How to understand things - Nabeel S. Qureshi - BigThink.com

Humanism
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Funny how life works, serendipity has been my friend on many occasions. For instance, this morning I stumbled upon a BigThink.com essay by Nabeel S. Qureshi, that couldn’t be better timed for me as I’m finishing with my big project. It helped remind me of the principle’s I learned early on and that I have lived by, remain valid, even as around me most of our American values seem to be unraveling to a more primitive, chaotically harmful, brutalist state of mind: me against them.

A path that is guaranteed to make everything worse for all of us.

While I’m wondering, what’s wrong with accepting our pluralist American melting pot history,
along with freedom from religion’s corrosive influence,
and to finally start getting serious about dealing with the important issues honestly and constructively, …
Since we really do have much more pressing real world matters to focus on.

How to understand things

SMART SKILLS — FEBRUARY 18, 2025 - BigThink.com

{ This essay was first published on Nabeel S. Qureshi’s Substack, from which it was syndicated with permission.}

“I concluded that what we call “intelligence” is as much about virtues such as honesty, integrity, and bravery, as it is about “raw intellect.”

“Intelligent people simply aren’t willing to accept answers that they don’t understand — no matter how many other people try to convince them of it, or how many other people believe it, if they aren’t able to convince themselves of it, they won’t accept it. …”

“Related to this is honesty, or integrity: a sort of compulsive unwillingness, or inability, to lie to yourself.

“… Richard Feynman said … “you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” It is uniquely easy to lie to yourself because there is no external force keeping you honest; only you can run the constant loop of asking, “Do I really understand this?”

“This is why writing is important. It’s harder to fool yourself that you understand something when you sit down to write about it and it comes out all disjointed and confused. Writing forces clarity.)”

“Understanding something really deeply is connected to our physical intuition. A simple “words-based” understanding can only go so far. …

“Reading popular science books or news articles is not a substitute for understanding, and may make you stupider, by filling your mind with narratives and stories that don’t represent your own synthesis. …”

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Nabeel S. Qureshi makes a powerful point about true understanding requiring more than just intelligence—it takes curiosity, integrity, and discipline to explore ideas deeply. I completely agree that a surface-level grasp of concepts isn’t enough; real wisdom comes from questioning, exploring multiple perspectives, and connecting the dots between knowledge and experience.

This concept aligns with hypnotherapy and past life regression, where deeper insight often comes when we go beyond the conscious mind and tap into the subconscious. Just like a great thinker questions and reevaluates ideas, hypnotherapy helps uncover hidden beliefs, memories, and patterns that shape our thoughts and behaviors.

Have you ever experienced a moment where diving deeper into a topic or personal experience completely shifted your perspective? Would love to hear your thoughts!

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That’s a jarring jump from discussing the thought process to aligning with . . .

Is this about epiphany moments?

“diving deeper into a topic or personal experience **completely shifted your perspective?”
For me that seems like an attitude and a life style, with accumulating knowledge that at some points do tip the scales and open up new horizons.

For me the moment was a simple clarifying conception: Physical Reality ~ Human Mind divide. With all sort of connections flowing from there.

That means I’m very much into generational regression, but of a genetic evolutionary kind. (I am the cumulative product of half a billion years of Earth’s evolutionary processes.) I see mind as something our body interacting with our living reality produces. Meaning the reincarnation into the minds of pervious lives is beyond my experience and understanding.

Although, I do believe my infant granddaughter recognized me as kin when we first met and had some time to stare into each other’s eyes and sharing smiles and a few vocalizations. But that’s body to body communication, recognition, rather than her mind thinking: I know this dude. It’s the energy in our bodies that related. At that point her body was at the very beginning of creating mind.

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It hasn’t happen in a moment, but my interest in solving the chronic hunger problem led me to look into why that problem exists, and changed my views on farming.

Even longer was my interest in the Enlightenment era. I read some things that made me question my understanding of what that was, that led me need a better understanding how Christian history unfolded, including early humanism and how science developed, eventually how science can be employed to build an ethics system.

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Marylee reminds me of an ad bot.

I beg her to excuse me if I am wrong.

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There was a certain AI generated sense to the sentence structure. Kind of; pick something that was said, fold into a sentence that says, “I’m interested in ______.” Then follow up with something else sort of related. Real person or not, it’s a way to get around the automated filters that recognize cut-and-paste and come with a link. Those happen all the time.

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hey lausten, how are doing buddy., what makes you think I am a bot, have you got any query I can answer?

It just Grammarly structured sentence in this way does not mean I am bot, it’s just I am using the Grammarly tool to adjust my content

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It’s always intriguing to see different interpretations of “what makes us who we are”. whether through an evolutionary lens or a more metaphysical one. Would love to hear more about how you see the body-mind connection evolving over generations.

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Since I already answered that, that’s a clue. And so far your responses have been in the pattern of /that comment is interesting, tell me more/.

Pleasant, but it reminds me of the therapy bot from last decade. When all else failed, it would ask, “and how do you feel about that?”

The idea of a forum is to contribute. We get a lot of trolls and it’s my job as moderator to detect them. Don’t take it personal. If I think you are violating any rules, you’ll know.

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“It’s always intriguing to see different interpretations of “what makes us who we are”.
Whether through an evolutionary lens or a more metaphysical one. Would love to hear more about how you see the body-mind connection evolving over generations.”

Does sound like a robot don’t it though…

Arylee, can you share something original? Could start with some self reflection?

How about a question: “Who are You?”

Have a nice day.

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Even if not a robot, or AI, or whatever we call them now, I always hold my breath for those first few posts, before they (that is, any random new member) drops their favorite truth bomb on us. So far with marylee there are hints of something about hypnotherapy. That’s a lot better than an illogical proof of God, or that ‘green things aren’t really green, they just reflect lightwaves that our eyes perceive as green’.

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This thread got off track.

The big think makes a good point, that it’s easy to read science, believe you got it, and move on to the next thing, then just use your minimal understanding as small talk at parties (not quoting the author there, just my words).

I think I need to re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The parable about understanding America by starting with a brick in a wall in Bozeman is pretty cool.

For every fact there is an infinity of hypotheses. The more you look the more you see. She really wasn’t looking and yet somehow didn’t understand this.*