I am talking about individual intellectual evolution. Not based on biology, but based on perception and awareness as history has recorded down through the ages. And secondary, the interaction between the individual, society and then back to the individual.
I'll give you a couple of examples of what I'm talking about. Think about things like slavery, something just 250 years ago was acceptable to the intelligentsia of the day e.g. Washington and Jefferson. But today that idea is totally off the table.
If you look down through history, you can see humans around the world increasingly having humane and sophisticated perceptions of society. Democracy, abolition of slavery, women's voting rights, civil rights, and it all has to do with an increasing intellectual perception, for lack of a better description by the individual.
As you point out, we did not get any more intelligent biologically, but we sure as heck became more intelligent existentially. What that clearly shows, in my opinion is that as information increases, our ability to think in a more sophisticated manner increases.
Once again, science has a name for that and it is called knowledge directed perception. And it is simply based on the premise that the more you know the more you can see.Literally. And going through life uneducated is like going through life with poor eye sight.
So, intellectual evolution. And we have no idea what the ultimate ranges is in our perception. All my life it seemed to me that conventional institutions and conventional academic understanding put an artificial upper limit that I think is dead wrong.
How is it that we keep getting so much smarter?
Education pure and simple.
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| It seems that you are talking about the evolution of societies - I'm not sure what "intellectual evolution" could be, since intellect is biological. It is undoubtedly true that we have more information available to us than ever before. Einstein knew much more about physics than Newton did. Our intellectual capacity, on average, has probably not changed significantly in tens of thousands of years, as Trump's level of support indicates.
The central issue, as I see it, is that the availability of factual information is not the same as uptake of factual information. The evidence is everywhere that a large fraction of the population have little interest in facts (the truth, in other words). Reality is too complex, and many of the facts are downright scary (we are going to die!). Coupled with tribal identification, this situation leads to WW1, WW2 etc. Meanwhile some of the cleverest among us are devoting themselves to developing more and more powerful weapons of destruction. There is definite progress in that department, and of course in all areas of science and technology. But are societies becoming less war-like? I don't see it. |
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