Comments on Profile Post by ksat90

Jordan Peterson has the best explanation of this I have yet to come across. Basically, nobody has the mental time/energy to rightly reason more than say 5% of what demands our attention, so we apply simplification - basically a prejudgement, a heuristic that worked in the past and does in fact work most of the time. This allows us to apply our limited mental resources to what actually matters.

@crenca Would stereotyping fall into this?

Not really. Whereas stereotyping is (usually/often) a false mental picture of an aspect of the world, one with moral ramifications as well, what Peterson is describing is a kind of "low res" mental picture that is just part of human reasoning/perception and is absolutely necessary, functional, morally neutral (even 'good'). In other words this is more of a "mental map" of the geography of a complicated world...

that is too complex to attend to at a high level. Do you really need an "accurate" picture of plumbing, or the electrical system of your car? No - all you have is a low res snapshot of what it is, how it works, in what way and how much it is relevant, etc. If there is a problem in this area you don't (normally) take the time/mental energy to bring your low res understanding up to hi res...

While I want to be honest, What if the big picture takes up their whole view?

Instead you call a plumber, a car mechanic, etc. For the vast majority of people most of the time things like politics falls into this area as well - all they really need is a low res picture because they simply have no real influence, control, etc. and they have other things to do like take care of the kids, work a job, etc...

But as Jordan points out occasionally the low res pic fails, and you need to put the effort in to get a hi res or replace it with a functioning low res. Unfortunately our media machine is aware of all this and they intentionally manipulate at a low res level.

I'm familiar with the argument of more mental effort to consider more things, but why isn't this more important in society/civilization today?

For e.g. SBAF culture promotes considering many factors for audio, and many people here try not to give out "answers" too readily, prioritizing signal vs noise, all of which are more nuanced but then also more niche than other groups.

You can apply this to also many other themes/topics/subjects - it's getting harder to find places where you can talk and discuss various ideas that aren't necessarily the blessed approach of the group.
I guess it's more systemic thing (feedback loops, value of effort), which is why I'm wondering why isn't such behavior/culture rewarded/propagated.

Your first question "why isn't this more important..." might be a low res question so to speak. No offense intended! Modern civilization is complicated, and operates because people have a high degree of specialization. At the same time it is a *consumeristic* culture, one that is intentionally set up everywhere to operate, manipulate at a low res level - on the level of base emotions and *desire*

Universities were founded by monks for the purpose of a humane, general, education in the "humanities", and to look deeply at whatever was studied. For most of their history this is what they did even in "secular" times.

However, in the last 100 years or so they have changed in fundamental character. Now they are tech schools cranking out highly specialized technocrats who are mostly uneducated and illiterate by the older standard.

So to sum up: modern culture is a kind of anti-thesis of what you want. It is designed to get people, who are thought of as "consumers", to NOT look deeply at fill_in_the_blank. Indeed it rewards staying in the shallow end of the pool in so many ways...

I like that @crenca if I want instant satisfaction, fast food is always an easy choice. If I want a full immersive experience I might want to farm my own food, and wait to mill my own corn and prepare my food, not fulfilling me for the moment but throughout my whole experience. Resonating past the point of consumption.

Example from a conversation with a doctor a couple of weeks ago: "I'm a senior physician, but I don't fully understand how all the underlying systems work, and I shouldn't be expected to." I guess that is what the specialists exist for.

And by staying in the shallow end of the pool, using models and metaphors to understand complex and complicated but unrelated fields or systems becomes easier by not getting hung up on the minute differences between them.