Philosophy….
/fɪˈlɒsəfi/noun
1. the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.
2. a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour.
Classic philosophical questions include: “is it possible to know anything and to prove it?” and ‘what is most real?’ Philosophers also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: ‘is there a best way to live?’, ‘is it better to be just or unjust (if one can get away with it)?”, “do humans have free will?”
Looking back, it appears that I was a born philosopher. One of my first memories was looking at both my parents and wondering why I ONLY saw out of my own eyes and did NOT see out of theirs.
I was quite struck by an overwhelming sense of self. And or, self awareness. This would be no older than age two. In fact, I do not think I had really learned to speak yet. But there I was. Pondering the idea of…..
I am me…….
“I am me”. This was my first great philosophical pondering. Dad is Dad, Mom is Mom, and I am me. I also knew at that age already that I/me, had had something to do. I felt a strong sense of “personal greatness”. That I was here to affect the “world of man” (woman, and or other) in a way that would be “world reaching” on an international scale/level.
Everyday for many months this went on, and throughout my entire youth it was an idea I revisited from time to time for the rest of my childhood years.
I was told many times growing up that I “was too smart for my own good”. It appears that this was indeed true. As my Pisces Moon sign allows me to at times embody both thesis and anti-thesis at the same time. Always “very mature for my age”, but up until a very painful and demoralizing “loss of innocence” that occurred about five to six years ago; I was also “painfully naive”
When I was coming of age in the United States of America, the median IQ Intelligence quotient was 100…….
(IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation “IQ” was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term “Intelligenzquotient”, his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he advocated in a 1912 book. Historically, IQ was a score obtained by dividing a person’s mental age score, obtained by administering an intelligence test, by the person’s chronological age, both expressed in terms of years and months. The resulting fraction (quotient) is multiplied by 100 to obtain the IQ score. For modern IQ tests, the median raw score of the norming sample is defined as IQ 100 and scores each standard deviation (SD) up or down are defined as 15 IQ points greater or less. By this definition, approximately two-thirds of the population scores are between IQ 85 and IQ 115. About 2.5 percent of the population scores above 130, and 2.5 percent below 70)
*Psychologists revise the test every few years in order to maintain 100 as the average. Most people (about 68 percent) have an IQ between 85 and 115. Only a small fraction of people have a very low IQ (below 70) or a very high IQ (above 130). The average IQ in the United States is 98.
So the median IQ in the country I grew up in (one that seems to be, or seemed to be one that the entire world marveled at, if not in some way admired as a “great nation” {though many now will tell you that it was never great}. Despite many people around the world still excited at the prospect of taking holiday, or even migrating there until only very recently) is decreasing but I digress…
Intellectual Isolation
I tested every other year throughout my entire school career in the 99th percentile on our C.T.B.S. (Comprehensive test of basic skills) Tests. This is an IQ/placement test given to ensure that children of equal IQ are placed in the same homeroom, math, science, English/grammar/composition classes. The 99th percentile means that I was in the top 1% IQ range of all the children of my age group in the entire United States. No boasting, only painting a mental picture to help the reader overstand some of the things I will expound upon later in this essay.
There is a thing called “intellectual isolation” it goes as follows…..100 is median and or average. 70 and below is considered a “retarded” and or stunted/slowed development IQ. Anything over 130 is considered very high. (For the sake of humility I will not state my exact number, but suffice it to say, it is firmly over 130). The basis of “Intellectual Isolation” theory is that people with very high IQ are just as “far out of the normal” as a “retarded” person. And without the proper skills to function in the world of most people, they will often be perceived, and thus treated like a person with a “cognitive deficiency”. (talk about the irony). This hurt me greatly. To be considered and treated like I was “dumb” by people who were vastly less gifted at times. But that was then and this is now. It made me stronger. And for this is am most humbly grateful.
Eureka Moment!!!!!
THIS was my life. Even up until a few years ago. When I was in “free-fall” career wise, relationship wise, friendship wise, and emotionally. I remember clearly thinking and even saying aloud “I need to learn to make my IQ work for me and not against me”
Ever the researcher, I was trying to self diagnose. As I am a Man, and thus a “problem solver” Heterosexual Women can likely relate to telling their man their feelings about a situation that brought them down, and then the man trying to “do something” when all she wanted was for him to listen. Men can relate as well I am sure. This is because he was trying to “solve the problem. So to continue…
I even thought at one time I might be high functioning Asperger’s Syndrome for while. That is until I FINALLY discovered I.I. (Intellectual Isolation). Talk about “killing me softly” The peer reviewed white papers and various literature were describing my entire life. OK, I know my enemy. I can now attempt to defeat it. “In battle, “You can’t hit what you can’t see”. Now that I had a proper overstanding of why I was so different, I could now address my particular needs.
My school peers would all go to “gifted studies” from time to time, and despite being in the exact same classes with them, I did not get to leave and go to “gifted” with them. The reason being was that when I would bring home my test scores, and the gifted studies applications to my mother, who was deep in her cocaine addiction at the time. And she would not even read them. Thus I never received the proper “coping skills” that gifted studies gives these children who are “so far out of the norm”. To top it off, I also suffered from dyslexia. Talk about a tough break.
So for the last five years, I have worked very hard to overcome myself, and I am no longer “too smart for my own good”. “So why does this matter?”, you may ask. To which I say, please read on? It will all become clear soon.
Talent hits a target most cannot hit. Genius hits a target most cannot see. Remember this. We will revisit it in a bit.
The Empty Cup…..
The Empty Cup….”Empty your cup” is an old Chinese Chan (Zen) saying that occasionally pops up in western popular entertainment. “Empty your cup” often is attributed to a famous conversation between the scholar Tokusan (also called Te-shan Hsuan-chien, 782-865) and Zen Master Ryutan (Lung-t’an Ch’ung-hsin or Longtan Chongxin, 760-840).The “Empty Your Cup” ConversationScholar Tokusan–who was full of knowledge and opinions about the dharma–came to Ryutan and asked about Zen. At one point Ryutan re-filled his guest’s teacup but did not stop pouring when the cup was full. Tea spilled out and ran over the table. “Stop! The cup is full!” said Tokusan.”Exactly,” said Master Ryutan. “You are like this cup; you are full of ideas. You come and ask for teaching, but your cup is full; I can’t put anything in. Before I can teach you, you’ll have to empty your cup.”This is harder than you might realize. By the time we reach adulthood we are so full of information that we don’t even notice it’s there. We might consider ourselves to be open-minded, but in fact, everything we learn is filtered through many assumptions and then classified to fit into the knowledge we already possess.
One who knows……
Confucius said: … Recognizing that you know what you know, and recognizing that you do not know what you do not know—this is knowledge. Yu said:…. shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it;—this is knowledge.
Identity Politics and self Righteous indignation…..
In the past decade, as it appears on the surface that we are more open-minded, tolerant, sophisticated, and educated. Yet, we “function” as the “inverse” of these things. ‘Dumbed Down”. Why is this? The philosopher asks. What is the root causation?
One likely culprit is “Identity Politics” which appears to be the “weaponized version” of the “agree to disagree and find the middle ground of politics” we used to engage in.
Successfully, I might add. The philosopher asks probing questions. Stoically. As the “Meditations of Marcus Aurelius” instructed us to do. Where ever identity politics goes. Calm, rational discourse cannot. It destroy’s people’s ability to engage in it successfully. But why???
Emotions < Logic
To engage in rational discourse, the parties involved must be rational. But the emotions led “own group preference” steeped identity politics ideology causes “Cognitive Dissonance”. Which CANNOT hold up to scrutiny or logic. It crumbles under the pressure of reason, logic, and facts that support a dissenting opinion.
The world before “Triggering was a thing”….
For any truly open minded individual, different points of view should be welcome. This is an opportunity to learn new things. But if we already know everything, we can never learn anything. This refers back to the empty cup I spoke on before. Without open, rational, dissension and or discourse, we humans begin to seek what is known as “confirmation bias”
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms or support one’s prior personal beliefs or values. It is an important type of cognitive bias that has a significant effect on the proper functioning of society by distorting evidence-based decision-making. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. For example, a person may cherry-pick empirical data that supports one’s belief, ignoring the remainder of the data that is not supportive. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias is a broad construct covering a number of explanations. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).
Cancel Culture……
THIS is what happens when we enter the dark dark climate of “cancel culture”. No definition needed I’m sure. As the book (Facebook) is rife with it. Express a differing point of view…. Get canceled. Engage in “normal” old-fashion politics… Get canceled. Be a dick….. for SURE get canceled. Make an honest mistake, or miss-speak amongst the wrong crowd? CANCELED!
This is a very base, destructive, callous, and EVIL ideology. One that seeks to ruin a person’s WHOLE life, strip them of the ability to provide for themselves, their significant other, and or their very children. Why not take the time to inform and educate a person who makes a gaffe and truly does not know what they are now being punished for miss-expressing. Would not we want this done for us?
The “philosopher asks…. Do these people really ever take the time to think about how evil and destructive an ideological phenomena that would seek to thrust women and children into “abject poverty” not to mention any Men who might find themselves victims of the practice. As Men, and true masculinity, versus “media machismo” is CLEARLY under attack. (but we will leave that particular “social land mine” for now). I will just say that sexuality, and or gender characteristics is NOT a “zero sum game”
Zero Sum Game
In game theory and economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant’s gain or loss of utility is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero. Thus, cutting a cake, where taking a larger piece reduces the amount of cake available for others as much as it increases the amount available for that taker, is a zero-sum game if all participants value each unit of cake equally (see marginal utility).
Meaning if one party is successful and or wins, all others must fail, and or lose.
In contrast, non-zero-sum describes a situation in which the interacting parties’ aggregate gains and losses can be less than or more than zero. A zero-sum game is also called a strictly competitive game while non-zero-sum games can be either competitive or non-competitive. Zero-sum games are most often solved with the minimax theorem which is closely related to linear programming duality, or with Nash Equilibrium.
Humans have a cognitive bias towards seeing situations as zero-sum, known as zero-sum bias. But once again, I digress…
The point is, we are existing in an very toxic environment that no longer allows differing points of view. The philosopher asks… Why is this? And what is the difference between the current, and former generations?
It appears that “Safe Spaces” and “Trigger Word” culture has left people emotionally unable to cope with the real world devoid of “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings”. So do these things help? Or do they do more harm than good? The philosopher asks these questions.
“The Hubris of Icarus”
18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Never before in modern history have we had the real time embodiment/fulfillment of so many literary classics playing out at the same time right before out very eyes. From the “oppressed cum oppressor” scenario found in Eric Blair, aka George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, to the…..
“The Flight of Icarus”
In Greek mythology, Icarus (/ˈɪkərəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἴκαρος [ǐːkaros]) is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth. Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus’ father warns him first of complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, so the sea’s dampness would not clog his wings nor the sun’s heat melt them. Icarus ignored his father’s instructions not to fly too close to the sun; when the wax in his wings melted he tumbled out of the sky and fell into the sea where he drowned, sparking the idiom “don’t fly too close to the sun”. This tragic theme of failure at the hands of hubris contains similarities to that of Phaethon. Today’s ubiquitous “Self Righteous Indignation” mirrors Icarus’s flight exactly. Drunk on fakebook likes and hearts, keyboard assassins soar high fueled my their own self righteous blindness to anything but their unchecked and undisciplined emotional diarrhea. Quite troubling and sad to watch as, what goes up must definitely come back down, And what goes around will most surely come around. Classic “Monkey Trap” folly.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” – George Orwell
The Monkey Trap….
“The Monkey Trap”The trap “consists of a hollowed-out coconut, chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole”. The monkey’s hand fits through the hole, but his clenched fist can’t fit back out. “The monkey is suddenly trapped.” But not by anything physical. He’s trapped by an idea, unable to see that a principle that served him well – “when you see rice, hold on tight!” – has become lethal. One striking example is what psychologists call the Einstellung effect, describing the way preconceptions can blind us, in almost a literal way, to better ways of doing things. In clever experiments by Merim Bilalic and his colleagues, chess masters were presented with a board arranged to offer them two paths to victory: a well-known five-move option, and a more obscure one, requiring three moves. Even these superb players often couldn’t see the best way to win, because the one they knew better colonized their minds. Later, those who’d missed the three-move solution were shown a similar board on which it was the only way to win. Now none had any problem seeing it.
Self righteous indignation can blind the person full of it, and thus be the agent of their own undoing. Avoid this at ALL cost if you have wisdom.
Normalcy Bias…..
“It WILL never happen because HAS never happened”
Our normalcy bias was shattered last month when what appears to be a WHOLE MURDER was filmed and broadcast around the world for all who were unfortunate enough to CHOOSE to watch it.
Normalcy biases will continue to be shattered in this “Brave New World” we now live in. I, the philosopher holds NO normalcy bias. As I also study history and Cultural Anthropology. Fully aware that the ONLY constant in life is change, and or “novelty”
Most novelty with regard to true progression has slowed to a crawl. The form of novelty we encounter is now “computer” and “screen based” Examples; everything to do with A.I. (computer) Any and EVERY type of pornography (including the girl next door tricking her precious body part time for strangers to make a few extra bucks on a webcam or this new “friendly friends” thingy I keep hearing about. (screen)These are but two very common examples. There truly are too many to name here.
Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars….
Why is it that no prior generation held the same hate for those who hold differing points of view? Could it be that they have been weaponized by “Corporate Media”?
The truly curious among you seeking true overstanding would do well to research the work of Yuri Bezmenov. Therein you will learn the true nature of the subversive tactics being employed by the corporate media. I have enclosed a link to a free pdf. copy of the leaked military document “ Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” here, and also on my profile page. Necessary reading for anyone who wishes to overstand the true nature of the threat we all face with regard to the ever increasing chaos and despair that is ubiquitously conspicuous.
*Yuri Bezmenov has some information that may be difficult for the easily offended to hear, but anyone with a strong, open mind should at least listen. The views contained herein are not necessarily those of the author. (Trigger warning)
In closing….
There is so much more ground to cover. This essay, though long by some people’s standards, has barely scratched the surface.
These are a few not so random thoughts and “ideas” I ponder quite often as I seek true overstanding of the world we now see. As a modern philosopher, and “Elder Spokesman” of our beloved culture, it is my duty to utilize the seemingly extraordinary gifts I have been given to help those who were not “gifted” in this way.
Why would I do this? Because my faith teaches scholarship, discernment, wisdom and compassion. I am also motivated by this question as I survey the land of the “online” and real physical/tangible worlds……
“Where are the Philosophers????”
Fin
Amir Alexander – Father, Musician, Scholar, Social Anthropologist, Child of God, Philosopher, Man
