What common sense is (and what we must know)

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1-Three short stories

The first short story

The mountain goddess who fooled my friend

A few days ago, a friend of mine told us about her experience of going home to her hometown for New Year's Eve the year before last, and she told it in a glowing manner, while I listened to her in tears and laughter.

Soon after she came home, she started to have a fever for no apparent reason. The family looked for a mountain godmother, this guy instantly performs the godman on the body, uninstructed read up the Sanskrit. Then, the godmother revealed the truth, naturally, my friend had been contaminated with unclean things in the city, but fortunately, the Sanskrit master had already removed the defilement. Within a few days, my friend's fever subsided and he was cured.

Telling this story, for the village woman in the mountains by the gods can sing directly after the supernatural power of Sanskrit, my friend expressed amazement, marveled at, and asked me again and again: you say God is not magical.

I have only one sentence in my heart: Are you burnt stupid, can you not even have common sense?

The second short story

The authoritative experts who fooled my students

Every year before the examination, a student or parent will reveal to me: today the school invited a college entrance examination proposer. The expert claimed himself: this year's college entrance examination questions, he came up with! He had no trouble escaping all kinds of checks before he came out to give his students a lesson, and the following reveals the content of the topic part, you can never say it out ah! The students owed a howl, shouted, please accept the children a worship, the scene immediately out of control.

Some experts slightly convergent some, they said: Although this year's college entrance examination question is not me, but, is my buddy out of the ah, we that is a bath together, pressed the feet of the iron son ah, I know him most of the question of the set of rules ah, the following disclosure of the contents of the question part, we can never say out ah! The students howled, shouting, please accept the children a worship, the scene immediately out of control.

After revealing the plot, the students looked around to observe some, and then carefully pulled out of the pocket with a body temperature purse, open, and then from inside out of the small a scented pouch, open the scented pouch, and then from the inside out of a short roll of paper, and then slowly unfolded the roll of paper, sent to my eyes, and lowered his voice to ask: Teacher, do you think this question can test?

In my heart there was only one sentence: what test can you take with this IQ, don't you even have common sense?

The third short story

The stock market god who fooled our elders

Our parents' generation encountered a huge change in the shape of China's economy, in their world, you can see a variety of "harvest leek" specimens.

At the beginning of the stock market frenzy, uncles and uncles all day long to watch the god of the stock market to talk about the K-line trend. Later, the health care marketing frenzy, aunts and uncles began to wildly pull the head to recruit.

The deepest impression is that one of my elders, with a pharmaceutical company produced by the brain, strong heart, muscle and kidney Dajiandan all kinds of touting. Speaking up, really a case after a case, a story after a story, there are thought-provoking type, there are touching type, there are deafening type, there are humorous type of ...... these drugs, the most basic ability is to cure all diseases, in some stories, and can even bring back the dead. After telling the story, come to a conclusion: join us, we all sell drugs together!

I have only one thing on my mind: who the hell should take the medicine ah, not even common sense?

2- Is common sense really so powerful

The three stories above don't sound unfamiliar. You may think that these stories are childish and ridiculous, easy to tear down, but when you are sick and do not want to take the time to seek medical treatment, do not study and delusional high scores, do not use your brain and want to make money, and then childish and ridiculous tricks can fool you. What's more, the tricks are constantly changing and upgrading, so if you don't have common sense and judgment, you will inevitably be fooled.

Can you really rely on common sense to see through these scams? Let's try.

The first story, toppling the godmother, relies on common sense: the law of learning.

The law of learning is that it takes a long and huge investment to take the highest and deepest knowledge - that's common sense, right?

There is no intelligent person in this world who can easily master a piece of difficult knowledge. Einstein can't, Hawking can't, even Buddha himself had to practice and sharpen for tens of thousands of years, right, so how did the Divine Mother speak a foreign language all of a sudden.

Not to mention Sanskrit. You know, Ji Xianlin from the Tsinghua University Department of Western Literature after graduation, in the European academic center of the University of Göttingen for many years, before he could learn Sanskrit. His teachers, Prof. Walderschmidt and Prof. Sigg, had all devoted decades to this study.

I was not in a wonderful situation at that time. There was ...... nothing to eat, I was starving and dizzy every day, and there were bombers flying overhead at times, the sound of their planes shaking the city as if they were spreading death. I see that Mr. Sick does not care, still sitting at the window every day to read hard, but also to go to the Institute to give us lessons. I sweated for him. But he's taking it all in his stride. This, of course, affected me. I am also in the machine buzzing, hungry, all day long, put life and death in the face, burning oil to sundial, with those who think that the extremely boring dead words desperately. In a flash, a few years have passed.

If someone wants to ask, I have this vigor from where? ...... personal interests and hobbies are also indispensable. When I was in college, I gradually realized that it is difficult to achieve results in the study of the history of Chinese thought, Buddhism, art, literature, and so on, if one does not know the history of these aspects of India. ...... One who is truly in love with a subject will gladly endure day and night of hard labor, and even a certain amount of torture to the body, without thinking of it.
--Ji Xianlin, "How I Studied Sanskrit

The above selection tells us three things:

1. Learning Sanskrit actually requires considerable knowledge of the history of thought, Buddhism, art, literature, and many other things;

2. Learning Sanskrit requires considerable effort and even some torture;

3, Learning Sanskrit requires the guidance of a very powerful teacher.

(Isn't this the general principle of learning any knowledge?)

To summarize, it is simply impossible for a hillbilly diva to know Sanskrit in the grand scheme of things.

This is common sense.

If you don't believe me, then just wait at home for the President of the United States to come on board and speak fluent English.

The second story, overthrowing the experts, relies on common sense: past references.

Past reference means that in all the years since the founding of the country, I have never heard of any leaked language questions in the college entrance exams, nor have I ever heard of anyone getting into a good college because they got the questions in advance, with all due respect to my limited knowledge and experience. If you don't believe me, you can also ask your own brothers and sisters, this expert last year leaked the questions on the test or not. (Besides, if you think about it, the better the students are, the less they want someone to leak the questions, and the worse the students are, the less they will benefit from leaking the questions.)

The third story, the overthrow of the stock god, relies on common sense: human nature is selfish.

Human nature has a selfish side, when one's own interests and the interests of others appear to be in conflict, especially, this "others" is just a passer-by, TV viewers, netizens, then, to protect their own interests first not to be damaged, this should be a very rational choice.

Therefore, I find it hard to understand, if a person knows which stock to buy can make a lot of money, why would he come forward to tell everyone, should not be muffled to make a fortune. After all, when everyone buys that stock, he has nothing to earn.

Can a man be so noble as to share his wealth with everyone? I ask, would a kindergartener share all his candy with other children? Yes, because candy isn't worth anything. It's worth buying more kids to play with.

So you can see why the God of Stocks doesn't buy stocks himself, but teaches you to buy stocks.

3- What common sense looks like

Why is it that cute friends who have gone to college, cute students who have gone to high school, and cute elders who have gone to middle school (social college) are so miserably fooled?

One word is actually enough to summarize their underlying beliefs - we'll unravel the mystery for you later.

Let's first speculate on the mental activity of the group:

My friend secretly thought: Who knows if this godmother really has supernatural powers ah, in case it really does, you see I'm cured. My students secretly calculating: who knows whether this expert is really out of the question ah, in case this goods out of it, you see our school in the last session on the top student. My elders heart within the calculation: who knows this stock God is not really can say in it, in case said in it, you see him buy houses and cars really rich ah.

Do you know what they believe in, do you know what their thinking can be summarized as, one word: agnosticism.

In layman's terms, what they believe in are those godly and evil ways that cannot be proved or disproved, and they also feel that they are unfathomable and divine.

What is the right way? If you are sick, go to a big hospital and see a doctor; if you want to learn well, think and practice; if you want to earn money, create something valuable for society. It is that simple.

However, speculative people are not willing to believe in these simple truths, they always want to find some shortcuts, so they go to believe in those gods and ghosts and demons. It's true that you can't rule out the fact that sometimes the results are actually good, but it's like getting the answer right on a test blindfolded, and it's a keeper's joke if you replicate the crookedness as experience.

Really, you ask them to explain the Sanskrit, analyze the exam questions, study the assets, this hard work that is not willing to put in. But they are very fond of pretending to speak to you about things they themselves do not understand, and if you do not believe them, they will have to blame you for having no reverence for the unknown forces. I can only say that if you don't have reverence for the knowledge and wisdom developed by human beings over the ages, if you have special reverence for the ignorance and dross that human beings have abandoned, if you don't have reverence for the truths that have already been verified, and if you have special reverence for the legends that haven't been proved, you shouldn't blame those "miraculous" forces for taking the opportunity to collect the tax on your IQ.

Earlier I wrote an article, "What is skillful", which said a sentence: "Not to mention the 'two chakras', 'big and small circumference of the heavens', which have no scientific basis in the imagination ... ..."

Then, immediately, some netizens left comments, saying how I know there is no "Ren Du Er Chakra" and "Da Xiao Zhou Tian", and also warned me that I can't be scientific uniqueness.

In fact, I do not know whether there is ah, but modern science has not proved that there, then, should choose not to believe that there. Modern science, that is, emphasizes empirical evidence. To not be empirically proven is to not be proven by modern science. Science is not a complimentary term. To say that the "two chakras" and "big and small circumferences" are not scientific is not to say that they are bad, but to say that they have not been proved by modern science - this is a very objective This is a very objective evaluation.

If you can cite any article in an authoritative journal or any example to prove the existence of meridians, then it is scientific, otherwise it is not, and it is as simple as that.

When you talk to me about traditional culture being divine and the profound wisdom of our ancestors, when I read the I Ching, memorized the Buddhist scriptures, copied the Shuo Wen Jie Zi and the Gu Wen Guan Zhi, and taught traditional culture in English to international students, and taught poems and ancient writings to my Advanced Placement students, I really didn't know what kind of research and contribution you had made to traditional culture.

A little care and study of today's scientific and technological development, scientists have already studied the double helix structure, you have to imagine the seven meridians and eight veins in the human body; linguists have already created Esperanto, you have to imagine the ghostly symbols of hidden heavenly secrets; astronomers have already confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, you have to imagine that the top of the pot can receive cosmic radiation... ...

In the 1980's and 1990's, people who practiced with "information pots" on their heads were convinced that they could receive power from the universe.

Fine, as long as you're happy, one day, the cosmic radiation will help you open your eyes to the heavens, open up the two chakras, the seven meridians and the eight veins, and you'll be able to fly to the heavens when you draw a spiritual talisman.

4-Common sense also has a threshold

Speaking of this you will find that some of the medical common sense, linguistic common sense, and economic common sense mentioned earlier are not common sense for some people.

For example, a person who does not understand the common sense of economics will talk to you about some seemingly smart, but there are a lot of hidden dangers to make money.

Some time ago, a friend and I were talking about a training organization. That organization had approached me to give a lecture, and they are doing well now, claiming to have broken the billion dollar mark. But I was never impressed, neither would I join them, nor would I advise my friends to get involved. Very simple, they do not pay attention to teaching products, the vast majority of their profits, are built on the development of agents and collect agent fees.

There is no point familiar, this is essentially the previous generation had engaged in health care marketing. Only, this time the health care products have been replaced with high school classes. The typical logic of health care marketing is to sell health care products to earn a small amount of money, mainly to cover people's ears, and then take the opportunity to pull the head in, relying on the head to pay the franchise fee to make money. The typical logic of the marketing of college entrance examination classes is to sell college entrance examination classes to earn a small amount of money, mainly to cover people's ears, and then take the opportunity to pull heads in, relying on heads to pay the franchise fee to make money. Oh, this is a typical Ponzi scheme.

The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis to understand, and then lazy words, look at the movie "Big Short", you will wake up, this kind of thing you do not participate. Now there are a lot of small organizations closed overnight, the owner rolled money away, most of the cases are not stop collecting money from the franchisee, the money collected enough, the owner rolled money away. Specifically you look at this school teaches piano or art, or even sells milk tea, there is actually no essential difference.

Mark Twain's famous line quoted at the beginning of the movie "The Big Short

An educational organization that doesn't make a profit on its courses, but on opening branches and collecting franchise fees, and the franchisees then go on to the next level of franchising. You have a little common sense in economics to know that this is a Ponzi scheme.

However, the threshold of this common sense is not low.

Some time ago, Luo Zhenyu's New Year's Eve speech quoted a quote from Derek Bock, former president of Harvard: If you think the cost of education is too high, try looking at the cost of ignorance.

Coincidentally, I was commissioned by a relative to visit the head office of a health care business on a business trip. They had a small office in a large industrial park, and I asked if I could go to the medicine workshop to take a look, and they said that there was no workshop. I immediately understood that the so-called health care products are all labeled goods, they do not have the research and development of drugs, is to pull people to make money.

By the same token, if an educational organization does not have any research and development, puts together teaching materials, does not do any teacher training and does not attach importance to the standard of teaching, then think about what he relies on to make money.

However, what's even more godly comes, some people will continue to play along even though they have seen through the boss's tricks. Do you know why?

The pyramid scheme will say, I know this is a scam, but I first cheated to other people's money, I ran ah; believe in the God of the stock will say, I know the God of the stock is a scam, but I first buy on a good stock to earn money, I ran ah; engage in the joining of will say, I know that they do not have the product, but I first open a store to earn money, I ran ah; listen to the expert leaks of the question will say, I know that the expert is a scam, but I listen to the two questions, I first take on the score and ran ah! ......

In the end, you will find that the fastest runners are still the bosses, stockbrokers and experts. And they are too good at exploiting the weakness of human nature. This weakness is that people often feel that everyone else is stupid and they are smarter than others, and that they will always take advantage of others without being taken advantage of by others.

In fact, in this world, except for a very few geniuses, everyone is about the same level of intelligence, but why does it seem to be far apart?

This is because there are people with scientific methods plus hard work, but these are the obvious differences. There is another aspect, which may be more important, is that the vast majority of people always want to take shortcuts through speculative methods, and as a result, they are thrown further and further away, which is the implicit difference. Once the two types of people before and after are placed in the same world, there is a world of difference.

This is the common logic of the world's highs and lows. I often reflect on this.

5 - Common Sense + Logic = Near Invincibility

When we do not have some common sense how to prevent fooling.

At this point, the ability to make logical inferences is very important. Share two methods I often use:

Method ①: Push to the absolute, citing special cases

Going back to the example of the Sanskrit granny, let's say that she can really be a superior person and know Sanskrit in a second. I'll ask a special case, please ask, then how do you not Hua Tuo on the body, seconds will know the language? May I ask, why don't you go to the Mayo Clinic (the world's top hospital) and learn English in a second?

It's not that simple. Most of the words in Mandarin can be understood, and English, my friend, can't be fooled. If you want to be agnostic, you have to be a little bit godlike.

Well, the Yang God will now show you a Clarkian Planet Super Saiyan on the body, and I'll know the Super Sai Hypercritic language in a second: ❍₱₮₣⚡︎〠♨︎⚄ ☇🀄︎§"

You have to ask me what I mean. Where do I get it, didn't I just get possessed.

Method 2: Asking cause and effect, proving falsification

The statement that one is cured of an illness because one sings Sanskrit songs cannot be proved at all. The example of the godmother is untenable.

In all likelihood, my friend's problem was a stomach flu caused by eating something unhygienic in the countryside or catching a cold during the trip, which could have been cured on its own. No need for the Divine Mother to recite Sanskrit, you can get well by reading a few of the Ancient History - Literature - Present Discourses written by me.

Better to analyze the example of the high school expert, let me set up a causal relation: because he proposes last year/he proposes this year/his buddy proposes, you can do well in the exam this year. Do you think the causal relationship in this statement is valid.

You will immediately realize that there is no causal relationship at all. There are many logical chains spaced throughout the sentence, such as, can he tell the original question, can he publish the answer. And, can he guarantee that no one else will do it, because if everyone will do it, then there is no difference between telling and not telling. Some people say that he only speaks in our school. Oh, have you ever seen an expert speak only in one school?

To summarize the idea of method ②: you simply can't disprove it, i.e. there is no way to prove that he is wrong.

For example, you can't prove that what she sang wasn't in Sanskrit, after all, not many people know Sanskrit. You can't prove that what the expert said wasn't a question from the college entrance exam, because you won't be looking for him after the exam anyway. You can't prove the stockbroker's predictions wrong, because he'll always say something ambiguous, like one of these stocks will go up in a certain period of time. It's the equivalent of a teacher saying that one of these topics will always appear in a different form in recent years' exams. This is not nonsense!

This unfalsifiable nonsense is absurd in itself, but it is packaged by some experts to appear to be profound, so some agnostics have cried out for magic.

If you have common sense and some logical deduction, it is possible to see the problem.

6-Verify the sense of invincibility

There must be students who say, teacher, your previous method ① ② is not to talk about the practical essay, expository text of the two solutions.

Indeed.

This is not surprising, if you can read those well-organized, logical social science articles, if you can easily get full marks on the multiple-choice questions in practical essays and expository essays, in the real world, the ability to distinguish between right and wrong is certainly strong. You can be keenly aware of problems with the other side's language and thinking, and not be fooled by tricks.

On the contrary, if you can't even see the common sense and logical errors in the reading comprehension question stems, you'll have to wait for the godmother to collect your IQ tax in the social college. Then we might as well train a bit now to make up for it.

I will ask you to use method ①② to determine the truth of the following three sentences:

Writers who establish the concept of positive interaction with the times will be able to be people-centered in their creative practice.

Method ①: Push to the absolute, cite special cases.

(A) The phrase "can" is equivalent to "will be able", which is too absolute.

Special case: It is very likely that there are writers who have set up the concept of interaction but are still unable to be people-centered.

Judgment: Most likely wrong.

The people are the basis for recognizing reality and understanding the times, because ordinary workers are the most ideal readers of literature and art.

Method ①: Push to the absolute and give special examples

Ans: Ordinary...ideal is too absolute.

Special case: It is very likely that non-ordinary workers are also ideal readers.

Method 2: Ask for cause and effect, prove or disprove.

Ans: Ordinary...is the most desirable and cannot be disproved. There is no way to prove that non-ordinary laborers are not ideal readers.

Judgment: Probable error.

Artists who are truly rooted in their times and have a sense of responsibility need not consider the entertainment and consumption needs of the people.

Method ①: Push to the absolute, cite special cases

Ans: No need, too absolute.

Exception: It is likely that there are responsible artists who will consider the needs of the people.

Judgment: Probable error.

In addition to Method ①②, there are many other ways to judge the authenticity of the above sentence.

For example, "ordinary laborers" cannot be defined in concept ③, and I can't think of any "extraordinary laborers" anyway. For example, in the last sentence, there is a contradiction in concept (3). If it is a "responsible artist", how can it not be responsible for the people and consider the needs of the people?

Equivalent:

A teacher who is truly rooted in the times and has a sense of responsibility does not need to consider the needs of the students to improve their scores.

Such words are self-contradictory in terms of common sense and logic, and they simply cannot be justified.

Do you know that these three previous sentences are actually the first question of the 2019 Gao Kao language new standard I paper:

1．The following understanding and analysis of the content of the original text is correct (3 marks)

A．When writers establish the concept of positive interaction with the times, they can be people-centered in their creative practice.

B．Emotional identification with the people is an important reason for the creative success of many writers since the New Culture Movement.

C．The people are the basis for recognizing reality and understanding the times, because ordinary workers are the most ideal readers of literature and art.

D．Artists who are truly rooted in the times and have a sense of responsibility need not consider the entertainment and consumption needs of the people.

Answer choice B.

ACD, you can basically determine the right and wrong without reading the article.

Possessing strong common sense + logical analysis ability, have not yet read the article, you can quickly determine the probability of these sentences on the right or wrong. Of course, this is thanks to the article itself has a strong knowledge and logic. Mastered the common sense and logic of the judgment method, in order to really read them, and use the scientific method to quickly make a judgment. Then, I'll go into detail about how to read the articles so that you can combine quick judgments with understanding the articles, and you'll be able to experience the thrill of reading the articles and seeing through the options.

More importantly, through the brutal training of practical text reading, outside of the full score, you will really have the meticulous thinking to judge the truth, screening and arguing the right and wrong eyes of fire, which is the highest state of learning languages.

7-Hilbert's comeback

In 1930, the famous German mathematician Hilbert retired to his hometown of Königsberg. There, he gave a lecture entitled "Natural Science (Knowledge) and Logic".

This speech not only firmly rebuffed agnosticism at the time, but still gives us a sense of how truly intelligent minds hold on to their scientific beliefs in these powerful sentences today.

We must not believe those, who today with philosophical bearing and a tone of superiority prophesy the downfall of culture and accept the ignorabimus. for For us there is no ignorabimus, and in my opinion even none whatever in natural science. In place of the foolish ignorabimus let stand our slogan.
We must know, we will know.
We will know.

We must not believe in those who, with all their sophistication and predictions of the decline of culture today, can only accept agnosticism. For us, however, nothing is unknowable, not even, in my opinion, in the natural sciences. In place of those silly agnostic arguments is the very creed we are going to defend:

We must know.

We shall know!

💡

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