Ask A Genius 597: Think Me a Thought, Maestro, Dream Me a Dream, Mister
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2021/07/04
July 4, 2021
[Beginning of recorded material]
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Okay, so new session.
Rick Rosner: Okay.
Scott: Do you want to start this one or do you want me to?
Rosner: I can start. You asked, “What is it?” I said we haven’t talked about this before. So I thought about it. And I think stupidity is acting or believing contrary to available information or contrary to reasonable goals. And thinking about it a little further, I decided that just about every movie and TV show, all these scripted movies, TV shows, is to some extent about stupidity, where you set up these characters and situations and you let them do stuff. And we see what happens as an experiment with this, you know, to some extent, you know how things work out. It lets you know whether what the characters did and what they believed is stupid or not, that we learn from scripted entertainment. You know, it’s like little experiments to see what happens when you believe things, certain things, and when you do certain things, little lessons in the world.
So we may not know if somebody’s stupid or not at the beginning of a TV show or a movie, and we may know more at the end, at least according to the rules set up in the show. So it’s a hot topic in neuroscience right now to examine the operation of the brain in terms of how well it sets you up to succeed in the world. But a lot of neuroscientists currently believe that the brain is a prediction engine that sets you up to do what it calculates is best, given what it thinks is going to happen to you next. And then you can go back to the standard example. You know, if you see a red light, your brain has calculated that if you walk out into the street, you will put yourself at risk.
So for the most part, your brain stops you from entering an intersection when you have a red light. It predicts bad things if you enter the intersection. But then that leads to all sorts of questions about, you know, if your brain’s trying its best to not have you be stupid, then why do so many people do and believe stupid things? That’s one question. Another question is, what are your reasonable goals? So we’ve talked about it before that sex is a goal that is often at odds with your other goals. You know, in most cases, individual survival. Now evolution doesn’t really want anything that we’ll see, just for the sake of easy, we’re going to say evolution wants you to survive, to reproduce. So evolution doesn’t want you to die, most of the time. But when it comes down to the chance of reproducing and species survival, sometimes takes the lead over individual survival. And so that’s where you find contradictions between, you know, what’s the most reasonable thing to do? You’ve got two different frameworks. You know, it’s not reasonable for, say, male praying mantises to commit suicide by having sex with a female mantis and chop its head off.
But to break the male mantis sex drive has driven it to do this. I’m not sure there are dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of wanting to reproduce among animals, of wanting to reproduce, putting that animal in harm’s way. So that leads right to the question of what is the most reasonable thing to want to do? You know, if this were the 17th century, total hedonism might be the most reasonable thing to want because you have zero chance in the 17th century of living past the age of one hundred. Science is not advanced to the point where, you know, so you might as well just live it up because you’re going to be dead pretty soon. Whereas now, you know, if you’re thirty-eight years old, you may not want to live it up because if you can live for sixty more years, that might give you the chance to live for another hundred years beyond that, based on, you know, advances in medical science.
So just to say that there are, it’s not always clear what the most reasonable thing to want is. And relative to that, it might be that you don’t know what stupid is, the guy who’s eating and drinking and being married in 1620, being stupid, you know, especially with the plague just around the corner. So that’s just one area of things not being clear. What is the reasonable thing to want or to do?
Jacobsen: May I interject?
Rosner: Sure.
Jacobsen: What about separation in the context of historical levels of knowledge for an average person compared to present levels of knowledge for an average person when making a distinction between stupidity and ignorance?
Rosner: I could circle back around to stupidity by asking, isn’t it dumb to be ignorant? In the 1400s, it’s not dumb to be ignorant because knowledge wasn’t available. But if it’s now and you have the knowledge level of the average person from the 1400s, then that’s dumb because the knowledge is available. Go ahead. Scott: What about a separation between negative ignorance and positive ignorance? What you mean, negative ignorance is not knowing, not caring, you know, being curious and never curing that ignorance, even though the knowledge is available to cure that ignorance. Interviewee: I think what you’re saying is positive ignorance might be, you can’t know everything. And if you go to great lengths to make the best decisions, you might be stupid because you’re costing yourself opportunities to help yourself by focusing too much on being personally or perfectly informed. Is that where you’re going with that?
Jacobsen: Somewhat. In other words, someone with positive ignorance has a curious orientation about the world and an openness to correct ignorance. Negative ignorance is not correcting that course of emptiness of mind, but a positive person is, for instance, maybe a creationist at one point in their life. But with good education and critical thinking skills, they can think their way into a more accurate view of the world, which is an evolutionary perspective.
Rosner: So I think what you’re bringing up is part of a wider question, which is if everybody’s brain is trying to do as well as it can to help the person, you know, survive and prosper, why are there so many stupid people doing stupid things?
Jacobsen: That’s an interesting question and funny.
Rosner: Yeah. And what it points to is that in many instances, being stupid might not be so foolish or mean you’re just a patsy for someone else’s scheme. But someone might actively try to deceive or exploit you and fill your head with crap for that purpose. In some cases, there’s the saying “shit or get off the pot,” and those who sit on the pot might be acting stupidly. On the other hand, those who take action might be doing the smarter thing. This stereotypical gender difference suggests that men tend to be more impulsive and take action, while women tend to gather more information and engage in less impulsive behavior, leading to different outcomes. Additionally, men are more easily replaceable than women in terms of the species. Women, being the ones who gestate and often take the lead in raising children, contribute significantly, while men simply need to provide their contribution []. Thus, a population that is 60 percent women can reproduce as effectively as a 50-50 population because women are the ones who give birth. Moreover, the brain has limited resources, and we don’t remember everything, which is likely not only due to the brain’s limitations but also because remembering everything would likely be counterproductive in some ways. The brain is constantly making judgments or bets, which are likely Bayesian in nature. I’m not sure how you could make a bet that isn’t Bayesian, as Bayesian logic is based on evaluating the knowledge one possesses and assigning a confidence value to it. For example, we have high confidence in knowledge we know well, such as the meaning of a red traffic light. However, if we found ourselves on an alien planet and encountered an unfamiliar ochre or burnt umber light, we would have zero confidence in its meaning. We assess our information, evaluate our confidence, and make decisions accordingly. As we gain more information, we adjust our judgments. This is simply Bayesian logic and decision-making. A reasonable brain operates within these limits, considering the constant time and resource pressures. Sometimes, I feel a little guilty when I distract a squirrel, wondering if I’ve cost it calories or disrupted its activities. Similarly, if I don’t stop for a pigeon in a parking lot, causing it to fly away and expend energy, I may have inadvertently affected it. However, you’re always utilizing resources, and your brain is doing its best within those limitations. Nevertheless, brains can sometimes be flawed. There’s no rule that guarantees your brain will always perform optimally. Well, there is a rule, and that is you are the result of billions of years of evolution, which included the development of your brain. So, your brain is probably pretty decent, although it can have certain deficiencies. It’s like your brain is an organ, just like your heart, and most people’s hearts function reasonably well. Evolution produces a satisfactory product, although not an exceptional one. We don’t have hearts that are 100 percent perfect, nor do we have brains that are 100 percent exceptional because we only need to be good enough to ensure the survival of the next generation or perhaps the generation after that. So, those are some of the issues surrounding stupidity. The end.
[End of recorded material]
Authors[1]
American Television Writer
(Updated July 25, 2019)
*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.*
According to some semi-reputable sources gathered in a listing here, Rick G. Rosner may have among America’s, North America’s, and the world’s highest measured IQs at or above 190 (S.D. 15)/196 (S.D. 16) based on several high range test performances created by Christopher Harding, Jason Betts, Paul Cooijmans, and Ronald Hoeflin. He earned 12 years of college credit in less than a year and graduated with the equivalent of 8 majors. He has received 8 Writers Guild Awards and Emmy nominations, and was titled 2013 North American Genius of the Year by The World Genius Directory with the main “Genius” listing here.
He has written for Remote Control, Crank Yankers, The Man Show, The Emmys, The Grammys, and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He worked as a bouncer, a nude art model, a roller-skating waiter, and a stripper. In a television commercial, Domino’s Pizza named him the “World’s Smartest Man.” The commercial was taken off the air after Subway sandwiches issued a cease-and-desist. He was named “Best Bouncer” in the Denver Area, Colorado, by Westwood Magazine.
Rosner spent much of the late Disco Era as an undercover high school student. In addition, he spent 25 years as a bar bouncer and American fake ID-catcher, and 25+ years as a stripper, and nearly 30 years as a writer for more than 2,500 hours of network television. Errol Morris featured Rosner in the interview series entitled First Person, where some of this history was covered by Morris. He came in second, or lost, on Jeopardy!, sued Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? over a flawed question and lost the lawsuit. He won one game and lost one game on Are You Smarter Than a Drunk Person? (He was drunk). Finally, he spent 37+ years working on a time-invariant variation of the Big Bang Theory.
Currently, Rosner sits tweeting in a bathrobe (winter) or a towel (summer). He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, dog, and goldfish. He and his wife have a daughter. You can send him money or questions at LanceVersusRick@Gmail.Com, or a direct message via Twitter, or find him on LinkedIn, or see him on YouTube.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Founder, In-Sight Publishing
Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the Founder of In-Sight Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal (ISSN 2369-6885). Jacobsen works for science and human rights, especially women’s and children’s rights. He considers the modern scientific and technological world the foundation for the provision of the basics of human life throughout the world and the advancement of human rights as the universal movement among peoples everywhere.
Footnotes
[1] Four format points for the session article:
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- Humble, A. (n.d.). Guide to Transcribing. Retrieved from http://www.msvu.ca/site/media/msvu/Transcription%20Guide.pdf.
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