are you 100% certain that this is not really true…
this is my theory and i am fairly certain it is true…it gives me wiggle room when faced with crisis…
I am not 100% that being 100% as a standard is more safe than being in constant doubt.
But I AM 100% certain that being 100% of how to live, is far more secure than being in constant doubt.
Thus to become 100% certain of how to live and far more secure, one must begin the journey by discovering of what one actually can be 100% certain.
The purpose in the worship of doubt is merely destruction, nothing more.
And nothing more comes of it.
The only reason you are promoting the good of uncertainty is because you think it to be certainly a better way to live.
But you only believe that because of how you have been influenced/programmed. Keeping you “down” and in doubt.
very good saint…
in a crisis if you are trying to be 100% certain…
and you are wrong… it is harder for you to make a correction…i am not in constant doubt…you are fixed in concrete…this is not meant to be nasty because i respect your intellect…but you have no choice the way you are…you cannot live with uncertainty… but there is no such thing as 100% certain…our minds are primitive…
Are you so certain of that?
First, I am not “in concrete”, because I am only solid in certain specific things. I became certain in those things by virtue of doubting them until there was no question unanswered concerning them - no alternatives.
But those things are few. From only those few, I can be far more certain of a great many other things, sometimes to the point of gaining absolute certainty of them too. But one of the things of which I am 100% certain is that every postulate must remain open to question. Thus I am always verifying, re-questioning, rethinking, reassuring through scrutiny. The fact that I am 100% certain doesn’t stop me from questioning. Nor should it stop you. It is merely your mistake to think that once 100% certainty is declared, that all questioning stops. That is a certainty that you have presumed and should heed your own advice and be less certain of that thought, in fact, dismiss it.
And in a crisis, they who live with certainty far outlast those who live in doubt as constant companion.
It is a matter of habitually seeking what CAN be done rather than worrying of what CANNOT be done.
Certainty breeds confidence and confidence breeds success.
Would you invest money in someone who wasn’t certain of what they were doing?
saint you continue to be persuasive…
the issue of investing money is interesting…
you can never be certain…and i am very cautious when someone is trying to persuade me to part with my money…will you give another example of something you are 100% certain of…i have a gigantic bullshit detector about 100% certain…i have been stung too many times…your posts usually are very certain but whether you are right is another matter…
I guess you made up the system in which you can be 100% certain.
And you can feel secure and harmonious in it. Good for you.
Although you are enclosed and restricted/restrained by the very system, there is nothing absolutely wrong with limiting oneself as long as you feel comfortable.
I have different preference, though.
Lack of (pseudo) absolute certainty doesn’t mean one is in constant stressful doubt, unlike you might be suggesting.
And destruction can be very creative, fun, useful in many ways, too.
Eating is an act of destruction. An artist would destroy a stone to carve out whatever the piece of art (or not…). And destruction of certainty may liberate one’s mind from the limitation imposed/implied by the particular perspective, rendering new scenery
in our mind scape, among other thing.
So, we don’t have to be afraid of lack of absolute certainty that much.
I think there are more people in the side of promoting certainty.
I do think you (certainty holder) are majority, although it might be opposite in some small special group.
Also, the lack of certainty may come, not as a choice but because it’s too evident.
Just like you think A=A is obvious, I think the lack of absolute (affirmative) certainty to be obvious because we cannot affirm anything without first assuming something in some way (consciously or subconsciously). In “A=A”, we assumes ‘A’ and ‘=’, and ‘A’, again, whatever it is. I can understand that you see ‘A=A’ declaration, definition, axiom to be absolute and evident and too fundamental to break down further and to analyze more. But it’s already complex structure, to me.
With my preferred perspectives, I don’t have to take something as absolute, untouchable, sacred, and/or taboo. In other words, I don’t have many things to protect. And this allows me to think about anything if I wanted, without loosing different perspective.
And I can use the perspective like yours, or that of math, whatever, to have practical and conditional certainty (only valid within the limitation/applicability of particular system), which is amply good enough to think/analyze/decide.
So, I don’t need the impression of absolute certainty and I prefer general uncertainty with occasional use of practical conditional certainty.
Having said that, I do understand the need/desire for the absolute certainty among us, and what you are doing isn’t unusual/abnormal in any way. I’d say it’s very common and normal for human being, most probably.
good thinking nah…i certainly wish i could be absolutely certain about the nature of things…but some people just dont come that way…
If one cannot be certain of what is right or wrong, how can they ever be certain that someone else was right or wrong?
Proof is in the eye of the beholder, sadly even if he is blind.
In 1970 I recall deciding to not speak unless what I was going to say was 100% certainly true.
I went for 2 weeks finding absolutely nothing that I could say. I even questioned simple hello’s, “‘Hello’, what does that mean? Is that some kind of implied truth? “Hell-low”…hmm… don’t know - scrap it.”
After 2 weeks, something occurred to me of which that I could find no question. I scrutinized it for days, “It has to be true. There is no alternative.” So I opened the spiral notepad that I had reserved for the purpose and wrote that one thing down.
A few days later I found another that I could find no means to question, again, “It has to be true. There is no alternative.” So again, I entered it into my little book. The following few days revealed more times, 7 in total. And then I realized and understood the mountain that rises from the sea. Without any more entrees, I found myself capable of knowing without doubt times when something a professor would say that was unquestionably false. I seldom pointed it out, but when I did, he too realized that it could not be true. Much later in professional life, I found myself quite accidentally pulling the rug out from under some very seriously elite researchers with a simple phrase that brought light to their unquestionable flaw in reasoning. I found that I could read ancient texts and know what they were intending to say despite the words translates had presumed. I found no religion that didn’t have more truth in it than fiction. But such things were only of minor interest and musing.
But from the very first few weeks back over 40 years ago, I realized that one could not be social by only speaking what was absolutely true. And that most people wouldn’t recognize it as such anyway. So I made the mistake of allowing myself to not be concerned with being accurate, merely so as to be more social. It seems every time I have ever changed my intuitive path so as to be more social, I have made a very serious mistake.
The effort to be absolutely certain of things didn’t really come to mind again for some 25 years or so. But it came none the less and even with more incentive. But at that time, the issue wasn’t about speaking only truth, but rather doing only the rational. Being absolutely rational isn’t the same as being absolutely accurate. I wasn’t as young, healthy, or capable as before, but I couldn’t merely dismiss the incentive.
I found it irrational to not pursue knowing what is absolutely true. And having done it with merely 7 small items, I found a profound strength from it that ensured my security many times over. And today, I don’t even remember what those items were.
The greater issue of being rational mixes that concern of being social with being accurate. To other people who do not care what is accurate, it becomes very complicated to discern what is most rational to do. The Buddhist simply gives up on them and goes his own way. But I had been up that mountain and was not willing to stay there even though being social means being infected and becoming more and more corrupt with each encounter.
One doesn’t have to be in stress to be dying from their uncertainty. People die from not caring in the right direction at the right time.
One doesn’t die by knowing unquestionably how to live, but rather quite the reverse.
The clouded mind sees only clouds and imaginings.
It sees only itself.
I guess what I am trying to say is that by trying to find absolute truth, whether he ever find it or not, one learns to discern truth from fiction and thus avoids the prevalent lies and clouds that keep people entrapped. When the truth doesn’t set one free, the ability to discern the lies will.
thanks saint…i am thinking more about what you have written…
To be 100% certain means that one has no question.
To be blind means that one is not looking for any question.
Although it is often good to be certain, it is seldom good to be blind.
That difference is what you have all been blind of.
Question your certainty, especially that of whether to seek certainty,
but don’t refuse it when it comes available.
That is pretty much like asking how can something exist and not exist, I mean it would practically be the same if you asked, “how can something exist and be (place a “thing” here)” if it is a thing it is most logical that it would exist. But despite not being able to think of an alternative i resolve that it is still possible that by some means it could happen in maybe some ridiculously wacky dimensions or something…IDK Although dimensions are things so that doesn’t seem very likely wither but still…IDK
I would think that means it is a “thing”.
I don’t know.
Explanation in case needed:
But I do think it is likely that i exist.
(“know” therein being used as you define the word “know”, as in being 100% probable)
If you would then ask do i know whether i don’t know…And I would have to say: I don’t know.
(if I were using the word “know” in your way of being absolutely certain.)
If I were to use know in my definition as of having some probability less than 100% then i might say
I do know, but that could be translated, as I think it is most likely.
Because most people assume that things can actually be perfectly certain and it is assumed that most people really are. I think that if i wanted to survive in court i would have to be slightly dishonest and answer Yes or No, and thus be representing more sureness to the people than i actually have.
but then that wouldn’t be horrible because one might as well say yes when they think something is likely and might as well say no when they think something is not likely, it is functional, even though it can lead to misunderstandings…
it seems to me that you probably think i am just playing word games because you are unable to imagine the possibility of not being absolutely certain about something.
If a person doesn’t understand something it would seem logical to think they would think it didn’t say something. it was my answer, as truthful with respect to how i think as i could be. You simply don’t believe this because you already believe it is not possible. It seems almost like thinking there can be no albino ravens and so when one prances in front of you say it is not a raven…
i would think that your arguments are the same…it would seem we have gotten down to an issue that is in the eye of the beholder…And I am at least not “certain of the desire to be uncertain”
I am uncertain of it, but not in the sense of uncertain being 0% probable, just less than 100% probable…
Oddly though it would seem you are 100% certain that i am not right, and i admit to the possibility that you are right.
I have heard of some people that were 100% certain that black people were bad and thus deserved to be lenched.
what is your definition of the word doubt?
i hope you don;t think I think that. i see it as being most likely that people do continue to question things, but to stop questioning one thing because you don’t see an alternative, or you haven’t seen one for a long time, or you don’t think you ever will, still might not be the best thing to do. i would think that one can think that is the way something is, without being 100% certain that that is the way it is, otherwise how is it that we think about all those other non-axioms, or deductions that could be wrong?
I might agree with that if by doubt you meant thinking something wasn’t likely.
i wouldn’t trust my money with someone who did recognize any possibility that they could be wrong about what i was investing in.
it would seem to me that you asked your question and arrived at the idea that , “it has to be true. there is no alternative.” Before questioning whether one can be certain of something simply by thinking there is no alternative. So in other words you didn’t question what you used to concluded that there was 100% certainty.
Even if one could actually be 100% certain of any base assumptions/axioms/declarations/whatever there isn’t a way to actually be 100% certain about anything else, as one’s deductive abilities could always be questionable, unless there is the assumption that their deduction ability can’t be wrong, perhaps because they discovered at least one thing they think is 100% certain…
If one has no question, then one is not looking for any question regarding that matter, and as such are blind regarding that matter.