Proverbs

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth" - Bohr

Good advice should be informative. Proverbs are often good advice. But proverbs don't seem to be very informative. This is partly because they're old, so everybody knows them already, and partly because they're very general, so they can't carry much information about specific situations.

This suggests a dilemma for would-be advice-givers. Suppose someone wants advice on how to make a risky decision, and you offer the proverb "Nothing ventured, nothing gained". On one horn of the dilemma, if you know enough about their situation to say something more specific, shouldn't you do so? Aren't you just violating Grice's maxim of quantity by not doing so?

But on the other horn of the dilemma, if you don't know enough about their situation to say something more specific, then why are you even giving them advice? Putting aside self-serving motives, if you can't say something more specific than a proverb, why should they think that following your proverb is even a good idea?

At first, it's tempting to take this second horn of the dilemma, and insist that proverbs are still informative enough to count as good advice. For one thing, even if the wisdom they contain is perennial, it can still be useful to be reminded of that wisdom. On this model, people have certain systemic biases, and proverbs act as a counterweight to these biases. Maybe people are generally too cautious, or prone to thinking the grass is greener, or whatever. Proverbs exist to prompt people to correct for these biases, either by reminding them of what they've forgotten, or by advising them to act as they already know is best. Since these biases are so widespread, it's typically positive expected value to use proverbs as a counterweight, even if you don't know much about the situation at hand.

This theory might explain some proverbs. People are forgetful, and akratic, so it can be useful to remind them of what they already know they should do, even if such advice isn't especially informative. But this theory runs into a difficulty, namely, the fact that so many proverbs contradict one another. For example;

If humans have systemic biases, and proverbs are an easy-to-use tool we've evolved to prod us out of these biases, why should proverbs so often contradict each other? How could proverbs move us in the right direction if they're as likely to shift us left as shift us right?

The mistake in this objection is failing to notice that these proverbs do point us in a single, consistent direction. Specifically, each pair of contradictory proverbs still share the same framing of the situation at hand. Each proverb in each pair pushes the hearer to understand their situation in the same terms.

To take "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" and "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush", both these proverbs frame the situation in terms of risk-attitudes. Whether you hear the first proverb, and consider becoming more risk-positive, or the second, and consider becoming more risk-averse, you're still understanding the situation in light of the question "What risk attitude should I adopt?".

The same framing effect applies to each proverb in the other four pairs. The five pairs of proverbs frame the situation in terms of the following questions:

These shared framings explain how proverbs are often good advice, even though they are both generic and old.

To recap, since people are forgetful and akratic, it's often helpful to be reminded of things we forget, or pushed to act as we already know is best. This explains why advice can still be worth hearing even if it's old and vague.

But like I mentioned earlier, proverbs often contradict each other at the level of practical action guidance. This makes it hard to see how proverbs could in themselves push us to remember useful things, or act as we already know is best. Instead, it looks like the advice-giver has to know what you ought to do, then pick the proverb that encapsulates this advice.

But if you know enough about someone's situation to know which proverb they need to hear, why aren't you giving them more specific, action-guiding advice? Are proverbs just mnemonics that don't contain any domain-general wisdom? Are proverbs as likely to steer you wrong as steer you right?

No, proverbs do contain wisdom, though unlike most good advice, this wisdom doesn't directly tell you what action to take in any given situation. Instead, the wisdom of proverbs is found in their framing of common practical problems. Each contradictory pair of proverbs picks out an especially useful way of thinking about how to act. These ways of thinking can be summed up in the questions I listed earlier ('Should I take risks?', 'Should I be patient?', etc.)

Proverbs prompt you to think in terms of these general concepts and questions. They prod you to think in terms of appropriate risk-attitudes, not the vibes you got from the salesman trying to sell you a new insurance plan. They make you see things in terms of patience and cooperation, not the title associated with a possible promotion, or how a particular family member would react to you asking for help.

This push towards generality has two benefits.

In the short term, seeing your situation in terms of general practical questions prompts you to recall similar previous experiences. In doing so, you don't just draw on your experience buying insurance while making a decision, but also your experiences playing poker, buying used cars, and moving house. Drawing on this wider body of evidence should, all else equal, encourage you to make better decisions than had you not heard the proverb.

More speculatively, seeing a present decision in more general terms may also let you recall that decision more easily in the future. If you view your decisions of whether to buy life insurance and whether to buy a lottery ticket as answering the same fundamental question ('What should my risk-attitude be?), you're more likely to recall both experiences when making future decisions about risk. This wider recall plausibly leads to more consistent and better informed future decision making.

One final upshot of this model is that proverbs, understood as answers to highly general practical questions, are actually a kind of anti-advice. While the value of most advice comes via informing you about a specific situation, or pushing you to take a certain action, the value of proverbs is in pushing you to think for yourself, and consider your own experiences more deeply. Like tarot cards and astrology, even if proverbs often contradict each other, and contain no real information about your present situation, they still have value in prompting you to recall what you already knew.