Thinking and politics

15/11/13 06:11 [Friday]
I have been thinking about one or two things but have not yet come to any proper conclusions. I have been thinking about my preference for understanding phenomena with less rather than more information. This ties in with the difficulty I have - and others with a similar mental make-up have - dealing with matters in physical reality while at the same time mentally 'processing' for them. One aspect of this is not finding it easy to converse or certainly not on any but small-talk topics (although there is an exception for conversations which are more talking to oneself in one's own thoughts even if in the presence of someone else and even parallel with someone else: that is philosophical discussions which are almost exclusively thinking and which typically do not involve eye contact).
When I was younger I couldn't even converse on small-talk topics, but now with experience having developed routines for such conversations without having to think, really, at all, I can perform them. I'm not able to gossip about people (or about such things as what was on TV) because to talk about people's motivations (or the plot or even just the sequence of a TV programme) we need to think to a degree while at the same time (if gossiping with someone else) interacting with the person we are discussing with. Again, the exception is if I am understanding people's personality according to some abstract philosophical theory and preferably one I have thought up myself, or understanding the plot of a piece of fiction (and even then, preferably one of my own fantasy) according to a theory similarly. These facts can amount to an impression that I am not interested in people (or in what's on TV, or in sport, or in countless other subjects a lot of people are centrally interested in) and there is a certain truth in that because it is the fact, I'm sure, that I spend less time myself thinking and gossiping about other people (or sports games played by people, etc) than the average person does.
I don't say exactly that I prefer thinking, but rather I have an inability to do both at the same time: think my thoughts and indulge external senses at the same time. This being so, it is comprehensible that if I can understand phenomena in the external world with little sensory data to go on, I enjoy it more. Twitter is one example of this, that is reading relatively few words from other people on the internet and piecing together my own understanding of what they are about or what they are like. A more general example from the world of the internet is to track down a person from the traces they leave on the internet, and piece together their life, or some aspects of their life. (I mention this because a friend I had at school has recently emailed me after more than forty years having tracked me down via the internet.)
I will add the obvious parallel with scientific enquiry, that is people like me make good scientists because we enjoy assembling scanty data and formulating a thoroughly explanatory theory based on that data. No-one has ever seen a quark but its existence and the theory behind it are inferred from what data there is.
The other topic I have been thinking about (of the 'one or two' mentioned) is democracy versus truth and good taste. Democracy - the decision of the majority - doesn't always give the right answer. Mathematics puzzles on Facebook have proved to me that often a majority get the wrong answer. However, democracy in politics seems a success, and certainly I am a believer in it. I have yet to think out how it works, though: for people overall not to vote into a position of power the type of candidate who might appear on the Jeremy Kyle Show - even though that show is very popular - but instead to bring forward and favour quite clever and sensible candidates (even though - another paradox - people when polled have a low opinion of politicians).
I am still thinking, on and off, about these matters.