This post is the result of my personal reflection, taking inspiration from the thoughts of people much more illustrious and enlightened than me.
In recent years, a good part of the world has experienced the exponential expansion of the Internet and the devices to access it.
The amount of information we have access to today is indefinable, and without realizing it we have entered a vicious circle of "learning".
Even when we don't actually need it, we spend time scrolling and scrolling, scanning titles, comments, images, videos, looking for some interesting information.
However, our mind is not a hard disk with infinite capacity. It doesn't work like a computer that stores data. It tries to serve its function, so peculiar in the animal world, that is, to make us make choices and decisions.
Thus each piece of information that presents itself is processed and cataloged by the mind so that it knows what to do with it. Useful, useless. Good, bad. Right, wrong.
In fact, it is quite difficult to learn information without cataloging it. It's a bit like when you memorize something, rather than trying to understand the concept. It is difficult to do this, and we are limited in memory. But it is much easier when we make our own logic, because it allows us to regenerate information.
This binary process of cataloging has its effectiveness in a simple world, an animal world, where needs are the primary ones. But in an increasingly complex world, increasingly rich in information, this process becomes ineffective, and sometimes even dangerous.
If the avalanche of information that reaches us is difficult to catalog or does not entirely represent reality, as typically happens with scientific information, then absurdly polarized currents of thought arise, perfectly and dangerously at odds with each other.
If the information is also false, biased or the result of feelings of hatred, or something else... it's even worse.
The most striking example that the world has just experienced concerns the COVID pandemic. You can make an overview of polarizations: Virus fearsome or like a cold. Protective devices everywhere or useless. Safe or dangerous vaccines. Interest of the community or of an elite/lobby.
Pay attention to it. Look around you. Every single issue becomes a source of polarization. Even those that do not actually follow a binary system inevitably become binary.
Global warming: yes, no.
War: good, bad.
Economic policies: right, wrong.
The scientific approach, which always includes research, analysis, insights, doubts, margins of uncertainty, changes of course... is too much often an uncontemplated mechanism, which remains relegated to experts. The scientists.
Non-informed people always tend to take one side or the other.
They choose to believe one thing or another.
Choose to follow a guy just because his thoughts give credence to our ideas, or discredit those of others.
They don't realize that they need to contemplate the contrary thoughts of others to understand that they are wrong.
The disturbing thing is that all this is becoming proportional to the amount of information circulating.
This drift of critical thinking ability is the antithesis of mass disasters, sometimes.
It has already happened in the past, several times, albeit to a relatively more limited extent and in a more limited manner. Yet the mechanism is the same.
Now... no, I don't think that audiophilia will cause mass disasters (although never say never given how things are).
However, I believe it is also one of many cases that demonstrates, since its inception, how the world works exactly this way. Now and in the past.
Information not filtered with appropriate scientific criteria has given rise to the most disparate currents of thought, product lines, companies, shops.
Yet, even today, we are far from converging towards the objective reality of things. Indeed... the more scientific (and non-scientific) information increases, the more new interpretations spread.
It is a vicious circle, from which it is possible to escape only with widespread and exhaustive education of people.
Hard to believe possible in practice.
Luckily there is someone who believes in it, who tries and who tries to drag other people into all this.
This forum, in its small way, is a beacon lit in the darkness of the drift of human thought.
I came to it with a certain thought about audio, and today fortunately I have a different one, broader, more structured, more competent.
And this is thanks to many of you users who participate, sharing the noble intent of spreading culture.
Thank you all.
And above all thank you @amirm.
In recent years, a good part of the world has experienced the exponential expansion of the Internet and the devices to access it.
The amount of information we have access to today is indefinable, and without realizing it we have entered a vicious circle of "learning".
Even when we don't actually need it, we spend time scrolling and scrolling, scanning titles, comments, images, videos, looking for some interesting information.
However, our mind is not a hard disk with infinite capacity. It doesn't work like a computer that stores data. It tries to serve its function, so peculiar in the animal world, that is, to make us make choices and decisions.
Thus each piece of information that presents itself is processed and cataloged by the mind so that it knows what to do with it. Useful, useless. Good, bad. Right, wrong.
In fact, it is quite difficult to learn information without cataloging it. It's a bit like when you memorize something, rather than trying to understand the concept. It is difficult to do this, and we are limited in memory. But it is much easier when we make our own logic, because it allows us to regenerate information.
This binary process of cataloging has its effectiveness in a simple world, an animal world, where needs are the primary ones. But in an increasingly complex world, increasingly rich in information, this process becomes ineffective, and sometimes even dangerous.
If the avalanche of information that reaches us is difficult to catalog or does not entirely represent reality, as typically happens with scientific information, then absurdly polarized currents of thought arise, perfectly and dangerously at odds with each other.
If the information is also false, biased or the result of feelings of hatred, or something else... it's even worse.
The most striking example that the world has just experienced concerns the COVID pandemic. You can make an overview of polarizations: Virus fearsome or like a cold. Protective devices everywhere or useless. Safe or dangerous vaccines. Interest of the community or of an elite/lobby.
Pay attention to it. Look around you. Every single issue becomes a source of polarization. Even those that do not actually follow a binary system inevitably become binary.
Global warming: yes, no.
War: good, bad.
Economic policies: right, wrong.
The scientific approach, which always includes research, analysis, insights, doubts, margins of uncertainty, changes of course... is too much often an uncontemplated mechanism, which remains relegated to experts. The scientists.
Non-informed people always tend to take one side or the other.
They choose to believe one thing or another.
Choose to follow a guy just because his thoughts give credence to our ideas, or discredit those of others.
They don't realize that they need to contemplate the contrary thoughts of others to understand that they are wrong.
The disturbing thing is that all this is becoming proportional to the amount of information circulating.
This drift of critical thinking ability is the antithesis of mass disasters, sometimes.
It has already happened in the past, several times, albeit to a relatively more limited extent and in a more limited manner. Yet the mechanism is the same.
Now... no, I don't think that audiophilia will cause mass disasters (although never say never given how things are).
However, I believe it is also one of many cases that demonstrates, since its inception, how the world works exactly this way. Now and in the past.
Information not filtered with appropriate scientific criteria has given rise to the most disparate currents of thought, product lines, companies, shops.
Yet, even today, we are far from converging towards the objective reality of things. Indeed... the more scientific (and non-scientific) information increases, the more new interpretations spread.
It is a vicious circle, from which it is possible to escape only with widespread and exhaustive education of people.
Hard to believe possible in practice.
Luckily there is someone who believes in it, who tries and who tries to drag other people into all this.
This forum, in its small way, is a beacon lit in the darkness of the drift of human thought.
I came to it with a certain thought about audio, and today fortunately I have a different one, broader, more structured, more competent.
And this is thanks to many of you users who participate, sharing the noble intent of spreading culture.
Thank you all.
And above all thank you @amirm.
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