Am I the only one who thinks this thread smells like bong smoke?
I think using examples can only suffice for so long. Because when we visualize examples, we have control, and we tend to think we know the limits of what could occur.
If we visualize this man standing on the rooftop edge, we can imagine all off the most ridiculous things that could occur, but realize that they are not likely . I.E. Aliens, sniper shots, gravity fluxes, explosion of the earth, etc. Thats just what comes to my mind as ridiculous. And of course there are many other varied things that we can imagine could happen, including the realistic and the unrealistic.
But then, after that, we tend to FEEL like we know the entire scope of those situations. We feel like that ultimately, we can know the nature of the possible outcomes. Or at least understand them if someone mentions them. However, I say that this is a misconception.
Or I can put it this way. We realize that we DONT know all of the possible outcomes of a situation, but we of course know some of them. And then we leave space, we leave opportunity and “room” in our visualization for all of the other possiblities that we arent’ sure of. I think of it as a pie graph. Maybe 10% is all of the outcomes we are familiar with and know, and 90% is left for all of the stuff we aren’t sure of, but we ARE sure that it exists. I think this is also a misconception. Even though we DO leave room to the uncertainty and stuff that we DONT know, we falsely beleive that we DO know how much stuff that really is. We falsely believe that we DO know to what extent all of that uncertainty can lead to.
So, therefore, even if we do realize that there is an opposing opinion to ours, even if we do try to understand the opinions of others…we are still ignorant. Because we dont even know the “scope”, the “range”, of whatever their opinion could be. Its almost like there is a 4th dimension of thinking that we are unaware of.
It is hard to try to write this in English…because language itself is a barrier that can only convey so much knowledge.
But is there a spoon?
In other words, we know how much we know, but we don’t know how much we don’t know, so we can never be sure what percentage of everything we know. I remember reading something similar, I think it was in this book.
When I first glanced at the thread title, I misread it as “To hell with those with strong opinions.” Personally, I think that probably would’ve been a more fun thread.
I prefer Intelligent Falling. You godless heathen, you.
That statement does not apply to itself.
“Pardon me, Professor Schrodinger, have you seen my cat?”
“Maybe I have and…MAYBE I HAVEN’T! Maybe you should ask me if he is alive and well. Bwahahahahaha! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!”
I hate fluffbrains so fucking much. Sorry if that strikes you as a “strong opinion”.
Perhaps you should try this topic again in Urdu or ancient Olmec? I’m definitely feeling some strong barriers to knowledge in this thread.
OK, I think I understand what Heckxx is getting at. I think he or she has just discovered that we can’t have absolute knowledge of reality. How can I be sure of anything? Maybe I’m just floating in a pod in the Matrix, and all my perceptions are illusions. This is something most of us who have a philosophical bent discover at some point in our lives. I strongly recommend reading Descartes at this point. Much of Descartes may seem ridiculous to modern readers–particularly his “proof” of the existence of God, which may have been put in to appease the censors–but no one else to my mind has explicated the concept of radical doubt more than he.
Radical doubt or skepticism is irrefutable, but it’s also kind of pointless. The best response to it is a pragmatic view. Even if I can’t prove the world is real, I’m still going to act as if it was. I’m going to get out of the way of traffic, eat food, and deal with people. Thus even if we can’t be sure of reality, we may as well assume it until confronted with evidence to the contrary.
Another possibility is that Heckxx may be noting the vast amount of variables that we have to deal with in assessing any real world situation. Again, there’s nothing we can do about this, it’s just part of life. All our decisions are going to be based on incomplete imperfect knowledge. It’s not that we falsely believe we know stuff we don’t–I hope–but rather that we realize that at some point we’re going to have to act, no matter how imperfect our knowledge is.
Spoooooooooooooooooon!!!
Yeah, thats sort of what I’m getting at. I actually read that Descartes book years ago, but actually, it wasn’t my favorite of the many works we read. What you’re saying stems from stuff I recall from my philosophy classes, but thats not exacly what I’m trying to get to. Because if it was entirely impractical, I wouldn’t really be spending alot of effort explaining it. And im a guy, for future reference.
Again I go back to the main point: Strong Opinions. Often it seems people voice their opinions and judgments without even realizing these vast amount of variables that exist in a real-world situation. In some cases, these variables may be small enough to practically ignore. In other cases, they are not, but they are still ignored. But in both these cases…usually the “person at-fault” doesn’t even realize that such small variables exist in the situation in the first place. They can’t even consider anything but what is immediately culturally obvious. Therefore, if people can understand that such seemingly useless and tiny variables and outcomes can exist…they may better realize such variables when they become large enough to seriously consider.
That’s not what your wife said last night in bed.
Of course, her exact words were, “My god, Skald! You’re even smaller than my husband! How do you pee?” So maybe I shouldn’t point and laugh. In fact I’d have been better off not even starting this joke. Stupid poetic justice.
So let’s see if I understand the OP: If I encounter a ridiculous opinion, and I oppose it, that makes me ignorant. But what does it make me if I accept it?
The notion of a feline Supreme Being would explain much of the seemingly capricious randomness of existence. Also skritching a kitty could be considered prayer, which would be neat.