Ignorance affirms or denies flatly; science doubts
Voltaire
Most of us assume that because we have read or heard something new that fits what we want to believe, we already know the truth; By knowing it, we know the matter well and, therefore, we understand it. And this is how we go through life giving our opinions with the unbreakable security that only ignorance gives.
This mental simplification is called confirmation bias in psychology, in philosophy it is a defective architecture of the argument, in the form of the fallacy of incomplete evidence, and in common language, mental conformism. Its function is to minimize the effort of updating beliefs and eliminate the emotional impact of learning what we do not want to know.
This simplification is achieved through the semantic confusion of the terms linked to the learning process, which results in a rational scaffolding so weak that at any moment the bricklayer who is constantly propping up our need to not know, sustained only by our foolishness, can suffer a fatal fall.
Knowing is not knowing and knowing is not understanding. The three concepts consecutively form a process that results in learning. I know when I add new information to my record of the things I want to keep in mind and keep it in memory, I know when I doubt and investigate accordingly, I understand when I integrate what I have investigated into my experience, generally making mental associations, to give it meaning. Then and only then have I learned.
Each of the elements of this cognitive chain has its own degree of complexity… and that is the problem: the human brain, especially in our liquid modernity, likes instantaneousness, it looks for the “Maruchan” conclusion. Simplifying is certainly part of learning, but as a form of synthesis after complicating or problematizing. Both interact to form the complex, a type of heterogeneous and multiple, but congruent, knowledge that always entails at least one new question.
If this explanation seems complicated to you, you pass it by without thinking, or even consider abandoning reading, you are experiencing what I have just explained to you. Neither more nor less: repulsion to decomplicate, to ask, to synthesize, to have things not be as you believe.
Now, all true intelligence is launched with a question, certainly. Without questions, without curiosity, there is no learning process. This may seem obvious, but many people don’t ask, they just take what they are told or read and decide to believe it. That is why the majority does not use artificial intelligence as cognitive support, but as a safe conduct to not think or to receive confirmation, hence the AI personality is complacent by default.
Now, when a brain avoids the mechanism of complicating and then simplifying, in the long run it atrophies individually and collectively, with generational consequences that absurdly transform culture, politics and the world; They deteriorate social coexistence and are turning us into the stupidest species on the planet.
There are scientific studies that point to a gradual decrease in human intelligence, but don’t worry about that generalization, the personal case is enough: whoever becomes less intelligent has less chance of surviving, first, and of living as they would like to live, later, because any achievement requires that minimum effort that we are failing to make.
Surviving and living as you wish inevitably implies adapting, and only intelligent people adapt. The rest live complaining, blaming someone else and making reproaches that are not even relevant, to make matters worse; becoming frustrated, becoming victimized, running away from their responsibilities; believing that he is right and that the different ones are wrong.
This attitude is fertile ground for social polarization that does so much damage to us as individuals and as a collective. If we want to be a less polarized, more lucid, critical and less reactive society, we have to be better people, each of us. This article is just a suggestion of where to start.
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