We human beings like to pride ourselves on our scientific knowledge, our education system, and the amount of information we can access. We generally think we know what is going on around us and have a pretty clear picture of the world.
The reality is much different. We are most well acquainted with the exteriors of things–what we can see and hear, in particular. But there is a tremendous amount of complexity in what we perceive that simply passes us by. An obvious example is all the invisible forces we can’t sense–magnetic fields, radio waves, light outside the visible spectrum. Microwaves are big enough that they can’t “fit through” the holes in the door of the microwave oven. But we can’t see them. We have a lousy sense of smell compared to a dog.
Even what we can sense is mostly a mystery. I just heard some people talking outside my window. I have no idea who they were or what they were saying. Honestly, that’s true of most of the people I interact with–I know next to nothing about almost everyone I see. Freight trains are a common sight, but few know what is in the cars, where they are going, or how the whole rail system works in general. Someone must be driving those trains, making up schedules, loading and unloading them, but that’s an invisible world to most of us.
I can’t identify most trees, birds, flowers, or plants just by looking at them. Birds are singing outside my window but I have no idea what type of birds they are or why they are doing it. I saw a lightning storm last night and realized that I no longer remember what causes lightning. I think there are ions and charged particles and such involved. I’m sure there are many people who know more about the natural world than I do, but I think most of us are in the same boat.
We learn a lot of things during our lifetime, and we forget most of them. I have only vague ideas of the contents of most of the books on my shelves, even though I spent hours reading them at some point. This is because our memories are bad. Mine is worse than most, I suspect, but we are all pretty limited in what we can remember. We don’t remember the names or faces of most of the people we have met in our lives. If I read someone a 20 digit number, then change the subject, most will not be able to repeat it 5 minutes later. When a reader turns the page of a book, they have already forgotten most of the specific words on the previous page and their order. Close your eyes and try to repeat the previous paragraph word for word. What? You can’t do it? You were just looking at it 5 seconds ago!
What alternately disturbs and fascinates me is that I am rarely aware of my own ignorance. I just realized the other day that I don’t know what a “green card” looks like. I have no idea what is in the Koran, even though it greatly affects the lives of millions if not billions of people. I have never had more than a hazy idea of who is running my country. Especially I don’t know who is in charge of my local government, which you’d think would be the most important thing for me to know.
In short, we are not only ignorant and stupid, we don’t even realize it most of the time. We’re so used to the shortcut summary hashes of limited perceptual data our brains absorb and retain that we don’t even realize how limited they are.
The reason we are so dumb is that whole cost/benefit thing that drives natural selection. We see what we most need to see–what is right in front of us. We remember what it is valuable to remember and little more. Better senses, memory, and reasoning power would require a bigger brain, which would need more nourishment and possibly make us topple over. Our brains are already as big as they need to be.
Bigger than they need to be, I often think. Seems kind of suspicious sometimes. Perhaps instead of asking whether there is intelligent life out there we should be asking why there is any here…
Black Hole Radiation 