Knowledge as Bacteria

In this paper we are looking at knowledge as if it were bacteria. Normally germs spread when one host comes in contact with another host. For example the flu, by one person sneezing in the direction of somebody else, this person helps the flu to reproduce. The flu germ gets into its new host through the mouth.

So we can say that knowledge also needs a host to spread. The best way to spread knowledge is when two or more people talk to each other, so they can hear what the others say and their thoughts are able to get into each other’s minds. So for example a joke, as a thought germ, reproduces by one person telling it to another. This way the germ does not get into its host by snot through the mouth but through the ear and by words, nevertheless it’s reproduction.

But before actually getting into the mind of the host, the knowledge has to find the weak point to take advantage of. For the bacteria, it is the immune system of the host. For knowledge, the weak point is represented by our emotions, because they have control about our brain and that means that the emotions control what we are doing and thinking. So they control, whether or not we accept the knowledge of others into our mind and if we would like to spread them even further.

Now we have to distinguish between the different emotions, because they define the chances of the knowledge spreading. Since sadness is something that people do not like to share that much, the sad thoughts do not spread very well. Awe on the other hand does. That is why videos or texts often have attention-getting titles, it makes it sound more interesting. Surprisingly “happiness” is not the best emotion for spreading the knowledge because after talking about it people often move on to another topic and forget all about it.

The best emotion to get knowledge in the mind of others is anger. If people are angry, they have a much bigger urge to talk to others about it and share their anger with as many people as possible. So the knowledge easily gets into the minds of many others. With this way of spreading, the germs used to be able to only reach local hosts, so that only the people in close proximity would be affected by those thought germs. But since the invention of the internet, knowledge is now able to spread to everyone all over the world within a few seconds. This is particularly true concerning the social media, facebook for example. You can “Like or share” the facebook status of your friends, so others can see it and they can also “Like or share” it, which is as mentioned before helping the thought germ to reproduce.

Other thought germs that can be posted on the internet are photos, but here another factor comes to show, because people tend to change them, by adding a funny caption and/or applying Photoshop. Some changes make the thought germ funnier or simply more interesting, thus getting people to share it more and help them spread. This results in more changes and with that more people spreading it, enabling one single photo to achieve the domination of the global minds, if only for a short time.

As we said that knowledge can spread all over the world, we can see this as an advantage. There is no obstacle to communicate to each other and this is good because we can exchange ideas and there is no lack of information. But this can also be a disadvantage.

The internet can help the thought germ to gain strength, which is positive when it comes to jokes or funny photos but with anger it is not positive at all.

With angry germs, the same thing happens, the content changes over time, because every host is adding or leaving out some details of the content and this modifies the thought germ. This can be a problem, because everyone is getting different information although the content has the same origin. For example, it could be that true information at the beginning gets falsified during the process of spreading.

All of this is useful to keep in mind how thoughts can exploit our emotions for their reproduction. And that we help them to spread further and faster by communicating with many people in a short amount of time.

In order to maintain a healthy state of mind then, it pays off to be aware of the weak points of the brain and be careful around thought germs that have already spread and might have been altered by the many people whose brains they have passed. In this case being cautious can be compared to being hygienic. It is the same as washing your hands to keep them “germ-free” only here it is to keep a clear mind.

Source

• This Video Will Make You Angry, posted by CGP Grey, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc&feature=youtu.be