Thursday, February 20, 2014

Is Reason Genetic?

I recently published a presentation called Socially Engineered Suppression of Cognitive Development which suggests the majority of our population is developmentally disabled in their reasoning, but doesn't answer the question whether or not it's a genetic neurological problem or thousands of years of behavioral conditioning by the ruling class.

There are families with atheists who stand alone in their ability to reason, so because many are unable to convince others in their family to adopt logic, I infer that genetics has endowed them with a certain balance of brain chemistry which allows for an extra push of skepticism.

In my case I have a chronic low-grade anxiety, the result of a dopamine deficit. I never experienced what others call "spirituality." I don't experience the easy euphoria that most people seem to feel when they exercise their rituals or imagine the presences of an invisible being. My judgment and perception are therefore not clouded by what Karl Marx referred to as the Opiate of the masses. This also explains why I am not into sports.

I must rely on actual physical evidence to be convinced of anything. Life is too short in my perception to allow for supernatural notions so I must understand why so many people today are so convinced of the supernatural that they commit murder over it.

People with limited reasoning capacity make excellent drones from factory work to filling prescriptions. They are good with numbers to a certain point; good at accounting, not so good at evaluating economic externalities for such tasks as governing a county, state or country.

Just look at all the arguments against raising the minimum wage and you'll see a pattern develop. Some see only the cost of labor while others see the increased flow of money through the economy which increases demand.

 Our public education system doesn't teach critical thinking skills, they teach you what to think, not how to think. The rote method and teaching to test scores seems to dominate. Is it a contribution to the way most people think? In other words, is our education system conditioning us to think a certain way, or is it an accommodation for a selectively bred population of substandard thinkers?

Occasionally there will be born those who think outside the perception of everyone else. They are vilified and ostracized. They are mocked and ridiculed. They are called rebels, outsiders, disrupters, dissidents, nerds, geeks, freaks, condescending, arrogant, jerks, blasphemers, infidels, etc.

The people who use these labels are susceptible to groupthink, cult influence, paranoia, xenophobia, jingoism, and the like.

One other possibility for someone to adopt and maintain magical thinking into adulthood is a personal investment in controlling those who are vulnerable and don't yet have Formal Operational thinking skills. Those who seek to exploit children and the disabled. I'm sure we all know who they are.