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Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on thing

Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? Right now if I am to do the dishes, I am already aware of thousands other things and concepts and deep truths about reality, and sciences, etc. etc, but I can focus on this one task, it doesn't matter what I am aware of, if I choose to do it I can do it. How would being aware of more things put a dent in that? If so, then call it for what it is (perhaps "attention deficit disorder"?), but it has nothing to do with the amount of awareness.

arvinsim 7y ago
> Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? > Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film.
- checktheorder 7y ago
  >This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film. In that Zack Snyder was fundamentally incapable of focusing on one thing at a time, and decided to metaphorically barf up every half-baked idea simultaneously, making for an ungodly confusing incompetent mess of a film?
zerogvt 7y ago
First of all, kudos for your nickname. A lot of what makes the society ticks -especially any society deeply rooted in materialism like ours today- is very hard to justify even when you are in a just-sane state of mind. See "bullshit jobs" for a longer treatise of that. Yes, you can focus better on the things you wanted to focus on but you would probably find it very hard to convince yourself to focus doing the work you currently do as hypersanity would probably have its importance stripped away.
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  So if I am starving, have no money for my interests, and yet have ambitions - and cannot find a fully fullfilling job, are you saying that I will not be able to go to a "bullshit job", because I will be under the impression that sitting at home meditating or looking at trees is more important than getting food through work? That to me sounds like laziness or victim complex, or a couple of other things, but really not something I would call "sanity".
  - serpix 7y ago
    Your problem starts with having a problem starving. All the rest of your suffering follows from there. If starving for a bit is not a problem then looking at trees is bliss. Laziness/victim complex is impossible unless there is a fundamental desire or conflict against just being in whatever there is. The hypersane/enlightened/realized whatever you call it have no problems whatsoever with what is happening and thus they do not suffer.
    - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      The question was whether they would be able to operate in a society. We did not discuss nor touch whether they suffer or not.
      - oldsklgdfth 7y ago
        I would like to think that a hyper-rational would opt out of society in general. Not relying on the conventional ways of sustenance that we are accustomed to. One example of this is the survivalist, that lives in nature. One could start incrementally moving towards minimalism, acquiring the training and skills to farm and hurt animals and finally step outside of organized society. This is something I have been thinking about lately. To what extent is technological progress and economic growth truly useful?
        heavenlyblue 7y ago
jdietrich 7y ago
>Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? Yes - the ability to focus on one thing necessarily involves the ability to ignore lots of other things. One of the key traits of autism spectrum disorder is an inability to filter out irrelevant information. Constant awareness of everything is often functionally equivalent to a lack of awareness, because it degrades the signal-to-noise ratio of your perception. For example, the artist Stephen Wiltshire can draw extraordinarily accurate cityscapes from memory, but often struggles with basic tasks. Being aware of the precise number and arrangement of windows in every building you pass is an active impediment if you're just trying to get to the subway station. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/autism-artist-stephen-wiltshire-cities-genius/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/autism-artis...
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  You are talking about autism. Autism is very commonly described as a disease or disorder, disability, etc. How do you compare it to "being most aware", and especially in the context of the term "sane"? It seems that the two are very differnet things that have little to do with each other. "Constant awareness" as you described it is surely not the kind of awareness that they meant when talking about "sanity"? Any regular normal healthy person, if they were being "constantly aware" of everything they already know and can perceive, even though that set of things is much smaller than the set of things available to a highly functioning autist, would already be too much to be able to function. In such a case it is then more of a disorder in focusing, not the question of how less or more aware you are?

arvinsim 7y ago

> Why would being completely aware of everything not allow one to function in a society if one wanted to? > Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film.

checktheorder 7y ago
>This reminds me of Superman and General Zod in the "Man of Steel" film. In that Zack Snyder was fundamentally incapable of focusing on one thing at a time, and decided to metaphorically barf up every half-baked idea simultaneously, making for an ungodly confusing incompetent mess of a film?

zerogvt 7y ago

First of all, kudos for your nickname. A lot of what makes the society ticks -especially any society deeply rooted in materialism like ours today- is very hard to justify even when you are in a just-sane state of mind. See "bullshit jobs" for a longer treatise of that. Yes, you can focus better on the things you wanted to focus on but you would probably find it very hard to convince yourself to focus doing the work you currently do as hypersanity would probably have its importance stripped away.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
So if I am starving, have no money for my interests, and yet have ambitions - and cannot find a fully fullfilling job, are you saying that I will not be able to go to a "bullshit job", because I will be under the impression that sitting at home meditating or looking at trees is more important than getting food through work? That to me sounds like laziness or victim complex, or a couple of other things, but really not something I would call "sanity".
- serpix 7y ago
  Your problem starts with having a problem starving. All the rest of your suffering follows from there. If starving for a bit is not a problem then looking at trees is bliss. Laziness/victim complex is impossible unless there is a fundamental desire or conflict against just being in whatever there is. The hypersane/enlightened/realized whatever you call it have no problems whatsoever with what is happening and thus they do not suffer.
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    The question was whether they would be able to operate in a society. We did not discuss nor touch whether they suffer or not.
    - oldsklgdfth 7y ago
      I would like to think that a hyper-rational would opt out of society in general. Not relying on the conventional ways of sustenance that we are accustomed to. One example of this is the survivalist, that lives in nature. One could start incrementally moving towards minimalism, acquiring the training and skills to farm and hurt animals and finally step outside of organized society. This is something I have been thinking about lately. To what extent is technological progress and economic growth truly useful?
      - heavenlyblue 7y ago

jdietrich 7y ago

>Does it imply that you can't selectively focus on things? Yes - the ability to focus on one thing necessarily involves the ability to ignore lots of other things. One of the key traits of autism spectrum disorder is an inability to filter out irrelevant information. Constant awareness of everything is often functionally equivalent to a lack of awareness, because it degrades the signal-to-noise ratio of your perception. For example, the artist Stephen Wiltshire can draw extraordinarily accurate cityscapes from memory, but often struggles with basic tasks. Being aware of the precise number and arrangement of windows in every building you pass is an active impediment if you're just trying to get to the subway station. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/autism-artist-stephen-wiltshire-cities-genius/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/04/autism-artis...

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
You are talking about autism. Autism is very commonly described as a disease or disorder, disability, etc. How do you compare it to "being most aware", and especially in the context of the term "sane"? It seems that the two are very differnet things that have little to do with each other. "Constant awareness" as you described it is surely not the kind of awareness that they meant when talking about "sanity"? Any regular normal healthy person, if they were being "constantly aware" of everything they already know and can perceive, even though that set of things is much smaller than the set of things available to a highly functioning autist, would already be too much to be able to function. In such a case it is then more of a disorder in focusing, not the question of how less or more aware you are?