Being introvert in Covid-19 times

Concert in Covid-19 times: Only a limited number
 of visitors allowed because of the corona restrictions.

Suppose a close friend invites you for his birthday party, like every year. You don’t know most people that will come there and you always find it difficult to begin a conversation with someone you don’t know, so you are glad if another guest starts talking to you. You also don’t like those three kisses on the cheek that you are supposed to get from and give to people you hardly know when you or they come and leave. So, every year you are a bit reluctant to go, and you always look for an excuse. But in the end you do go, and usually you think later that it was not that bad there and that you have amused yourself. Nevertheless, each year again you would like to have an excuse when you get the invitation. However, this year is different because of the corona pandemic. It is not only that you would rather not go, like each year, but you also expect that more people will come than the corona restrictions allow. Moreover, you know that most infections take place in closed spaces with many people together. So, you’ll not feel safe there. And not only this: You feel even glad that now you have a good reason not to go! So, you call your friend and say that you’ll come another time when both of you can be just together. That is also what you actually prefer and really like: talking with someone in person and no other people around that distract you with small talk. Do you recognize this? Are you maybe such a kind of person? Then you probably are an introvert.
During these days of the Covid-19 pandemic especially big events like sports matches, concerts, mass meetings etc. are forbidden. If they are allowed they are allowed with only a limited number of participants and visitors, so that the rules of social distancing can be maintained. Even more, not only public meetings are forbidden or allowed only with restrictions, also private meetings sometimes are. Because of a new rise in the number of Covid-19 virus infections recently yet the Dutch government gave a strict advice to ask not more than six people to your house, so people that don’t belong to your family. However, introverts seldom invite so many people at the same time.
When you follow the Covid-19 news, one thing that you come across again and again is that it is so bad that big meetings and parties cannot be held and that people miss them. As a result parties are sometimes illegally held, in halls or in the open air under bridges and in parks. What you do not hear, however, is that there are many people who think that it’s only a pity and not more than that that big meetings and parties cannot be held. Of course, you have nothing against it that others have their pleasures, but why such a fuss about this ban on big meetings? It is as if everybody misses them and that everybody feels sick because they cannot take place. But lots of people think: There are other things that are by far more important now in this crisis. Moreover, now we have more time for face-to-face contacts. Now there is more opportunity to meet your friends in person and not in the mass. If you think so, you are probably an introvert, and in fact it is so then, of course, that you already meet your friends preferably only together with the two of you.
And those three kisses that I mentioned in the example I started this blog with? Most introverts hate them. Kisses are for people you really know and who you really like and love, not for people you know only superficially and have met only a few times before, so introverts think, and they are happy that also these kisses are not allowed now. They actually hope that they’ll never return when normal times have come back. Introverts, so I quoted Allison Abrams once in a blog (dated 3 July 2017), are not the first to give you a hug, but if they do feel honoured. They don’t let just anyone in... Their presence is a gift.
Is there then nothing that introverts miss? Are they happy with the restrictions that must chase the Covid-19 virus away? Of course not. Like everybody they don’t like it being limited in their freedom. Of course, also introverts like it to go to big events now and then. Also for them such events can be stimulating and joyful. But they can also give stress. What I personally miss, for instance, are the concerts I used to go to, once or twice a month. But it is because of the music in the first place, and not because of the mass of visitors. For me the concert I recently visited with only hundred other visitors (because of the corona restrictions) in a big music hall for more than 1500 people was as good as a concert in a full house.
Yes, I miss it, and I miss more, like my travels abroad. However, what I find so annoying in those discussions about the question whether big events must be allowed again is that apparently only the extrovert view counts (and the economic view as well), although there is a big group of people that has another view on it, the introverts, who comprise about a third of the population. 

P.S. And yes, I felt disappointed when last Friday a concert was cancelled that I wanted to visit.

Who am I ?

In my last blog I wrote about John Locke’s case of a cobbler who got the soul of a prince. He discussed it in order to expound his theory of personal identity. I think that this is a good reason to write again about this theme, also because I just finished reading a book by the Dutch philosopher Monica Meijsing about personal identity. I’ll not check what Locke and Meijsing exactly have said. I just write down what’s in my mind.
What is personal identity? What makes us the same person as the one I was some time ago? That was Locke’s question when he presented his case. His answer was: Our identity is our memory. For instance, I remember now that I was the general who won the Battle of Newtown many years ago. I also remember that I was the boy who stole apples from an orchard. Therefore, now I am the same person as the general and as the boy. However, there is a problem, so it was commented later. Say, I remember that I was this general, but I forgot about my lapse as a boy. But when I was the general, I still remembered it. Then we must conclude that I am the same person as the general but not the same person as the boy. This cannot be true, and when the discussion on personal identity flared up again some years ago, this problem was solved by stating that the continuity of our memory is what makes us the same person as my predecessor. Then I am the same person as the boy who stole apples, even if I have forgotten about it, if the general who I was still remembered his boyish lapse.
There is yet another problem in Locke’s case: He supposes that the body is not important for who I am. After having received the prince’s soul, the cobbler is the same person as the little prince who grew up in a palace, even if he is now making shoes with the help of a body that grew up in a poor quarter. Intuitively we tend to think that Locke’s idea is right, if we apply the criterion of continuity just explained. So, although neo-Lockeans devised all kinds of weird thought experiments in order to improve and fine tune Locke’s point of view, they ignored this point. Brains were swapped with other bodies, brains and bodies were teletransported to other planets, while the organism left behind was not destroyed by mistake, etc. All this has led to interesting literature, but these thought experiments contained a crucial flaw: They suppose what they want to improve, namely that you can separate the brain from the original body. Once you think so, it is not difficult to show that a person is different from the body that it “inhabits”, as I have made clear in an article. Instead of the examples I discussed there, I want to present another one.
If my body is not important for my personality, why then have one? In order to answer this question, I called a scientist friend and asked him to remove my brain from my body, put it in a vat, keep it alive and feed it with all information I need in order to think that I am still the person with the body that I was before the experiment begun. Next, since I am a runner, I wanted to participate in a race on 5,000 m, and my scientist friend made that I thought that I did. I even won the race in a personal record. However, in reality there was no race, for it was all simulation. Nevertheless in my memory I won the race in a PR. So, for me, I am the person who has won, etc. The question is then: Can I be the person that I think I am, even if I cannot do what I think that I do? Following Locke and the neo-Lockeans that answer is “yes”, for that I am not more than a brain in a vat without a body doesn’t count. What counts is the memory, and all what is relevant for my being a person in the (neo-)Lockean sense is simulated in my brain by my scientist friend. But if you aren’t a (neo)-Lockean and if you aren’t me (the brain) there in the vat, I guess you’ll say “no”. And after my scientist friend had replaced my brain in my body and had erased the running simulation from my brain, it’s what I think, too: This thought experiment shows that although my memory may be part of the person that I am, it doesn’t make up the person that I am. My person is also made up by my body, as I have also made clear in my article just mentioned, for otherwise I couldn’t run a race. In addition, my person is made up by others who see me winning and praise me for my running qualities. Etc. Therefore, we must conclude, I think, that the person that I am is an aspect of the human being that is running there and that later remembers that race. Or, following Meijsing, we can also say that the person is a property of the human organism I am. And, as we just have seen, my person is not only made up by what is in my mind and by the characteristics of my body, like that my body is made and trained for long-distance running. It is also made up by the others around me who consider me (also much later) as the winner of a race. In short, my person is made by all what shapes me, like my experiences and thoughts, the features of my body and the relevant others. 

Inspiration

- John Locke, An essay concerning Human Understanding. (1689).

- Monica Meijsing, Waar was ik toen ik er niet was? Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2018.

- Henk bij de Weg, “Can a person break a world record?”, http://www.bijdeweg.nl/PersonalIdentity.htm

Face mask required

 

In the Netherlands face masks are mainly required in public transport in the fight against the coronavirus. This inspired me to take and make this photo, titled "Face mask required". You find more corona photos by me here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/photographybytheway/albums/72157713928176438

https://www.henkbijdeweg.nl/fotos/335461995_Corona.html#.Xz2jyTVcKbg

Montaigne and Locke

Montaigne’s Essays were widely read, not only during his life. Also after his death in 1592 the work kept attracting many readers. Not only the general reader with some education read the Essays, but also influential persons who would have a big impact on the development of our intellectual life did. The impact of the Essays in the years after Montaigne’s death was especially big in England, even more than in France. One of the readers there was the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). We know that he possessed two copies of the Essays: a copy of a 1669 edition in French and a copy of an English translation published in 1603. We also know from Locke’s journal that he read the Essays in 1676-7 and 1684.
Locke didn’t only read Montaigne’s book; he was also influenced by it. Especially the influence of Montaigne on Locke’s ideas on education is striking. Like Montaigne Locke acted as a kind of advisor of the nobility and gentry on the education of their sons. Even more, unlike Montaigne, who was a jurist, Locke has also worked for some time as a tutor and governor for the sons of the gentry. Like Montaigne, Locke wrote also down his ideas on education, namely in letters and in a treatise titled Some thoughts on education (1693). In writing the treatise he didn’t only fall back on his own experience as a tutor and governor but also on what he had read about education. According to Warren Boutcher the exact literary sources that Locke used there are still debated. However “a contemporary collaborator of Locke, Pierre Coste, thought Montaigne’s Essais, especially I 25, to be the most important source and analogue”. Book I 25 is Montaigne’s essay titled “Of the education of children”. Locke himself mentions Montaigne only once in the treatise, but the whole context shows, so Warren, that Locke “closely … associates Montaigne with the topics of the choice of the right ‘governor’ or ‘tutor’ and of the direct method of Latin-learning–the topics of Essais I 25.” I think that this is enough to show the influence of Montaigne on Locke’s ideas on education; you can find the details in Boutcher’s book (see Sources below).
We see Montaigne’s influence on Locke also in other works, but the immediate impact of Montaigne on Locke is often difficult to demonstrate. That Locke has been influenced by the Essays when developing his ideas on democracy and toleration is not unlikely. However, Locke doesn’t mention Montaigne even once in his main work An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), although it is striking that he called this book (in imitation of Montaigne?) an essay. Alexander Moseley devotes in his intellectual biography of John Locke a chapter to the influence of Montaigne on Locke and notes that both authors have some striking points in common (but it is remarkable that he doesn’t mention the indication of the direct influence of Montaigne on Locke discussed by Boutcher). Anyway, I think that if we take all the similarities between Montaigne and Locke together and also think of the direct reference of Locke to Montaigne just mentioned, then we must conclude that Locke must have been much influenced by the Essays.
Recently I was leafing through Montaigne’s essay “Apology for Raimond Sebond” (Book II 12) for a blog for my Dutch Montaigne blog website (https://rondommontaigne.blogspot.com/). Suddenly my eye was caught by a sentence that I had underlined and that made me immediately think of Locke. This is the sentence: “The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould”. A few words later Montaigne speaks of “princes” instead of “emperors”. Then it is only one step to Locke, for what does Locke write in his Essay (Book II, Chap. XXVII, § 15): “For should the Soul of a Prince, carrying with it the consciousness of the Prince’s past Life, enter and inform the Body of a Cobler as soon deserted by his own Soul, every one sees, he would be the same Person with the Prince, accountable only for the Prince’s Actions: But who would say it was the same Man?” Etc. It is the famous example in the famous passage in which Locke discusses the problem of personal identity, a problem that I have also treated several times in my blogs. Of course, any similarity between two texts of two different authors can be mere chance, but in view of the fact that we know that Locke has read Montaigne’s Essays, while we also know that Locke explicitly refers somewhere to Montaigne, the similarity is striking. The similarity between Locke and Montaigne here can be mere chance, but the influence of one author on another author often shows itself in the details; maybe just in the details. 

Sources

- Boutcher, Warren, The school of Montaigne in Early Modern Europe. Volume 2: The Reader-Writer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017; pp. 367-371.

- Moseley, Alexander, John Locke. London, etc.: Bloomsbury, 2007; pp. 37-38. 

The cooperation paradox

While some scientists, like Frans de Waal, try to show that man is not so unique in the animal world as we think, others, like Michael Tomasello, just try to show that we are distinct. An approach like the one by De Waal teaches us to be modest and that we are not the kind of superior beings we always supposed to be. From Tomasello’s approach we could get the idea that we are the masters of the animal world and that we can do with other animals what we like. However, that’s absolutely not what Tomasello wants to suggest. His motive is to explain what makes us different from other animals – and especially from our nearest relatives the great apes – without connecting this with any other pretention than an improved understanding of ourselves.
What makes man unique in the living world is, so Tomasello, that unlike any other creature on earth man has the capacity of shared intention, joint commitment, collective intention, or how you want to call it. Tomasello didn’t invent these concepts himself but borrowed them from others like Michael E. Bratman and Margaret Gilbert. Since I have written about shared intention etc. before in my blogs, I’ll not say more about it here.
But there is more that makes “us” different. Here are some features of man and human society that you don’t find elsewhere in the animal world, although most of these features are based on the capacity of shared intention, indeed. They are a bit arbitrary chosen, in the sense that other points could be added, although those mentioned belong to the core of what makes man different from other animals. 

- Altruism. In my blog last week we have seen that altruism is fundamental in man. Here is yet another example: You are standing somewhere and looking around. Then, a passer-by asks you: “Sir, can I help you?”
- Social institutions, namely, as Tomasello defines them, “sets of behavioral practices governed by various kinds of mutually recognized norms and rules.” (p. xi) A case in point is marriage. In all cultures you find the practice of marriage as a kind of stable relationship between man and woman plus sanctions if the norms and rules that define marriage are broken.
- Organisations: planned coordinated human interactions in order to attain one or more goals. Here I want to mention especially schools or other teaching for others than your kin in general. Tomasello: “Teaching is a form of altruism … in which individuals donate information to others for their use. … [T]here are no systematic, replicated reports of active instruction in nonhuman primates” (not to speak in other animals – HbdW). (p. xiv)
- Cumulative culture. It happens that nonhuman animals have learned habits that occur only in some groups of these same animals and not in others, so that we can call them “culture”. However, only man also makes improvements of what once has been learned and practiced. The result is that human culture evolves. Many once simple human instruments and practices develop and become more complicated in the course of time. No such a thing is known in the animal world. (pp. x-xi)
- Imitation. Man tends “to imitate others in the group simply in order to be like them, that is, to conform…” (pp. xiv-xv) It can even happen that people who break norms of conformity are sanctioned. Fashion is an example. 

Note that these points are not mutually exclusive but overlap for a part (schooling and altruism, for instance). Anyway, such special kinds of cooperation, namely cooperation based on shared intention, have brought us a lot. I think that most people will agree. Nevertheless, this cooperation is not only positive. For the foregoing gives us the impression that we are cooperative angels, always trying to make the best for us all. However, as also Tomasello makes clear, we aren’t. To quote him again” [H]umans …also [do] all kinds of heinous deeds. But such deeds are not usually done to those inside ‘the group.’ Indeed, recent evolutionary models have demonstrated what politicians have long known: the best way to motivate people to collaborate and to think like a group is to identify an enemy and charge that ‘they’ threaten ‘us’. The remarkable human capacity for cooperation therefore seems to have evolved mainly for interactions within the local group. Such group-mindedness in cooperation is, perhaps ironically, a major cause of strife and suffering in the world today.” (pp. 99-100) So, the cooperation that made human beings so successful seems to be founded on a non-cooperative attitude and practice towards all who do not belong to their own group. Therefore, cooperation rests on a paradox. In order to overcome this paradox and in order to make the world a more peaceful and yet better place to live in, a better place for all and not only for some men, we must promote that our group comes to include the whole world, humanity in its entirety. Or, as Tomasello says it: “The solution … is to find new ways to define the group.” (p. 100) 

Source

Michael Tomasello, Why we cooperate. Cambridge, Mass., etc.: The MIT Press, 2009.

Rousseau or Hobbes?

A man is a wolf to another man, so Hobbes. Man is selfish and egoistic by nature, he thinks, and in order to protect men against other men they must be forced to cooperate. That’s why there are states. States force men to work together and to help each other, if necessary, so that in the end everybody is better off. Others, however, think that men are good by nature and that men are by far that selfish as Hobbes thinks. According to Rousseau, for example, men are helpful and cooperative and it’s just the state that corrupts them. Which view is correct? In his first Tanner Lecture on Human Values in 2008 Michael Tomasello tried to answer this question.

Three main types of human altruism can be distinguished, so Tomasello: You can share goods like food with others. You can help others like fetching an out-of-reach object for someone. Or you can altruistically give information to another person. What can we say about the presence of these types in man? All men are more or less sharing, helping and informative but are we naturally so or are these characteristics forced upon us and do we share, help and inform others only for egoistic reasons? For answering these questions Tomasello presents several investigations done with young children and chimpanzees.

He first discusses helping. In one study (Tomasello pp. 6ff), of the 24 eighteen-month-old infants tested 22 helped at least once, when a person they didn’t know dropped something accidentally, but they did nothing, when the person dropped something on purpose. Tomasello gives several reasons why studies like this one makes it likely that men help altruistically by nature. First, they show helpful behaviour already at a very young age before most parents expect their children to behave pro-socially. Second, parental rewards and encouragement don’t seem to increase infant’s helpful behaviour. Third, chimpanzees do such things as well. Fourth, probably such behaviour is shown in different cultures. Fifth, an adult makes a drawing and another deliberately tears it up. Or, alternatively, an adult puts aside an empty sheet of paper and another adult tears it up. In the first situation infants look concerned and want to help more often than in the second situation. For such reasons, Tomasello believes that “children’s early helping is not a behavior created by culture and/or parental socialization practices. Rather, it is an outward expression of children’s natural inclination to sympathize with others in strife.” (p. 13)

Although altruistically helping is something both human infants and chimpanzees do in some situations, altruistically informing others seems typically human. Take this study, for example: An adult is stapling papers and an infant is watching it. The adult leaves the room for a moment and another adult comes in and moves stapler and papers to some shelves. The first adult comes back and wonders where stapler and papers are. Then most infants will spontaneously point where they have been put. In another study, a chimpanzee is looking for food. You see where it is and point to the location. However, the chimp doesn’t understand, for why should you tell him where to find the food? Any chimpanzee tries to keep it for himself! Apes don’t point or it should be advantageous for themselves. Generally they don’t understand what (altruistically) pointing means, while infants see it as informative behaviour. Such studies show, so Tomasello, that “the comparison between children and apes is different in the case of informing. When it comes to informing, as opposed to instrumental helping, humans do something cooperatively that apes seemingly do not at all. This suggests that altruism is not a general trait, but rather that altruistic motives may arise in some domains of activity but not in others.” (pp. 20-21.

And sharing? “Virtually all experts agree that apes are not very altruistic in the sharing of resources such as food.” (p. 21) How different children are. Since Tomasello presents cases of somewhat older children, where learned culture may have had already an influence, I prefer to give an experience of my own with the same content. Once on holiday by bike in Norway, my wife and I stopped somewhere. A man came from a nearby house and began to talk to us in Norwegian and we didn’t understand a word of it. We were a bit confused and didn’t know what to do. Then the man left for a moment and returned with a big bag with shrimps and gave it to us. Why? Till today I have no idea, but I think that it is a case of altruistically sharing in due form. But back to Tomasello. Do people always share? Probably not, he says, when your plane crashes in the Andes and you have one granola bar in your pocket. So, his conclusion is: “In the case of sharing resources such as food … human children seem to be more generous than chimpanzees. But … this is only a matter of degree. Starving humans are not so generous with food, either. It is just that chimpanzees act as if they were always starving.” (p. 28).

Now I must cut short my analysis, but anyway, there is little proof that altruism in helping, informing or sharing is the result of acculturation, parental intervention, or any other form of socialization. (p. 28) This doesn’t mean that man is only altruistic by nature, and that helpfulness etc. are not also promoted by culture in some way. Children learn by themselves, too. They adapt to what society requires of them, although this adaption, too, is innate to a large extent. Children follow the rules because they feel to do so and they often feel ashamed and guilty by themselves if they don’t follow the rules. The upshot is then: If someone is right, it is not Hobbes but Rousseau. But we start as a Rousseau and then we become infected by Hobbes.

Source

Michael Tomasello, Why we cooperate. Cambridge, Mass., etc.: The MIT Press, 2009.