Asking the wrong question

 During an interview with two scientists featured in the New York Times Science Times section yesterday ("Physics and the Future" beginning on page D1) cosmologist Michael Turner of the University of Chicago commented, "That's the hallmark of great science: You ask a question, and often it turns out to be the wrong question, but you have to ask a question to find out it's the wrong one. If it is, you ask a new one."

I frequently find myself asking the question, Who is telling the truth? If that is the wrong question, perhaps I should instead ask, What do these people really want?

In the nuthouse, I think "patients" mostly want freedom without having to bear much responsibility, plus pleasure, safety, and maybe a decent game in life. "Staff" mostly want professional respect without having to demonstrate much professional ability, plus money, security, and maybe prospects for a better job. There are outliers, of course. Some people just want power to steal and destroy, some just want to do God's will.

But the project for the overwhelming majority in the nuthouse, is to negotiate an acceptable compromise. That means "patients" have to demonstrate better behavior, and "staff" have to exercise better control.

Demonstrating better behavior is completely bound up with communication ability. So you have to be able to: 1. be there; 2. get an idea across to someone without bothering or upsetting them; 3. notice whether they did get the idea that you communicated; and 4. hear and acknowledge their communications in return. These are skills that can be taught. No one will ever think your behavior has gotten better unless you have these skills. If you do have these four skills, you're golden, nothing else is fundamentally necessary.

Interestingly, exercising better control is also completely bound up with communication ability. Unless you can master the same four component skills, you will have to use brute force. You will be an oppressor, not a doctor or helper; you will be fought and you will have to fight back.

This may seem simplistic, but it is true. Applying it as truth will get you what you want.