Psyche's First Task: Systemizing

What is Systemizing



The brain looks for patterns for different reasons. First, patterns enable us to predict the future. If the church bell chimes exactly ten times every Sunday morning at exactly 10am, a mind that can systemize can then predict it will do so again this Sunday at exactly that time. Patterns in the church bells may not be a matter of life or death, but you can immediately see how such a general pattern-recognition system might have wide applicability - anything from predicting how prices vary in the market to how crops vary in different seasons.  Patterns also enable us to figure out how things work by suggesting experiments we can perform, to confirm predictions.  If I put a battery into my clock, the hands start to move.  That's a nice simple example, but that same ability to spot patterns can enable you to figure out a new device that has no instruction manual, or enable you to repair a device that has multiple components. In each case, the trick is to manipulate one of these componoents at a time, and see what happens - what pattern is produced.

The other valuable thing about patterns is that they enable us to  play with one variable at a time, to modify a system, thereby inventing a new one.  If you make a canoe thinner, it moves through water faster.  If you change the weight of an arrow, it can fly further, faster, and with greater accuracy. You can see that spoting such patterns is key to our ability to invent and improve.

Finally, spotting patterns provides us with direct access to the truth, since our predictions are either confirmed as true or false.  The church bell either does or does not ring as predicted.  Philosophers and theologians have long debated what we mean by truth.  My definition of truth is neither mystical, nor divine, nor is it obscured by unnecessary philosophical complexity. 

Truth is (pure and simply) repeatable, verifiable patterns.  Sometimes we call such patterns 'laws' or 'rules', but essentially they are just patterns.  Sometimes the truth might not be all that useful (e.g. the British postman uses red elastic bands to bundle the envelopes), and sometimes the truth might be very useful (e.g. an extra chromosome 21 will switch a baby to develop Down Syndrome).  Sometimes, the truth will reflect a natural pattern (e.g., left handedness is more common in boys than girls), and sometimes the truth will reflect a social pattern (e.g., in India you shake your head to show agreement).  But it is the repeatability of a pattern that elevates it to the status of truth.

Work cited, Zero Degrees of Empathy: a new theory of human cruelty by Simon Baron-Cohen, 2011