does how we think and learn condem us to repeat past mistakes.

[mr d]

hello

 

had a strange thought. people always talk about how human kind is always repeating past mistakes, and how we fail to learn the great lessons of history.

was wondering if that could neurologically be built in to the human experience of learning, that we as physical beings can not simply accept learning from books or words to form our understanding of the world. do we require a certain amount of physical input to enforce knowledge into our brains.

example: children are warned fire is hot, but almost all children seem at one time or another to try to touch a flame (please prevent if you see happening). or you yourself my have been told not to look at the sun as it would 'burn out your eyes'. we all understand this is bad but still people try to squint and look at the sun.

same as for war. we all understand how horrific a war is and the suffering it causes. but unless you have experienced it you never really can understand the horrors of war.

and so we repeat mistakes for the past because we have not truely learn to understand that they are mistakes. logically we understand, but unless physically experienced and recorded by the brain do we really understand.

i agree as we gain knowledge somethings we begin to grasp by learning alone. yet still most of the learning we do is to put it to practical-real world physical use.

example: you give me a stick of dynamite and tell me to light the fuse and hold it. through learning i decline as i understand what would happen. but that is because in understand what will happen in the physical world, and not use an intellilectual concept. but at the same time many people may not light and hold the dynamite, nut would toss it to see what happens. i have learned what and explosions is, but until i physically see an explosion and its effect i don't truely understand and explosion.

would that be nessisary for humans to gain knowledge. so that we may read about past events, logically comprehend the causes and effects of such events, but lack a true understanding of the event because we did not experience the event.

 

strange thoughts

 

mr d