s1 if you want to know:
while knowing nothing causes fear, knowing everything is even worse.
People are fearful when they know nothing – they are rushed to the A&E and diagnosed with a pneumothorax or extradural haematoma, etc.. The moment they know about that they are terrified and no amount of explanation from the doctor can dispel the doubt and uncertainty. Sometimes people wonder that if they were the doctor they wouldn’t be so afraid. The truth, perhaps, is the complete opposite. Having spending five years un the med school and learning pathology well, the doctors will know every single details of his disease, including the worst complications and the worst outcomes that it could be.
Then who are the fearless ones? In my opinion these are the medical students half way through their course: they only have a smattering of medical knowledge and yet they think they know the nature of the illness well. They understand the jargons used so they are not baffled by the explanation offered by the doctors or books; in the same time they don’t know how bad things can go so they can just leave everything to the doctors. So I concluded that: people with incomplete knowledge fear the least.
一知半解的人最无畏。
Then I realized why people get married before they move in and live together. They think they know each other so well but in fact they don’t know about the living habits of each others. the fact is: You won’t marry someone that you don’t know, similarly you won’t marry someone that you know thoroughly. (this is the other explanation of why people don’t do incest.) That’s why all the religious people forbid cohabitation because it is such an effective way of seeing how your spouse will behave once you two move in together that it actually causes marriage rate to decline. After living together for some time you will probably rejoice that luckily I didn’t commit myself so early.
Thus to reiterate, for those who wants to know more to make an “informed decision”, while knowing nothing creates fear, knowing everything is even worse.
s2 if you don’t know
In case of doubt, make it sounds convincing
If you can fool everyone, you are the winner.
Corollary: if you can fool everyone, including yourself, you will be the happiest person on the earth.
When I was volunteering myself as a patient, I had the opportunity of observing other students with different style of clinical presentation. I was so impressed by some students who managed to present the history so well that the examiners even nodded as if in complete agreement. Essentially what he is presenting is only the pre-set history but he just have the ability to make it sounds so convincing, reassuring and professional, even to the learned medical ears. If I were his patient I will definitely have no doubt in his clinical skills and expertise.
Thus the art of convincing is really an imperative skills for all clinicians, sometimes more important than clinical skills itself. It is a matter of how well you present your stuffs, not how well you know your stuffs. If you seriously don’t know a thing you just need to convince others that you actually know, in order to pass the clinical exam and become a doctor. Most of the time the sense of assurance the patients have will do wonders: we term this as “the placebo effect”. In fact, you shall always take care of the patient’s psychology as well as his physical body.
Even if you ever go into trouble because of your incompetence, the art of convincing will still save your ass in front of the judges. If you can't do that make sure you get yourself a really good lawyer to defend yourself. You will need him some point in time even though you can be confident that you won't become part of the medical negligence doctors. (This is the consensus that we reach after the night discussing ethical problems with Sheng.)
The conclusion: if you can fool all your way through you are the winner by definition. You don’t actually need to be successful, you just need to “appear” successful. Better still if you can fool yourself as well. Keep in mind that you are not deceiving anybody, because you genuinely think that it is the truth. This is the highest level of lying. Not detectable by a lying machine.
Thus to reiterate: for those who afraid that you don’t know enough, master the art of convincing.
s3 you better don’t know
Ignorance is happiness
The art of convincing is applicable to every field of life, but so far religion is the only field that I observe uses this tactic so extensively and effectively. I remembered hearing somebody commented on religion which I think is a classic quote: “people are like that one, the more miraculous and incredible you sound the more they will believe in you.”
Two days ago when I was browsing a forum and I stumbled over an article about the miraculous revival of a
There are some criticism and quarrel ensued but I am not going to comment on this article.
I am thinking about some other questions about religion. There was a poll in the same forum before entitle: will the world be better off without religion? Two years ago my response will definitely be “of course not”. I think I don’t know the answer now.
I have been reading about books like “Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence”. The book tries to explain the fatal attraction between religion and voilence and the susceptiblity of religion to distortion by the extremists. This above article somehow makes me understand what Marx meant by “religion is the opium of the people”. Some religions just appear to be more like a cult. I found myself started to appreciate the fact that Chinese is one the few races in the world that does not have their own religion. I used to be ashamed of that but now I see a good point. One thing I learn from this race is that irreligion is not immoral. People like to accuse atheist of does not believe in god and moral. See atheism. I believe that there is a common universal code of morality that exist outside of human, and god. See moral universalism.
I still maintains myself to be a secularist and atheist. I shall not inculcate my children any notion of religion. They should be morally responsible to themselves, not to me or any higher being.
Thus to reinforce: there are some things like the creation of universe and after life are better left unknown before you can really grasp on the meaning of life. This knowledge won't help you to become a better person instead it can harm you if you don’t know about yourself.
未知生，焉知死。
Thus Ignorance is happiness.
Labels: metaphysics
