Binding in concrete …

Philo: So we discovered last time we talked that you must, in every case, keep things in context.

Estudia: Yes, but it's hard. I've got to do so much mental work to integrate every new idea I come across, or more likely to discard the idea as nonsense after careful consideration.

Philo: That's true, but if knowledge is your goal, then you have to do all that mental work. You can't do it just by reading about a new idea. You have to spend hours, days or even more time reorganizing your thoughts when you are presented with a new idea that makes sense and you want to integrate into your knowledge. Any new conclusion on any subject must be identified and integrated into your thinking with all the relevant context. You have to ask yourself just what the new fact or claim is and then why should you care. You want to ask yourself just what the fact or claim means for all the other beliefs that you hold.

Estudia: What happens if I don't do all this thinking? I mean, after all, there is so much knowledge and I can't integrate it all. What if I just learn about an idea and don't connect with any other ideas that I hold?

Philo: What you are describing is what Ayn Rand called the concrete-bound mentality ― someone who makes no real connection among their mental contents. Such a person would take each new issue as a separate concrete unrelated to anything else. They would not consider an issue related to any earlier issues they learned about, or to any abstract principles, or really any context.

Estudia: Hmmm. So such a person, a person with a concrete bound mentality, would learn that …. Wait, I guess that would include someone like a politician who promises to lower taxes, but then would advocate providing more welfare for the poor, or state that oil companies are making too much money so should have to pay a surcharge, at the same time as he deplores the high price of gasoline.

Philo: Exactly. Such a crony would never let it occur to him that more spending on welfare would require a reduction in spending or higher taxes, that a surcharge is a tax or that taking money from oil companies would diminish their ability to discover new oil or build refineries resulting in even higher gasoline prices.

Estudia: I’m beginning to understand how important it is to keep things in context. But surely, not everyone is this bad. Lots of people are very knowledgeable about different subjects are they not?

Philo: Oh, sure. Lots of us integrate some subject matter very well. Someone who is an expert on Islamic law say, or a physicist involved in high-energy particle research, and many others. They integrate their mental content within their delimited area of interest. They form a compartment of integrated ideas; however, they never consider the implications on other areas like politics, medicine, or ethics and more. They don’t want to be bothered with thinking about things they consider someone else’s concern or area of interest.

Estudia: But wouldn’t a specialist be such a person? My urologist won’t think about my digestive system or my eyes for example and maybe it’s not his concern.

Philo: That may very well be and this could be a problem for you. The cardiologist who treats you for heart disease may completely over look a thyroid condition or heavy metal poisoning and you will suffer for it. I think this may be happening as our knowledge grows beyond what one person can retain. But you don’t want to cut yourself off from everything else and just consider your area separate from the rest of reality. You would have to drop all the ideas and knowledge that makes your specialty possible and which connects it with reality.

Estudia: What would you call this then? I can see if you do drop too much context, you are going to develop ideas that are not integrated and wind up with floating abstractions and self-contradictions. You could completely be out of contact with reality.

Philo: This is a type of non-integration which Ayn Rand called :compartmentalization.

Estudia: Don’t people do this all the time? I mean, most scientists that I know see the evidence of evolution, natural geological processes shaping the earth, the forces of nature acting despite the conscious wishes of the masses, etc. but they are still theist and believe in ghosts or God or the supernatural.

Philo: Lots of economists believe in socialism in politics, the profitability of capitalism in business, and the self-sacrificial tenets of altruism in their private lives.

Estudia: Wow. I think I get it. I think I see what you are saying. See you next time.

Philo: Adieu!