Common sense isn’t always sensible

Like Richard Dawkins, Lewis Wolpert was a tireless propagandist of atheism. Unlike Richard Dawkins, he was a first-rate scientist.

In the former capacity, he didn’t escape yawn-inducing vulgarity, a condition invariably afflicting anyone who argues against the existence of God or insists that science and religion are incompatible.

Yet as a scientist of note, Prof. Wolpert stated in one of his books a thought I found interesting and, more important, useful. Real, especially modern, science always goes beyond common sense, he wrote. If it doesn’t pass this crucial test, it isn’t a real science.

Unlike his trite atheistic animadversions, that rang true.

If we look at photons getting to us from faraway stars by unerringly and, on the face of it, rationally choosing the shortest path of least resistance for millions of years; if we even begin to consider the implications of quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity (and how the two may be at odds), universal constants, modern genetics with its undecipherable codes, we’ll see that common sense will help us grasp none of these. It will mislead, not lead.

That stands to reason, especially for a scientific ignoramus like me who fails to come to grips with even the lower reaches of science, those Prof. Wolpert would have regarded as still attainable by common sense. In any case, my interest in natural sciences has always been cursory, leading me only as far as reading popular books on various disciplines, especially those acting as battlegrounds for political jousts.

My interests are primarily confined to the sciences Prof. Wolpert wouldn’t have recognised as such: theology, philosophy (including its political genre), history, aesthetics. However, having stumbled on his comment, I realised it applied to those fields as well.

Just as we can’t fathom the mind of a photon by common sense, neither can we grasp the complexity of human, social interactions by relying on that faculty alone. Common sense is worth having but, if we use it as a sole guide, we’ll soon reach an implicit sign saying “Thus far but no farther”.

This understanding is especially valid nowadays, when common sense has become the buzz phrase of politicians typically described as populists or, incongruously, conservatives. Unlike socialists of various hues, they are supposed to proceed from homespun wisdom, not highfalutin abstractions. Two and two always makes four to them, not any other digit and certainly not the inalienable right to change sex.

To some extent that’s true. If you look at liberal (in the real sense of the word) economics through the prism of common sense, you’ll see it works better than any other kind. Liberating the people’s congenital quest for money, power and social status can lead a nation to prosperity and material comfort that no version of command economy can provide.

This is God’s (or rather Hayek’s) own truth, the part of it within the reach of common sense. This simple mechanism will then ineluctably lead to the realisation that ever-accelerating technological progress increases productivity, which will in turn vindicate the commonsensical faith in liberal economics.

The cogs of the mental machine are meshing smoothly, everything is ticking along nicely. But then a gnashing noise interferes. For, while a modern economy increasingly activated by the push of a button is ravenous for highly qualified labour, it pushes aside with disdain the primitive, muscular kind.

That raises socially existential questions, such as what to do with the millions of people incapable, for various reasons, of functioning in an ever more esoteric economy.

If one button does the job formerly done by 100 workers, what will 99 of them do (one will be needed to push the button)? What will we do to prevent a social situation pregnant with the embryo of revolutionary outburst? How do we reconcile any possible solution with the values we hold as immutable and the rights we hold as inalienable?

Suddenly our commonsensical thought spins out of control. We realise that common sense has reached its limit because coming into play are so many factors that it’s impossible to forestall entropy by basic rational calculations. We relied on common sense to lead us to social virtue and ended up in a cul-de-sac.

We bump our heads against the wall trying to find a way out, only to realise this isn’t one cul-de-sac but many, not just an economic one but also social, cultural, educational, religious, legal, political, generally civilisational. We aren’t really in a cul-de-sac, it turns out. We are in a maze, with no lantern to light up an exit.

We now have to backtrack to the starting point of first principles, hoping that the breadcrumbs we’ve been spreading along the way are still there to signpost a safe route of retreat. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, so we are left fretting and sweating.

None of this is to denigrate common sense as such. It’s a useful tool, even as a sledgehammer is useful. However, basic tools alone won’t get us very far.

Lowly common sense, typically operating on a strictly empirical level, will only ever be useful in solving high tasks if it’s a servant to the master of sound first principles. Interestingly, though common sense can’t do without such first principles for long, the latter sometimes don’t have to rely on the former to arrive at truth.

One example from my own experience, if I may, and I’m only using it because it’s close at hand, not to toot my own horn. My friends and readers of long standing will confirm that I’ve been saying and writing from the early 90s that all those glasnosts and perestroikas hadn’t made Russia any more virtuous or any less dangerous.

That went against the grain of not only public opinion but also common sense. My judgement didn’t tally with the compendium of known facts, that indispensable toolkit of empiricism. Moreover, many of those who held the received view had more facts at their fingertips than I did (I’ve caught up since then).

I proceeded strictly from general principles. Russia, I knew, had for 70-odd years been ruled by evil, possibly the greatest political evil that mankind had ever concocted with the devil’s able assistance.

Yet the devil can be defeated, evil deeds can be forgiven, sins can be redeemed. However, that takes genuine remorse and readiness to pay penance.

None of that was in evidence. The flagbearers of supposed purification were a motley group of CPSU Central Committee secretaries, other high communist officials, a swarm of KGB officers and organised crime figures. They had changed their language but not their spots.

Knowing that, I was immune to ‘common sense’ and all the widely publicised facts of democratic elections, parliaments, free enterprise, disappearing censorship and other wonderful things happening to Russia. Proceeding strictly from first principles, I knew that, even if true, those things wouldn’t last. The evil wasn’t dead. It was only dormant, or yet lurking in ambush, waiting for the right moment to raise its head.

If the devil is in the details, then God is in the first principles – provided they are true. And details put first principles to a test, either proving or disproving their truth. Common sense comes in handy when we gather the necessary facts and arrange them in the right order.

In other words, common sense is a useful tool of first principles. But God help us all when it’s posited as their replacement.