Problems! (What should we do about the problem?)

What should we do about the problem?

Problems

You've… got problems?

10. Desember 2024 by Clickinsider / Wisdom & Knowledge

All life is problem solving.
― Karl Popper

If your house is on fire, and you are inside, you "know what to do".

Retrospectively, you might review the situation and consider independent actions that could be handled differently.

Yet, in the heat of the moment (very much so), you are determined to get the hell out, while taking into account all the variables you can handle, like, if your phone is nearby and if you have the time to grab it without significantly impeding your escape, you run an expeditious risk analysis, save what can be saved safely, or put yourself at risk and make an effort in saving it anyways, that which you value more than your own health or life.

Instincively you do a rapid contemplation of self worth against that of kids, family, other people, pets, valuables and the probability of a successful rescue.

(There are always possible remarks, other seemingly valid viewpoints, anything goes, all is ostensibly possible, all is debatable. Literally everything might happen as far as you are concerned, unless you are unequivocally knowledgeable about the nature of reality. The boundaries of language are defined by the limited scope of our agent.)

So, you are inside this burning place. Now what? People are different, but say, I don't know, your preference is to actually get out alive, damage control sauce on top. (Again, there are fringe cases, exceptions, perhaps some inferno-isolating alternative, actual increased probability of self-preservation by gluing your feet to the floor, hands to ass, think, relax and just let the firefighters sway their extinguishers or whatever they do in their line of work to magically disappear the so-called flames.)

Given you understand the problem, the gist of the situation anyways, you will accept the current ordeal and deal with the situation in accordance with your reassessment. Best perceivable action will be applied while continuously reassessing the situation.

Your actions are responses to environmental feedback dynamics (simultaneous input/output, reflexivity) in conjunction with internal ambulation, applying the full arsenal of your cognitive toolkit, realizing the conflicting forces within, suppressing the danger of panic and irrational behavior, primal instincts, yet again it might just be the case that applied logic and the apparent rational choices leads directly to your death.

The idiosyncratically opaque nature of reality renders the concept of optimal responses nonsensical, and even a measure of results based on self-interest is impossible, for all that is left is opinions, and while these might not correspond with reality they are in fact embedded in reality itself, thus we introspectively achieve a glimpse of reality yet without the whole the parts loses its contextual relationships and at best our sense of reality might be distorted, yet again it might in fact not be, we just don't know for sure.

If you understand a problem, you understand the necessary steps forward. Understanding a problem is equal to understanding the steps towards the complete solution of the problem. If you do not know this, you do not understand the problem.

By the same token, you cannot “underestimate a problem”. You can't even misunderestimate problems, unless you name is George Something.

Either, you understand a problem, or you don’t understand it at all.

Much worse than not understanding a problem is not understanding not understanding a problem. This introduces the risk of taking action towards solving a problem you do not understand.

If direction is superior to speed, then delay any action until a satisfactory course has been identified. In real life though, we, mere mortals, might end up in just about any bad direction, and therein lies the merit of "taking it easy". Tautologically speaking, if you are going too fast, you have applied excessive speed. And that's something to remember.

The problems are solved, not by giving new information, but by arranging what we have known since long.
― Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

As an aside, it could be questioned if humans understand much at all.

Problems aren’t isolated cases, it’s fractals all the way down and up and who knows what.

In this regard all of what has just been said can simply be disregarded, and that holds true for about anything that human language has ever produced.

Your experience of reality is much more real than any effort at describing this experience using words, pictures, diagrams.

Nonsense is abundant, and, while these are just words strung together by an individual effort to produce semantic meaning, perhaps relief can be found by abstaining from the application of language and instead, leveraging our senses.

Nature is magnificent beyond what any poet can encapsulate into words. We are nature and nature is us.

The perversity of modernity corrupts the human-nature connection.

Those who have lost their ways, will have everything to gain by reconnecting with nature.

The disconnect from ones roots is usually a prolonged process, a gradual decline lasting months or years, but the restoration can be instantaneous, once returned to the elements.

You don’t have to wait for nature, it is the most accessible thing ever. (Unless you find yourself stuck inside a Catch-22 hell of totalitarian modernity.)

Anyone, even those heavily synthetically corrupted by the manufactured and fabricated world of humans, have the ability to re-establish their heritage connections.

Left to its own survival, the individual, alone, facing the duality against nature with nature, the re-discovery of the self will materialize, and that experience is one that cannot be put into words.

For the myriad of unfortunate souls corrupted by modernity, know that the panacea of nature itself resides inside of you.

Nature effectively deals with whatever deluded belief modernity have engraved you with, inflated egos and deflated minds alike, it’s the ultimate ecstasy roller-coaster: Typically, following a brief introduction to humility, soaked into modesty and unobtrusiveness, comes the delightful surprises of newfound capabilities and revitalized outlook for your actual potential in this life, and ultimately a sense of your place in this world.

Modernity and nature each have their perks and punishments, and the uncharted challenge for modern man is to find the balance somwhere between primal Cro-Magnon life and ornery ultramodernity.

And if all else fails:

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world. Not even our troubles.
― Charlie Chaplin