Delightful Life
M&M, Cascadian Lovers
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
"He knows too much, he's dangerous!" we all have read or heard that line.
Humanity is dangerous and I wouldn't have it any other way :3
Is Being Smart Dangerous?
- Thread starter GGecko
- Start date
Welcome to Wondercafe2!
A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!
Humanity is dangerous and I wouldn't have it any other way :3
Teaching people that being smart is dangerous, is dangerous. It's not about smart being dangerous, IMO, but about what purpose knowledge is employed to accomplish that can be dangerous. Ignorance can be equally, or more, dangerous.
Last edited:
Hermann
Well-Known Member
"Against ignorance, even the gods fight in vain."
-Goethe
The trouble with knowledge is that it is relative ignorance. Of all there is to know, those of us who feign ourselves knowledgeable know only a small fraction, and those of us who are ignorant a slightly smaller fraction.
Moreover, analytical knowledge, by its very nature, is fragmentary. If, as I believe, ultimate reality is a unified whole in a state of synthesis, then no analysis can grasp this wholistic Truth. Then the holy whole, as it really is, can only be experienced, and is being experienced, in the pure, undifferentiated, unfragmented, non-conceptualized and unanalyzed experience.
This does not render logical analysis untrue. It merely makes analysis a secondary truth, subordinate to the synthesis, which is the ultimate Truth.
The TAO that can be told is not the TAO.
-Lao Tsu
Our knowledge is fragmentary, and our prophecies are fragmentation.
But when that which is perfect has come, then the fragmentation will end.
1Cor13:9,10 (Luther Version)
Yes. We are all ignorant in the big picture. What I meant is I think it's dangerous to be 'taught' not to learn. For example, the idea that women were not as smart as men and incapable of learning certain things prevailed for a long time. Therefore women weren't taught or encouraged to pursue knowledge about things it was assumed were out of their league or not appropriate for them to know. When you have an elite intelligentsia and a deliberate 'dumbing down' of large segments of the populace that's dangerous.
chansen
Had a point all along
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
We do not have an "elite intelligentsia" dumbing down the population. The best and brightest are trying to teach, not hoard knowledge. Politicians want to muzzle government scientists and economists who don't agree with them. Increasingly, they're getting away with it.
As far as women are concerned, I think girls are more tied to a positive future than boys are. We need to free young women from being breeders. We need to get them an education, as a fundamental human right. There's my "fundamentalist" side - I want all kids to receive their fundamental right. We need strong women to balance out the aggressiveness and impetuousness of young men.
I'll also note that where girls are not getting an education, or are not getting a good education or the same education as boys, religion is front-and-centre.
The visible "Christian Right" are fighting against same sex marriage, abortion and birth control, and for guns. Imagine if that energy and money could be refocused to fighting for health care, food shelter, and education for all.
Hermann
Well-Known Member
Hi Kimmio:
Yes, of course, it is wrong not to learn. We all should lean as much as possible, and apply this knowledge wisely. Unfortunately, the Christian Right, along with many other authoritarian organizations and institutions, encourage only the kind of knowledge that suits them and inhibit the free seeking of knowledge.
We do not have an "elite intelligentsia" dumbing down the population. The best and brightest are trying to teach, not hoard knowledge. Politicians want to muzzle government scientists and economists who don't agree with them. Increasingly, they're getting away with it.
As far as women are concerned, I think girls are more tied to a positive future than boys are. We need to free young women from being breeders. We need to get them an education, as a fundamental human right. There's my "fundamentalist" side - I want all kids to receive their fundamental right. We need strong women to balance out the aggressiveness and impetuousness of young men.
I'll also note that where girls are not getting an education, or are not getting a good education or the same education as boys, religion is front-and-centre.
The visible "Christian Right" are fighting against same sex marriage, abortion and birth control, and for guns. Imagine if that energy and money could be refocused to fighting for health care, food shelter, and education for all.
We do. Nowdays it's been replaced by corporate sponsored scientists - a different kind of elite. We have social engineering (as in the 'management' of people to subscribe to corporate and state ideals). We still have large segments of the population who don't have access to post secondary. We have a heavy shift towards hard sciences and data and away from soft sciences, humanities, arts, that contribute to knowledge, to wisdom - to different ways of looking at things. Instead of well rounded educations including those things, we have narrow corporate training programs. We have generation Y and Z whose attention spans have trouble holding beyond the allotted words of a tweet - we are multitasking so many things at once that we are getting away from doing anything well. And our education system has gone downhill. Continuous learning and really well rounded education outside of labour market skills is a luxury to all but an elite intelligentsia. High academia. The rest of us are suffering shorter and shorter attention spans - and becoming busier and less interested. Who reads philosophers anymore? We're being dumbed down by the media, too. I agree with you that our government does not claim to pay attention to high academia much - scoffs at it for being a waste of time. I don't think they necessarily believe that.
http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/5561773
Last edited:
Delightful Life
M&M, Cascadian Lovers
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
Now in the Persiflage Bigtop Venn Diagrams of knowledge!
Visit the Corporate Ring
The cynical ring!
The Mythbusters Ring!
The Engineer Ring!
The Sexual Ring!
[source: google image search]
Visit the Corporate Ring
The cynical ring!
The Mythbusters Ring!
The Engineer Ring!
The Sexual Ring!
[source: google image search]
Now in the Persiflage Bigtop Venn Diagrams of knowledge!
Visit the Corporate Ring
The cynical ring!
The Mythbusters Ring!
The Engineer Ring!
The Sexual Ring!
[source: google image search]
Hermann
Well-Known Member
All knowledge in the universe can be divided into three types: (1) that which is known, (2) that which is knowable but not yet known, and (3) that which is unknowable.
As we acquire more of the type (1) knowledge, we also become increasingly aware that there is more and more of the other two types. Analytical knowledge may have its limits. It seems that the universe is so complex indeed that it exceeds its own capacity to completely analyse itself, and understand itself analytically.
The unified, wholistic, syncretic, synergetic or synthetical universe, however, can be experienced, and is being experienced, moment by precious moment, in the pure, undifferentiated, non-analyzed and unconceptualized experience of reality. To immerse ourselves in that experience, and then think and act directly from this experience, may be the wise thing to do.
As we acquire more of the type (1) knowledge, we also become increasingly aware that there is more and more of the other two types. Analytical knowledge may have its limits. It seems that the universe is so complex indeed that it exceeds its own capacity to completely analyse itself, and understand itself analytically.
The unified, wholistic, syncretic, synergetic or synthetical universe, however, can be experienced, and is being experienced, moment by precious moment, in the pure, undifferentiated, non-analyzed and unconceptualized experience of reality. To immerse ourselves in that experience, and then think and act directly from this experience, may be the wise thing to do.
GGecko
Well-Known Member
Well, Inna, we are not only terrestrial but also cosmic beings. We, as a terrestrial species, will eventually be wiped out. But we, the Cosmos of eternal energy, are forever, or outside of time. Thank God, eh?
Being a few molecules of significant cosmic energy when dead would certainly be preferable to being nothing.
Delightful Life
M&M, Cascadian Lovers
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
August 3, 1859. Were you concerned aboot not being alive/relevant/significant then? Are you concerned now? Why or why not?
GGecko
Well-Known Member
Since I'm not a time traveller (that I know of), don't know what I felt then (1859), but today I am but one small speck in the sands of time. Am I concerned....not particularly.
Hermann
Well-Known Member
Even molecules might eventually be wiped out, along with all other forms of quantified energy, and there will be nothing. But this "nothing" is not an absolute nothing. In my imagination, this nothing is unquantified energy, which possesses the innate power to transcend its unquantified state and quantify itself and thereby start the next cosmic cycle.
I strongly feel that I am this "nothing," so I do not fear it. This is similar to Buddhism, where mystics have experienced the "dark void," identify with it, and do not fear it.
ninj
Well-Known Member
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
I can't help see everything as personal. Does anyone else question their own stage of evolution when driving (I certainly do)? Or the impatience we feel at the checkout? How do we as "smart people" respond? Why are we then saddened and revolted by the ways in which we harm ourselves, one another and the planet?
Delightful Life
M&M, Cascadian Lovers
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
Here's the man hisself explaining his interesting finding that we humans seem to be smarter than our grandparents
As we get less religious (belief in a supernatural g_d), so get we smarter
Oh, and another one on memory (and how yes, even innocent lies can have even broader effects...like belief in hell? and yes, the potential dangers of researchers like John Mack...)
As we get less religious (belief in a supernatural g_d), so get we smarter
Oh, and another one on memory (and how yes, even innocent lies can have even broader effects...like belief in hell? and yes, the potential dangers of researchers like John Mack...)
Delightful Life
M&M, Cascadian Lovers
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her