber - places run by bureaucrats and scientists rather than poets and artists. Artists have nightmares, but it takes a scientist to realise them.

TheMadFool

↪javi2541997

Astounding observation but then As a motif in fiction, the mad scientist may be villainous (evil genius)

javi2541997

Artists have nightmares, but it takes a scientist to realise them. — unenlightened

True. I didn’t even realise that. Sometimes reason can be as dangerous as nightmares. At least a poet or another kind of artist just speaks about those nightmares in their works. We even can find beautiful pieces of art. Not only about nightmares but all stuff that we cannot explain with reason like darkness, sadness, nostalgia, etc...
So as you said, it is exactly a commonplace

G.K. Chesterton: Reason and Madness

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