Friday, January 11, 2013

The Value Of Knowledge

I have encountered twice the erroneous belief that knowledge is somehow important, let alone important for psychological growth and self-knowledge. This ridiculous notion must be uprooted as it is ludicrously false. It is a simple matter of economics, but first I will deal with another misconception, omnipresent amongst the idiots studying psychology and AI. That emotions somehow matter and are the root of personality.

EMOTIONS

Emotions are trivial and meaningless. They are instantly changeable using the Emotional Disciplines I have invented. Not like pathetic Buddhist meditation or Kolinahr where some neutral emotion like tranquility or calm is targeted and great efforts are made to achieve it. No, using the Emotional Disciplines it is trivial to cancel any emotion within 6 seconds AND you can also SUMMON any emotion within 6 seconds. It doesn't even take any real practice, all it takes is knowing exactly how to do it.

Now, if emotions are completely unimportant then why would one's reactions to various situations be important? Why would one's memories be important to one's self?

KNOWLEDGE

Getting back on track now, there are 800,000 words in the English language. Say that 10^5 = 100,000 are concepts, and there are (10^10) possible ideas (agglutinations of concepts). You can see the combinatorial explosion starting. Well, among the 100,000 possible concepts, there are maybe 10,000 that can be universalized as core values. So that's 10^4 possible core values, out of which an Angel will typically have *SIX* for their whole entire lives. I myself hold exactly TEN, being a total freak of nature and far more passionate and caring than others.

Those 6-10 core values determine HALF of your personality and 97% or so of its individuality. A SINGLE core value determines MORE THAN 5% of your personality. Think about that. And now compare it to individual bits of knowledge which has a TOTAL weight upwards of 10^10 so that a single idea has a weight only of 10^-10! Upwards of 5% compared to less than one tenth of a billionth. Core values versus knowledge. There is no contest.

Knowledge just doesn't matter.

META-LEVELS

And then of course there is the argument from meta-levels. If you do not know what meta-levels are, you should look it up. Suffice to say that higher is better. That transcendance is meta-meta-leveling. And that the higher you go, the more leverage you can have.

Knowing the value of 3.14159 is less valuable than knowing it's the ratio of a circle to its circumference, which is itself less valuable than knowing that it exists as an important mathematical constant called pi. Knowing how to work the political system is less valuable than knowing how to change the political system is less valuable than knowing how to abolish it in preference for a completely different political system.

Similarly for IS versus OUGHT. There is what is. There is what you want or desire (although those are misnomers for low-level values as 'want' and 'desire' are specific emotions thus insignificant). And then there is what OUGHT to be (high level values - core values).

IN REAL LIFE

The way this manifests in practice is thus, you can divide your life horizontally between intellectual, work and personal. And you can divide it up vertically between lower and higher:

intellectual: knowledge about the world and knowledge ABOUT knowledge (about how to acquire knowledge, about how to determine what knowledge you require, about what knowledge is valuable, about what knowledge you ought to have).

work: doing something to get paid and be financially sound versus doing meaningful work to effect a change in the world.

personal: knowing your desires, thoughts & hobbies versus knowing your Core Values, your mind, & Life Dreams. HAVING Life Dreams. Knowing how to discover and produce them systematically and at will. Being an insect versus being a giant (and knowing not to imitate insects).

interpersonal: having friends versus having the kinds of friends that will make you happy and a better person besides, growing and furthering those relationships, strengthening and broadening those bonds, learning how to do all this, learning how to pick great friends.

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