Knowing What's Right

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
impermanence
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Knowing What's Right

Post by impermanence »

It seems what people want more than understanding is to be right. Look at all the bandwidth spent on this site matching one genius against the other, each attempting to convince that they are in-the-know.

What if there was no way to know? What if knowing was impossible? Would people still feel the need to convince everybody that they were correct? It appears so as affirmation is the name of the game.

One of the most interesting things about people is that although they intuitively realize that they cannot understand anything, they still have this desire to convince others that they are right. What a heavy burden to bear!
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Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pm It seems what people want more than understanding is to be right.
Firstly, I would suggest adding a word like "most" to change your statement, so that it instead goes like this, "It seems what most people want more than understanding is to be right."

However, while that is likely true of at least some people, I am far from convinced that it is true of most, let alone all.

Rather, I would propose that an alternative explanation for such an appearance is often not as much that the person wants to be right but rather that they happen to believe they are right because it would be a contradiction to believe otherwise. So it's not necessarily that they want to believe they are right, but rather they can not avoid believe it. I elaborated on that idea in a recent tweet I posted on January 13.


impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pm What if there was no way to know? What if knowing was impossible?
These are good questions, but I doubt they are what ifs. While some philosophers might argue otherwise, I don't think there's anything too controversial about acknowledging a certain degree of agnosticism or epistemological skepticism. The philosopher Socrates is often quoted as having said, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing."
impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pm Would people still feel the need to convince everybody that they were correct?
Similar to my earlier suggestion, I would propose rephrasing the question with a word like most, so it read, "Would most people still feel the need to convince everybody that they were correct?"

In any case, concepts like need and must are relative. Namely, they are relative to some goal. For instance, a human needs oxygen to live. A smartphone needs power to turn on.

Those relative concepts express the following logical relationship:

If not X, then not Y.

X is the 'needed' thing and 'Y' is the goal or result that cannot be accomplished without it.

Thus, your question may not be answerable (or meaningful) unless the Y is specified. In other words, need for what?

impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pmOne of the most interesting things about people is that although they intuitively realize that they cannot understand anything, they still have this desire to convince others that they are right.
Again, I know this is potentially nitpicky so I apologize for that, but nonetheless I would suggest qualifying the statement to not be an absolute, such as by instead writing, "One of the most interesting things about many people is that although they intuitively realize that they cannot understand anything, they still usually seem to have this desire to convince others that they are right."

Insofar as multiple humans do have such a desire, their reasons likely vary. However, one common reason may be that many humans are egotistical. In other words, many humans identify very strongly if not completely with their ego, and for many their beliefs and opinions are part of that ego. Thus, for such a human to have their opinion challenged can feel similar to having their physical body threatened (at least for those who likewise identify with their body). For some, the challenge does not even need to direct; just the fact that others have a different view can be enough to enrage, terrify, or threaten a person if they are egotistically attached to a certain belief, opinion, or set of beliefs. For example, even if a given person is not preaching their own unique religious view, just the mere fact of that person have a different religious view can upset some very religions people, at least to the degree they are very emotionally and/or egotistically attached to their own religious belief. Another common example is the way some people get about sports teams. In terms of ego and the corresponding sense of feeling threatened by other opinions, it has to do with the ego-sensitive and/or easily threatened person identifying with the belief, sports team, religion, etc.
My entire political philosophy summed up in one tweet.

"The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master."

I believe spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline) manifests as bravery, confidence, grace, honesty, love, and inner peace.
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LuckyR
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by LuckyR »

Hey Scott, it never ceases to amuse me that when folks complain about what "people" do, they never include themselves as part of the "people".
"As usual... it depends."
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Sy Borg
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by Sy Borg »

impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pm It seems what people want more than understanding is to be right. Look at all the bandwidth spent on this site matching one genius against the other, each attempting to convince that they are in-the-know.
Everyone wants to better understand what is going on. Most want to be right, too, to have their ideas confirmed and accepted.

It's just human nature.
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by Alias »

What if there was no way to know? What if knowing was impossible?
Then we're all wasting our time. We're just lucky to have time to waste.
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by popeye1945 »

Perhaps it has something to do with the stress relationship of reason and feeling in conflict over the governance of one's body, the reason being the latter development in our evolutionary development. Which is the most dominant in any given subject. I have experience with people i know is this appearent struggle. If the person is strongly on the side of decision-making on the feeling level, they will often be at a loss to present a reasonable defense for an argument, and so become enraged. As might be predictable this seems more often the truth with friends who are strongly religious, but not necessarily on just religious topics.
Tegularius
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by Tegularius »

In this incredibly imperfect world knowing what's right is usually a matter of hindsight and even then it may appear more of an accident than anything recognized as explicitly known.
The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man ... Nietzsche
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chewybrian
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by chewybrian »

impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pm It seems what people want more than understanding is to be right. Look at all the bandwidth spent on this site matching one genius against the other, each attempting to convince that they are in-the-know.

What if there was no way to know? What if knowing was impossible? Would people still feel the need to convince everybody that they were correct? It appears so as affirmation is the name of the game.

One of the most interesting things about people is that although they intuitively realize that they cannot understand anything, they still have this desire to convince others that they are right. What a heavy burden to bear!
Simone de Beauvior calls this the serious person. Such a person lives in fear and denial of reality. They see as an adult that there are no hard and fast rules, and we must decide on our own morality; everything is permitted. They wish to revert to the safety of the child's world, where there were only hard facts to be discovered, yet their choices and their games had no real impact on the world. They fear freedom, and the responsibility and accountability that goes with it. So, they replace the parent with some ideal form of government, or religion or science. They find a way to get answers that can't be wrong.

These folks sadly become useful idiots in many cases. They swallow the ideology hook, line and sinker, and can't bear to see it challenged in any way.

The alternative is to grow up and accept that life is very messy and can't fully be understood. Your choices do have consequences, yet you can never know for certain that you are doing the right thing. You have to tear down your preconceptions over and over to make progress, even as you can't measure progress itself in any certain terms. That's real life, and if you don't like it all you can do is play at something else. But, unlike the play of the child, the play of the serious adult can cause real harm that can't always be undone.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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intrTek_Alan
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by intrTek_Alan »

impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pm
It seems what people want more than understanding is to be right. Look at all the bandwidth spent on this site matching one genius against the other, each attempting to convince that they are in-the-know.

What if there was no way to know? What if knowing was impossible? Would people still feel the need to convince everybody that they were correct? It appears so as affirmation is the name of the game.

One of the most interesting things about people is that although they intuitively realize that they cannot understand anything, they still have this desire to convince others that they are right. What a heavy burden to bear!
I think most would settle for an ample amount of validation. I find myself not giving a respectful amount of thought to what a friend is telling me but I sure do expect that friend to carefully consider everything I have cooking on my back burners.

As children, we want validation from our parents, and as adults, from our peers. I think it's different from empathy because it's more intellectual than emotional, and not exactly an issue of respect for the same reason.

Am I missing an obvious similarity, or as empathy says, "Ah feel yer payne", should validation be a buzz word for, "Yer not as dumb as ya look." (Trying to joke. Hope it's not crude.)
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by popeye1945 »

Tegularius wrote: March 4th, 2021, 8:03 pm In this incredibly imperfect world knowing what's right is usually a matter of hindsight and even then it may appear more of an accident than anything recognized as explicitly known.
Tegularius, There is a certain level of truth in what you say, but if it were usually hindsight guiding one's behaviour, we all would be to fearful to move through the world.
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by Tegularius »

popeye1945 wrote: March 27th, 2021, 4:33 pm
Tegularius wrote: March 4th, 2021, 8:03 pm In this incredibly imperfect world knowing what's right is usually a matter of hindsight and even then it may appear more of an accident than anything recognized as explicitly known.
Tegularius, There is a certain level of truth in what you say, but if it were usually hindsight guiding one's behaviour, we all would be to fearful to move through the world.
I think a lot depends on how time is experienced. For me there is only the present, the future hasn't happened therefore only the present exists and with it the chronologies of how the ever present came to be. It's the past which determines the future since the future cannot determine itself. It can only be assumed by events already in the database.
The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man ... Nietzsche
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by popeye1945 »

Tegularius, Interesting, the eye of the storm, the center stillness, and time the whirlwind. I think they call that whirlwind samsara in the eastern traditions. There is a saying as well, that which is, is natural, meaning I believe to take a point from Hericulus, "To god all things are right and good." I believe the chronology is quite simple, consciousness is the center of the storm, and its nourishment the whirlwind of the physical world. Subject and object stand or fall together, and when the eyes of consciousness close, a world ends. Without consciousness there is no time, no meaning, no physical world. We in a sense are at the centre of the cosmos, an otherwise unperceived cosmos. With the growinng knowledge of quantum physics, who knows how our dearest concepts mightl change.
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by Tegularius »

popeye1945 wrote: March 29th, 2021, 1:34 pm Tegularius, Interesting, the eye of the storm, the center stillness, and time the whirlwind. I think they call that whirlwind samsara in the eastern traditions. There is a saying as well, that which is, is natural, meaning I believe to take a point from Hericulus, "To god all things are right and good." I believe the chronology is quite simple, consciousness is the center of the storm, and its nourishment the whirlwind of the physical world. Subject and object stand or fall together, and when the eyes of consciousness close, a world ends. Without consciousness there is no time, no meaning, no physical world. We in a sense are at the centre of the cosmos, an otherwise unperceived cosmos. With the growinng knowledge of quantum physics, who knows how our dearest concepts mightl change.
Time is indeed the whirlwind and without consciousness there is no time, no meaning, no physical world. These are all brilliant metaphors and an excellent summary of the before and after state of one's samsaric and entropic in between.
The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man ... Nietzsche
popeye1945
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by popeye1945 »

Tegularius,
Thanks Tegularius, unusual to get positive feed back.
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Re: Knowing What's Right

Post by Belindi »

impermanence wrote: December 30th, 2020, 9:42 pm It seems what people want more than understanding is to be right. Look at all the bandwidth spent on this site matching one genius against the other, each attempting to convince that they are in-the-know.

What if there was no way to know? What if knowing was impossible? Would people still feel the need to convince everybody that they were correct? It appears so as affirmation is the name of the game.

One of the most interesting things about people is that although they intuitively realize that they cannot understand anything, they still have this desire to convince others that they are right. What a heavy burden to bear!
It is a sign of pathological ***fearfulness to want more than anything to be right. It is better to be able to live happily with uncertainty combined wherever possible with reasonable hope .

*** "pathological" : tending towards suffering or dying.
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