On Jun 8, 2012, at 2:09 PM, Tom McCormack wrote: > "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed > ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function"
Why is this so hard to do? After all, the ideas themselves (the ideations in one's head) cause no actual conflict. They're just more synapses, just like the other synapses. The implication of F's statement is that both ideas engender other events, internal as thoughts or external as actions, that eventually do conflict. But how? Embarrassing one with an apparent contradiction? Or impeding a decision because choosing A will thwart the results of opposed idea B? Many people (as I understand) believe in both the Big Bang and evolutionary development of the universe, on one hand, and the Creation, on the other. I suspect that many people of varyious rates of intelligence just suspend their decision, agree to a truce, and hold both ideas simultaneously. Perhaps they choose to follow one line of thought and silently ignore the other, to which they return at a later date. "Justifiable homicide" as a legal and moral doctrine represents a way to negotiate two seemingly contradictory notions (upholding life and killing another person). Rarely are we called to make an irrevocable decision at the nexus of two conflicting ideas. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
