Hi there,
So I had this sort of massive breakthrough, that stupidity is a part of all of us. I know, weird right? But as I thought about this I came to the conclusion, that not everyone is aware of what this stupid part of us is. The stupid part of us is that part of us which is tied to everyone else, which is stupid precisely because it requires us to communicate to others at their level, a common, familiar level that is not more of anything than someone who is actually stupid could understand.
I personally don't even think there's anything wrong with being completely stupid (in principle).
The thing is that there are certain obligations all of us have to meet, with this stupid part of us, being part of us. One of those obligations - to sidetrack for a moment - is not that we believe everything as rationally as possible. That is a mistake that philosophers of the past have made, presuming that the mind is able to seek an answer and find it, as if simple recall solves the problem of the stupidity that is in all of us, simply by being familiar in some way to the problem of creating thought, or some such thing. Actually believing in something rationally is quite difficult, so its not as if its a skill that is wasted - that's not what I am saying - what I am saying is that it is actually harder than that again.
What is required of us is that we exercise our rationality in the proper context. For example, if we are thinking about apples, we should avoid thinking about oranges, for at least as long as the concept of fruit is unfamiliar to us. Just believing rationally on its own does not achieve this end result, if you say "well apples are like oranges, therefore I will rationally lump them together and call them tree-growths" then you have believed rationally but you have not fundamentally conceived of the fact that the apples and the oranges are fruits. If you do not exercise in context, and have the thought "what do trees produce?" you might go on to call "babies" "human growths" or some such crazy thing. Even a tree knows that its fruits are not accidental growths!
So it is that we discover that exercising in context actually trumps rational belief, and we find that this makes sense, because to have concepts on their own saves nothing, but a concept in context, may relate to many things which are fit for works that save lives (even permanently). Exercising belief in context ensures that we do not miss the concept of "fruit" simply because we already know what "growth" is, or at least have presumed to. It is an exercise not only of genius, but of intelligence, which is a fundamentally human characteristic, of extending the belief of the mind, up out and beyond the rational reach that the concepts would imply was possible. It does not make us gods, but it certainly makes it a lot more likely that when the opportunity to become a god comes along, we will embrace it, not just because it is a possibility, but because it presents a way of life that we can actually live through.
I hope this has been of some help to you.
So I had this sort of massive breakthrough, that stupidity is a part of all of us. I know, weird right? But as I thought about this I came to the conclusion, that not everyone is aware of what this stupid part of us is. The stupid part of us is that part of us which is tied to everyone else, which is stupid precisely because it requires us to communicate to others at their level, a common, familiar level that is not more of anything than someone who is actually stupid could understand.
I personally don't even think there's anything wrong with being completely stupid (in principle).
The thing is that there are certain obligations all of us have to meet, with this stupid part of us, being part of us. One of those obligations - to sidetrack for a moment - is not that we believe everything as rationally as possible. That is a mistake that philosophers of the past have made, presuming that the mind is able to seek an answer and find it, as if simple recall solves the problem of the stupidity that is in all of us, simply by being familiar in some way to the problem of creating thought, or some such thing. Actually believing in something rationally is quite difficult, so its not as if its a skill that is wasted - that's not what I am saying - what I am saying is that it is actually harder than that again.
What is required of us is that we exercise our rationality in the proper context. For example, if we are thinking about apples, we should avoid thinking about oranges, for at least as long as the concept of fruit is unfamiliar to us. Just believing rationally on its own does not achieve this end result, if you say "well apples are like oranges, therefore I will rationally lump them together and call them tree-growths" then you have believed rationally but you have not fundamentally conceived of the fact that the apples and the oranges are fruits. If you do not exercise in context, and have the thought "what do trees produce?" you might go on to call "babies" "human growths" or some such crazy thing. Even a tree knows that its fruits are not accidental growths!
So it is that we discover that exercising in context actually trumps rational belief, and we find that this makes sense, because to have concepts on their own saves nothing, but a concept in context, may relate to many things which are fit for works that save lives (even permanently). Exercising belief in context ensures that we do not miss the concept of "fruit" simply because we already know what "growth" is, or at least have presumed to. It is an exercise not only of genius, but of intelligence, which is a fundamentally human characteristic, of extending the belief of the mind, up out and beyond the rational reach that the concepts would imply was possible. It does not make us gods, but it certainly makes it a lot more likely that when the opportunity to become a god comes along, we will embrace it, not just because it is a possibility, but because it presents a way of life that we can actually live through.
I hope this has been of some help to you.
