What looks like making wrong choices is often just trying. Assagioli on the difference between attempts and errors, and why mistakes are valuable for the soul.
By Roberto Assagioli
Published in UOMINI e IDEE (Men and Ideas), No. 11, Year I, November 1959, p. 345.
Docs. #23988-23989, Assagioli Archives, Florence.
Original title: La Scelta Sbagliata e Altri Errori
[part of a longer article to which two other authors [i]
Translated and edited with notes by Jan Kuniholm [ii]
Editorial Note
The abstract and contextual subtitle in this online edition have been added by the editor, Kenneth Sørensen, to support readability, navigation, and archival consistency. The original wording has not been altered.
Abstract
Assagioli’s contribution to a 1959 symposium in UOMINI e IDEE on the title topic. He distinguishes between attempts (experiments) and errors (claiming to be in the truth), defends a broad understanding of the scientific method, and disagrees with the pessimistic reading of the human condition. Mistakes and their pain serve human evolution; higher values lie waiting inside life to be discovered and activated.
My friend Mackenzie [iii] kindly asked me to contribute to the discussion of the article on The “Wrong Choice” and Other Errors . That article is indeed very “thought-provoking!” [iv] It raises a number of biological, psychological, gnoseological, [v] and spiritual issues, all of which bring one to the threshold of the great Mystery. It is evident that together those issues — indeed even one among them, which are interdependent, after all — cannot be adequately treated within the limits of a brief “commentary.”
(Before examining what makes a choice wrong, it is worth acknowledging the underlying assumption: that genuine choice — free will — is possible at all. Ed)
I will therefore have to limit myself to a few hints and “positions,” without being able to go to great lengths to substantiate them with scientific or philosophical “supporting evidence.” In doing so I will also take into account General Rabbero’s “statement” on that topic. [we]
- I believe, like General Rabbero, that it is convenient to distinguish well between an “attempt” (a trial), ie an experiment, and an “error.” There is error in the proper sense only when one believes and claims to be in the truth: but whoever makes trials; ie whoever finds himself in a labyrinth and tries to get out of it, knows a priori that many of his attempts will be “wrong;” the rightness of one among them will be indicated by verification, by the pragmatic ascertainment of success itself.
- I am convinced — more than my friend Mackenzie seems to be — of the existence and validity of the “scientific method,” provided it is understood in a broad and “liberal” way; that is, including the heuristic value of imagination and intuition, but rigorous and as objective as possible in its specific work of verification.
- I cannot agree with General Rabbero’s pessimistic conception. Already in the field of physics the general validity of “energy degradation,” of entropy, has been effectively denied by the late Prof. Fantappiè. [vii] He demonstrated in ways that seem to me incontrovertible the existence and importance of the opposite principle of “syntropy,” operating at all levels of reality. [viii]
Even apart from syntropy, I believe that an unbiased examination of today’s chaotic human world brings out — intermingled and confused with the negative aspects — several distinctly positive elements. They are indications of a radical renewal; of the beginning, albeit elementary, mostly unconscious, uncertain, and not infrequently “wandering,” of a New Age, ab imis fundamentis , [ix] of new kinds of civilization and culture.
But I cannot even point to them on this occasion.
- I believe that it is not an indication of superficial optimism, but on the contrary the result of a thorough, serene, and extended consideration over time (a long-range view), to recognize that many mistakes, and the pain resulting from them, are useful, valuable, and indeed necessary for human evolution. Sages of all times have emphasized the uplifting function of the pain produced not only by errors, but also by serious faults.
- I fully agree with my friend Mackenzie that Life — understood in its broadest and therefore most real sense — is not merely “utilitarian,” but contains within itself and generously expresses other and far higher “values” such as the aesthetic one, so effectively highlighted in the article under review; the ethical one; and the more specifically spiritual ones.
These “values” are energies present in the human soul. It is up to us to “discover them” (in the etymological sense of removing the “covers” that conceal and stifle them), to activate them, and to make them ever more operative and creative, through our free participation, [with] the fervent, joyful cooperation of our will.
[i] Other contributors, whose writing is not included: G. Cirenei and G. Cogni. – Oath.
[ii] Editor’s interpolations are shown in [brackets]. – Oath.
[iii] William Mackenzie (1877- ?) was a British biologist and writer who lived in Florence Italy for many years and became friends with Assagioli around 1912 when they both investigated the phenomenon of “thinking animals.” He continued to have an interest in parapsychology for the rest of his life. – Oath.
[iv] This essay and its companions are clearly a response to a previously published article, which we have so far been unable to locate. – Oath.
[v] Gnoseology: “the philosophical theory of knowledge.” —Merriam Webster.
[vi] The identity of Generale Rabbero and his writing is unknown. – Oath.
[vii] Luigi Fantappiè (1901-1956) was an Italian mathematician who in 1942 presented the concept of syntropy as part of a unified theory of physics and biology. – Oath.
[viii] Fantappiè suggested that “negative entropy” (aka negentropy ) or syntropy has qualified associated with life in the same way that consciousness is. The principle of entropy in physics suggests that all things tend towards higher levels of disorder; whereas syntropy is found where there are higher levels of order. – Oath.
[ix] Latin: “from the very foundations.” — Tr.
