In this article, I’m looking at the brilliant philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “The Beetle in the Box” analogy.

Wittgenstein rose to fame with his first book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in which he proposed the idea of a picture theory for words. Very loosely put, words correspond to objects in the real world, and any statement should be a picture of these objects in relation to one another—for example, “the cat is on the mat.” However, in his later years Wittgenstein turned away from his ideas. He came to see the meaning of words in how they are used by the public, realizing that private language isn’t possible. To provide a simple explanation, we need an external reference to calibrate meanings to our words. If you’re experiencing pain, all you can say is that you experience pain. While the experience of pain is private, all we have is a public language to explain it. For example, if you experience a severe pain on Monday and decide to call it “X,” and a week from that day, I have some pain and decide to call it “Y,” one cannot be sure if “X” was the same as “Y.”

The beetle-in-the-box analogy is detailed in his second book, released posthumously, Philosophical Investigations:

“Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: We call it a ‘beetle.’ No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But suppose the word ‘beetle’ had a use in these people’s language? If so, it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language game at all, not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. No one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.”

The beetle in the box is a thought experiment to show that private language isn’t possible. The beetle in my box is visible to only me, and I can’t see the beetle in anybody else’s box. All I can see is the box. The way that I understand the beetle or the word beetle is by interacting with others. I learn about the meaning only through the use of the word in conversations with others and how others use that word. This is true, even if they can’t see my beetle or if I can’t see their beetle. I can never experience and thus know their pain or any other private sensations. But we all use the same words to explain how each of us experience the world. The word beetle becomes whatever is in the box, even if the beetles are of different colors, sizes, types, etc. Sometimes, the beetle could even be absent.

The box in this case is the public language we use to explain the beetle, which is the private experience. The meaning of the word beetle then is not what it refers to, but the meaning is determined by how it’s used by all of us. It’s an emergent phenomenon. And sometimes, the meaning itself changes over time. There’s no way for me to know what your beetle looks like. The box comes to represent the beetle.

I love this thought experiment because we all assume that we can tell what others feel. We talk as if we’re all talking about the same world. We talk about the beetle as if everybody has the same beetle in their boxes. But everyone else’s world is different, and their worlds are constructed based on their worldviews, mental models, schemas, biases, etc.

The construction is a dynamic and ongoing process. The construction is a recursive process in the sense that our construction influences how we interact in the world, which in turn influences the ongoing construction of the world. From this standpoint, we can see that reality is multidimensional and that there are as many realities as the number of participants. There’s no one reality, and we can’t assume our reality is the correct one. What exists is a co-created reality with others, and this co-constructing activity is on a delicate balance. Nobody knows everything, but everybody knows something. Nobody has access to a true reality. To paraphrase Heinz von Foerster, we don’t see it as it is; it is as we see it.

We all talk about systems as if we all know what they mean. We say that we need to think about the purpose of the system or that it’s the system, not the people. Systems are mental constructs we create based on our worldviews to make sense of phenomena around us.

Most of the time, when we talk about systems, we’re speaking about a “part.” For example, when we talk about the “transportation system,” we’re may be referring to the bus that’s running late. Similar to the beetle in the box, my system isn’t the same as your system. My view of the healthcare system changes when I become sick vs. when I’m healthy. The same system has a different meaning and purpose if you’re a healthcare worker vs. being on the board of the hospital. We can’t stipulate a purpose for the system because systems don’t have an ontological status.

We also cannot stipulate a purpose for a co-creator. To do so will be to assume that we can see the beetle in their box. The great systems thinker West Churchman said that systems approach starts when one sees the world through another person’s eyes. Wittgenstein would say that this is impossible. But I think what Churchman was getting at is to realize that our “system” is not the only system. What we need is to seek understanding. With this view, Churchman also said that there are no experts in the systems approach. Werner Ulrich, who built upon the ideas of Churchman, said the following:

“The systems idea, provided we take it seriously, urges us to recognize our constant failure to think and act rationally in a comprehensive sense. Mainstream systems literature somehow always manages to have us forget the fact that a lack of comprehensive rationality is inevitably part of the conditio humana. Most authors seek to demonstrate how and why their system approaches extend the bounds of rational explanation or design accepted in their fields. West Churchman never does. To him, the systems idea poses a challenge to critical self-reflection. It compels him to raise fundamental epistemological and ethical issues concerning the systems planner’s claim to rationality. He never pretends to have the answers; instead, he asks himself and his readers a lot of thoroughly puzzling questions.”

Even though systems are not real, we still use the word to further explain our thoughts and ideas. Ulrich continues:

“What matters is ultimately not that we achieve comprehensive knowledge about the system in question (an impossible feat) but rather, that we understand the reasons and implications of our inevitable lack of comprehensive knowledge.

“The crucial issue, then, is no longer ‘What do we know?’ but rather ‘How do we deal with the fact that we don’t know enough?’ In particular, uncertainty about the whole systems implications of our actions does not dispense us from moral responsibility; hence, the problem of systems improvement is the problem of the ethics of the whole system.”

A book on morals isn’t moral. We can’t assume full access to the real world and stipulate purposes for our fellow co-creators. The purpose of language is not to expose our thoughts but to make them presentable. In today’s world, where complexity is ever-increasing due to growing connections, the beetle-in-the-box analogy is important to remember.

Similarly to the famous credit card ad, I ask, “What’s in your box?”

Stay safe and always keep on learning.

Published in Harish Jose’s blog.