But don't you tink that each believes what they need to believe to cope with shit in the way they know how to do so? Could that lead to sort of a 'meta-balance' (since you seem to dig on meta stuff) of ideas and experience as viewed across a larger population?
Perhaps that's because you don't have it? Hmm... you're here doing just that aren't you?
You're jumping in without understanding the context. I made it clear that skepticism - which was the focus of my interaction with the other person - is not the only good response to something one does not understand or believe. That one can choose, for example, to try something, to move closer to it, to have real life interactions with the processes associated with it. As one possible example. We can learn a lot by doing. If a horse farmer is told a tractor is an improvement over horse and plow, he can sit in his kitchen and be skeptical with his mind. He could also go out and see what happens when you use one. He could watch one, he could ride one. He could do this things from a skeptical stance while interogating the salesman. Or he could simply be curious. Or both. But I see no reason to assume that he must be skeptical.
That's my point.
Sometimes, when encountering something new or unknown, one can NOT IN ONE SINGLE INSTANCE be skeptical and still one ends up neither being gullible nor dismissive - though dismissing seemed to be another perfectly good option in some instances. The idea, which I believe the other guy heavily implied, was that skepticism is de rigeur. I don't think so. I also don't think one needs to commit to belief or disbelief especially if the processes associated with believing are fun or pleasurable. One can wait and see. Belief may build up or not. The idea that we must somehow be convinced first while we probe with our verbal minds seems very limiting to me.
And when I say one need not be skeptical, even for a moment, I do not mean simply that one becomes a believer. Two other options, one tries out some of the processes related to it and after some time make a decision based on how it felt, for example. Another option is to say: gut feeling, I don't ever want to sit in a lotus position. This is not for me. No mental gymnastics. No need to be skeptical.
Of course skepticism is perfectly useful, sometimes, I find. I certainly use it. I believe I have in relation to your ideas. don't know what it seems like on your side of the experience, in your subjectivity, but it sure seemed like it on mine.
there's no logical compulsion to do a damned thing but eat, drink, shit, piss, fuck, fight and try not to die... depending on your premise of course... but isn't the premise the whole thing, even logically?
I don't think theirs any logical compulsion to do any of those things either. I still have a sense that you are missing the context here.
Well it's all "actual experience" and in terms of contriving logical structures to represent an understanding of largely esoteric shit, what "actual experience" do you think suffices as "actual experience". In that case, is the thinking itself "actual experience"? What if an epiphany regarding intrinsic value is motivated by the way channel 3 sort of skitted to white noise in a particularly peculiar manner while spacing off thinking about football? Is that "actual experience"?
Sure. But there are different kinds of actual experiences. To me 'being skeptical' certain both is an actual experience and leads to them. But, as I pointed out to the other guy, one could also, for example be curious. There is no compulsion to prod and poke at something with one's verbal mind simply because it is new. To set onself in a stance of convince me with words then perhaps I will try it out.
People have told me this or that alternative medical thing is good for me. Some smelled good or seemed like pleasurable processes, so WTF I tried them out. If you had demanded I say my guess at how likely it was it would help me, I might have said 'low' to some of them. I certainly could have come up with reasoning and questions that would have functioned as a skeptical stance. I could have spent time going through this with the other person. And I have. But in some cases I did not. And this was fine, both in cases where I later decided it was useless at least for me and in cases where I came to appreciate whatever it was. Again, and I am repeating myself, skepticism is just peachy even in its wordy, defensive form. I just don't think one
hass to use it.
And that was the point I thought he was making.
for any choice made one pays the potentially hefty toll of having lost the opportunity to make any other possible choice. So isn't any perspective limited by the act of its existence?
You know, this is irritating.
Sure, duh. Straw man.
He said you have to make this choice.
I am saying: no there are other good options.
Amazingly enough I find the former more limiting than the latter. I am not convinced that every time I encounter a new belief or something unknown I MUST be skeptical or I am being unwise. I think it is perfectly OK, sometimes, to be curious, to check it out directly, rather than mediated by words. Hell, I could just say no thanks - like to some religious guy in the subway and walk past him. I certainly don't need to be skeptical even if his religion had a name I'd never heard of. I could just on a gut feeling ignore the guy.
I don't think either of these options is unwise in general. He was positing an in general. I was saying that this
in general seemed limiting to me.
Sure a guy who always makes left turns may in some philosophical sense be giving up an option - if he starts mixing it up like I do - when he starts including right hand turns. He will miss out on the only left hand turn life. Once he goes public with his idea that the only thing one can do is make left turns or one is being unwise, well, I find that limiting. And since it's me, I think it is absolutely limiting.
Do I think he should give up what I am saying is a limitation?
No.
He can do what he wants. He can be only skeptical as his only reaction to new and unknown things. Fine with me.
