Monday 3 January 2011
Answers within You
I have found it a good idea to change the title of my blog to Answers within You. This is because I believe that we already possess the answers to the questions that most bother us - it is just that we have not led those answers out of our minds. Through our discussion on this blog I am sure that we will lead out of our own minds the answers that we are looking for. Welcome.
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13 comments:
Is this a Roger-ian approach that you're advocating Ikechukwu?
Graham
Absolutely. The Aristotelian mutual throttling that is going on in the Great Resurrection Debate is most enervating, and one eventually tires of it and goes away. Here we can see the merit of what everyone else is saying and hence move forward with a deeper understanding of the issues of interest to us all.
I do like the idea that the answers to our questions are already within our own minds, and that the process of education is educare [Latin: to 'lead out'] what we already know, rather than introduce anything. This suggests something about the character of the human mind: that it is already omniscient - all we need is to figure out how to bring forth its infinite content.
Ikechukwu
I think that the "mutual throttling" has less to do with Aristotle and more to do with Ulstermen and our scathing sense of humour. Shane and I have grown used to being this blunt with each other.
As I've mentioned on Shane's blog, in response to your comment there, I think that much can be discovered and learned through debate.
However, debate leaves little room for exposition and exploration. While I'm not inclined to take the Socratic method to its logical limit, I agree that a gentler approach is helpful and necessary.
To my mind, it is a case of both/and, not either/or
So if you aim to run a blog that allows people to share their thoughts and explore their ideas without fear of hostile criticism, you have may support and gratitude.
Graham
IK, I have now joined your blog. I look forward to some thought provoking topics and discussions!
Welcome, JP, and I look forward to your enjoyment of the discussions on this blog. Thank you very much.
Yeah well the problem with that approach is that any old brain fart one comes up with ends up not being challenged, and if anyone comes along with a contrary idea, they can be dismissed *without* debate.
I do agree a bit with Graham that a bit of time spent kicking back and letting the little neurons spin kaleidoscopic patterns can sometimes help us generate new ideas, but at the end of the day more is learnt through kicking seven shades of shit out of an idea than by massaging it gently with cocoa butter.
There are Vastly more ways of being wrong that right, which is why a bit of a spin over at Shane's marvellous blog http://answersingenes.blogspot.com is just the ticket for those times when your comfort zone is just *too* comfortable :-)
We have been endowed with many marvellous faculties, including reasoning. Our problem is that some of us think that reasoning is the only faculty that we require to operate on this planet. This inevitably results in a considerable narrowing of our worldview and our perception of things, and indeed to the denial of insights that reach us through faculties other than reasoning. If you thought about it, you would have to accept that a great deal of what we have come to know has not been arrived at through reasoning.
We need to explore things through reasoning; we also need to apply our other faculties to the understanding of our marvellous life.
Oh undoubtedly. But science and reason are the only valid ways of discovering whether our ideas are correct or not. "Intuition" is a slippery wee fecker, and frequently gets a kicking when science and reason come along. My sister has two children, at least one of whom is a boy. What is the probability that the other child is also a boy?
[The answer is, of course, one in three, but you would be surprised how many people intuit this wrongly]
Thank you, Shane. Good to see that you do not dismiss the other ways of knowing - you just think that science is "more correct" than, say, intuition.
Considering that science explores so little of the activities of everyday life, and actually explains very little of the universe in which we find ourselves, we do rely very little upon science to get through the day. The affective component of our consciousness is very prominent indeed, and we tend to manage our everyday lives on the basis more of how we feel at the time than of how logical our thinking and reasoning might be.
Loving our parents, siblings, friends, partners and/or children is a feeling. There is no reasoning or evidence involved. Enjoying food or music or a glorious sunrise is a feeling: there is no scientific evidence or reasoning involved.
And, now and again, we get a 'hunch' about what's going to happen - and would kick ourselves if we did not follow it only to find that we should have.
It is of course said that we are all capable of predicting the future - it is just that we don't know that we can.
I knew you were going to say that...
And I knew that you knew that I would say that. Extraordinary, isn't it?
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