Page 65 - Big Idea

The Big Idea – Act 3

How, in short, can you hope to survive very long
Without the kind of society you say is wrong?

INTELLECTUAL: Hope? Faith? Belief? These must be grounded
in practical realities. If the future cannot be known, then educated
guesses must be made about its characteristics. Those guesses take
the form of probabilities, extrapolations based on past experience,
not wishful thinking.

RIVAL 1: Yes?

INTELLECTUAL: But wishful thinking is not without weight in
such considerations; it represents an element of will, of intended
effort. In this way the mind attempting to forecast any future events
involving its own desires—or the desires of other minds—must be
extremely careful not to lose objectivity.

RIVAL 1: Indeed.

INTELLECTUAL: Now, to give objectivity its due, a case can
always be made for the opposite; that is, whatever calamity I might
conceive befalling our Big Idea, it is also possible that no such
disaster will occur, regardless of the regularity of Such nasty things
happening in the past. It’s like poking a stick into a hornets’ nest:
perhaps the hornets will not notice, or maybe they are not at home at
that precise moment; the chance remains that the poker will not get
stung.

RIVAL 1: Granted.

RIVAL 2: (whispers) You’re being awfully agreeable!

INTELLECTUAL: But you have raised the crucial issue of
concatenation.

RIVAL 2: Eh? What’s that?

INTELLECTUAL: The temporal linkage of uncertain outcomes, the
unfavorability of any of which will break the entire chain.

RIVAL 2: You call that an answer to a question? What do you mean?

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