What is stupidity?

‘Intelligence’ - the ability to learn, understand, and reason.
‘Stupid’ - lack of intelligence.

To have intelligence, one has to be open in their views and perspectives. While one believes or presumes things to be true or false, then they are closed, or at least have a narrowed perspective. While one is believing or presuming things to be true, then they are what is called ‘being stupid’. This is because while one believes or presumes something is true, then they are not open to anything that opposes or contradicts their belief and presumption.

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I have thumb hypermobility and Arnold nerve reflex it appears my life journey is complete. I am unique. (Just kidding)

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First, humans are born with innate physiological differences, among which are variations in intelligence that create physiologically rooted cognitive limitations. Second, divergent life experiences lead to gaps in comprehension: cognitive shortcomings that stem from insufficient knowledge. Third, if we confine our discussion to values and reduce stupidity merely to something negative, I hold the view that progress represents what is good, and backwardness what is bad.

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Welcome, tmekgyman! :grinning_face:

It seems to me that you’ve already homed in on the crux of the matter. We all talk of “intelligence”, but when we try to define what it is, with any kind of exactitude, we find we agree on little. This makes answering your original question a little difficult… :sweat_smile:

Nothing to report from my side.

you are absolutely free to claim this, but do you have the proof?

This phenomena happens for most words, by most people, most of the time.

The reason the so-called “experts” on ‘space and matter’ and ‘space and time’ still do not know the Truths about the Unvierse Itself is because they still do not know the definitions of those words with any kind of exactitude yet.

But, once they do, then they also will learn, understand, and know the G.U.T,O.E., as well.

Perhaps we could/should start with the conscious knowledge that we know less than we think we do. Then we could look at words such as these, and at least appreciate what we know, and what we don’t. In the end, we will make progress…

‘We’ could start with words like ‘love’ and ‘need’ if ‘you’ like, or even with the words ‘we’, ‘you’, and even ‘I’. For when ‘we’ use these words who and what, exactly, are ‘we’ referring to and really meaning.

Why do ‘we’ say, for example, “I’m looking for love”, “I’m falling in love”, or “I can’t find love”, when most ‘people’ have felt ‘love’ since birth?

Why do most adults believe, “We need money to live”? What is the ‘need’ referring to, exactly?

When ‘we’ say, “We” who and/or what are ‘we’ referring and meaning, exactly?

The same with the ‘you’ and ‘I’ words, what is being meant exactly, and what and/or who am ‘I’ and ‘you’, exactly?

Once ‘I’ “sat and thought about these questions”, and then when ‘I’ answered them in ‘a way’ that ‘I’ knew ‘everyone’ could agree with and accept, then the formation of the G.U.T.O.E. continued to ‘unfold’.

What ‘I’ have noticed is that ‘we’ say and use words, but when ‘I’ questioned and challenged ‘people’ over what ‘they’ were actually saying and meaning, without ‘them’ looking up the words in a dictionary/internet ‘people’ are not able to express fully, and satisfactorily. ‘i’ was the worst ‘offender’, by the way.

For just about every word ‘i’ was using, ‘i’, literally, could not explain what those words meant if ‘i’ did not go and look up ‘their definition and meaning’.

For example, when ‘i’ would say, or at least consciously think, every morning when ‘i’ woke up, “‘i’ ‘have to’ go to work”, because ‘i’ was subconsciously thinking, “‘i’ ‘need’ money (to live)”. And, after one day when ‘i’ actually stopped and thought about, Openly and Honestly, ‘What does the word ‘need’ mean, exactly?’ And, ‘What do ‘i’ ‘need’, exactly?’

The answers were, the word ‘need’ is in relation to being a ‘human being’, and “What ‘i’ do ‘need’,” is attention, water and food, which is clean enough, and a little bit of nutrients, absolutely everything else are just ‘wants’ and not ‘needs’ at all.
Once ‘i’ realised this Fact, ‘i’ learned and understood HOW ‘i’ had been fooling and deceiving “myself” for all of those prior years.
After this one simple realisation, and ‘now’ a ‘consciously known knowledge’, ‘i’ reduced ‘my wants’ and then could ‘consciously choose’ when or how often ‘i’ went to work, or not.
‘i’ am ‘now’ not being led, subconsciously, down some dead end path by ‘my own False and Wrong subconscious knowledge’.

Or, as what some might refer to as, being led by ‘my own stupidity’.

I completly agree with questioning the terms of words ones using and the ideas existing in your mind without your consideration, and also I am now realising how much there is to learn before I can completly understand what all of you are saying

I think words mean whatever two or more people agree they mean in the moment.

We try to nail them down and make them mean things outside of ourselves, but that can be pretty futile.

For information, there is NO such thing as ‘your mind’.

Absolutely every one of ‘us’ has each got a considerably more, and it could even be said a ‘relatively infinite amount more’, to learn and understand here.

‘I’ would even suggest that it could only take one person. After all, what things mean, and what is being referred to, are ‘known’ (consciously, subconsciously, and even unconsciously), individually.

When a word is ‘in agreement’, with “our” own understanding, then this is all that is really needed to ‘know’ what a word means.

Also, and by the way, this ‘in agreement (and acceptance)’, is actually how ‘truth’ is found and known.

But, it could be said and argued is the ‘only way’ ‘we’ can learn about, understand, and know ‘the Universe’ in which ‘we’ have found 'ourselves" with-(and)-in.

Expressing words, and their meanings/definitions, to ‘us’, is also the ‘only way’ ‘we’ can share and spread ‘knowledge’ of and about ‘the Universe’ - Everything; All there is; Totality.

Believing that humans can live in Mars. Buying Mars related stocks.

I don’t know. Sometimes I even feel stupid when hit by the arrows of Cupid.

Sometimes we are blind to what we don’t understand and stupidity I guess is making incorrect assumptions about what’s going on rather than maintaining on open mind.

what really gets me about human nature is lack of tolerance and trying to convince others of their point of view like truth is absolute or something.

It can be but then again it doesn’t need advocates. Religious zealots etc.

Well, there’s always Spock’s mind meld thing, but I doubt he’d survive a journey into the heads of many humans.

Okay…

Why would one not want to be and remain open always?

Are you absolutely sure that ‘human nature’ is a lack of tolerance and trying to convince others of their point of view?

To me anyway, they are certainly NOT ‘human nature’ at all.

Greetings.

I would define stupidity as follows:

Stupidity is a value judgment about the inconsistency of another subject’s behavior, opinion, or judgment with the evaluator’s own ideas about what is true, proper, or consistent.

Thus, stupidity (human) is relational and evaluative. For example, one person might call another’s behavior stupid if, in their opinion, they are too wasteful with their resources (working for pennies or wasting time on empty talk). Some people, for example, might consider pursuing philosophy stupid. After all, according to their own ideas, it wastes a lot of resources for dubious results. Others might call insensitivity to metaphysical topics stupid, since, in their view, a person uninterested in these topics is simply foolishly using other people’s narratives without generating their own; living inauthentic lives, etc.

Hence (in my opinion), stupidity is not something objectively existing. Who knows, maybe I am writing nonsense right now, in someone’s opinion.

Yes, so is it fair to observe that calling someone stupid tells us more about the speaker than about the supposedly stupid person?