Schools of thought II
 

A great deal of what you know is wrong. Maybe even half!

How did you get to what you know? Some of it you experienced first-hand, such as the simplest notions you have: fire is hot, ice is cold...

As you grew up you accumulated facts and information about your world. But at some point you started to get more information through what people told you about it. This road goes to Fargo.

And then the explanations needed to become simpler so that you could comprehend them. Gas makes a car "go".

And then the explanations started to contain trivial lies. If you cross your eyes they will stick that way. If you are good Santa will bring you presents.

And then the explanations conflict. And then different people tell you different things. And then people tell purposeful lies. And then people tell you things they believe that are actually wrong. But your head is full of detail and you need to continue to learn.

And then you categorize your information. Some of it you trust as such a known fact that you assume its truth is equivalent to "fire is hot"... when, in fact, you are completely wrong. Some of it you're uncertain about, but put it into the fact pile or non-fact pile on the basis of leaning one way or the other. You can't possibly take the time to verify each fact, and proving the generalities is impossible.

And as you get information from the people around you, you inherit both their truths and their mistakes; you inherit their prejudices and their faiths; you inherit their priorities. As they speak in the same kind of generalities, poorly defined terms, lies, misunderstandings that all of us inherited all along.

And we see how errors must creep in. It is, in fact, pretty much impossible to be error-free. Some of the notions that you, yourself, believe as actual truth -- are as broken as can possibly be.

Look, for example, at the people around you. If you're in a typical situation, most of them grew up in the same culture you did, many at exactly the same time. Sure, they had different parents, but chances are they went to similar schools as you, watched similar TV, listened to similar radio or whatever, participated in similar sports under similar circumstances.

And yet, when you ask them about what they believe, it is sometimes totally bizarre. If you believe in God, for example, and you ask some people who don't believe, what drives them at the root of their being... it is practically incomprehensible. Vice versa... if you don't believe, and you ask some people who do... incomprehensible.

If you are a hard line member of political party A, and you ask hard line political party member B about their beliefs... incomprehensible. But vice versa; if you are a H.L.B. and you ask a H.L.A. about their beliefs... incomprehensible.

If you are from a western nation, and you ask someone from an eastern nation about their beliefs... incomprehensible. But vice versa...

Some folk can't even get along with people with different musical tastes. Is it incomprehensible to enjoy both Motorhead and ABBA, for example? Some would say it definitely is not, and yet these bands represent a single cultural acceptance of scale, rhythm (common time), what is considered harmonious... all these are a "given" to both bands even though they are not at al a given in other cultures. To be able to listen to and understand a vastly different culture's music? Pretty incomprehensible.

This is not to say, of course, that some schools of thought are not more... refined, more likely to represent objective truths. Does this make them better? Not in terms of cultural choices such as music, food preparation, etc. but I would say that progress towards making our beliefs as close to reality as possible is a good thing.

But here's the rub: when you deal with someone whose belief systems are different than your own, you often start from the perspective that yours is correct while the other's is incorrect. But the truth is, there's a really good chance that yours is incorrect.

Simply listing the major religions of the world will show you: most human beings on the earth have provably incorrect belief systems, to some degree. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhist, Taoists, Sikhs, Spiritual-but-not-religious-ists, Atheists. We emphasize what we have in common, but in the end, we cannot all be right.

So why do you think you're the one who's sussed it all out? You're probably wrong. And not just wrong about that, but wrong about all kinds of assumptions that you base your life around. From "eating omega 3 fish oil is a good idea" to "I can smoke this crack and get away with it" to "I will have this baby so my partner will stay with me" to "being a highly-paid professional accountant is a good idea", at least half your notions are probably deeply wrong.

What are you going to do about that?

This is an assumption on your part. How do you know what I know?

Again, an assumption!

Even if I stipulate that, why should I assume that the other person is more likely to be correct than me? If you (for example) seem so certain that I have 50% of my stuff wrong, why should I not be certain the same is true for you? Even assuming we're both correct, how does each of us know which 50%?

I don't.
Go home and eat dinner.

Be aware. Act accordingly. Stringently cross-check all incoming information against a matrix of data that has met my qualification process. Be willing to demolish and completely rebuild that matrix, when the resolution of incongruities reveals a structural problem. Acknowledge the pointlessness of these activities in the face of the great unknowable mystery; yet never stop clawing my way forward in the pursuit of knowledge, however insignificant it may be in the bigger picture. Know that the true nature of reality is on a layer far above the one I can percieve and function on.

wow, flint.....you'd better have a sports drink in that case. sounds tiring.

Some people don’t want to change. They choose to be disagreeable about any ideas/beliefs that are not their own. Obviously, there are those who can be shown a different way about something, and accept it as such. You never stop learning. We make the best decisions for families & self. They may be right or wrong. Do we hurt people in the process of our “showing our knowledge”, when trying to influence them to our way of thinking. Do we belittle their ideas? The whole – “I’m smart, your stupid”, I’m right, your wrong”, “I’m pretty, your ugly”. There are so many things that I need to change about myself. That, I believe, is where it has to begin. Getting individuals to realize that, will most likely never happen, no one wants to admit that they may be wrong.

I assume that all my assumptions are wrong on some level and that the only truths are the ones I have observed and that my observation is tainted with my current paradigm.
Truth changes every day and the only absolute is that there are none.
This is a good thing.

Rush - Turn The Page (Album: Hold Your Fire)
 

I try to start with acknowleging that most everything is unknowable, then I read about stuff and argue on the Cellar. I know I often grab my instinctive answer, but I will move on most things... except foreign policy ;)

I think Tony is conducting a huge sociological experiment. One day, I'm going to turn a corner, and there'll be a big hunk of cheese sitting there, and I'll realize I'm just a rat in UT's maze. It'll be like a Twilight Zone episode.

Edit:
I'm gonna eat the cheese.

Usually I don't really think in the "maybe I'm wrong and they are right" when it comes to cultural and other subjective differences but "maybe there is no right".

This obviously doesn't apply to every situation and get very messy when you have two cultures with contradicting views on a moral issue but when I start at that point and move from there it usually works a lot better for me than any other mindset......but that is just me.

In the last few years I have learned - you don't get cramps and die if you swom within an hour of eating.

Cats can eat chicken bones, raw or cooked.

I am amazed at how many things I just accepted without question.
When I was a teenager I thought adults "sold out". Now I know that experience will wallop you if you take too hard a line on anything.

You don't get the flu from being cold and wet.

Everything you're taught, or even think up on your own, you have an opportunity to verify to be true or not later on. If that opportunity doesn't present itself, then the thought doesn't matter.

Much of what we "know", of what we "believe" to be true, doesn't mean shit anyway. I believe the creek behind my house to be polluted. True or not, it doesn't make any difference in my life. If it did, I'd make an effort to verify it.

What cracks me up is how resistant to changing their minds people are, especially when presented with clear evidence.

One man's clear evidence, is another man's bullshit.