Digital and Analog Ethics

I want to continue on this idea of divergent bipolar thinking. A few years ago, when I was in the hospital in a manic state, I remember my mind being obsessed with contrasts. One and zero. Dark and light. Good and evil.

The following day, after the mania had run its course, I participated in a group therapy session. They had us draw a picture of what we were thinking and feeling. I drew a line down the middle of the paper. On one side I drew a landscape with trees, a river, a bridge and green hills. On the other side I drew angular buildings and microchips, with straight lines.

It got me thinking about dualism. In my electrical engineering classes, I took two types of circuit classes: analog circuits and digital circuits. Analog circuits operate on continous, rolling voltage levels, whereas digital circuit use discrete voltages, on or off.

So, which correctly represents the universe? Is it digital or analog? The answer is both, depending on the level you're looking at. If you were to look at the voltage waveform of a digital circuit, you would see step wave transitioning between the off voltage and the on voltage, but it would show a steep ramp between off and on. It takes time for the transition, so it's a rolling voltage increase. Digital signals are actually analog. But, if you were to zoom into the quantum level, you would find the electrons are moving in discrete, quantized units as they change state. So at the quantum level, analog signals are actually digital.

Now, let's say we are listening to music on a computer. Computers are digital, but music is experienced as rolling, analog changes in air pressure. So, at the macro level, analog music is built on top of digital circuits.

I want to apply this principle to black and white thinking. Are morals black and white (i.e. objective) or are they gray (subjective)? Again, my instinct leads me to believe they're both.

For example, we would probably all agree it's wrong to kick old ladies in the shins our amusement. Our intuition is this is objectively wrong, meaning it doesn't matter who you are or what situation you're in. You shouldn't do that. But then let's take something like giving money to a homeless, or unhoused, person. Is that wrong or right?

Some would argue the person will just spend the money on drugs or alcohol. It's possible by giving money, we are keeping the person trapped in a destructive addiction. So, the argument could be made that you should not give money to the homeless. But, then the person could trust need the money for basic needs like food. In that case, it's a good thing to help out someone who finds themselves in tough times. So, we should give money.

In this case, the moral in question appears more situational or subjective. We need more information about the specific situation to make an assessment. So, morals appear both objective and subjective.

Now, what about determining which is which? How do we know what's objective versus subjective? I think the answer lies in listening. None of us have all the information at hand, so the more we discuss things, the larger our dataset becomes and the more informed decision we can make.

How do we listen well? One thing we need to practice is controlling our base emotions. There are certain things that trigger us, flip our lid, and take our pre-frontal cortex offline. If we can learn to allow this initial reaction to pass, we can wait for our critical thinking to come back online, and we'll be in a better state to listen without judgment. How do we learn to deal with flipping our lid? I'll write about what works for me later. For now, I think the world is black, white and the gray in between.