Serenity NOW!, with a Side of Wisdom

This post is all over the place, partly because I started it yesterday and pretended to finish it today (one can never enter the same creative instant twice), but also because of our "new look," which will, for the foreseeable future, involve one continuous stream -- or spontaneous rant -- of consciousness: lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-you's, & a whole lotta loose ends scurrying around in old Gagdad's head.   

Nor will posts necessarily begin and end in the usual way; rather we might just start in the middle and end at the beginning.  We -- boo! -- will stop making sense in search of more of it, guided only by the Divine Attractor that blows where it will.

In short, we will attempt to keep ourself amused by surprising oursoph. These are trying times. Good! Ideal absurcumstances for the daily and even moment-to-moment practice of transcendence.  Over the past four years (okay, centuries), leftists have taught us how not to do it.  But we say:

Let us not give stupid opinions the pleasure of upsetting us (Dávila).

 Serenity NOW! With a side of wisdom, preferably the foolish kind the world has always detested.

I mentioned something in a comment the other day: that the less important the subject, the harder it is to fake, whereas the more difficult the subject, the easier to be an expert fraud at it.  

I can't have been the first to think of this; it sounds like one of those informal laws -- e.g., Murphy's Law or the Peter Principle. It also has some overlap with Dunning-Kruger, since it allows idiots to imagine they are deep thinkers;  think of a Thomas Friedman, or Paul Krugman, or Howard Zinn -- people who are wrong about everything but never stop falling up.

Which adverts to a related point: easier subjects are not only harder to fake, but there is a penalty for getting them wrong.  If a medical doctor makes the wrong diagnosis or an engineer designs a bridge too weak to bear the traffic, they're going to find out about the error sooner or later.

But if a political pundit gets things wrong, he just moves on to the next error.  He learns nothing, nor can he learn anything on pain of no longer being a know-it-all Pundit.  

The greater the importance of an intellectual activity, the more ridiculous the certification of competence in those who exercise it. A diploma of dentistry is respectable, but one of philosophy is grotesque (ibid.).

At the same time, the more fundamental the reality, the more surely it can be known.  Precisely because it is fundamental it is accessible to all.  Anyone with an average IQ can learn and comprehend math, physics, or chemistry, even if they'll never be trailblazers or innovators in the field, rather, just drones, like the cloud-hidden Silicon Valley ciphers who presume to control what we are permitted to think and say:

The technician believes he is a superior being because he knows what, by definition, anyone can learn.

I could code. I just don't want to.

I never thought I'd say this, but I spotted an error by the Master. For there is definitely something "more alarming than science in the ignorant."  It is Tech Giants run by the ignorant.  

Ironically, certain qualities are necessary to be unusually gifted at messing round with quantities.  But these qualities do not include wisdom, of course, or we would all recognize that scientists and accountants should be our leaders.    

Instead, we understand that while certain disciplines are fundamental, they are also of necessity quite narrow and shallow.  If we want to learn about human nature we consult Shakespeare, not Einstein.  When it comes to important subjects outside his own narrow specialty, Albert was no Einstein.  In many ways he was an imbecile (which I mean literally, not as an insult).

Example?  Well, for starters, he was a committed socialist.  Conversely, someone like Hayek shows that socialism isn't just a stupid idea, but impossible in principle (and if you do not understand why socialism is impossible, by all means keep thinking. You'll get there, I promise).  It might be possible to implement socialism.  Just not with our species.  

Does math or physics tell us anything of importance about the nature of our species? Of course not. Unless one proceeds one or two levels up, and asks the question: in what sort of cosmos is it possible for a being to comprehend its mathematical structure?  By virtue of what principle?   

In other words, if something actually happens, then it it must have been possible for it to happen.  But a mathematician lives in a world of necessity, so he will have to exit math in order to comprehend its principle.

According to Prof Wiki (who is often himself an idiot) Einstein said that 

In Lenin I honor a man, who in total sacrifice of his own person has committed his entire energy to realizing social justice. I do not find his methods advisable. One thing is certain, however: men like him are the guardians and renewers of mankind's conscience.

He says this despite the fact that there is no such thing as "social justice," nor would Lenin have hesitated to liquidate Einstein as a class enemy for positing the existence of a "conscience."  

Rather, Lenin knew that good and evil were defined by what is good for the Party.  Lenin's morality resembles that of our progressive Dems: declining to accept the results of an election is only bad if Republicans do it.

Einstein also "strongly advocated the idea of a democratic global government that would check the power of nation-states in the framework of a world federation." So he was a natural born Trump hater before Trump was born.

Einstein "served on the advisory board of the First Humanist Society of New York and was an honorary associate of the Rationalist Association." To which we will respond with a few pointy aphorisms that dispense with such metacosmic stupidity, now and forever: regarding "humanism,"

Man is the most contemptible refuge of men.

To believe in the redemption of man by man is more than an error; it is an idiocy.

“To have faith in man” does not reach the level of blasphemy; it is just one more bit of nonsense.

Humanity is the only totally false god.

And regarding "rationalism" (which is never actually rational), first of all, Gödel, QED. But one needn't be a certifiable logician to understand that  

“Irrationalist” is shouted at the reason that does not keep quiet about the vices of rationalism.

Perhaps we'll circle back around to that one later, because it is quite important in the overall scheme of things.  For if you don't understand and appreciate the limits of (lower case r) reason, you thereby plunge yourself into a realm of un- and anti-reason.

Let's leave Albert with a truism to ponder, that Nothing proves more the limits of science than the scientist’s opinions about any topic that is not strictly related to his profession.

We've mentioned before how entire academic disciplines had to be invented in order for certain genders and ethnic groups to be awarded pretend doctorates.  I read somewhere that the annual number of black PhDs in math and physics approaches... zero.   In order to make up for the absence, PhDs in the humanities (or worse) must be handed out like participation trophies.

Anyone with an IQ of 85 or above (maybe even lower) can be an expert in journalism, political science, or in one of the cornucrapia of grievance studies from Women's to Queer to African American. Just in my professional laughtime I've seen the field of psychology deteriorate from being  relatively respectable to absolutely farcical.  Consider the Mental Health Expert Bandy Lee, who tells us that President Trump is worse than Hitler.  

Here again, in order to believe this, one must be a complete idiot in at least three fields, psychology, history, and political science. But "idiot" doesn't really cover it.  Rather, one must be mentally ill in order to believe such a thing. Analogously, Keith Olbernann is a surely a journalist, but more importantly, he is psychotic.

It reminds me of that film about the schizophrenic mathematician.  The reason why his story made for an interesting film is precisely because he still had access to truth despite the mental illness, but only because math provides objective answers.  No one would care if he were a journalist or political scientist raving about the fascist orange man.  

Here is the irony:  the more important the subject, the easier it is to fake.  For example, anyone, even me, can be a theologian, philosopher, and psychologist. I am all three, in that order. But that is a critical point: In. That. Order.

It wasn't always this way, my trolls.  I used to think it was possible to be a psychologist, but without being a philosopher or theologian.  This is foolish, irrespective of how intelligent I imagined myself to be, for one can't help being a (usually bad) metaphysician.  I suppose I've been doing penance ever since I realized that the true order of things flows from metaphysics to metapsychology to psychology.   

A few jabs from the Aphorist and I'm out:

The specialist baffles and amuses us with the contrast between the intellectual maturity of his concepts and the spiritual immaturity of his ideas

The senile sclerosis of intelligence does not consist in the inability to change ideas, but in the inability to change the level for those that we have.

Anyone can learn what it is possible to know, but knowing it intelligently is within the reach of few.