Daniel Ward writes:

Suppose that error could be abolished. What would someone who never makes a mistake be like? There are two very different responses to this question. One is to think of a superhuman, god-like being. The poet Alexander Pope’s line – ‘To err is human; to forgive, divine’ – is based on that thought. God might pardon but He cannot Himself make mistakes. Infallibility would seem to go hand in hand with omniscience and infinite wisdom.

The other possibility is an entity that, far from superhuman, is largely unthinking. In the 1990s, the comedian Bill Hicks would accuse particularly slow-witted audience members of staring at him like ‘a dog that’s been shown a card trick’. At one level, this lovely image calls to mind a hapless showman wasting his craft on an uncomprehending creature. Hicks was, in part, being self-deprecating. Only a sucker would get drawn into such a futile task. But the implied criticism of his audience is more devastating. For it invokes a whole domain of stupidity beyond that of being a sucker.

The whole point of watching a magic trick, after all, is to be duped. But to be deceived, you have to form an understanding in the first place. The audience has to suppose, albeit wrongly, that, say, the Ten of Hearts was in fact shuffled back into the deck. The proverbial dog has no such apprehensions. It will just ignore what it perceives as meaningless markings on bits of cardboard. Hence it is immune to deception. The same goes for my audience, Hicks is saying: they lack the wits even to follow – and so to fall for – the set-ups to his gags. Susceptibility to error validates rather than detracts from rationality. [Continue reading…]