Too stupid to know we're stupid?

[Jeff Matthews]

A major pitfall in not recognizing our stupidity is that we assign an undue level of certainty to our inferences without basis. When we make mistakes, it's often because we've failed to recognize that we could be wrong. Overconfidence and ignorance are a dangerous combination.

Sounds like the case against religion. A ripe candidate for follow-up in the BS section.

[oldtimer]

Partially Mark. Yet the data processing is what has led to our survival. The infant cannot survive on its own. Perception is necessary for knowledge and knowledge is necessary to perceive the right questions and even that there are unknown unknowns. A purist idea of one over the other is to fall into Plato's pure forms trap.

[Jeff Matthews]

Mark, you're peddling the same argument. Until you've made friends with a wasp, you don't know what a great friend it can be. How many tries are you willing to go through before you get stung enough?

[sputnik]

...........Direct experience of the perceptive kind requires no "information, data, knowledge." In fact, that is what BLOCKS perception. In order to perceive you must stop all that data processing.

My example of the homeless guy on the street wasn't about the information and data of some set called "homeless people". If you walk past him reviewing the data in your mind, you have missed the perception of a fellow human being. The point of removing bias, removing all that pre-judice, and pre-conception is to experience "the taste of honey". Human beings are not their clothes, their job, their outward appearance, their bank accounts, their beards, tattoos or shopping carts full of tin cans. Under all of that superficial content is a real living human being exactly like you. If Humankind (that's you and me) lose the intrinsic value of each other, only mass destruction can follow. [more precise: this loss of intrinsic compassion is what allows people to kill millions of others in wars anonymously.]

The adult mind wants to process data 100% of the time. That's a result of conditioning. But compare that to an infant's mind, which has no language, no pre-conceptions, or pre-judices, but which is a perception machine. Adults after conditioning lose all that perceptive capability and they suffer for that loss.

Using the example, we use both empirical (perceptive) information and deductive (processd) reasoning to "see" the homeless person. We might need to discover that the person was a war veteren and suffering from PTSD or was put on the street because of medical bills or is actually lazy in order to more fully recognize the person's "intrinsic value." We might need to discover something deeper (information, data, knowledge) than just feeling compassion.

Even the infant is forming conclusions and patterning behavior from various perceptions. Without developing deductive reasoning, the infant will never begin to understand (not just know or intuit) his/her world.

[Mallette]

Have you ever simply observed a bird (let's say) with only awareness?

Gotta chime in on that. I know what you are saying. Seizing a moment of simple existence and bathing in the beauty of nature, no thoughts of how it came to be, what it's good for, or what comes next.

Impossible to describe in words, but the most true feeling of "I am."

Dave

[oldtimer]

But it's a luxury you can now afford due to age and accomplishment. Mark I would bet you never had to deal with these questions as a 20 year old as part of your education. You have gone on to produce things that people desire for what they do. Did you design these "in the moment?" I strongly doubt it. Now you can step back and think about it and you seem to make judgements that those who are not in the position of luxury (philosophical musings are a big sign of luxury to do so) that they are somehow suffering as a result. Well maybe from that point of view they are suffering. At the same time maybe I think you have suffered all of your life for never having dealt with it until recently. Now you are playing catch up. So tell us: what would you have done differently?

[oldtimer]

You can fill your head with mountains of knowledge and not know a single thing about life.

Your definition of knowledge is narrow. What is perception for if not for knowledge? Why bother to perceive at all? True knowledge is everything about life. I understand your point that for some prior experience can block perception, but what I am asking is assuming one can open themselves to your idea of pure perception then why? Is it mere self indulgence or something better? Is the result something that can be shared?

[oldtimer]

For semantic purposes---got it. My definition included what you call ineffable.

[Mallette]

The tao that can be told

is not the eternal Tao

The name that can be named

is not the eternal Name. -- Tao Te Ching

That's either the Jane English/Gia-fu Feng translation or someone who copied it.

My personal favorite of the 15 or so I have.

Dave

[gnatnoop]

we're doomed, the dinosaurs ate rotting meat and did quite well, we go to Wendy's and get indigestion. It'll all be over soon.

you have actually survived a visit to Wendy's?? You must procreate and save our species!

[gnatnoop]

The most intelligent people i've met don't think they are all that smart. One factor of intelligence is to avoid the situation described in your subject line.

[oldtimer]

The more we talk about it the more stupid I feel, but I'm still too stupid to know if that's the right thing. Although I'm not too stupid to know that gnatnoop backwards is a good thing.

[CECAA850]

Although I'm not too stupid to know that gnatnoop backwards is a good thing.

Now I feel stupid. I never noticed that. I guess I didn't know how stupid I was.