I
care about what is actually true. Truth
is the thing that I value most. I want to believe as many true things and as
few false things as possible. I want my internal “map” of reality to match the
actual reality I live in as best as possible. “Truth”,
however, appears to be relative in our human society. I’m not
talking about real truth here. I’m talking about “truth”. One is the
actual thing; the other is the idea of the thing. One is
real; the other is the mental construct of our evolved, primate selves. There seem
to be many versions of “truth”. These are the many subjective, individual
interpretations of reality that people seem to arbitrarily concoct, accept and
embrace. These “truths” can be discovered in all their varying degrees and
forms within the very many social platforms and utilities we rely upon in
everyday society to create and/or maintain our fundamental beliefs of life;
(friends, newspapers, schooling, television, internet, email, commercial
adverts, family, strangers, social events, signs stapled on poles,
word-of-mouth, etc.). Today’s “mediascape”
does not provide much guidance. It only subliminally encourages us to create
personal, solipsistic filters over information, making it easier than ever before
in human history to gorge ourselves on the beliefs and views of favorite
celebrities, TV shows/movies, sports people, political
pundits, pseudo-sages, and the screens of our tech toys. This deluge leaves little
time and attention for much else and the great risk is that it may be making us
meta-ignorant -- less cognizant of what we don’t know. There have
been many psychological studies that tell us that what we choose to see and
hear is shaped by our preferences, wishes, fears, desires and so forth. We literally
see the world the way we want to see it and dangerously not like it may
actually be. This creates an ecosystem in which the truth value of the
information begins to not matter. All that matters is whether the information
fits in your personal narrative and with your bias. Most humans want to understand the world in the best way that works for them and not necessarily the best way they can. This is always much easier mentally and is the least uncomfortable path through life. Everyone wants to be thought of as rational but unfortunately so very many aren't and don't even realize it. With truth, easier is usually not better. I’m no
longer alarmed by the saturation of the tepid versions of “truth” around us; I
don’t lose sleep over them. I mostly don’t care anymore because there is very
little I can do about it anyway. It’s all way bigger than I. Yet I can’t help muse
quietly about it, from time-to-time, or occasionally “out-loud” within a forum
like this because it interests me and I wonder about it. I even pine, once in a
while, for a better existence than what I’ve come to realize existence gives. I
sometimes catch myself saying, “Is this as good as it gets? Is this as deep as
it is? Is this as challenging as it ever becomes? What’s it all mean?” To me, it’s
like the difference between having an interaction with a sane, grounded person
who understands dirt, water, life, the earth —— reality, as it really is, and
an interaction with someone who believes weird, crazy, unsubstantiated things
and who constantly makes comments about life, reality and existence that are
just plainly wrong, illogical, fantasy, unsubstantiated, uninformed,
un-researched or ignorant? These
interactions with the latter can be amusing at first but they soon become
frustrating to experience time and time again and it aggravates to have to
quietly tolerate them. It’s a situation reflected by an old saying, “It’s not
that they don’t know; it’s that they don’t even know that they don’t know.” It’s
similar to a recently recognized cognitive bias known as the Dunning-Kruger
Effect — our incompetence masks our ability to recognize our incompetence. When people
are incompetent in the strategies they adopt to discover truth around them,
they suffer a dual burden: Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and
make unfortunate choices due to that, but their incompetence robs them of the
ability to even realize it. A version of “ignorance is bliss”, I suppose. It appears to
me that the beliefs that the majority of society holds are probably held simply
because it is the easiest path to traverse within the mental world. It requires
little self-analysis and offers forgiveness against self-correction or
requiring research for real facts, evidence and information. It’s an easy
stance, it’s comfortable and a person can continue to live at a level of
functionality that is accepted and colluded with by society at large. Truths
arrived at in this way aren’t all necessarily wrong of course but their ease
and comfort of discovery, and if they agree with us, shouldn’t be the primary
basis to accept and hold them. We are
swiftly creating a world in which we increasingly have more and more ultimate control to
focus our beliefs in any way that pleases us -- if you see something you don’t
like or care to understand, you can easily tap away to something more pleasing
or bias confirming. We are increasingly sharing what we believe with our own like-minded
social networks, creating closed-off, shoulder-patting circles of conformity
while villainizing or denigrating anyone who doesn’t see things our way. It's becoming
easier and easier for a person to live an entire life inside a protected bubble. It’s a
dangerous trend of focusing more and more narrowly rather than broadly. Easy,
uncomplicated and simple – following the path of least resistance. This is a general
accounting of our evolutionary state, I suppose. What feels 'good' is generally
considered good, true or not; what is uncomfortable (even though it may be true)
feels difficult to sustain and so is generally shunned or avoided because it
induces extra effort or pain. Critical
thinking skills, applied to your own beliefs and discoveries, as well as
everything else, are most vital. More importantly, if you don't continue to
exercise critical thinking skills, they will fade, eventually leaving you with
a false impression of your own abilities to discern truth and with a skewed map
of reality. Sometimes I
wonder if it may simply be a problem of hubris, not epistemology; if it is just
some variant of plain self-deception -- thinking that you know something
that you do not and too proud to even think you don’t. Are we simply more emotionally
based beings than intellectually based ones? I’ve come
to realize that any advances toward the discovery of real truth that I’ve
managed to make in my lifetime of mulling things over, dwelling on them, and the countless
hours of musing I've done is, in the end, basically a personal exercise with value to me only.
My little discoveries, however wonderful I may think they are, influence
hardly anyone close to me much less anyone outside of that circle. Usually, I
find people simply don’t care to think on those levels; it’s too difficult and lonely. Anosognosia
is an interesting and unusual condition I recently read about. It’s a condition
in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of, or denies the
existence of, their disability. I can’t help but think that the way many people
deal with truth is like the “anosognosia of everyday life”. A big concern I have
is that people tend to act according to what they believe in life and of course
ignore that which they have no conception of, so in that way, ignorance
profoundly channels the course we take in life. The “unknown unknowns”
constitute a grand swath of everybody’s field of ignorance compared to what they infact believe and know. (The
“unknown unknowns”, as famously mentioned by Donald Rumsfeld once during an old
interview, is a whole other topic that I may get into at some other time). Anyway… I may believe that I'm an
uncommon anomaly in our society but I too am only an 'evolved monkey' like
everyone else. Naturally, I occasionally fall prey to the longing that develops
in my mind to belong to a tribe, to fit in, to be included in the greater
group, to compromise a bit on some of my beliefs, such as they are. Unfortunately the
price to that club is usually many times greater than I’m willing to pay, than
I wish to give up. I’ve worked too hard, too long. Thankfully, I can usually
override the longing, slap myself in the face when I lose focus, and soon feel
compelled to once again revisit and tweak my map of reality to try to line it
up with what is real and true. I am indeed seeking the truest of journeys
through life. In that mission I remain stalwart in my inclinations in spite
of the flagrant abuse of logic and discipline-of-thinking I observe in mostly
every person I come into contact with regardless of their stature, age,
education, station or inclination in life. It’s a
bittersweet existence for me. I wonder why some humans like me, are tortured
with this gift/curse of ‘insight’ that largely torments and disturbs us, while
mostly everyone else blissfully sails through life without the desire/need to
consider larger questions or question deeper issues. I've come to a point where I can no longer tell myself that widespread irrationality, the belief in god(s), ghosts, fairies, uncharted energy sources or realms, sasquatches, spirits and angels in the beyond, after-life nirvanas, hydrotheraphy, space saucers and little green men, psychic clairvoyants, etc., are all just another lovely part of the tapestry of humanity. Most people, even non-believers due to social pressure, appear to have signed on to the "National Geographic" approach to foolish behaviors. This magazine's editors in particular, I've noticed over the years, seem to have a peculiar mindset; "Oh look! There's another group of strange acting people! Oh how wonderful!" Let's capture them in pretty light, provocative poses, and pretend there's something uplifting, deep and spiritual about this spectacle of people engaging in superstition, twaddle, and irrationality. It's simply the glorification of bunk. It's all smoke — it's really -nothing-. But it's embarrassing in how it gains legitimacy through bias presentation. And this type of thing is ultimately harmful, it's just a matter of degree. Without even going into how irrational beliefs can cause strange, damaging behaviors when interacting with fellow humans and other creatures, this stuff is the ultimate 'time-suck' of mankind! It's diminishing the one thing we all have only a finite amount of. Time wasted on this stuff could be put to profound use in the discovery of innovations, inventions, working in actual soup kitchens, educating unfortunate people on how to improve their lot in life, even simply cleaning up a stretch of highway ditches, or planting gardens, solving social issues, or running errands for the sick and infirm, or even real self-development. And the scariest part... it continues! Yes, on we go, spending hundreds and thousands of hours 'instructing' and indoctrinating children and the new batches of next generations to make the same stupid choices, think in the same lazy, twisted ways, with our "wise" guidance — and the wasted minds are perpetuated. * When someone disagrees with you it is most important to understand why that is. They may have a good reason or not but the important thing is to find that out. The rest of it is subsequent. Why you believe something is more important to me than necessarily what you believe. A person can come to believe something for good reasons or bad reasons and it is those reasons that I'm interested in. Your reasons say the most about you. They reflect your thinking aptitude and reasoning ability. They inform my perception and understanding of your world view and reveal your level of competence of being able to map reality correctly. But from what I see, it seems
that if our bodies are clothed well enough, if we reside in a relatively
comfortable place, if we have enough food to feed our yap, have our share of
material things, and get to participate routinely enough in activities to
appease boredom, isolation or social awkwardness, we’ll mostly be satisfied
with everything around us and about us. We will probably not think that
anything is too wrong, out of place and strange or needs examination and
contemplation. It is in
this state I find the world I live in. But, considering the anguish I have and the anguish others don't, who is
“winning” after all? Hmmmmm... The mind is like a garden. In the beginning it starts out with potential but is basically a plot of bare, rich black soil and nothing grows there yet. It is ready to be seeded. Obviously it is very important what seeds are planted there and how they’re laid out. The problem in life occurs when people start planting in their garden without thought or guidance, or when others plant in your garden without concern for how your garden will turn out. Too often we see people doing not much of anything and basically just letting years go by while stray weed seeds and quackgrass blow in and take hold in their garden. No time or effort is put into planting valuable vegetables or planning the garden or noticing and dealing with the weeds. Eventually, what good is that? Sure, they all grow green and start to look full but one style of plant (weeds and quackgrass) is basically useless -- while the other sorts (flowers) may look lovely, easy and appealing but haven't much use beyond looks -- and still other sorts (vegetables) demand effort and thought but in the end provide nourishment and sustainability. Coercion is something generally avoided by members of society. We prefer getting along without the coercion of others. People tend to be proud and wish to be left to their own devices to reach their own ends and conclusions (even while not wanting to be totally independent or exclusive of the tribe they identify with). It seems to be a love-hate thing within humans. We value earning our place by ourselves, under our own steam, but surely love and even seek the ‘hug’ for doing so, afterwards. Considering this, it may be better to simply plant small, important seeds in another’s mind then leave these people alone to cultivate their own garden of thoughts and ideas from those seeds — rather than pushing full grown plants on them to adopt, that they won’t have any stake in or take pride in. I recently thought of another way of putting this...
Ask yourself... Anyway, does it all feel unbounded and arbitrary? It needn't. It's simply hard work. I guess I wrote this entire rant because I now fear that I should probably concede the urge to ‘enlighten’ and try to remain
largely silent in my views, thoughts and ambitions; people, afterall, tend to be hard stanced and tough nuts to crack into. I should just try to be humble, quiet, and be happy with that. In the end,
does my particular 'mind-junk' matter to anyone else anyway? Probably not. It's a personal journey that we must care to take in the first place. “The trouble with the world
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