Common sense is anchor

Common sense is anchor

We live, love, and learn by metaphor. ‘Common sense is anchor’ is, I am convinced, a useful metaphor for learning.

In what sense is common sense an anchor?

An anchor keeps us steady when we just want to lie on deck either sleeping or day-dreaming. It keeps us safely anchored in place. It is our security. If we put one out fore and aft we cannot move without a great force compelling us to move.

However, the anchor functions as security only in shallow water.

To go to sea, to explore, to discover the adventure of the deep water and distant shores one must ‘up anchor’, one must dislodge the anchor from solid ground and take a leap of faith, we must learn to develop confidence in our instincts and to navigate by the stars. It entails risk; but what form of action can we indulge our self in if we remain at anchor?

All of this is just to set the stage for stating my conviction that we must put on hold our common sense while we explore a new domain of knowledge. I am not talking about what happens in school where the teacher takes us by the hand and shows us charts and maps about other lands wherein we never leave anchor. I am talking about what we must do when our school days are over and we wish to find a new means to reach another intellectual domain.

We must place on hold our common sense while exploring new domains of knowledge until we have gained sufficient knowledge about these new domains to make good judgments. Of course, this requires that we do ‘due diligence’ when choosing our maps and charts before we set out. Seek out the best minds as your guide when entering a new domain of knowledge and then up anchor for a voyage of discovery.

Quantum Theory and Psychology are two examples of domains of knowledge that cannot possibly be explored while clutching a security blanket.

Do you think ‘common sense is anchor’ is a valid metaphor?

Have you ever explored a new domain of knowledge without a teacher at your side?

You can’t mean what you are saying Chuck. You say, “‘Common sense is anchor’ is, I am convinced, a useful metaphor for learning”. If your anchor is useful, why do you need to “place (it) on hold”?

If you want to use “anchor” as a metaphor with respect to learning you have to let it represent all the things we are attached to that prevent us from learning. Then it makes complete sense to cut the anchor chain.

I call these anchors absolutely restrictive reactions to the void (10,11), attempts to give unnatural meaning to life that prevent us from discovering ourselves. Our religious/philosophical and materialistic reactions are two examples. A third is our “factual reaction”. Indeed, we can be so attached to learning ‘stuff’ that we are restricted from learning about ourselves. So be careful in both what you do and the advice you give.

I believe your advice on how to go about self-learning is also confused. You say, “I am not talking about what happens in school where the teacher takes us by the hand” and then say, “Seek out the best minds as your guide”. This sounds like the same thing to me. When learning about oneself there can be only one guide.

Doug

I recognize that I am not the best writer in the world but it is a mystery to me how people constantly fail to comprehend these messages. I will not try to clarify because I find that clarification is often met with the same confusion. I assume that young people do not understand because it appears to me that for the young,to be negative is to be cool.

Alright, I’m a lit minor. Lets attempt to parse this, and see what the hell he’s saying, shall we? The line of roses will mark the end of my sum up, and the start of my response. The kirby dance, and my signature, will mark the end of the post.

Translation: Common sense ties us down. We should know that things tie us down.

Common sense stops us from moving. We can be lazy and sleep with common sense as our guard. We don’t have to learn.

This is really bad, m’kay?

Common sense is a bad, bad thing, and holds us back in all ways, shapes, and forms. We especially need to get rid of common sense when dealing with things we don’t know.

Does anyone like me? Agree with me, please?

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The metaphor isn’t all that bad, in and of itself. However, your interpretation of it is a bit flawed.

One of the major features of an anchor is that you can draw it upwards onto your vessel, or can drop it half-way to explore with less haste and more care. When dropped, it stops you from jumping on bandwagons of stupidity, and allows you to take a moment to collect and process whats about you: Life, and learning, after all, aren’t about the destination, but about the journey that gets you there.

You tend to neglect that aspect in your dismantling of the metaphor. Instead, you choose to see an anchor as something that can only restrict, and that such restriction is always bad. Anchors save you from storms. They keep your boat intact in rough waters, and allow you to rest between forays into the unknown.

So, is it an apt metaphor? Perhaps. Just not for the reasons you gave.

Can you explore something new, without a teacher or a guide? Sure, but most likely you’ll blunder into a maelstrom if you do.

So, without further adu, the kirby dance:

<(^^<) <(^^)> (>^^)> ^(()^ <())> ^(^^)^ (>^_^)>

Do the kirby. Love the kirby. Lick the kirby.

Chuck, this is the perfect example of critical (FF) thinking. (See my last post in your thread " Technology makes passive life seducing".)

lod…

Thanks for your analysis.

I did mention the importance of acquiring the best mind as a guide when we up anchor.

Doug

Sorry for being so nippy. It is just that I receive almost universal bewilderment regarding this vey simple concept. I assume this results from our cultural heritage. Our culture just cannot comprehend learning anything just for the love of understanding.

Given that the ‘evolution’ of our species is dominated and increasingly determined by economic selection, is it any wonder you “receive almost universal bewilderment” when you suggest we do anything other than ‘train’ to become the most financially fit? Chuck, if you have difficulty understanding this “very simple concept” then I suggest all the ‘stuff’ you have “self-learned” in the last 40 years under the “guidance of the best minds”, has left you mentally constipated.

You should have no difficulty discerning that I am “pissed off”; but not at you. You just happen to be in the right place at the wrong time. I am angry with myself for expecting to find where there is none even a modicum of critically necessary “common sense”; and for even entertaining the thought it matters.