/philosophy/ - Philosophy

2x yes

No, it's not reasonable that someone who holds a stupid opinion is stupid. An idea isn't merely a product of the mind, but also of the amount of information available and also of how much energy people wish to employ in it. These two factors confound the direct effect of intelligence on an idea.

Alchemists, for instance, had a crude conception of chemical processes. But at the same time, because they had only crude tools to work with (glass was expensive and improper for experiments, substances were often filled with impurities, recipes weren't clear) the data they were fed back from chemical experiments didn't warrant any more sophisticated theory.

As another example, consider an specialist. Specialist often have very little knowledge of any area besides their narrow field of interest, yet that has nothing to do with their intelligence. Being smart doesn't prevent someone from being an idiot when it comes to another field.

As for "critical thinking", I don't know what that expression means or refers to and I'm not sure whether or not whatever it refers to is a skill or not.

>>5022

Both questions were centered around the notion of critical thinking. Unless you're saying that specialists or intelligent people with subpar means at their disposal reaching conclusions is an example of forming 'stupid' ideas *because* of poor critical thinking, you haven't answered the questions.

>>5013

there are generally two reasons why someone doesn't apply critical thinking (I'm assuming you mean this in the sense of 'being non-dogmatic as well as attempting to form opinions while being as informed on the topic as reasonably possible' - do specify if you are thinking of something else). One is a simple lack of resources, which is mostly either time or energy, and another is the outright incapability of doing so.

In both cases, when you form opinions as a result of trusting the authority of someone you percieve as competent and worthy of your trust, I do not think that it is fair to call the people in question stupid, even if, to you, their trust in these particular people may seem particularly badly misplaced.

But I would agree with you that, should they have arrived at their opinions on their own, without having the ability or invested the resources to investigate it thoroughly, while *also* holding on to their opinion *as if* they had foolproof reasons to do so, are deceiving themselves either willingly or unwittingly. the latter I would consider stupid, since I have no other word for people who feel unjustifiably competent regarding a matter, in which they know full well they have invested little to no effort, but nonetheless fail to notice their feeling of certainty is unfounded. the prior group is more willfully ignorant or obtuse than stupid, but I have no problem with people like >>5014 calling them 'stupid' for that.

Lots of smart folk don't profess any smart ideas.

The human brain should be Turing complete. The only question is how long it takes for a particular specimen to think critically. It's probably not worthwhile for sub-150 IQs to attempt to think critically, because even if they try full time, they won't learn how until middle age, and then they hardly have time to actually apply the method to anything significant.