Hallucinations

Whoa! If you can see me now I'm pretty sure you'll be disgusted. I'm licking a popsicle (in an effeminate way :P) with no shirt on and perspiring pretty badly. Well... no.

Today. Class, we're gonna talk about the effects of the heat haze on human minds. Point one, it drives people crazy. Point across. Lesson done. Close, but not quite. It's interesting how a slight chill could gift the thought of ghosts appearance to people, or how a hotter-than-normal day makes people curse (most of the time their own deed.) the irresponsible earthlings for global warming. The interesting part about all this is, they do no part of thinking nor questioning when these thoughts escape from their mouths.

You might not notice it, you might not even admit it, but your mind is very fallible. Don't believe it? Let me rephrase. The brain, yours and also mine, are fallible. Still not convinced? Hey, lemme tell you something, it is researched by psychologists that the human mind is very fallible. Still don't understand? The different phrasing used directly tells your brain what to believe. Because everyone has an ego they won't let go, the first attempt was not so convincing. Because I've put myself on the line, the second attempt sounds slightly more convincing, but nonetheless a personal remark or comment. The 3rd attempt is close to a jackpot, as I've claimed it was researched by psychologists, a non-common thing to study about.

The point of the previous paragraph was evident, the human mind is undoubtedly infinitely fallible, especially in fields where we lack understanding of. We rely on relayed information, be it true or god forbid, false. When data is relayed, it is stored and managed in such a way that makes the person prejudge the conclusion before the facts have all arrived. This in turn creates a paradoxical thing called prejudices that makes hypocrites of us all. The human mind is fallible, but the human will cannot be underestimated, usually prejudices are only held back because of willpower, for the most of us, this willpower is insufficient. The reason for such absurd beliefs like UFOs or ghosts.

There are much advocation of the bolstering for this willpower in this particular field, we do it via logical thought and critical thinking. By thinking critically, that is, asking loads of questions previously thought unnecessary, will help withhold the analysis of incomplete evidence and make way for new information which might or might not complete the big picture. This practice is not new nor is it hard to execute, but most of us tend to misuse it to force our beliefs onto others by extrapolating facts and emphasizing half-truths in our answers. It is expected of such a method because the information is once again relayed, but it helps alot if you utilize the second tool, logical thought. With critical thinking, you gain information; relayed or not; truth or falsities, about the current situation, which you would immediately place together to sort out. But most of the time we would accept the final result of other people's analysis and be done with it. We are naturally lazy to think, that's just the way it is. What we are doing in such a situation is to compromise our own interpretations, our own thoughts and our own judgement to accept others. This skill is not about the shunning of other ideas, but the creation of your own conclusions that precedes over others, by piecing together information from multiple sources as well as conclusions from several viewpoints, we would be able to make judgements that are independant from others yet more truthful to ourselves than most.

This is not an absolute way to make sure there will be no mistakes, as most cases would disallow any possible person to know the truth because of human perceptions being distorted over the airwaves (chinese whispers indeed). However, every little bit of extra integrity from one person to another helps immensely in the game of communication. I myself advocates both of these skills whole-heartedly, unfortunately I still cannot make completely objective judgements on everything I assume I understand. But I certainly am trying to. I just hope that everyone else can as well. Perhaps one day like minded ones can form a group to crash a UFO Expo. What do you think?