The Thinking Process 6.
If you believe that thinking is an emotional process, then it’s easier to accept human history—our wars, the myths and religions, politics, etc, etc. It’s also easier to understand how so many of those concepts began, the ones that rule our emotional world while we pretend to live in the physical world.
Imagine one of our ancestors pondering life, while he (or she) observes the ‘other’ animal life around him. ‘I have it,’ he said, slapping his knee. ‘We humans have something that helps us think and makes us smarter than the animals. I’ll call it Fred, no, intelligence. Yes, we humans are intelligent.’ He turns to his friend who is still scoffing food they’d bought from McMammoths. ‘Of course, some of us are more intelligent than others.’
And that may have been how the myth began, allowing for a little embellishment. Intelligence wasn’t seen as the skills we had developed; it was considered an innate part of what we were. As our knowledge developed, we decided that it was part of our brain. Soon we would begin to develop tests to measure this thing that didn’t really exist and after just a few thousand years we would begin to develop artificial versions of something that doesn’t really exist.
Yep, that’s how human intelligence works.
Of course, many people will refuse to accept the idea that intelligence doesn’t really exist, after all the idea has been around for thousands of years, and we know it’s part of the brain because of ah, um, ah, um, ah...
Now, think about that other wonderful concept—instinct. We all know what it means, don’t we? Basically, when we’re talking about those other animals, we mean that we don’t know how they did that. When we’re talking about other humans, we either mean ‘I guessed right that time’, or ‘he guessed right that time’, depending on how we’re using it.
That’s part of the success, and stupidity, of the term. It is such a dubious generalisation that it can be used to explain almost anything. The fact that we’ve never really isolated the components of this generalisation doesn’t seem to worry us, any more than the fact that those components—the subconscious, and perhaps unconscious, ideas that prompted the ‘guess’—probably vary according to when, where and how the concept is being used. We rarely remember when our ‘instinct’ was wrong, and usually don’t bother to check anyway.
Yep, what a wonderful concept.
Unfortunately, once these ideas become entrenched in our cultures and languages, it becomes almost impossible to remove them. In a previous blog I mention a concept that we know is wrong: the idea that the heart is the core of our emotional being. Yet we continue to use this idea in our language, whereas if we use ‘brain’ as a symbol for our emotional being, we need to explain what we mean.
We’ve developed many concepts over the years. Those concerned purely with the physical world can be tested, though even here we can allow our emotions to influence what we believe. Those concepts concerned with human behaviour and the social world are far more dubious and far more difficult to test. Many have no existence in ‘reality’ but are simply ideas we have developed.
Imagine one of those prehistoric men watching another person take the food he had thought was his. The idea of ‘bad’ is formed even before there is a word for it. When his friend gives him a piece of food as a replacement, the idea of ‘good’ is formed. As language developed, we conceived the words to ‘identify’ these concepts. However, the ideas are still very subjective as they have no existence in the physical world, except as examples of what they mean. So, the entire concept of morality has developed slowly. It will vary in different cultures, religions, countries, and even between individuals or over time. Things once considered ‘wrong’ may slowly become acceptable while other things once considered ‘right’ may even become viewed as reprehensible or ‘evil’.
There are so many of these concepts, that it would take pages simply to list them, and then I would undoubtably forget many. For example, what is justice? There is a definite reason why the statue is blindfolded. Yet, we constantly use the term as if everyone should agree with us and not have a different viewpoint. ‘Human rights’ is a concept that I can only imagine being born from the human ego. Imagine the prehistoric man who took that piece of food and being confronted. His response, if he could speak, would almost certainly be ‘It was my right to take it.’ Equality? Whose equality and in what way? How can we be different and still be equal?
It's amazing how many of these terms could be replaced by ‘try to treat everyone fairly’. Of course, even that idea is subjective.
Perhaps the one test of the validity of our ideas would come if we ever did meet those aliens. If we had very similar concepts, it would support the idea that these are universal concepts.
However, I certainly wouldn’t be putting my money on that outcome.
Yep, Just my thoughts. Nope, not much research.
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