The book Cassia posted and the comments about the negative impact of internet on human culture remind me a scene from a documentary on human brain. Probably you guys know about it and again probably they have gone beyond that already. (It's been years and I forgot the name, what it was...etc.)
They ask questions to important neuroscientists in the field and one of them (I think he was Dutch) tells the reporter something like 'Extend your arm, make a thumb up and draw a circle around your body. Your brain is naturally programmed not to think outside of that circle without extra effort. Every time you think outside of that circle, it costs to your brain'.
I was atonished because although I get how crucial and natural for us to ignore or forget in every sense -kudos to our evolution- this base sounded so scary for a highly social animal to me as a layman.
But then I also remember what a group of anthropologists in a site were trying to explain to people who come there to ask questions. (There were RL scientists from other fields too.) The main point was what kind of a severely high maintenance organ the human brain is and therefore why its development is related to meat consumption and 'self centric' traits, if you will. (They were a humurous lot, they also called the level of human intelligence among animals as some sort of a 'glitch' with a pityingly affectionate manner, lol.)
Anyway, it seems that we have every thing ready and available for us, humans not to think about beyond at some point, or be selective about it unless we force ourselves. Yet, they do it all the time, and have done since the beginning or we still would have been living in caves. So we also have a natural drive to do this.
So, what is it? Obviously, it can't be one thing. But there is something or some process at work that results differently at least for some people and they become different than others. I'm of course not using terms like 'good', 'evil', 'moral' or 'immoral' and I'm aware that there are countless variations that shape every person's life in billions. And while that level of complication is mind breaking, for some reason I started to think that whatever the cause and effect mechanism here, it must be something very simple.
Why, when some people subrscribe to an idea, they tend to see nothing else, can't get enough of it going in the deep end, while others automatically feel uncomfortable with any idea, the moment it starts to confirm/conform itself?
I don't have anthing to offer other than the usual foolish starting point, myself. I automatically get suspicious of any idea, thought or opinion esp. if I like it, and find it sensible because I automatically think that as a human being, highly likely -consciously or unconsciously- I find some benefit in it and this goes the same way in opposite too. (We are not talking about facts, needlessly to say.)
And what happens? I keep trying to catch myself out -and others- all the time when thinking or reading or listening about something. So, compartmentalisation is not an option for me, it's been a complete failure, and naturally I was diagnosed with clinical depression around 30. It's a pretty exhausting, tragic situation. (I even started to feel natural closeness to clinically depressed people and feel cold for 'healthy' others because in a very silly, foolish way, it feels like something is wrong with anyone who can compartmentalise and feel content -that's happy in new age I guess- in this day and age and automatically I think they must be subscribed to some abhorrent self centered idea to be able to do that.)
I'm giving myself just as an example, naturally I don't know any other mind. But is there a way out of this? Is there even a middle way in all this with the point we've arrived from the internet, mass social media, to the decline in understanding of knowledge and information; all the bullshit at one side, and the real development; science flying and dissapearing from sight up away in the horizon at the other? I don't see it. We are trapped.
PS This thread is a scary one, did you notice? LOL
