Deterioration of the human mind

[Skyblack]

Excuse the typos, i am multitasking. Will be mindful about punctuation from now on.

[mystery]

I'll try; you're the OP yes?

The micro thing is to address exactly what you're suggesting, maybe..??? A way to free the mind of past and future to exist now so as to increase options and focus. yes someone else has also thought of it, but that does not make it wrong.

The Macro again is already thought of by another, and again not making it wrong. It attempts to be a why it is as it is. Not a religious or other structure but to explain or think of how/why is it like this. To exclude ideas already thought of is in itself very limiting.

Let's first be clear op isn't offering any resolution or any "answer" to this problem being discussed. So it isn't suggesting any panacea like for purposes of "increase options and focus." Second your objection of reinventing the wheel doesn't apply in light of the distinction created above. Knowledge is necessary in the technological and the material aspects of life but we are questioning if knowledge has nay place in the psychological?

I will be the student in this case and you the teacher, I still might not get your point please tell it in very simple terms such as a small child can understand.

No, we can discuss together are two humans concerned with what's going on in our lives.

If you suggest that by using any existing knowledge we are in error, I would then be at a loss as to how to proceed as even my own thoughts work from the context of existing knowledge. For example, one can know much of another, by understanding the attributes of the first language the person knows. A much similar thought process comes from that. And that in itself is existing knowledge.

Bingo. Now we may face the impossible question. Thought is knowledge and vice versa. So how does a lover of wisdom approach his life which is full of problems without the lens of knowledge which is part the problem.

I get the point now. Your correct, this is a no way to process without external input that might be flawed. I see no solution. The only value I can perceive is to know that anything can be faulty no matter how sound it may appear. Is there any other lesson we should get from this?

[Skyblack]

I get the point now. Your correct, this is a no way to process without external input that might be flawed. I see no solution. The only value I can perceive is to know that anything can be faulty no matter how sound it may appear. Is there any other lesson we should get from this?

When there is a problem there has to be a solution. But one can ask, is there a solution in knowledge/thought, or is the solution to be found in/within the problem itself?

In order to find out the lover of wisdom has first to understand the nature of knowledge. Get familiar with it's movement, it's intricacies, it's subtleties, right? To find out how it moves, and all the nooks and crannies it hides in, so on and so forth, right? In other words, it seems one has to understand the working of one's mind at extremely fine levels. All this has to be done without the use of psychological knowledge.

It appears when one does the above, then they will start entering into the problem itself, and perhaps the problem will reveal it's own solution. What do you think?

[Sy Borg]

Excuse the typos, i am multitasking. Will be mindful about punctuation from now on.

Deterioration of mind? ;)

When one looks at the human condition one finds the human surrounded by problems. In order to cope with these problems the human looks at various solutions promised by ideologies, religions, politics, economics, science, and so forth. While few of man’s problems are practical but most of them are psychological. An example to better understand the distinction: If one does not have the basic needs of food, shelter, and clothes, this a practical problem. However, If one is psychologically insecure because they aren’t “comparable” or “better” than the Jones, then this a psychological problem.

In his constant effort to fix his problems by looking into the solutions proposed by the various brokers (Secular or Religious), it is clear the human has descended into a pattern of conformity, thus making the mind and the heart dull, insensitive, sluggish, blind, unresponsive, almost lifeless. A second hand machine at best, that constantly breaks down.

It seems the human is not capable of looking at anything with fresh eyes or to adequately respond to the challenges life throws at him/her. Every new moment is met with the weight of the past and through the acquired filters. Thus all responses are partial and fragmentary.

How can such a burdened human ever be free to meet a new unknown moment. How will such a weighed consciousness penetrate the tenuous workings of their own mind, and that of the universe.

I can't quite recall the quote or who said it (more mental deterioration?) but the quote is roughly, "Humans make technology and then the technology makes the humans".

We humans, being essentially neotonous apes, are born incomplete in two ways.

One, we have no natural defences and relatively poor athleticism compared with other predators. Instead, we rely on our intelligence and dexterity to construct them, just as a hermit crab relies upon shells and, these days, plastic containers.

Secondly, as individuals, most of us cannot do much and this is especially the case today. In all human societies there has been specialisation of labour - that few individuals are capable of doing all tasks at a high level. Today, specialisation is so extreme that, rather than old school polymaths like Aristotle, da Vinci, Khayyam, Goethe and Liebniz, in their place would be teams that addressed each of their specialities, and each member of those teams would have another speciality, not to mention the specialist functions they would contract out.

Against such a skilled and specialised posse, a single polymath has no chance, like a centipede has no hope against army ants. Here are perhaps the roots of the deterioration of the human mind, as described, sacrificed on the altar of a more potent and powerful collective mind, albeit less original and creative.

[mystery]

I get the point now. Your correct, this is a no way to process without external input that might be flawed. I see no solution. The only value I can perceive is to know that anything can be faulty no matter how sound it may appear. Is there any other lesson we should get from this?

When there is a problem there has to be a solution. But one can ask, is there a solution in knowledge/thought, or is the solution to be found in/within the problem itself?

In order to find out the lover of wisdom has first to understand the nature of knowledge. Get familiar with it's movement, it's intricacies, it's subtleties, right? To find out how it moves, and all the nooks and crannies it hides in, so on and so forth, right? In other words, it seems one has to understand the working of one's mind at extremely fine levels. All this has to be done without the use of psychological knowledge.

It appears when one does the above, then they will start entering into the problem itself, and perhaps the problem will reveal it's own solution. What do you think?

I like the theory.. but I do use existing knowledge in the edges of that. So we could define what existing knowledge is in scope. If you're not flexible of the need for NO existing knowledge then it doesn't work. Some of the thinkers will for sure get stuck on that as did I.

Visual thinkers, sometimes naturally do something like what you describe... sort of. I can remember actually seeing (in my mind) a solution and then trying to understand it. I know that sounds weird...

As a child, I often heard the term educated idiot. Some men could excel with only 4 or 6 years of education and perform life functions better than those with PhD. While the PhD was understanding how the grass grows the other guy would have it trimmed, flowers planted, and maybe a fruit tree. The less educated were living in the problem while the educated one was disconected.

[Skyblack]

Sy Borg

"Humans make technology and then the technology makes the humans

That's part of the human condition.

sacrificed on the altar of a more potent and powerful collective mind

We aren't separate from the collective. We live in the collective and the collective lives in us. We are the world and the wold is us. IN reality we canot wash our hands of self-accountability.

mystery

So we could define what existing knowledge is in scope.

We have done so. Knowledge is essential in the technological and the mechanical fields. But is it necessary in the psychological field is what needs to be considered. Logically it doesn't seem so, but it has to be seen clearly by the person.

I often heard the term educated idiot.

This is true. I was talking about this yesterday with some people.

[Sy Borg]

@Sy Borg

"Humans make technology and then the technology makes the humans

That's part of the human condition.

sacrificed on the altar of a more potent and powerful collective mind

We aren't separate from the collective. We live in the collective and the collective lives in us. We are the world and the wold is us. IN reality we canot wash our hands of self-accountability.

We are ever more enmeshed in the collective, though, which was my point. So individual minds are becoming ever more incomplete in themselves, ever more reliant on the group for everything.

What is your concern about self-accountability? I don't see the connection with specialisation, given that reliance on others is basically compulsory. There are no "self-made men", at least only relatively so. It's easy to take for granted the roles played by others in our successes.

[Skyblack]

We are ever more enmeshed in the collective, though, which was my point. So individual minds are becoming ever more incomplete in themselves, ever more reliant on the group for everything.

What is your concern about self-accountability? I don't see the connection with specialisation, given that reliance on others is basically compulsory. There are no "self-made men", at least only relatively so. It's easy to take for granted the roles played by others in our successes.

The concern about self-accountability was about the argument some posit, which is, being part of the collective somehow absolves them from that responsibility. I was agreeing and trying to improve upon the points.

Btw, thank you for what you did.

[Sy Borg]

We are ever more enmeshed in the collective, though, which was my point. So individual minds are becoming ever more incomplete in themselves, ever more reliant on the group for everything.

What is your concern about self-accountability? I don't see the connection with specialisation, given that reliance on others is basically compulsory. There are no "self-made men", at least only relatively so. It's easy to take for granted the roles played by others in our successes.

The concern about self-accountability was about the argument some posit, which is, being part of the collective somehow absolves them from that responsibility. I was agreeing and trying to improve upon the points.

Btw, thank you for what you did. :-)

Cheers, I was unsure about the self-accountability angle.

In nature, there's a few things that can reduce accountability, ie. danger. One is to be big and scary and, in today's society, the scariest predator is a predatory billionaire or multinational. Another is to blend in as part of a crowd, as strategy used by any animal that congregates in large numbers. No doubt many who stormed the Capitol in January will avoid punishment through the safety of numbers.

Then you have the current CCP's approach, where complete conformity in all areas is demanded so as to not jeopardise the social credit score. Various religions are similarly demanding.

[AverageBozo]

Try this: I say that ten is a fact. Do you agree or disagree?

Gee

Why not? There is a ten. There can be a ten. Ten is a fact.

[Skyblack]

Sy Borg

Is there a reason why there is no option to edit posts? It will help in correcting the typos.

[popeye1945]

Deterioration of the mind might be somewhat unnoticeable, particularly with science and technology being so advanced and still growing, it may rather have to do with the diminishment of the quality of life. I think this is inevitable viewed on a global context due to the ever-increasing of the population and the seemly fragmented thinking of the population at large. If one thinks of one's context, context meaning human societies and the natural environment as a biological extension of humanity then we might take advantage of the possibility to view what is reflected back to us of what we have created and what we are presently in the process of destroying in the form of the environment. To take measure, is an interesting term and infers a quality that we may or may not have to excercise as a population as a whole, always there are voices from the wilderness but for the most part they remain unheard.

It remains to be seen if a global mind can arise despite the rise of the internet to consolidate our mental fragmentation and come to terms with what needs to be done in order to save the context of our living world. Taking measure of our creations and what we have done to the creation of the natural world would be key. Key to reforming our mental health as a species, there would need to be some means of overcoming our irrational natures and the structures that that irrationality have created, reason would need to come to the fore for the greatest majority of the population, perhaps a bridge to far or an unrealistic goal, nevertheless humanities and the living world seems dependent upon it's realization. Human creations refect the inner reality of humanity, the mirror of our creations is before us.

[Papus79]

There was some consideration on the basis of ev psych that as human beings outsourced our needs to technologies that our brains would shrink - ie. they're high cost and if we form symbiosis with machines we'd need less and less.

That obviously cuts completely counter to the ideas like the Masonic Great work or Marinez de Pasqually's reintegration of man.

Not sure how it will turn out but what I can see - the rage right now is indeed social conformity, a very narrow razor's edge where you need to act and behave completely commensurate with what you biologically look like (I don't mean this in the 71 flavors of gender sense but as a guy - no experience as a women at least to speak of - there's zero social freedom, you're either filling the social identity people give you or your ostracized / ignored). I can't tell how much of this is getting accelerated by economic decline and growing inequality, or overproduction of degrees, but I feel like I've watched the world get increasingly Machiavellian as I've gotten older. It reminds me of Idiocracy but worse - ie. IQ range doesn't seem to matter, everyone's on a similar behavior and priority sync and status wrecks truth in any contest by miles. It's hard to tell if this is Peter Hitchens's 'practical atheism' in motion, whether it's the sort of genetic dumbing or inverse Flynn effect that someone like Ed Dutton / Jolly Heretic and a lot of the right-wing 'based' science types like to talk about, just that I don't see creature comforts in the technological sense decreasing and I'm not sure what the answer will be as we watch people feeling like they need to do increasingly drastic things to hack status points, impress the opposite sex, etc..

[Skyblack]

The post immediately above is a good example of what happens to mind when it's caught in accumulated second hand information. When the mind can't even think without the authority of another, without quoting someone else. Such a second hand mind is a deteriorating mind.

[Papus79]

^^ This is wonderful as well because it's more evidence that I did see, digest, and thoroughly understand the OP - I just didn't treat it with the holy reverence with which you seem to be experiencing and demanding others mirror. Admittedly it's rare to find people who'd be able to encapsulate it that well but, really funny thing that you had to dominate the conversation, a bit like you were just insecure with my desacralizing the profundity of your revelation.

Someone else has already seen the same things and I'll venture a guess many people saw them long before you or I did. Then again realizing that I don't think I'll melt into a puddle of irrelevance and insecurity for realizing that I wasn't the first to think of something - it's good enough for me, IMHO, that I understand it well enough to say that I own it and that I understand the components of what I'm looking at inside or out.