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The Nature Of Man - The UT Instinct Appendix 4 Acquisition of Knowledge If this is your first visit to this site please read the Glossary Introduction Most people look at what Man has achieved and come to the conclusion that Man is an intelligent and rational species. Superficially Man is thus. The truth is different. This scenario should explain how one should view the achievements of Man and come to a realistic understanding of ourselves. The Shape Board Scenario Imagine a situation where a child is given a large flat wooden board. Many different shaped holes have been cut in the board eg circular, oval, square, rectangle, different star shapes, triangles, etc etc. The child is also given the various pieces which had been cut from the board and the object of the exercise is to put the shapes into their corresponding holes. The child takes up the first piece and tries to insert it into the nearest hole but it diesn't fit. Be then tries the next hole etc etc until the piece actually fits. Be then starts working on the next piece and again, after trying out various holes finds the correct one. Etc etc. On some occasions be put a piece into an incorrect hole because the piece is smaller than the hole and the shape is different eg a small circle shape into a large square hole. After weeks, or months, or years, or decades, or centuries, or millenia the person who set the exercise enters the room and comes to the conclusion that the child is very intelligent because most of the shapes are in the correct holes. In this case the conclusion is very incorrect. Truth The truth of the matter is that the child used trial and error to find the correct hole in which to put each of the shaped pieces. If the child had been intelligent it would have analysed a shaped piece and studied each hole and found the correct hole first time, and so on with every other piece. 'Trial and error' may be a type of intelligence but of a very low variety. Reality In reality Man has improved bes knowledge not by working out correct theories first time around but rather by discarding previously held 'beliefs' when, and only when, they were shown to be incorrect. In the history of mankind one could say that at any particular point in time most of the beliefs held (scientific etc) were WRONG. They may have been partially correct but seldom were totally correct. For example take medicine. How many millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of people have died because of incorrect treatment eg blood letting, taking of various 'medicines' which themselves were deadly etc. We may have machines which can scan the body and show every internal detail, and heart transplants are a daily occurrence BUT it is literally built on the suffering and premature death of multitudes of people who died because of these guessworks of medicine. Man has achieved a lot but even now which of the accepted theories will be shown to be incorrect and will sometime in the future be discarded for a more accepteble theory? If you want to contact me to discuss, or to get me to clarify, a specific point, please only do so AFTER reading the whole section about the UT Instinct. Thank you.  Top of Page

Last Update : 3rd October 2009

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