"My Stroke Of Insight" by Neuroscientist, Jill Bolte Taylor
A TED Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU
Alan Archibald: This is a remarkable documentary. Thanks to Jenny B and Tommy G for sending it my way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU6LfXNeQM4
Tell
me.
Do you think you know who you are, and "what's
going on?"
Think
again.
Perhaps more accurately put, "Don't think, but
rather be aware that everyone's perceptions - by the very nature of
our intrinsically prejudiced sensorium - focus on an infinitesimal
part of what's around us... and what's in us.
A typical human being is comprised of 30 trillion cells, and is host to 39 trillion bacterias. Human microbiome | Definition, Examples, & Facts | Britannica (An aside... I grew up with a set of Encyclopedia Britannica on shelving built into the living room wall, and the Britannica has only gotten better with time. Its freely-accessible online version is written in a very understandable way, but also with unfailing academic rigor.)
And so, when we automatically make the world "manageable" by minimizing/bending/skewing-and-otherwise-altering the
(otherwise paralyzing) enormity of our unbridled sensory reality, we end up
with a shrunken account/story/narrative that enables us to navigate
the world more easily, but at the cost of curtailing and truncating
it.
In effect, we subject the world Procrustes' Bed. Procrustes | Encyclopedia.com
It
is true that by shrinking reality, we often optimize our chances of
personal survival.
But we do so at tremendous cost to The
General Welfare, The Common Good, and any kind of meaningful "Social
Contract."
And so -- at least functionally (if not
ontologically) -- we choose "the gods" at whose altars we
worship because, whether we like it or not, we tend to prioritize and
worship gods that enhance our likelihood of survival.
Just to mention a few gods: sex, drugs, money, rock-n-roll, fruit loops.
Yes,
it's complicated.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from
our innate inclination toward "simplification of Reality"
is that we are well-advised to appreciate - even revere - complexity
instead of over-simplifying Reality by a knee jerk reflex to minimize
complexity.
When we over-simplify, we are easily suckered
by our calculating, self-centered ignorance, and thereby become less
reverent and -- in an effort to protect our shrunken selves -- we
become more disdainful of the world around us, and cruel to people
who do not belong to our prejudicial tribe.
The Normalization Of Cruelty During Donald Trump's Administration: A Compendium
Since statistics and statistical analysis play a cornerstone role in "science" (... the word itself derives directly from the Latin root for "knowledge"... scio, scire) we can only know "The Fullness Of Truth" by deliberately opening ourselves to ever wider perspectives informed by ever greater appreciation of the incalculable depth-and-breadth of ever richer context. (
In this regard, I would define God as the
sum-total of environmental matrices - both within and without - whose
overarching and subtending contexts embed us. In short: The Whole
Enchilada. I will also add the line from the Nicene Creed: "I
believe in all that is seen, and all that is unseen." English versions of the Nicene Creed - Wikipedia
But
the downside of shrunken reality is extraordinarily appealing to "the
shrunken heads" who don't - or won't - see past their
self-interested quest for over-simplification and easy manageability, often manifesting as
the enactment of so-called "common sense."
See J.B.S. Haldane at:
Who Woulda Thunk It?!? Shakespeare, Einstein, J. B. S. Haldane And Wendell Berry Converge On Truth
Although
cherry-picking reality may benefit YOU: it might also put humanity on
the fast track to collective extinction - or, at least, environmental
and personal diminishment.
Notably, in recent decades
there has been a dramatic fall in US life expectancy - the first time
this has ever happened in a "developed" country, except
during World Wars.
Why
life expectancy in the US is falling - Harvard Health
At
bedrock, we discover the truth that The
Scientific Method
is humanity's only reliable tool dependable for advancing the scope
of knowledge.
Why?
Because science is the only
human tool that widens our scope of knowledge by consistently
benefiting from its ferocious, no-holds-barred determination to prove
its own findings false.
I repeat: the best way to
determine what's going on (and not just swirl around in the perpetual
eddy of wanting - and needing - to prove our individual selves right)
is the methodical determination to prove ourselves wrong.
By
cherry-picking Reality, we can accumulate all manner of
decontextualized findings that support our favorite story-narrative.
But this obsessive accumulation is almost entirely prejudicial,
presupposing as it does that our postulates-and-premises are in fact
"ultimate truths" when, in fact, they are unprovable
axiomatic beliefs seized upon (usually) in our formative years as a
way to simplify/shrink our reality for personal
comfort-and-complacency - and the illusory feel-good sense of being
"settled."
And
so, it is commonplace that our personal 'understanding"
decontextualizes what we rabidly hold as "self-evident truths,"
instead of "getting over" such reflexive self-cathexis in
order to study reality "in the round."
Admittedly,
we always see through a glass darkly (to quote St. Paul of Tarsus),
but we are no longer deliberately ignorant of the larger, fuller,
richer world that surrounds us.
When we open our eyes to
open-minded exploration - illuminated by the light of science -
imagine this concept! we learn.
Carl
Sagan's book, "The Demon-Haunted World" is a masterful
revelation how "the light of science" is all that separates
us from superstition which brings in tow -- as night follows day --
the dimwitted, never-ending abuse of other human beings who don't
agree with our convictions. The Demon-Haunted World - Wikipedia
The Death Of Epistemology: Update
To get a handle on these
fundamental epistemological concerns, it is also useful to explore
the method and goal of Neil DeGrasse Tyson's "Master Class,"
pursuing the practical measures we can take to dependably reach that
goal.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Masterclass: Teaches You How To Think - Learning How To Get Past "Thinking You're Right" To "Knowing When You're Wrong"
https://newsfrombarbaria.blogspot.com/2020/11/neil-degrasse-tysons-masterclass.html
If humanity is to prevail over self-annihilation (and I believe we will) Trump and his Q-inspired cultists will prove to be the experiment that finally revealed -- "unforgettably" -- how it's not about (and was never about) "The Righteous," "The Chosen" and "The Divinely Ordained" vanquishing (indeed annihilating) "The Infidel Bad Guys," but how do we make ignorance itself "the enemy" to be eliminated - not by violence, but by the gentility and patience of devoted research (in light of The Scientific Method), supplemented by authentic education which is the "socialized" version of amoral instruction.
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