I was cleaning out old emails when I came across this quote –
“On two occasions I have been asked, – ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’…I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.” – Charles Babbage
This lead me to think about an acronym widely used in the computer field, as seen in the subject line of this missive.
It also lead me to think about some book I’ve been reading – Speaks the Nightbird I: Judgement of the Witch and Speaks The Nightbird II: Evil Unveiled by Robert McCammon.
The basic storyline is about the town of Fount Royal, North Carolina in the year 1699. Many troubles plague the town A young woman, Rachel Howarth has been accused of witchcraft, following the deaths of the town’s Revered and her husband. A magistrate from nearby Charles Town and his young clerk travel to Fount Royal to determine if Rachel is indeed a witch. Nearly everyone in town believes she is and is eager for a verdict of guilty, thus allowing them to burn Rachel at the stake. This, they believe, will rid the town of its misfortunes and everything will be right again.
The thrust of the story is the young clerk, Matthew, trying to prove Rachel’s innocence. It is a cautionary tale against letting ignorance and stupidity rule, instead of looking further and getting to the truth of the matter.
The problem is that most of the characters are superstitious, and believe that Satan is at work in Fount Royal. They can’t break free from this thinking either. Matthew gathers evidence and tries to put together a coherent defense, which to us, as modern readers, makes sense. The other characters can’t accept this challenge to their way of thinking. Once they reach the conclusion that Satan is at work, they stop trying to look for any other explanation.
It also reminds me of the story of Guillermo Piazza. During the time of the Black Plague, he was asked to tally up the people who had the plague and where they lived. As he was going around town, he would write down his information. Since they had quill pens and inkpots, he would often get ink on his fingers. He would wipe the excess ink off on the sides of the buildings. An old woman saw him doing this. In her mind, Piazza was marking the buildings so Satan would know where to spread the plague. She raised a stink over it. So, Piazza was eventually arrested, tortured, forced to confess that he was in league with Satan, and burned at the stake.
I would like to say that logic and reason should win the day in our modern world, but I have run into people who act more like the townfolk in the story. I have had a woman tell me that all professional magicians are in league with the Devil because she couldn’t figure out how they did their tricks. That isn’t a sign of being demonic, its a sign that they are good at their job.
I have performed stage magic in my earlier years. Throughout high school I used to do birthday parties for kids. I even did them as a birthday clown. I’m fairly certain that I never signed a contract with Satan to be able to fool my audiences using black magic. I don’t perform anymore, mainly because I’m not a convince enough liar to be a really good magician. But the field still fascinates me. Now my interests lean more heavily into the psychology. I want to know why our brains are fooled by some relatively simple manipulations. My interest also expands out into how people communicate, and how people can be influenced by speeches and media.
People are ruled by emotions, not reason and logic. Any advertiser or marketer knows this, at least the ones that stay in business and do well. The old trope about middle-aged men buying fancy sports cars is true because they feel the car will make them appear more successful and attractive than they are. Once they’ve made that emotional decision, then they come up with all the logical reasons to support that decision.
I’m not sure what point exactly that I’m trying to make. Other than people starting out with mental garbage end up spitting out mental garbage. I’m not sure how we clean out that mental garbage so people act better and make the world better. Maybe more people should adopt Stoic philosophy? Try to be better today than you were yesterday?
To quote the King of Siam in The King and I, “Is a puzzlement”, my Hordeling.
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