My boring job gave my thoughts a lot of time to go wild. I became very unhappy because I came to some sweeping absolute negative conclusions. One good conversation later, things don't seem pointless anymore. I have gained patience through optimism (or is it optimism through patience?) The negative trains of thought, that seemed so perfectly sound before, seem ridiculous to me now. They were based on pessimistic premises.
I must never forget that our perception warped by our expectations which are formed by the beliefs we already have. Staying unbiased and open-minded is always unexpectedly tricky. My advice to anyone reading this would be to never underestimate how crazy a particular opinion or expectation you have now might appear to you in the near future, no matter how strongly you may believe it at the time.
In fact, the emotional conviction behind a view is the very thing that locks us into it and stops us from looking again to come to a new different conclusion. The more strongly you believe something, the more suspicious and doubting you must be of that belief!
Wait... does that mean that vice-versa we should therefore trust the knowledge that we doubt the most? Uurrrmm...... I'll be back... later...
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Intrusion Introduction
I’m the kind of person who thinks about things very deeply. Over the years I came to find that I have very little control over this. Often my periods of thought would involve problems I perceived in my own mind and sometimes involved trying to finally make myself see that the only problem was that of believing that any given thing was even a problem at all. Also I gained the habit of writing down my thoughts and conclusions as a method of finalising and resolving them. These are records of my thought processes from various points in time.
So why now do I want to share these personal things?
There are several reasons.
Firstly, it saddens me to see how so very closed so many people are. It always seemed to me that people would be happier if they dropped their fear of exposing themselves in an emotional and psychological sense. If people could only have more faith in others they could drop their masks and give up this notion that there are only certain parts of ourselves that we should present to others.
Secondly, I like to talk to people about these kinds of subjects to get their perspectives. It’s always nice to hear someone say “Wow, you’re absolutely right!” but it is equally good to have someone smash my view of world to pieces so that it can be replaced by something even better. Whether it’s confirmation or correction, feedback is always great.
Thirdly, I like to write things and have people read them. It gives me a feeling of significance and meaning. A part of me just wants people to understand and agree with me. There, now with that admission Nietzsche’s ghost will not be giving me evils from the netherworld. Okay Freddy? Happy now? Yeah, well of course not...
So why now do I want to share these personal things?
There are several reasons.
Firstly, it saddens me to see how so very closed so many people are. It always seemed to me that people would be happier if they dropped their fear of exposing themselves in an emotional and psychological sense. If people could only have more faith in others they could drop their masks and give up this notion that there are only certain parts of ourselves that we should present to others.
Secondly, I like to talk to people about these kinds of subjects to get their perspectives. It’s always nice to hear someone say “Wow, you’re absolutely right!” but it is equally good to have someone smash my view of world to pieces so that it can be replaced by something even better. Whether it’s confirmation or correction, feedback is always great.
Thirdly, I like to write things and have people read them. It gives me a feeling of significance and meaning. A part of me just wants people to understand and agree with me. There, now with that admission Nietzsche’s ghost will not be giving me evils from the netherworld. Okay Freddy? Happy now? Yeah, well of course not...
The Value of Truth
I think that someone who can accept the truth and live without the need to construct comforting beliefs will be happier; more so than someone who, when they see something about the universe that makes them feel sad, forms a belief that they then use to hide the ugly truth from themselves. For example, the man who believes in destiny because he is terrified by the thought that life has no greater significance. I've found that our happiness does not inherently depend on the universe being a certain way. We are all capable of seeing the world and our lives for exactly what they are and still being happy. In fact, for me, life's meaning comes from the supreme challenge of accepting all that we see and deciding that we can choose to be happy no matter how arbitrary and pointless the universe might be.
Whenever we form an opinion that's not directly based on evidence from our senses, we are no longer seeing reality; we are rejecting it and thusly placing emotional dependancy on fantasy.
However neither I nor anyone scientifically minded should assume that reality is more valuable, good, or right than beliefs and fantasies. The belief in the value of truth and facts is just yet another manifestation of a very common emotional need: the need to believe that certain things have meaning or inherent value. In scientists, this emotional need expresses itself in the belief that reality is more valuable than fantasy, that truth is meaningful whereas falsity is to be wiped out. This is simply not true and is no different from the beliefs of the religious people that they so often battle against. While in practical terms it is often more useful not to live by a fantasy such as "I am impervious to fire", there are actually no sound logical grounds in which to assert that fact is better than fiction. Therefore it is hypocrisy to think that a religious person should be pitied for their delusions because the belief that logic and fact are better is itself a delusion! Not only can we never be sure of the truth of anything but we are equally unable to logically assert that living only by evidence and hard facts will necessarily make you a happier person and give you a more meaningful life.
I should clarify what I mean by "delusion" and to do that I need to define "belief". A "belief" is a thing that a person holds to be definitely true. Thousands of years of science and philosophy have shown us that we can at least be fairly sure that the only certainty in the universe is that there is no certainty in the universe! Therefore any belief is inherently delusional. It is not delusional because of any particular detail of the belief itself; it is delusional by the mere fact that it is considered to be true. Beliefs are delusional by their very nature, however as I mentioned above it would be rash to consider delusions to necessarily be a bad thing. No one should be ashamed to think or even live by things that have no empirical evidence to back them up. I have some such beliefs of my own.
The lesson I've just been trying to teach myself is that it is not automatically right to try to tear down someone's belief just because it's illogical and based on nothing but their own emotions and psychological needs. To do so would make me a hypocrite. I don't know what would make them happiest; I can never know.
I'd like to end by asking a question that I genuinely can't even begin to answer. Is happiness valuable? All that I've come to think has shown that no logic can ever prove that one particular thing is any more valuable or meaningful than anything else. So what about happiness itself? Surely positive emotions are inherently good because they are "good" feelings; that's simply what they are. But none of that makes any sense when I consider all the things I've just said. What do you think? Is happiness the one thing that is inherently valuable or are positive emotions actually no better than negative ones? It seems almost insane to be even asking the question but my logic seems to be twisting and breaking before my eyes! Words fail me. Words always fail in the end. Time for a cup of tea and some toast.
Whenever we form an opinion that's not directly based on evidence from our senses, we are no longer seeing reality; we are rejecting it and thusly placing emotional dependancy on fantasy.
However neither I nor anyone scientifically minded should assume that reality is more valuable, good, or right than beliefs and fantasies. The belief in the value of truth and facts is just yet another manifestation of a very common emotional need: the need to believe that certain things have meaning or inherent value. In scientists, this emotional need expresses itself in the belief that reality is more valuable than fantasy, that truth is meaningful whereas falsity is to be wiped out. This is simply not true and is no different from the beliefs of the religious people that they so often battle against. While in practical terms it is often more useful not to live by a fantasy such as "I am impervious to fire", there are actually no sound logical grounds in which to assert that fact is better than fiction. Therefore it is hypocrisy to think that a religious person should be pitied for their delusions because the belief that logic and fact are better is itself a delusion! Not only can we never be sure of the truth of anything but we are equally unable to logically assert that living only by evidence and hard facts will necessarily make you a happier person and give you a more meaningful life.
I should clarify what I mean by "delusion" and to do that I need to define "belief". A "belief" is a thing that a person holds to be definitely true. Thousands of years of science and philosophy have shown us that we can at least be fairly sure that the only certainty in the universe is that there is no certainty in the universe! Therefore any belief is inherently delusional. It is not delusional because of any particular detail of the belief itself; it is delusional by the mere fact that it is considered to be true. Beliefs are delusional by their very nature, however as I mentioned above it would be rash to consider delusions to necessarily be a bad thing. No one should be ashamed to think or even live by things that have no empirical evidence to back them up. I have some such beliefs of my own.
The lesson I've just been trying to teach myself is that it is not automatically right to try to tear down someone's belief just because it's illogical and based on nothing but their own emotions and psychological needs. To do so would make me a hypocrite. I don't know what would make them happiest; I can never know.
I'd like to end by asking a question that I genuinely can't even begin to answer. Is happiness valuable? All that I've come to think has shown that no logic can ever prove that one particular thing is any more valuable or meaningful than anything else. So what about happiness itself? Surely positive emotions are inherently good because they are "good" feelings; that's simply what they are. But none of that makes any sense when I consider all the things I've just said. What do you think? Is happiness the one thing that is inherently valuable or are positive emotions actually no better than negative ones? It seems almost insane to be even asking the question but my logic seems to be twisting and breaking before my eyes! Words fail me. Words always fail in the end. Time for a cup of tea and some toast.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Addictions
The hardest thing to give up is the belief in the value of truth.
The second hardest thing to give up is the belief in the usefullness of thinking about stuff.
The third hardest thing to give up is smoking.
The second hardest thing to give up is the belief in the usefullness of thinking about stuff.
The third hardest thing to give up is smoking.
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