Proof in the Pudding Exercise

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

“As a society, we seem to have the unfortunate tendency to swallow the most ridiculous statistics as if they were gospel. We seem willing to accept any ‘fact’ or ‘theory’ as long as someone throws us a number to back it up. It doesn’t seem to matter if they clash horribly with what we know to be true: our experience, knowledge and rational abilities just aren’t worth as much as statistical evidence.” - God’s Bastard Blog

Comment: I liken this to the “Proof of fact” often used to ensure acceptance of that persons beliefs in martial arts. I hear things like, “Personal Interviews,” and the like where qualifiers are added as if that supported such personal interviews, i.e., video record said interviews or video and interview older prominent martial artists of Okinawan karate.

Here is another rub to this “Proof of Fact” effort, that such memories, since none of it till this video interview of a personal account, are subjective at best. Memories are just not that solid of evidence of fact. 

In one source it has been found that due to the differences in one’s background and identity they see and hear events differently than someone else present at that time. Add in that over time our minds change then we have to remember that the recreation of memories goes a bit like this, “Human memories fail on a regular basis; our memories are not really like video cameras; our real memories are severely hampered by limits in perception and attention; we are incapable of processing the incredible amount of material we encounter every second of every day. Just seeing or hearing or smelling something does not create a discrete memory that we can readily recall. … It does not matter how many times we have seen something or even how important it is. … If we don not have a reason to note of something at the time we are less likely to remember it. We all, also, tend to lose our ability to recall a lot of what we experience and then our memories do not perform as we expect them to. We tend to only remember the ‘gist’ of what happened and we are much less successful in remembering verbatim details. The specifics of what happened are also the fastest to slip away, with the exact words of a conversation being particularly delicate.”

In addition, “False memories are often highly specific, which makes them all the more believable both to the people who carry them and to third parties (including police officers, jurors, and judges). In most cases, our false memories are not made out of whole cloth but are instead logical extensions of what we would expect or want to have happened. Conjuring memories provides us with a narrative that makes sense and affirms what we want to believe. People’s recollections of events are abut 80% accurate. Roughly every fifth detail is false. A quarter of inaccurate memories were given with total confidence. Research shows that a witness’s eyesight and age, the viewing duration and distance, and the lighting all play a role in whether a memory is encoded accurately.”

Yet, in the martial art communities and specifically in certain particular system or style communities, folks will readily accept such supposed facts from their authority figure, i.e., their Sensei in their Dojo, etc. In our modern society we have been conditioned and influenced greatly by media such as television and movies not to forget the sudden burst of interest and use of hand held cell phone video capability and so on. We forget that such media are controllable by the person filming and subject to such psychological influences of such “Qualifiers” added to frame and influence the viewer to “See what they intend” rather than view it objectively. 

We also have to remember that through the interview process the form, content and intent of the questioner frames and influences the answer the interviewee provides in addition to the memory issues discussed in previous paragraphs of this article Add in cultural belief systems and perceptions and distinctions of each individual that influence the memory extraction process you often get a picture that if we were able to view history directly as it happens through a fictional history viewer most often they would not match. Yet, adding in such qualifiers as the interviewer being a “First Generation Student” and a “History Researcher” and a “Expert,” etc., you are being influenced and steered toward an agenda of the interviewer who in all likelihood innocently influences the audience so they will easily and readily accept their view, perspective and proverbial historical fact per a “Personal Interview with Master So-n-So.” 

Lets add in a few more memory issues that also influence such efforts, i.e., “There is substantial evidence that people regularly confuse individuals in their memories. The process of retrieving memories, remember, is a constructive process: sometimes we cut out someone’s face or body and paste it into a completely different setting. Suggestion can create false autobiographical memories.”

and, “When we watch a video, listen to a recording, or look at a photograph, we feel as if we are viewing things in an objective, neutral manner. But then, not everyone does see things the way we do. We operate under the illusion that reality enters our brain through our senses unfiltered.”

Ergo, memory is very, very subjective. If we fail to question such information we will be influenced according to our personal feelings, perceptions, opinions and emotions (in a sense our emotions, often referred to as our monkey brains, will often be the most dominant influence to the point it tells our human logical brain it is wrong when it isn’t, etc.)

Until some scientific and/or historical source actually achieves appropriate scientific and historical studies of such things there will never be any “Fact” that will actually support many of the modern martial community beliefs. Many historical researchers of martial arts have achieved great strides in documenting historical information but that information may never achieve a status of “Fact” because this particular subject and discipline has no definitive historical fact or documentation that does anything other than lead to assumptions so we have to believe or not according to our personal beliefs, etc.

The shame is that so many have come to believe such things as “Dogma” that they cannot see the light to lead them to greater understanding and knowledge but remain steadfast in their personal socially connected dojo group belief system. I also believe this is one reason why even a system or style proponents in the community tend to disagree according to each groups own belief systems, etc., and that is a shame because it hinders the growth potential of the system or style of community or dojo or tribe or group. 

Oh, and you can include this article in all the above and that is why I have the disclaimer in each one, click the link at the top of this article to read if not already read. 

Bibliography (Click the link)