Sunday, April 19, 2020

Hermes: Covid-19 and Story

So my last post left me in a relativistic muddle, unable to choose among competing localized epistemologies, or seemingly so. In their introduction to Serres, Harari and Bell say that Serres claims that all epistemologies are equivalent, but they do not quite define what they mean by equivalent, so I feel quite free to go off on my own to make sense of it for me. That's probably what I would have done anyway, even if they had provided a definition. I really do read to learn what I think, not so much to learn what others think. It's one of the things that makes me such a poor scholar.

Anyway, in what sense are localized epistemologies equivalent? Does this mean, for instance, that epidemiology as a system of knowing is equivalent to conspiracy theories about the Democrats undermining the Trump administration in terms of understanding and responding to Covid-19? I can think of some ways these two localized epistemologies are equivalent.

First, I think all our systems of knowing and believing are made up by us. We each create our own peculiarly localized epistemology. We each have a mind with an idiosyncratic set of affordances that enable us to perceive and understand the world and ourselves in an individual manner. We each sit at the center of our own worldview, and that view is as distinct as a fingerprint.

But just like a fingerprint, almost all of our minds are recognizable as human minds with contours, lines, and whorls that echo from mind to mind, print to print. We are at once both unique and similar, same but different. This is in large part because we do not create a worldview out of thin air. We are all born into amazingly rich physical and cultural environments with which we spend a lifetime exchanging energy, matter, information, and organization. This dynamic interaction with a physical and cultural environment is just as necessary for the development of a way of knowing as is the network of neurons in our brains and through our bodies. In fact, the environment may be more important than my nervous system — the physical and cultural environments can exist and function quite well without my individual mindset; however, my mindset cannot exist without the environment. Of course, the environment needs some minds — and apparently, the more and more varied, the better — but the scales of importance tip decidedly in favor of the group mind embodied in the Earth, just as my mind is embodied in my body. My mind/body must exchange with the Earth's mind/body, or it is stillborn.

So all epistemologies are created by each of us individually in our dances with groups of other people and with the Earth, and all of us create multiple ways of knowing. We have, of course, intellectual ways of knowing, but we also have physical ways — body-knowledge — emotional ways, spiritual ways, and so on. And each of these large domains of knowledge have multiple knowledges. Even the hard-headed, exacting sciences have multiple knowledges. Currently, physicists have 5 main string theories, and Brian Greene's book The Hidden Reality explores 9 different kinds of multiverses, and a whole host of other scientists believe that these theories are bunk. The truth is that all of us have multiple ways of knowing reality. We are not Mr. Spock, totally locked into one coherent, logical, and efficient system of knowing, though many of us want to cultivate that ideal. Perhaps amoeba have one system of knowledge, but we humans have multiple.

Saying that each cultural formation or knowledge system is equivalent to any other is not the same as saying that I can't believe any of them. I can believe, and I should. The entire process of maturation as an adult can be summed for me as a process of developing and practicing a range of localized epistemologies, belief systems, stories that allow me to interact with my environment in ways that sustain and enrich both myself and my environments — in some ways, the two are equivalent, certainly complementary: I am my environment. We are our environment. I need a story, or a constellation, to make sense of my journey with my environment.

Of course, like most of us, I was born into a group of stories and given a language, land, family, market, state, church, and school with and within which to speak and adapt those stories. For whatever reason, I was able — again, like many of us — to examine my inherited stories and to find some of them wanting. I've spent the rest of my life changing my stories, looking for a new constellation, and I've been fortunate enough to create a few new stories using many of the old stars but a few new ones and a slightly different contour. But I cannot fool myself, here: I'm still basically a Southeastern US Pentecostal Christian, and my constellations still lie in the same quadrant of the sky as that of my father. If an ancient Egyptian were to view my belief systems, my constellations, they would hardly see a difference between my father's constellations and mine, and they would point to a very different sky quadrant to show their own very different constellations. A good childhood church friend of mine who lived consciously as an atheist always persisted in calling himself a Christian. He explained that all of his cultural values and ideas — even his science and reason — came out of western, Christian culture; therefore, he could hardly be anything else. Of all the people I've known, this fellow was the most like Mr. Spock.

So a major part of becoming a viable human is writing stories with and within your environments, or finding constellations with the stars you can gather. The issue is do I create simple, closed stories or complex, open stories? My father has created a closed, simple story. I have created an open, complex story — rather, I'm creating an open story, for an open story is never finished. Of course, the issue is more nuanced than I'm writing it here. My father's stories are more open than I make them out to be, and mine are more closed. I'm exaggerating our differences to make a point, but all our stories are open and closed, so we differ in degree rather than kind. My father has been fairly open to new stories about race, though his stories about gender, politics, and most of all, religion are closed. Of course, he's also 89. Perhaps my stories will be closing by then. While I'm more open on those issues, I do have my own closed stories. The music of the 60s and 70s was the best, the ONLY music. Rap and hip-hop will never measure up. See? I can be a fundamentalist still.

A complex, open story implies several attitudes and beliefs. First, an open story implies, as Serres seems to, that no story is complete. No story covers it all. No constellation uses all the stars. No system of knowledge sums up all you need to know about Covid-19. Something else always lies outside the explanatory capabilities of any system, as Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates with a system as seemingly closed and airtight as arithmetic (Yes, I'm extending Goedel's rather exacting work outside the field of mathematics and likely unfairly, but I'm comfortable with applying his insight to reality in general). As Paul Cilliers' writing demonstrates to my satisfaction, any system of understanding, any model of reality, that we develop leaves some aspect of reality out so that we can grasp and manipulate the model, and we can not know beforehand if the omitted knowledge is important or not. For instance, the conspiracy stories of Covid-19 have some information that my scientific stories omit, and I cannot say beforehand and with certainty if that information is useful or not. I confess that I am not overly concerned about some conspiracy story being correct and containing useful, actionable information and insight, but I cannot be certain.

Then, a more open story understands that its meaning does not emerge solely from the static, internal arrangement of its own stars — though that organization is vitally important — rather, the meaning of a story also emerges from the dynamic interaction of its internal energy, information, and organization with the environment in a continuous give-and-take that changes both stories, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Any given story can pollute its environment as well as enrich it. Indeed, all stories will pollute some environments and enrich others. The story of oxygen's emergence some two and a half billion years ago, flipping our atmosphere from an anaerobic state to an aerobic state, looks like enrichment to us aerobic creatures, but for the primitive anaerobic microbes that dominated Earth's ecosystem before the flip, oxygen looked very much like pollution, very deadly pollution. It was something like dropping bleach into a petri dish full of Covid-19 — end of story. I'm certain that some organisms will benefit from our current pollution of the Earth and that some aeons hence they may be telling a happy story, but it won't be our story.

A more open story recognizes the value of other stories and will exchange energy and information with those other stories. An open story is resilient rather than rigid. It maintains a core identity through multiple retellings around different campfires. For instance, my Bible is resilient, my father's is rigid. My father is fond of saying, "The Bible says what it means, and means what it says." And of course, my father knows what it means, and I, apparently, do not. This brittle understanding of knowledge led me to initially reject any reading of the Bible, and it has taken me a good long while to learn that the Bible is far more resilient than my father understands it. I find many brittle stories about Covid-19. This is very unfortunate.

Finally (at least for this post), all stories have some value in some context. Conversely, all stories are stupid and inappropriate in some context. The key test for me is actionable knowledge. Does this story, this understanding, lead me to action that increases well-being or decreases it in this situation? For instance, does the story that Covid-19 is being overblown by the Democrats and the liberal media to undermine the Trump administration lead me to any action that increases the well-being of my community and me soon? I think it does not. Could it be useful fodder for idle speculation over dinner with friends and family after the pandemic fades? Possibly, though the fascination might be short-lived for me and could very well lead to a family argument. Could it be the basis of a wildly popular action novel and movie starring Tom Cruise and Alec Baldwin? Hmm … now there's a context that begins to make sense to me. So in some contexts, I can do something useful with the knowledge contained in the conspiracy story. In other contexts, I can do nothing useful.

So I can choose from a range of stories available to me, and I must choose as no choice is also a choice. I must engage the world to some degree and in some fashion to exchange energy, matter, information, and organization, and I engage it through some story — my story — knowing full well that I might be wrong. I have chosen a story grounded in a scientific system of knowledge about Covid-19 that I believe will give the best chances of preserving the well-being of my family, my community, and me. However, as our lockdown continues, I am expanding my stories to include those grounded in economic and spiritual knowledge systems. More hard choices will lie ahead, and the more knowledge systems I can bring to bear, the better.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Hermes: Covid-19 and Power

In my last post, I began writing my way through Harari and Bell's introduction to Serres. I listed the premise and 5 core theorems that they glean from decades of Serres' writings, and I applied, way too briefly, the epistemological issues of Theorem 1 to our current struggle with Covid-19. My takeaway at the moment is that world knowledge is a ragged patchwork of different knowledge systems and points of view, sometimes overlapping and sometimes totally disconnected, and each vying to position itself as the dominant system. Each wants to be the one, true theory of everything, if not for everyone, then for at least one subset of beings. Trying to understand something as complex as Covid-19 requires access to all these knowledge domains, a Herculean task, but necessary for, as Serres says it, "any encyclopedia that omits any of the multiple dimensions of knowledge is a false encyclopedia at the very moment of its realization" (xvi).

I accept up front that no encyclopedic knowledge exists, certainly not within the mind of any one human such as I. Such knowledge requires God, and I don't have access to that encyclopedia, though I know people who believe that they do. Anyway, given that I must make decisions about Covid-19, then the more knowledge domains that I can bring to bear on my decisions, the better. I know that I tend to privilege some knowledge domains over others — in the case of Covid-19, I favor scientific and technological domains in general and epidemiology in particular — but all domains hold some actionable knowledge that may be of benefit. In short, I accept the truism that the more I know, then the better decisions I can make. I also accept that I will never know enough to make decisions with absolute certainty. Complexity does not allow certainty, only probability. Probability is woven into reality somehow. Harari and Bell summarize it this way, quoting Serres' collection of essays in Hermes V:
"To see on a large scale, to be in full possession of a multiple, and sometimes connected intellection" means to understand that the foundation of knowledge presupposes neither one philosophical discourse nor one scientific discourse, but only regional epistemologies. (xiv)
Regional epistemologies leaves us with something of a social and political mess: we have multiple, local ways of knowing that have competing rules and stories, and as they develop and assert themselves, they inevitably come into conflict with other local ways of knowing, many, if not most, claiming to be the one, true theory of everything. Any one, true theory of everything — whether religious, social, political, or scientific — has great difficulty tolerating opposing theories, which are, from their points of view, at best wrong and at worst threatening. Threats must be subjugated or destroyed.

This brings me to Theorems 2 and 3 of Harari and Bell:
  • Theorem 2: Any theoretical exigency is inextricably linked to a moral or political exigency. (Theory always borders on terror -- something that has always been known in academic circles that engage exclusively in theory.) From this follow two corollaries: (xvii)
    • 2.1: A philosophy is not purely and simply the result of a free choice ; it always results from a double necessity, theoretical on the one hand, moral and political on the other hand. (xvii)
    • 2.2: The theory of science is akin to the theory of domination. Knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is always finalized by political practice : "To know is to engage in a practice implicated in the ideology of command and obedience." (xvii)
  • Theorem 3: There is no hierarchy of cultural formations. "It is not, it has never been the case that science is on one side and myth on the other. In a given myth, millennial tradition, or barbarous thought, the proportion of relevant science is probably as great as the proportion of mythology that envelops any given science." From which one may draw the following corollaries: (xix)
    • 3. 1: Science is a cultural formation equivalent to any other. Thus one passes from the cultural formation called "science" to any and all cultural formations. (xix)
    • 3.2: There is no "natural" hierarchy within the sciences. At any given moment, one scientific discourse may fall silent to give another scientific discourse or mythology a chance to speak. (xx)
Whatever belief or knowledge system we hold -- and I hold belief and knowledge to be similar concepts, as Serres helps me explain in Theorem 3 -- our tendency is to champion our own system and to disparage or destroy through assimilation, argument, law, and violence other systems. We find it very difficult to say, "Well, this is true for me, and my next door neighbors are free to believe as they wish." We want to surround ourselves with like-minded and remove those who are different. Moreover, those who hold to a one, true theory of everything tend to regard opposing theories as imminent threats to be ignored at best or forcefully opposed.

Even if we are liberal-minded enough or confident enough in our own systems to be willing to engage, understand, and co-exist with other systems, times of great stress which force a public decision can reveal fault lines among different knowledge systems. Covid-19 has done this.

Different epistemologies lead different people and groups to formulate different responses for this pandemic — everything from doing nothing to total isolation until we have a cure and vaccine. For instance, if you see Covid-19 as a judgement by God on a wicked people, then you will have a very different response to the pandemic than if you see Covid-19 as a naturally occurring and overly aggressive pathogen, or as a conspiracy by the Chinese to attack the United States, or as an economic issue that threatens to disrupt the world's leading economy. All of these different responses play out from very different knowledge systems, and I can see these different responses playing out around the world, though most modern countries do not seem to be as conflicted as the United States, but that may be because I do not see those other countries as well as I see the US.

The genuine need to respond to an existential threat forces people to make choices, usually based on their view of the world. For instance, if you think that personal power and economic health trump all other considerations, then you will make one set of choices. If you think, on the other hand, that a scientific approach to public health is primary, then you will make different choices. Some of those choices may overlap, but many won't, and those that don't will make plain the different knowledge systems among people.

Unfortunately, and especially in a time of crisis such as we face with Covid-19, people must make decisions and take action. Those individuals and groups with the most power will make decisions for themselves and others, and it will be painfully obvious that "any theoretical exigency is inextricably linked to a moral or political exigency." If people are of a like mind — if they share a common knowledge system — then these decisions by leaders can match the group well (Note that I'm not saying that the decisions will be correct, only that they will fit the group well). However, in a pluralistic society such as the US and many western countries, where people adhere to very different knowledge systems, coherent decision-making and action becomes problematic. Even if everyone is acting in good faith, conflicts will emerge among the differing world views. To prevent chaos and to enable action, coherence and adherence will be enforced by whoever has the most power, but not everyone will like it, and for many, decisions made and actions taken — or not taken — will appear wrong-headed and counterproductive, even disastrous.

This is where I am and where I think many in America are. Some of us believe that the decisions and actions of the Trump administration have been disastrous and wrong-headed, some of us don't. Some of us think the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, has been too stringent in her stay-at-home orders, and some of us think she has not gone far enough. My 89-year-old father believes that my 87-year-old mother's nursing home is being grossly unreasonable in stopping him from visiting his wife of seventy years. Never mind that he has been basically free-range during the pandemic, in part because he still mostly believes that the pandemic is being over-played by the Democrats as a devious attempt to undermine the Trump presidency. His behavior and mindset do not match mine.

Needless to say, I find it difficult to discuss Covid-19 with my father and to agree on a public course of action.  I present my scientific facts, which he largely dismisses, he presents his conspiracy facts, which I largely dismiss, and we get nowhere. It is, of course, incredibly easy for us both to dismiss the other as unreasonable, and here's the rub, from our different "regional epistemologies", from our different little islands of understanding, the other is unreasonable. We don't see the same facts, and what common facts we do share, we don't arrange the same way. Our epistemologies work in different ways to create different world views. We both look in the sky and see different constellations. We are both genuinely confused and annoyed that the other cannot see our constellations.

Moreover, Serres claims that there is "no hierarchy of cultural formations." Rather, "Science is a cultural formation equivalent to any other", and indeed, there is "no 'natural' hierarchy within the sciences. At any given moment, one scientific discourse may fall silent to give another scientific discourse or mythology a chance to speak." If I believe this, then I cannot claim any natural or inherent superiority of my scientific point of view over my father's conspiracy point of view. I probably shouldn't even use the pejorative term conspiracy to label his point of view, though that is what it seems to me. Dad's constellations are equivalent to my constellations, mine to his, and we have both believed our own constellations for so long that they seem natural and self-evident.

Well, I seem to have gotten myself into quite a relativistic muddle here, and with power thrown into the mix, I can see great potential for struggle and injury on all sides, just as I see in the daily news. Is there a way out for me? I think so, but this post is long already, so I will write about telling Covid-19 stories tomorrow.

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Hermes: Covid-19 and Enough Knowledge

So I'm being given an object lesson in connectivity, exchange, and emergence, though not the one I want. Still, the pandemic is here -- I may as well think about it. I'll consider the virus in light of my readings through Michel Serres' collection of essays, Hermes: Literature, Science, and Philosophy.

I start with the introduction to the book by Josue V. Harari and David F. Bell who attempt to outline through a list of theorems Serres' program for exploring his primary thesis ("Introduction: Journal a plusieurs voies"). According to Harari and Bell,  Serres' thesis, first noted by Rene Girard, is simple: to demonstrate the passages and connections between the exact sciences with their regime of mathematical demonstrations and rigorous observation and experimentation and the human sciences with their more open literatures, myths, and discussions. Harari and Bell list 5 theorems that they glean from decades of Serres' writings and which, they say, suggests the contours of a program of philosophical study that Serres pursued for much of his life:
  • Theorem 1: In order for there to be an encyclopedic totality, this totality must be constituted as a theory providing access not only to a field of knowledge but to the world as well. (An encyclopedia that omits any of the multiple dimensions of knowledge is a false encyclopedia at the very moment of its realization: this explains, in Serres's view, the repeated failure of all philosophers of totality.) (xvi)
  • Theorem 2: Any theoretical exigency is inextricably linked to a moral or political exigency. (Theory always borders on terror -- something that has always been known in academic circles that engage exclusively in theory.) From this follow two corollaries: (xvii)
    • 2.1: A philosophy is not purely and simply the result of a free choice ; it always results from a double necessity, theoretical on the one hand, moral and political on the other hand. (xvii)
    • 2.2: The theory of science is akin to the theory of domination. Knowledge, including scientific knowledge, is always finalized by political practice : "To know is to engage in a practice implicated in the ideology of command and obedience." (xvii)
  • Theorem 3: There is no hierarchy of cultural formations. "It is not, it has never been the case that science is on one side and myth on the other. In a given myth, millennial tradition, or barbarous thought, the proportion of relevant science is probably as great as the proportion of mythology that envelops any given science." From which one may draw the following corollaries: (xix)
    • 3. 1: Science is a cultural formation equivalent to any other. Thus one passes from the cultural formation called "science" to any and all cultural formations. (xix)
    • 3.2: There is no "natural" hierarchy within the sciences. At any given moment, one scientific discourse may fall silent to give another scientific discourse or mythology a chance to speak. (In some cases mythology may even express or explain the emergence of a new field of knowledge. This happens for instance in the nineteenth century with the emergence of topology.) (xx)
  • Theorem 4: "Science is the totality of the world's legends. The world is the space of their inscription. To read and to journey are one and the same act." One must therefore conceive of a philosophy that would no longer be founded on the classification and ordering of concepts and disciplines, but that would set out from an epistemology of journeys, forging new relations between man and the world" (xxi, xxii)
  • Theorem 5: Order is not the law of things but their exception. (xxvii)
I find their outline of Serres' thesis and program very helpful, especially since I have not read as much of Serres as Harari and Bell appear to have (much of Serres' writing has not been translated from French to English, and my French is inadequate to the task), but this is a great deal to unpack. After all, Serres spent much of his life unpacking it (he died last year, 2019, at age 88). I don't think I have that long.

Fortunately, I have Covid-19 to help. Lucky me.

Harari and Bell start their overview of Serres' program with an epistemological issue: the problematic relationship between knowledge and the world, or reality. Humans seem to want a coherent, simple world and knowledge of that world, science included, yet everywhere we see evidence of multiple views of the world, and if we travel enough, we see multiple views of the world. This multiplicity disturbs us. We will argue over different views, and we will attack, conquer, and kill over different views. We might want to think that science is above this fray, but Harari and Bell point out that it isn't. Science, too, tends to believe in the mythical one Theory of Everything, the big TOE, that holds in all the universe, at all scales, and explains everything -- and by extension, gives us power over all things if we can just understand the explanation. Harari and Bell explain science's buy-in to the one world view this way:
Until recently, science had convinced us that in the classification of the spaces of knowledge of the local was included in the global ... Clearly this assumption implied a homogeneous space of knowledge ruled entirely by a single scientific or universal truth that guaranteed the validity of the operation of passage. Such a space differs qualitatively from a more complex space in which the passage from one local singularity to another would always require an arduous effort. Rather than a universal truth, in the more complex case one would have a kind of truth that functions only in the context of local pockets, a truth that is always local, distributed haphazardly in a plurality of spaces. The space of knowledge, indeed, space itself, would not be homogeneous or rigidly bound together, it would be "in tatters." (xii)
Serres, they say, rejects a simple view of reality and embraces a multiplicity of both reality and knowledge. Harari and Bell quote Serres from his book Hermes V:
No, the real is not cut up into regular patterns, it is sporadic, spaces and times with straits and passes . . .. Therefore I assume there are fluctuating tatters; I am looking for the passage among these complicated cuttings. I believe, I see that the state of things consists of islands sown in archipelagoes on the noisy, poorly-understood disorder of the sea, ... the emergence of sporadic rationalities that are not evidently nor easily linked. Passages exist, I know, I have drawn some of them in certain works using certain operators . . .. But I cannot generalize, obstructions are manifest and counter-examples abound. (23-24)
There is no Big TOE. Or to say it more comprehensively: there is no God's Big TOE. Actually, I'm not willing to say that in any absolute terms. Perhaps there is a Big TOE and perhaps it is God's Big TOE after all, but I am unable to know it in any encyclopedic sense. I can't say what Serres' final judgment of God's Big TOE might be, but he seems to suggest that he thought it highly unlikely. Rather, reality itself is too complex for a Big TOE: "the real is not cut up into regular patterns, it is sporadic, spaces and times with straits and passes." Serres clearly sees an issue between reality and the models of reality that we humans like to construct through our various knowledge regimes.

Knowledge can be thought of as a model-making activity: we try to capture reality in words, numbers, and images that we can share with others and that enable us to extend our authority over the real. Both the religious and scientific minded, in the West at least, tend to believe that the world was made for us and that we were given dominion over it, and both our religions and our technology have provided ample evidence to support that belief. Just like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, we want one ring, one Theory of Everything, to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. We want one model of reality by which to exercise our dominion over the world. To my mind, this is the heart of fundamentalism -- political fundamentalism, economic fundamentalism, religious fundamentalism, social fundamentalism, philosophical fundamentalism, all fundamentalisms. Fundamentalism claims that there is only one reality, that there is only one valid way to view and understand reality, and that all other worldviews are false -- or in today's parlance, fake news. Serres rejects fundamentalism. So do I.

Covid-19 helps me explain why.

We -- by that I mean the world, not just the United States -- we are confronted with an enemy that is invisible to all our senses at the human scale. It is, then, demonic. Fortunately, science and technology have exposed this demon for many of us, but millions of us still don't see it, or hear it, or feel it, smell it, taste it. For these people, Covid-19 is demonic or a hoax, depending on the knowledge regime, the island, they inhabit. And lest those of you on the scientific archipelago are feeling smug because you follow Dr. Fauci and the experts at WHO, know that your knowledge regime is no less disconnected and peculiar. For some of you, Covid-19 is seen from a den crowded with screaming, schooless children who are driving you insane. That is a very different understanding of Covid-19 from those who see the virus from a hospital emergency room in tattered protective gear and with too many patients in the ragged process of dying or recovering.

Each of us constructs a model of the virus based on our own particular knowledge regime. That model comes from the reality we confront, our existing beliefs about reality, and the interactions between reality and our minds. Each of us will work hard to see the virus in light of what we already know, and each of us will find evidence -- hard facts -- that fit our model of reality and make sense to us. All of us will struggle to form a simple model that explains and gives us control over the virus, whether we see a biological agent run amok, a punishment by God for our wickedness, or a plot by the Chinese (or North Koreans, or Democrats, or whoever) to undermine our economy or Trump's re-election or both.

But Covid-19 ain't simple, nor is our understanding of it simple. Both are complex; however, the contagion itself is more complex than our understanding of it because models of something (knowledge of something) are always less complex and more simple than the thing itself. The best, the most complete and accurate, model of something is always the thing itself. Serres says in his 1977 article La Naissance de la physique dans le texte de Lucrece, "The best model is the thing itself, or the object as it exists" (202, translated by Harari & Bell). However, we cannot grasp mentally or physically the thing itself, so we make models that we can grasp and understand, but the model always reduces and excludes aspects of the thing itself, as Paul Cilliers explains to my satisfaction (see his article "Knowledge, limits, and boundaries"), and we cannot predict how the aspects reduced or left out change the behavior of the model and distort our knowledge of the thing itself. But they do change and distort. Thus, it is impossible to know anything completely with full fidelity, certainly not something as complex as Covid-19.

Am I suggesting, then, that knowledge is useless (if you can't know it all, then you can't know anything) or that any knowledge system is as good as any other (everybody is entitled to their own opinion, as my students like to claim)?

No.

Both those claims are nihilistic and relativistic bullshit that lead to insanity and death. In the face of existential crises such as Covid-19, some knowledge is better than no knowledge, and some knowledges are better than other knowledges. In the apocryphal words of George Box, "All models are wrong, but some are useful."

Of course, a little knowledge can be dangerous, and we should always strive to gain more knowledge -- especially knowledge from outside our usual knowledge system, but we will all make decisions from positions of relative ignorance in terms of Covid-19.

So here's what I learn from Serres, and from Harari and Bell's interpretations of him: I will never know all there is to know about Covid-19, but despite that lack of knowledge, I must generate as much sense of the virus as I can, because I must be able to take action. To my mind, some sense of where I'm going is better than no sense at all. I want for my family, my community, and me to make it through the pandemic in good health. The more I know, then the better decisions I can make.

Given that I cannot know all there is to know about Covid-19, I must seek other knowledges, often from people I do not know. In the case of epidemics, I look first to epidemiologists. These people have studied plagues and contagions way more than I have, and I have faith that they want to stop the pandemic as much as I do. I access these people through media channels that I trust to tell me just what they say -- no more and no less -- so that I can expand my own knowledge and make my own decisions. I test these people for actionable knowledge. Does this new knowledge help me to make good decisions?

Even as I am taking action, I continue to look for new information. I look to the experiences of others who have already gone through the pandemic and either did well or poorly. Both have lessons to teach me. I read a case study of two side-by-side Italian provinces in the hard-hit Lombardy region, Lodi and Bergamo, that took different responses to the pandemic and had two very different trajectories. Lodi began social distancing on Feb 23 and Bergamo not until two weeks later. At first, the infection trajectories were almost identically upward, but within two weeks, Lodi's trajectory began to flatten while Bergamo continued its exponential rise. Social distancing seems to work. I don't even have to know why to know that it works. That's sufficient knowledge for me to take action.

I also seek knowledge outside the scientific knowledge domain. I look to spiritual, social, political, and economic knowledge domains. While I might privilege scientific knowledge in this case, I cannot ignore other knowledges.

I also reject some knowledges. First, I reject knowledge of those who refuse to seek knowledge outside themselves. Politicians or business leaders, for instance, who systematically remove and undermine scientific and technical expertise from an administration and who surround themselves with sycophants are left with too narrow and simplistic view of any situation, and to my mind, that results in poor decisions. Some leaders today have consistently viewed Covid-19 only through the only frameworks that they value, and they, thus, make decisions based only on considerations about how an action will affect their personal political power, economic profit, and social popularity. When confronted with a challenging situation, such people cannot rise above their own limited points of view to craft a more comprehensive plan of action.

This unwillingness -- perhaps inability -- to seek knowledge beyond oneself is a most damaging trait for anyone, but especially for leaders. Covid-19 makes that painfully obvious to me.