It is difficult to be critical of such a personal essay. I may not be able to attend one of your classes, but I consider it a luxury to be able to read you here. It is certainly hopeful to hold science up as a beacon, as it would be genuinely nice to believe science isn't political. Maybe it isn't, but people are, even scientists, which is evidence by all the times a scientist pointed the way forwards and peers delayed out of protest. "If this were true, we would have to throw out all the books." 'Well, that is science my friends.'
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Payne who proposed in a doctoral thesis the sun was mostly comprised of hydrogen and helium, was blocked from initially publishing that fact. How long after Alfred Lothar Wegener proposed continental drift was he shunned by peers did the earth finally move in thought the way it did in actuality? John E Mack, fellow chair at Harvard, proposed people who report seeing aliens are not mentally ill- not that 'aliens' were real, per say, but that experiencers are not crazy... What a political stir that was for a tenured man of science who was simply bringing a phenomena to our attention. A man who earned the right to question authority and assumptions. Was it truly the alien aspect that bothered his peers, or the fact that abductees/experiencers were communicating concerns for the environment even before scientists were sounding the alarm?
"Always question authority" feels very political. SCIENCE IS BETTER THAN POLITICAL, but not absence of the game. Translated to a more science oriented proposition, "always questions your assumptions" seems more fitting.
Like you, I , too, have said I seek a higher intelligence because I lament not finding greater community in my life. Mostly, it comes with a Star Trek reference: Scotty, beam me up. See that? I threw in a joke. :) In saying I want greater connection with greater intelligence, I was not just lamenting a lack of emotional and intellectual reciprocity of interaction, but disparaging my fellow man. It's true, I feel like I don't have a lot of folks sitting around discussing the sorts of things that I contemplate. You're an intelligent fellow, and if you actually responded I would probably crush crumble under the celebrity weight your attention would bring. And as much as I would favor a dialogue I would also fear criticism, perhaps evidence my own projection and psychological frailties of holding you to the level esteem I do. So, in that, may you find this small push evidence of courage. (Do you suppose courage is a form of intelligence?)
There is no lack of intelligence. Nature displays a variety of intelligence and our lack of ability to note how truly wondrous and connected we all our has brought us to our peril. Even within our own minds, whether you call it psychological programs or archetypes, it is clear our consciousness operates holistically with parts and mechanism we don't understand half as well as we likely should.
I don't think we have an intelligence problem. We have a communication problem. Our human discourse is essentially immersed in our outdated economic system, one of the few areas that has not evolved past bartering, where you trade with me or you get clobbered with a club. Discourse is hierarchal. Authority is both reasonable in terms of defining protocols for interaction, and yet it is political, as evidenced by the Yale university, Milgram experiment. When drawing on history about the true horrors of World War II, it would be nice to remember science says we are all vulnerable to iterations of evil. Which makes your statement imperative, question authority, and question your assumptions. This essay you have evoked is not trivial. It is a thesis in process, and perhaps refined we might tease out something elegant, like Star Trek's Prime Directive. Not a joke; an aspiration!
Perhaps I, in my cube of isolation I call an office, and the what, the few hundreds or thousands who may read you from their cells, will find our thoughts cast out into this sea of consciousness and be inspired. Like bottles washed up on a shore, these small messages ping out into a world full of lonely, intelligent, people, who just want things to be okay. If this weren't true, why appeal to greater? Hailing frequencies are open, but we don't hear our neighbors... These 'bottles' of hope is the evidence of intelligence life somewhere, maybe even near by, and in that there is hope enough to learn to hear, to speak, and bring compassion to self and others- because there is no hope when laws are absolute, when there are no more questions, when there is no more dialogue.
Reminds me of that joke of that man that drowned and he asked God, the greater intelligence, why he didn't do anything to spare him the flood. God said, 'I sent you a truck, a boat, and a helicopter. What the heck are you doing here?'
Be well, fellow sojourner of science and intellect. There is evidence. We are not alone.
