One, I’m guessing English is not your first language so you may not be aware that ‘concentrate’ has a primary meaning of ‘thinking carefully’ while what you seem like you are describing is ‘specialization,’ meaning ‘studying narrowly, but deeply.’ You seem to be claiming that over-specialization (studying narrowly and deeply, to the exclusion of relevant information) is bad. They are related but subtly different and part of the negative response may be due to a linguistic barrier.
And two,
You still call this sliver “the world”… and on this sliver is all your reasoning based.
By this definition, everyone is insane. It is definitionally impossible for anyone to fully comprehend the totality of the world. Everyone is focused on their tiny slice. Even people who spread their awareness across many areas can’t comprehend all of it at once. You, yourself, are limited to the things you have had the chance to learn in your life. Everyone ‘concentrates’ their attention, or ‘specializes’ on certain subjects. Sometimes it is on the atomic structure of distant stars. Sometimes it is on the care of their loved ones. The limitation is universal, and not isolated to particular kinds of study.
I think I understand your meaning. However, if everyone is insane because they are blind to reality, does it matter that educated people are too? And if those who study deeply on something don’t actually shrink their baseline awareness, (learning mechanical engineering doesn’t make you less able to comprehend text, grow a garden, ride a bike, etc.) even if they only reduce their blindness in a narrow area, they are less blind/insane than the average person who is blind to most/all of the same things as the expert but also blind to the things the expert has studied.
Now, there is an effect where someone may see how much more sane the expert is and expect that the experts narrow knowledge will make them also saner in some other area where they are just as blind as anyone else. This is a big problem in our world because you get people who think they know how to run the world because they know how to write a few lines of code. The trick is, this is a blindness shared by almost all people, not just experts. The expert in chemistry isn’t more likely to mismanage a school than the average person, but both are more likely to fail than an expert in education.
Two things
One, I’m guessing English is not your first language so you may not be aware that ‘concentrate’ has a primary meaning of ‘thinking carefully’ while what you seem like you are describing is ‘specialization,’ meaning ‘studying narrowly, but deeply.’ You seem to be claiming that over-specialization (studying narrowly and deeply, to the exclusion of relevant information) is bad. They are related but subtly different and part of the negative response may be due to a linguistic barrier.
And two,
By this definition, everyone is insane. It is definitionally impossible for anyone to fully comprehend the totality of the world. Everyone is focused on their tiny slice. Even people who spread their awareness across many areas can’t comprehend all of it at once. You, yourself, are limited to the things you have had the chance to learn in your life. Everyone ‘concentrates’ their attention, or ‘specializes’ on certain subjects. Sometimes it is on the atomic structure of distant stars. Sometimes it is on the care of their loved ones. The limitation is universal, and not isolated to particular kinds of study.
I am describing the concentration of attention. Which includes a great ignoring. This is simple and obvious.
I am adding to that, habit. Unconscious action that is. Doing a thing while not aware that you’re doing it.
Which, when we put them together, gives us a kind of blindness.
If that blindness is unacknowledged then yes, that’s a kind if insanity. And it would follow that the more you concentrate the more insane you are.
If everybody does it (habitually concentrates) then yes, everybody is insane.
Is it necessary and unavoidable? I doubt it.
Am I being unclear here or just offensive?
I think I understand your meaning. However, if everyone is insane because they are blind to reality, does it matter that educated people are too? And if those who study deeply on something don’t actually shrink their baseline awareness, (learning mechanical engineering doesn’t make you less able to comprehend text, grow a garden, ride a bike, etc.) even if they only reduce their blindness in a narrow area, they are less blind/insane than the average person who is blind to most/all of the same things as the expert but also blind to the things the expert has studied.
Now, there is an effect where someone may see how much more sane the expert is and expect that the experts narrow knowledge will make them also saner in some other area where they are just as blind as anyone else. This is a big problem in our world because you get people who think they know how to run the world because they know how to write a few lines of code. The trick is, this is a blindness shared by almost all people, not just experts. The expert in chemistry isn’t more likely to mismanage a school than the average person, but both are more likely to fail than an expert in education.