Actually, yes, I do think the vast majority of the population refuses to use their brains. And good on them -- thinking is painful. Evolution has left us with quite a cerebral mess, where great insight tends to correlate well with great psychological instability. Thus you often have a choice between being a sane (and admittedly, boring) intellectually uninvolved member of society, or an outlier with a hope of having above-average insight. You pay the price for that. I am paying mine as we speak -- four years of post-secondary studies and counting, bleak career opportunities, depression and anxiety, long days at work with unpredictable reward (generally on the low side). But this is the price of knowledge*, this is the price I must pay to refine my understanding of the world around me, and hopefully later share some of that insight with others.mandelson wrote:i dont know what Charlou is chattin about. i think she is having a go at me. is that right Charlou? are you trying to be funny with me.
oh that was very clever want it. you just called em thick. how can thousands people who are converting to islam are all thick. thats is just bollocks.Wavefunction:
just because the common denominator is intellectually uninvolved and passively shifts from religion to religion to follow the crowd doesn't make any religion any more sensible or likely to be the optimal worldview.
you had nothing to say you all you said was oh they are all thick.
thats just not gonna wash mate.
how do you know you are not doing it?There is such a thing as using one's brains the wrong way.
I think that solely due to the amount of training I have received in the methodology of obtaining knowledge (that is, how to think) and the costs of said training, I am qualified to claim I have an above average chance of using my brains correctly, at least significantly more than those who have not chosen to undergo such training (and the formality of this training is irrelevant; by far not all PhD's can think, and many an 'uneducated' person have been wise enough to figure out rational reasoning on their own.) That may be arrogant, but I think I have earned the right to my arrogance there.
*I first heard that phrase from a Feynman interview; and there I realised that yes, knowledge IS pricey (now I know first-hand), and that the deniers of the scientific method fail to appreciate the true cost and effort of understanding something, and just because of that their results are utterly worthless compared to those of science...
