Seeing the whole picture

[Deleted]

First I should explain a bit about myself.

I am pretty smart. ;D
I was always good in seeing patterns and connections others cannot see or only
with some effort.

However I am suffering by a brain damaging disease since the moment I became a single complete cell.
Which may explain why I can do this.
Likely my brain is not wired as it should normally be, because of this.
There are strong hints that having a mildly damaged brain may be helpful in becoming a genius. ;D

Our brain has not evolved to make us smart but to keep us alive.
Intelligence is a mere side effect.

We cannot see the reality as it is, but a reality our brain is constructing from the input
our senses are providing as well as as from prior experience.
As strange this may sound this approach saves a lot of required processing power.
In times of emergency this is still not enough thus our brain is taking some more short cuts.
The information delivered from our eyes is reduced to about one percent of a percent by the optic nerve which is not a real nerve but an extension of our brain before the information reaches the main optical processing areas where the actual processing starts.

To be continued if there is any interest.

[Deleted]

Scientists came up with a two step test for chimps and children.
In the first step an object of desire was placed into a black box while child or chimp were watching. Then a complicated procedure was demonstrated to get the object out of the box.
Children and chimps learned the procedure to get the reward.
In a second step a box with the same design, but made of transparent stuff was used.
Children and chimps could easily see that only the last step in the complicated procedure
was needed to get the reward.
The bigger part of the chimps did only what was required, but every single child has repeated the complete pointless procedure.
The scientists accepted that in some respects chimps were smarter than humans and insisted that the relative stupidity of humans was the core of the success of mankind.

Well, I dare to have another view.
Chimps can only use their own brain.
Children can rely on help and are also trained in learning complicated procedures,
while not being allowed to question it.
The test is completely pointless, as children are virtually trained to fail this test.

To be continued.

[Deleted]

Human have developed many means to share and acquire knowledge.
Very often there are no means to check personally if it can be true.
Generations of children have been terrorized by their parents with spinach, just because a comma in a table was slipped.
The prior experience used for the plausibility check is very often no personal experience and then has very likely never faced a plausibility check itself.

It has been told to us uncountable times:
The dark lord will never do anything good.
Chaos will never bring order.

If one faces something that implies something else it will fail the plausibility check and thus will be ignored, very likely the whole lifetime.
But chaos is not evil and order not always something good and order can cause chaos as well.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth – Sherlock Holmes

To be continued.

[Deleted]

Sherlock Holmes was not completely right.
Even what is believed to be be impossible could be the answer.

The brain takes short cuts all the time and tries to reduce information a big deal,
even before it actually starts to process it.
While trying to serve and save us it may belie us.

It becomes even more complicated by the brain having two halves serving different purposes.
The left brain is for precision work and the right half has the big picture.
The more emotion driven right half seems to be a bit chaotic and thus is not trusted in western culture, and what is coming from the right half is often ignored.

Once one is aware of the weak points one can work around them.

To see the whole pictures sometimes it's only needed to accept, that what is believed to be be impossible could be the answer.
Sometimes more effort is needed.
Using both halves of the brain will help too.

By the way, I do not buy this "genius by brain damage"
While it may actually happen in rare cases it is a far to convenient excuse for not trying
to improve oneself.
I was a curious little boy not willing to swallow everything served by teachers and others.
The wish to understand how the world really works has been a driving force in my life.