Article

Comment

Conspiracy theory

Death & life

29 August 2024

4 min read

A Bayesian theory of death

The sinking of the superyacht displays the probability, and banality, of death.

George Pitcher

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

Rescue workers look at the plan of a yacht.

The search for the Bayesian.

Vigili del Fuoco.

On any statistical calculation, the probability of dying by drowning when your luxury yacht suddenly and inexplicably sinks at anchor in the Mediterranean has to be extremely low.

So it’s the cruellest of ironies that tech tycoon Mike Lynch should so die, along with his daughter and five others, having devoted his commercial life to the application of such statistical probabilities. He had named his yacht Bayesian after the 18th-century theorem that introduced the idea that probability expresses a degree of belief in an event.

That doesn’t expressly mean religious belief. But, intriguingly, it doesn’t exclude it either. According to Thomas Bayes, who published his theorem in 1763, the calculable degree of belief may be based on prior knowledge about an event, such as the results of previous experiments, or on personal beliefs about it.

In essence, you don’t believe your yacht will capsize in the night and sink in seconds, because your experience tells you so. That belief can mathematically be included in the probability of it happening.

We can transfer the method into religious praxis. Christian belief in the event of resurrection, for instance, can be calculated in the probability that the deaths of the Lynches and others aboard the Bayesian are not the end of their existence.

It’s an intriguing legacy of Lynch’s work for theologians. But it’s the sheer lack of probability of the lethal event occurring at all that lends it its random banality. It’s that death visited those asleep on a yacht in the small hours that lends this news story such tireless legs, not just that these were super-rich masters and mistresses of the universe.

There have been bitter observations on social media that the Bayesian’s victims have commanded limitlessly greater attention than the many thousands of refugees who die in small-boat crossings of the Mediterranean every year.

This is a category mistake. And again, Bayesian theory can be deployed. Experience supports our belief that crossing the sea in overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels can all too often lead to tragically terminal events. The probability of death is plain. Again, it’s the sheer randomness of the Bayesian yacht event that sets it apart.

If death can visit at any time, there can be no difference in the valuation of long or short lives.

That randomness brings us back to the banality of sudden death among us, almost its ordinariness, something that just happens, often entirely out of the blue. The prayer book has the funeral words “in the midst of life we are in death”, meaning that death is our constant living companion. But that doesn’t quite cut it for me, because it tells us it’s there, but nothing of its true significance.

The tenets of Christian faith are regularly said to be those of a death cult; that it’s a deep-seated fear of death that leads us to avoid it with assurances of eternal life. But it’s the sheer banality of death, as displayed in the randomness of the Bayesian event, that seems to knock down that idea. In its randomness, death looks ridiculous rather than evil.

Conspiracy theories around the sinking of the Bayesian are a kind of denial of the reality of death too. We want there to be more to it than the utterly banal.

Author Hannah Arendt coined the phrase “the banality of evil” when covering the trial of Nazi holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. I’d want to suggest that it’s that same banality, that basic human ordinariness, that is the real nature of the supposed grim reaper, rather than his evil.

None of this can comfort the Lynch family, who mourn the loss of a much-loved father and his young daughter, or the families of the others who lost their lives on the Bayesian. But it is meant to go some way towards an explanation of what we mean in Christian theology when we bandy about phrases such as “the defeat of death”. Because it’s not a wicked serpent that’s been defeated, more of a pointless clown.

There is something especially painful about the death of the young, such as that of 18-year-old Hannah Lynch on the Bayesian that night, a young woman on the threshold of life. And – God knows – the even younger lives we’ve read about being taken lately.

But the concept of banality may lead us to another tenet of faith: The completeness of every life. If death can visit at any time, there can be no difference in the valuation of long or short lives.

A poem, often ascribed to a former dean of St Paul’s cathedral, begins with the line: “Death is nothing at all.” That’s wrong, as an idea. Death is as significant an event as birth. But its defeat is in keeping it in its place.

The dignity in simplicity with which football manager Sven-Göran Eriksson greeted his final illness is a masterclass in this tactic for life. Death isn’t to be negotiated, it’s just there.

In the end, death isn’t a Bayesian probability, it’s a certainty, for all of us. The difference, in Bayesian theory, must be the belief we bring to our personal calculations of the probability of the event.

Article

Character

Comment

Politics

Virtues

5 March 2025

5 min read

Are virtues irrelevant in today’s uncertain politics?

We need to exercise the character traits that uphold our values.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

President Zelensky raises a hand while President Trump talks at him.

MSNBC.

In Oliver O'Donovan's Finding and Seeking, the theologian makes a telling comment about virtue, virtue referring to ‘the goodness the world has already seen and known…. Talk about virtue is always third person talk, observers’ talk about deeds that have already taken determinate form.’

Put differently, virtue is about the past. It is about how others have lived and acted in admirable ways. But it is not about today, in all of its ambiguity and uncertainty.

To put it directly – virtue falls apart when hit with reality. It is easy to talk about what virtuous people have done, much harder to be virtuous in the present. Or so O’Donovan says.

There has been a lot of talk over recent years about the need for virtues and values in politics (and in the world more widely), but what even are these things?

Values are principles or standards that individuals or societies consider important.

Virtues are moral excellences or traits of character, such as courage, patience, or humility.

Virtues are the moral character traits individuals need to uphold values, in practice.

When thinking about virtues and values, I often reflect on a simple but profound point made by Nigel Biggar speaking at Oxford University many years ago:

"If you want pure heroes, you won't have any."

Put differently, people – including the most virtuous at first glance – are complicated.

Yet, our world is one in which virtue seems to be in short supply. Some would even say virtue (and values) are non-existent, or on the verge of extinction.

The older I become, the more I am left reflecting on why it is that so few individuals – in political life, but also more generally – seem to live without principle. Integrity – which I define as ‘your word (or principle), and action aligning’ – seems increasingly a thing of the past.

Many seem to think that integrity is ‘old-fashioned,’ acting accordingly, saying one thing and doing another as if there are no repercussions.

This is replaced with an ‘anything goes’ mentality, focused on short-term gratification. It is a “you do you” culture, acting without conscience. People seem to believe there are few if any repercussions for doing bad things. This culture is not only permitted, but even celebrated.

The American situation is, of course, the example par excellence of this. American politicians and diplomats wake up each morning waiting for what their President will write on social media, responding accordingly. Alliances are thrown out the window. Nothing is off the table.

There is seemingly less interest in Western societies in being good persons, doing what is right in hard circumstances, and where few or no people are watching.

Whether in politics or in society more widely, people seem increasingly focused on protecting themselves, doing whatever they need to do to get ahead, rather than looking out for each other.

So where do we draw the line? Is there space for virtue (and values) in a world where growth is slowing, and more people are battling for parts of a shrinking pie?

I believe the answer is yes. My sense is that many people are today yearning for clarity of values and virtues in a world that is becoming much more anchorless.

There does then seem to be interest in values and virtues, but it is perhaps worth remembering that values and virtues are like muscles... It is possible to lose these muscles without practice.

In my home of Canada, where I recently moved back, many value decency, politeness, and a sense of moderation.

In 1955, while serving as Canada’s Secretary of State for External Affairs, Lester B Pearson put his figure on this pulse, delivering a series of lectures at Princeton University entitled Democracy in the World. Pearson argued that a sense of moderation is a leading value for Canadians.

He described this as a ‘confidence in the ability of the peoples and the leaders of democratic nations to grow into the new situations and to accept the greater self-discipline which the preservation of freedom in an interdependent world requires.’

And he saw Canada as especially emblematic of this ability to grow into new situations, this adaptability in working in an interdependent world.

Many Canadians believe that the thirteen provinces and territories need to adapt and work together in order to respond to the threat of the United States.

The candidate for Leader of the Liberal Party, Mark Carney, seems to agree (and is rising in the polls because of this), whereas his opponent Pierre Poilievre is moving in the opposite direction given his more combative approach. But Poilievre has time and the opportunity to turn this around, channeling Canadians' frustrations into a vision focused on the values and virtues we share in common.

In other words, Canadians value working together when faced with challenges, valuing this solidarity when times are tough. We become more courageous the tougher things become.

The virtue of courage is here a noteworthy virtue, so well proven in the Great War battles of Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and The Somme, or the Battle of the Atlantic in World War Two.

We see this Canadian virtue emerge often in times of crisis.

Andrew Davison in previous writing in Seen & Unseen is especially eloquent on courage, writing that this virtue is:

‘both bracing and realistic. It reminds us that all is not well with the world. We will often need courage because doing the right thing can be costly.’

There does then seem to be interest in values and virtues, but it is perhaps worth remembering that values and virtues are like muscles – a point made by Carney in previous writing and speeches. And Poilievre, well-known for his considerable discipline, certainly understands the importance of the exertion that builds muscle."

It is possible to lose these muscles without practice. Over recent years, societies and individuals have become more permissive, rather than encouraging consistent exercise.

The question therefore is less about whether values or virtues will survive in the harsh light of reality. Instead, it is whether societies – their political representatives and citizens – are open to making the short-term investments necessary to uphold what they believe is good in their countries and in the world?

A tall task, to be sure, but one that I believe is both possible and necessary for Canadians and non-Canadians alike. Canada can here be an example for the world.

This task – upholding certain values and virtues, is not third person talk, as O’Donovan suggests. It is rather an imperative for action in the present. We are called to act accordingly today.