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Many people who subscribe to the values of the Enlightenment insist that things are only relevant if they can be rationally understood and scientifically demonstrated.
That sounds reasonable or even self-evident.

A strange thought crossed my mind. It is a well-known fact that ants, bees or termites live in complex societies and build sophisticated structures without having any comprehension at all of what they are doing (just like our bodies!). If for example leave-cutter ants resolved to do henceforth only what they understand, and "believe" only what they can demonstrate, their states would collapse, their societies would cease to exist immediately. The algorithm that provides the operating system of the societies and states of these animals is the result of evolution, and I am a great fan of Orgel's Second Law: "Evolution is smarter than you". In the case of ants and bees that is obvious: evolution endowed them with instincts no ant brain will ever be able to understand.

Here are some heretical questions:

  • Why should this be principally different in the case of homo sapiens?
  • Why should we be able to understand everything, although our brain is the result of evolution just as the tiny brains of ants?
  • Maybe evolution did with us what it obviously did with other animals: it provided us with operating systems that are working "over our heads" without us noticing?
  • Maybe some things that seem absurd from the rational point of view are functional from evolution's point of view?
Matias 8 July 18
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Since we have no awareness of the things we don’t know we are tricked into thinking we know almost everything. Actually, we may only know a minute fraction of what could be known. But more importantly, our way of knowing is limited, meaning that the things we know consist only of superficial knowledge. There is an underlying reality that is beyond our comprehension IMO.

Yes, I think that most of what we do, both individually and as a society is determined by instinct or whatever and is out of our conscious control. Sometimes consciousness takes over and we create new things, new ideas.

You pose some interesting questions, and I am especially attuned to the last one. Often well-meaning progressives jump in to correct perceived problems, but they create more problems than they solve. Things are the way they are for reasons.

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