Back pain & rationality

Back Pain & Rationality
Mitchell Silver ponders the problem philosophically.
Every move I make is perilous: lacing my shoes, rising from a chair, the slight lean at the bathroom sink to pick up my toothbrush – all are fraught with risk. Although the vast majority of such movements, and considerably more vigorous ones too, pass without incident, every once in a while, without warning, I feelthe ominous ‘click’. There’s no pain involved; hardly any immediate effect at all. However, the consequences of that click are all too predictable: I have ‘thrown my back out’. Within hours my back will lose flexibility, and by the next day I will be unable to walk or sit without pain. Sometimes, it is disabling pain.
Within seven to twenty-one days I’ll be fully recovered, and as far as I cantell, the precise recovery time is unrelated to what I do following the inauspicious ‘click’. Bed-rest or activity, cold or heat, cold and heat, spinal adjustments, massages, drugs, acupuncture – or none of the preceding – no difference – same seven to twenty-one days. Nor has any preventative regimen been able to increase the (apparently random) interval times between such incidents. Yogapractice, morning stretches, exercise regimes of varying and sometimes conflicting approaches, good chairs, proper posture, weight loss, anxiety reduction – all have often contributed to my general well-being, but have not demonstrably decreased the occurrence of back incidents.
What’s a fellow to do? There’s no shortage of answers. Books, articles, blogs, mainstream and alternative healthcarepractitioners, and approximately every other person I meet during my back episodes, or to whom I mention my back history – they all have advice. Some advisors echo others, some are in partial harmony with others, and some appear contrarian soloists. Many advisors have an almost religious conviction regarding the rightness of their remedy. More than once I’ve been told that I am a “stubborn fool” for notimmediately going to a particular chiropractor (the advisor’s).
I teach philosophy and consider open-mindedness a professional as well as personal virtue. If I am to embrace any form of stubbornness, I like to think that it is because logic and evidence has rooted me firmly to a position, and that better logic and new evidence would quickly get me to uproot and plant myself in more solid ground. Sothe charge of ‘foolish’ stubbornness wounds. However, when dealing with the lumbar regions, avoiding foolishness, whether of a stubborn or a capricious variety, has proved difficult. My back pain is a challenge to my devotion to Reason.
Which Reasons?
Philosophers distinguish theoretical from practical reasoning. Theoretical reasoning is a process which, if done well, leads the reasoner tobeliefs that are true, or likely to be true. If attaining truth is the goal for beliefs, theoretical reasoning is a tool for generating successful beliefs. However, if we are unsure that the reasoning has been done soundly, we should remain skeptical of the belief’s truth. We are even free to have no beliefs regarding many matters. Moreover, a proposition shown to be merely probable can be held to bemerely probable. In theoretical reasoning, the quality of belief can be calibrated to the quality of the reasoning that generated it.
Practical reasoning is a process which, if done well, leads the reasoner to actions that are effective, or likely to be effective. (A fuller description of practical reasoning would need to include its role in judging the worth of an action’s goal. Reasoning leadingto or judging an action’s effectiveness is a subset of practical reasoning best called instrumental reasoning. However, when the goal is uncontroversial, as in the context of this essay, practical reasoning is essentially instrumental reasoning.)
In contrast to theoretical reasoning, if we are unsure that some practical reasoning has been done well, we cannot often shape our actions to accord...