Words which resonate strongly

[Wyote]

Everything Voltaire

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

 

[aeon]

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

​

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Cheers,
Ian​

 

[John K]

Positive scepticism sees reality as a labyrinth of aspects. As we pass from room to room we see things in a different way. In one room we see a duck, in another a rabbit, in another a drawing, in another a pattern of dark marks on a piece of paper. We can only escape the labyrinth by finding a room in which the rooms do not exist.

The vision of the labyrinth is itself part of the labyrinth. The labyrinth of aspects contains a room in which it is a labyrinth of aspects. This room is positive scepticism.

Positive scepticism is not a popular theory because aspect differences are not always apparent - we are systematically blind to the radical divergences between people. Wrapped up in our own aspect we tend to interpret things only within its framework and remain closed off from alternative worlds. We are also inclined to believe that everyone else could be persuaded to agree with our own view of things, and this helps to insulate us from the threat of other positions. Rarely do we believe that an encounter with the other will lead to the loss of our own opinions.

From: 'What We Can Never Know", Chr 5, by David Gamez

David Gamez's book was one of those life-altering events for me. Like discovering my INFJ type late in life, the concept of positive scepticism was a homecoming for me. I believe it is of great value for all Ni users because it gives us permission to free ourselves from the fetters of judgement. Unlike more traditional sceptic thinking, positive scepticism allows us to hold more than one opinion or belief about something at a time - it's analogous to the way we suspend belief when reading a good novel. It's only we people who want to judge, close down, simplify and disagree with everything - nature isn't like that. There is a delicious freedom in provisionally believing alternative - even contradictory - things for long enough to get a feel for them. The concept of the labyrinth keeps them in separate rooms that we can visit and live in for a while, until we can really see what is in them.

What's more, positive scepticism is not just an interesting concept - it really is great fun too!

 

[David Nelson]

I think a degree of skepticism or uncertainty in ones own beliefs is very healthy. Being judgers we do have a tendency to invest ourselves into our ideas and beliefs, and that is fine as long as you always accept you could be wrong. We have to believe in things, but those things can always change if we get new information or see things in a new way.

 

[John K]

I quite agree. Often a perspective can only really be seen clearly from the inside, and that means being open enough to try on the clothes.

 

[aeon]

...that is fine as long as you always accept you could be wrong.

Indeed, and in those times one is wrong, welcome it, embrace it, because one of life’s greatest gifts is coming to understand the error of one’s ways. A gift of opportunity to become aware, to grow.

We have to believe in things...

I’m not sure about that, meaning, I’ve thought a lot about it, and I couldn’t come to a conclusion with any degree of surety. That said, I saw great possibility in forsaking belief, and walking a path between this and that.

One could understand things, while remaining open to new information and remaining supple. Entertain multiple perspectives on things, but elevate none of them to primacy over the others. A fluidity, if you will.

Witness all, grasp none.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[David Nelson]

Love these lyrics form the Tina Turner song…We Don’t Need Another Hero….

Love and compassion
That day is coming
All else are castles built in the air

 

[David Nelson]

I’m not sure about that, meaning, I’ve thought a lot about it, and I couldn’t come to a conclusion with any degree of surety.

I see what you mean but for decisive action in the real world, we have to have strong beliefs, especially around things of great importance. A wishy wasn’t mindset won’t help there. I mean, you believe in your love don’t you?
Sure, nothing is 100% certain in life, but without firm convictions I think we leave ourselves compromised in some ways. Ask Nietzsche, oh sorry he’s dead.

 

[Ren]

Everything Voltaire

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You're such a francophile Wy

Good quotes though ♥

 

[Ren]

Definitely this. As a writer and as a person, this truly resonates.

 

[John K]

I see what you mean but for decisive action in the real world, we have to have strong beliefs, especially around things of great importance. A wishy wasn’t mindset won’t help there. I mean, you believe in your love don’t you?
Sure, nothing is 100% certain in life, but without firm convictions I think we leave ourselves compromised in some ways. Ask Nietzsche, oh sorry he’s dead.

I think in a way you are right - you have to believe in yourself to make a difference. The trouble is that some of the worst people who ever lived were following their convictions.

There always has to be doubt that tempers the steel, and steel that strengthens the doubt. We are always both very wrong and very right - it’s the human condition and if we don’t live in the middle of that space we risk losing our humanity. I think it’s the journey that matters not the places we pause at along the way.

 

[Ren]

 

[David Nelson]

Everything Voltaire

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Didn’t Voltaire also say ….”Happiness is an illusion, but pain is real” lol

 

[Ren]

Didn’t Voltaire also say ….”Happiness is an illusion, but pain is real” lol

Voltaire said a lot of things

Glad to see you're still about the forum, David.

 

[Wyote]

Didn’t Voltaire also say ….”Happiness is an illusion, but pain is real” lol

He also said illusion is the first of all pleasures

 

[Ren]

He also said illusion is the first of all pleasures

The man had a gift for words, that's for sure

 

[aeon]

...for decisive action in the real world, we have to have strong beliefs, especially around things of great importance. A wishy wasn’t mindset won’t help there.

I’m not sure of that, and I tend to think not. The choice to act, and the action taken, can be informed by what one knows, and what one values.

But believe? Perhaps I’m just too much a skeptic for that. To me, believe leaves too little room for doubt, and begins to sound akin to faith—whereas I try to be a reasonable man.

Lulz...wishy-washy is a pejorative term used by people who are not comfortable with the idea of sinking into a cozy blanket of ambiguity.

I mean, you believe in your love don’t you?

Hmm, that’s something apart from and beyond belief. Something I don’t really have words for.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

But believe? Perhaps I’m just too much a skeptic for that. To me, believe leaves too little room for doubt, and begins to sound akin to faith—whereas I try to be a reasonable man.

You're making the classic atheist mistake of conflating faith and belief, not to mention painting them with an undesirable connotation, and as a consequence you're engaging in a bit of self-deception. Epistemically, all knowledge is still belief, and what you value is often qualitatively indiscernible from faith; that's also why there's nothing absolute about belief. At the very least, you still believe that doubt is something positive. A matter of semantics, maybe, but semantics is what makes or breaks communication. Much of what we live by is a lot less reasonable at its core than we think.

I like that this thread is uniquely fit to oppose everything strictly by Chesterton quotes.

 

[David Nelson]

I heard this many years ago. It’s by DH Lawrence but I can’t find the exact quote, so I may have it slightly wrong…

“An artist is just an ordinary man; same makeup, same stuff, only with more force. And this driving force usually find his weak point, and he goes cranked or goes under.”

 

[John K]

Epistemically, all knowledge is still belief

You are right about this, and on a more prosaic level than you are intending here before we get anywhere near the point you are making.

Who can prove to me physically that the earth is a sphere for example? It's obviously possible to do so, but there must be only a few specialists who actually have the skill and access to the tools and the information to do it. In fact I may struggle to access, understand and verify the content and structure of the data and the proof if it is presented to me, because it will be very technical. The joys of surveying techniques and spherical trigonometry maybe? Or of navigation if I were to fly all the way round because I would need to verify the flight route. A trip into space might do it, but only a few can afford and risk that, and maybe what you see is not straightforward to interpret.

Most of us know this fact from what we are told by those we trust and believe are giving us the truth. We believe those who tell us in the same way that people believe in the priests of a religion. When most people claim the proof of science, they are really expressing a faith that is the same in character as a religious faith. Most of what we think science has proven are things we believe in rather than can prove for ourselves whether or not it has really proven them - only very specialised experts with access to the right resources can actually verify these things for themselves from first principles.