u.1 what is utility?
Utility is a word with many meanings, thus this entry shall first define which means do not apply to this discussion. This discussion is not about those entities that provide you with electricity and water. This entry is also not about the degree to which a thing is utilized.
Utility, as it relates to humanity, is the amount of positive, meaningful change that a noun can provide to a human. And as I do in all of my topical introductions, I shall state that humanity is defined simply as belonging to the species homo-homo-sapiens. To state that something is humane or inhumane is not a part of this discussion on utility.
In my day job, I design screens for computer software. I measure the utility of a screen by how much value it provides to a user; that is, does it make her job easier and, if so, by how much? I can measure that empirically using a timer and asking a user to perform a task, but with respect to utility and humanity, it’s a more nuanced question.
First, I must expose one of the most common errors people make in determining utility, and to do so, I will use a book, or several as it may come to pass. Let us begin with an individual walking into a room and seeing a large book on a table. For the scientific types, it is about 10” wide by 14” long and 5” thick, and weighs 6 lbs. (For true scientists, 25.4 cm w x 35.6 cm l x 12.7 cm t, and 2.7 kg.) What is its utility?
Before this question can be answered, types of knowledge need be defined.
Intelligence is that which can be learned through study, simply.
Wisdom is that which is learned through experience, commonly called “common sense.”
The most obvious answer is that the utility of the book depends upon its contents. And, that answer would be incorrect. The book could be used in the following ways:
- To hold down a ream of paper when there is a great amount of airflow in a room
- To hold open a door that will not remain so on its own
- To hide paper within the pages of the book
- As a leveler for a table or chair that is unleveled by 5”
- As a weapon with which to smack an unsuspecting intruder into stupor or unconsciousness
- As a device to hold a beautiful bookmark
There are many more – an almost infinite number, actually. The ways in which it can be used is limited almost exclusively by the creativity of the person contemplating its usefulness. Furthermore, the content of the book isn’t even a certain marker of utility: children with any drawing instrument can and have found hours of enjoyment writing on pages of paper regardless of existing content. The common misconception is judging a book a book, rather than an object most often used as a book.
How, then, does this relate to humanity? To answer that question, I shall use two different books of roughly the same proportions: The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language, and the Christian Holy Bible. The first is a book that seeks to provide clarity to speakers or would-be speakers of the English language on how words are spelled, pronounced, and defined. The second is a book considered holy to sub segments of the population who consider themselves “Christians.”
The utility (with respect to knowledge) of the first is dependent upon its age to a large extent. A speaker of modern English (proper) would not find definitions for such things as “transistors,” “Internet,” “email,” or “voicemail” in a dictionary that is 60 years old. Go back further, 100 years, and “Pluto” will be defined as the Roman deity of the underworld, not as the ninth planet, and not as a “dwarf planet.” The second is much more complex. Nearly every book except holy texts are subject to editorial review and revision, or they are classified as words of fiction (and still may be subject to editors and revision prior to publication). The tome of Æsop’s Fables is considered by the plurality of society to contain short stories that have good morals. The events portrayed in the story are not considered literal transcriptions of events. Similarly, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is understood to be a fictitious play created for entertainment. Accordingly, while these works undergo slight revisions for better understanding to modern speakers of various languages, the general stories remain unaltered.
Enter the Bible. (Here, when capitalized, this refers to the Christian Bible containing the “Old” and “New” Testaments.) The first element of utility of a written work is its relationship with its audience. When an author seeks to write a work, she decides if it will be a children’s book, a cook’s book, a home-improver’s book, or a general-purpose story. She also decides if it will be a work of fiction, or non-fiction. Non-fictitious books must not contain any unproven facts, or must state that such items are merely presumed to be true. Fictitious works often contain facts, but the plot itself is not based on actual events in a literal fashion.
The Bible was written for goat herders over 2,000 years ago. With respect to intelligence, students who have passed the first grade of primary education have more intellect and understanding of the world than did this group. The societal norms and strictures of 2,000 years past were entirely different as well. Books were not common, as Gutenberg’s printing press was well over a millennia away. So, to even say that the Bible was written is a misnomer: the Bible was “collected” over a great period of time, being penned by various men as they “learned” of its “teachings.”
The utility of the Bible to goat herders was likely very high. The divine laws that it proscribed brought order to an otherwise-chaotic society, and fellow “believers” were likely to follow the same set of “laws” for fear of an all-powerful “God.” Women were chattel, and accorded barbaric standards considered quite acceptable at the time given sections were added to the collection. Many current readers do not even know that the calendar employed then did not consist of twelve months!
How this applies to utility in humanity is that one is not condemned to hell for not knowing the how to respond when called a misodoctakleidist (to save you time, it is a person who hates practicing the piano), and is not condemned to death by stoning for being a clapperdudgeon (a beggar who is the child of beggars). As we learn new things about biology, chemistry, avionics, physics, physiology, neurology, meteorology, and psychology (to name a miniscule few), we revise our texts explaining the principles and facts that govern those subjects. Therefore, revision is a natural way of increasing the utility when done so in a way that benefits readers by the refinement of provable, actual, actionable truths.
Science does not prohibit divinity from ultimately being responsible for creation, but it does disprove some a great many passages contained within the Bible presented as truth. Revision of the Bible is considered heretic and sacrilegious, heterodoxy in its purest form. Tell a parent that his child is being taught from a ten-year-old physics book and he’ll (rightly) demand that his child’s school use a current text. Tell that same literal-biblical-Christian parent that his child is being taught that the Bible is mythology along with tales of Mount Olympus and the Titans, and the School Board will be convening a hearing on the matter and apologizing for treading on religious freedoms.
Consequently, the utility of the Bible to modern audiences is extremely low because it cannot be updated to take into account the facts that have proven it inaccurate. Even the very wording used to explain passages as infallible because they are “the gospel truth” is damning to the very cause the Bible purports to promote – common understanding and peace. This can be demonstrated no better than with Einstein, of course.
e=mc2
Einstein is considered by a vast plurality of the population of Earth to have been a genius. He states that the amount of energy is equal to the mass of something times the speed of light, squared. This is known as Einstein’s theory of relativity. It is more importantly not Einstein’s law, rule, or constant of relativity. It is and remains a theory until proven false, or less true. Moses, however, is not told to have received The Ten Recommendations, nor The Ten Guidelines to a Better Life. Disagree with the Ten Commandments and you are in contradiction with a purportedly omnipotent, all-knowing deity who shall strike you down or condemn your soul to hell because you exercised the free will that deity supposedly gave you.
If you are poor and your children starving, and your neighbor rich and gluttonous, you break a commandment if you take food without permission to feed your children: thou shalt not steal. Literally speaking, women are lucky regarding the Ten Commandments, for there’s nothing stating a woman cannot covet her neighbor’s husband, or (preferably-adult) son. Utility is found almost everywhere but in the Bible. Let us look elsewhere for an example of a law.
Sir Isaac Newton has three laws of motion. For brevity’s sake, I shall examine only the first, which reads:
“An object at rest remains at rest unless acted upon by a force. An object in motion remains in motion, and at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.”
The key word in this law is “unless.” If this had been written biblically, it would read, “an object at rest remains at rest; an object in motion remains in motion.” Conversely, if a commandment had been written scientifically it might have read,
“Steal not from others, unless they are greedy and your need is great; ask first for what you need, and take what you need without permission only as a final resort.”
I could rewrite all of the commandments, and major scriptures as well, but the point is hopefully made upon the readers. The utility of anything is based upon its relevancy to its user. Furthermore, that utility must be for the collective good to be considered valid. Where within our society do the pious and righteous walk up to police officers and state, “you are going to hell, for you have killed!” Modern society has deemed that when one individual threatens another, or many, forces up to and including lethal ones may be employed.
You shall not kill, unless the killing of another is the only way that the protection of innocents and the greater benefit of society is the result from the killing. You shall first employ all attempts to resolve a situation that do not involve killing, and use so only when it is a last resort.
Is that too verbose? Perhaps it is difficult to convey in Aramaic. An all-powerful god certainly could have whipped up another tablet or two if space was an issue, or emblazoned in a smaller type.
The casual reader will likely interpret this as an attack on the Bible, or on Christianity when in fact it is neither. This is an examination of an example in which the utility of an object pertinent to a large portion of humanity has purposely been allowed to erode! Taken literally, biblical texts do more than condemn homosexual men to death by stoning (again, women are not mentioned in Leviticus in that respect), women who are raped in the city must be stoned to death, eating shellfish is a sin, as is wearing blended-fiber clothing. (Leviticus 20:13, Deuteronomy 22:23, Leviticus 11:12, and Leviticus 19:19)
While I am grateful that in most countries these are not taken literally, the greater question is what utility these passages have in modern times? We do not stone people in western culture, at least not in the civilized portions thereof, and yet we leave these passages unchanged. This has nothing to do with secularity of states, and everything to do with the stupidity of not revising a text to make it relevant.
While I would enjoy rewriting the bible into modern text as an academic exercise, there are computer screens that demand my attention. I ask only that when you look at any object, you weigh its utility as it relates to humanity before deciding how – if at all – you will employ it in your life.
—fin—
intuityfluidityutility.wordpress.com 