Everybody has their take on things. The thing that bothers me is that we all seem to have a few ideas we just accept and then spend the rest of our lives building on what we already presuppose.
We got these from parents, teachers, peers someone, but most of us will rarely change our starting assumptions. Is it then naive to presume that we really seek knowledge? Isn’t it more plausible to say that we really only seek what fits in with our picture (or paradigm) of the world?
I read some thoughts about the coherence theories of truth and although I would deny that is the way I view truth (whether it fits in with my views on things) it seems to be the way I go about learning and reasoning.
what are other peoples views on the way we collect knowledge and the way we look at it? Is everyone else really far more open minded than me, or are we all just pretending because that’s the thing to do?
Your post made me laugh [not in a bad way] - I pictured this group of faceless snobs sitting at [insert popular snob gathering place here] and congratulating themselves on being true to the spirit of [insert most popular philosopher name].
It is indeed very sad to see how otherwise intelligent and capable people will sit and spew nonsense like ‘I am completely open-minded’ and ‘I do not allow bias to enter into my thought process’ e.t.c. To me this is nonsense because I am often painfully aware of how much garbage I carry around in my head that doesn’t really belong to me… when I was 2 years old, I could hardly protest when I was taken to the demonstrations of May 1, and May 9, and November 7 that I did not want to have my head stuffed with Party Line doctrine (guess where I’m from 
), that I wanted to read Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Blok, Dyakov, and Shalamov to find out just how much of a sham it had been. I am sure some of the slogans I’d hear at those demonstrations (and on the radio, and read in my schoolbooks) are still lurking around somewhere in the depths of my brain, sometimes I can even feel them acting through me [especially when I voluntarily sign up to work on a holiday [without money as the chief motivator], or in similar situations]. I tend to think that I am not a slave to my preconceptions (‘tend to think’ because how can I know for sure?), but they certainly affect me, sometimes noticeably, sometimes undetected.
One of my favourite sayings goes something like ‘A person is truly open-minded when they accept that their strategy of open-mindedness is not the best one to follow.’
Of course, it may be that I am merely petty, maybe I’m just jealous of the open-minded freethinkers out there, and just because I cannot free my perception of biases does not mean that other people cannot, either. 
there is no such thing as a free thinker. everything you think has been influenced. there is even evidence that free will doesnt exist. truth does not exist as well. you cant prove anything. we dont and never will know everything. how we can make facts based on assumptions with some evidence behind it doesnt really work. so in that case any knowledge is based on assumptions. except for maybe history and some other things that we can prove. someone told me that the chances of another race on another planet developing the same science is the same as them speaking english.
Thinkykid,
I have much the same point of view as you. Schooling, especially the foundation laying of education doesn’t allow enough open mindedness to ask questions, nor does it explain thoroughly enough, and most importantly kids are not taught about open mindedness.
Furiosity (hi) stated,
I like your opinion, for my opinion is similar, but I would have phrased it ‘A person is truly open-minded when they accept that their strategy of open-mindedness doesn’t have to be the best one.’, since being truly open-minded means you can’t really know anything for sure, ‘knowing’ that open-mindedness is not the best one to follow would mean that you are not truly open-minded. It’s the awareness of the possibilities that is important. But that’s just my point of view.
cba1067950 stated:
Stating your opinion that we don’t know anything is one thing, but unless you are assuming yourself to be an all-knowing ‘God’ or ‘Seer’ it is a far-reaching conclusion to draw about us never knowing everything, it also puts a damper on life, since what is the point of educating ourselves, investigating, experimenting, when we already ‘know’ 100% that we will never know everything. Should it be truth is one thing, since it would mean that life will always be filled with mystery and a reason for delving into the beauty of living and investigating, but should it not be truth than who knows what can happen. Either way, to suggest you know that we will never know everything, and should we all take you seriously we might as well all give up. Moreover, I wonder if you would be willing to share one thing that you are sure we will never know.
It could be said, as some have already stated, that the point of life is happiness. Now am an avid believer that information is the most powerful thing in the world and is responsible for all things, including emotion. If we assume these premises to be true, it would conclude (possibly) that only those people who are very educated come closest to be truly happy. Furthermore, someone could only be truly happy by being all knowing, or knowing everything. But what if I was to say that all the information in the universe (love, friendships, emotion, biology, astronomy, psychology…everything) adds up in the equation of life to a single thing…an emotion…happiness. Would it be far fetched to believe that being happy is your mind agglomerating a majority of it’s knowledge in a single moment. What I’m trying to get at is happiness may not be relative but determined on your understanding of the world around you.
Just a thought…
What’s your take?
Stating your opinion that we don’t know anything is one thing, but unless you are assuming yourself to be an all-knowing ‘God’ or ‘Seer’ it is a far-reaching conclusion to draw about us never knowing everything, it also puts a damper on life, since what is the point of educating ourselves, investigating, experimenting, when we already ‘know’ 100% that we will never know everything.
yea but i didnt say we dont know anything i said we dont know everything. its depressing to say we wont ever solve all problems but its true. there are plenty of examples. we will never know how to think like other things. say there is a 4th dimension just an example and another species can exist in it but we cant. will we ever be able to prove anything without even a foothold in a concept. its just an example i cant tell you exactly what we wont know because i cant imagine what we dont know. if i could i wouldnt be sitting here. theres the afterlife. theres other peoples/species mind. i dont think we will ever be able to fully understand how other people think its just impossible to change yourself that much and still be yourself. its also depressing that there is a theory that the human race and any material beings will not survive given enough time. sad that everything we do doesnt mean anything in say a million years but it doesnt mean we are going to stop because we still want to ease our suffering now. no one wants to die so we continue. the possibilites of us knowing everything there is to know before we die off is extremely extremely small. my opinion anyway. i could very well be wrong and life could be really simple. in that case id want to kill myself. then id see even less a reason to continue living.
cba,
try not to get too down over thought. I think that the fact of us never knowing everything is exciting. I see limitation as something human, but I think we can still function with it. Think of how boring it would be if everyone was perfect. The whole point of knowledge and learning is moving from a belief that is incorrect, to one that is correct. It’s a process of change that is often exciting.
The thing is, if you feel that you can’t know that much, don’t be so sure that everything we do doesn’t have meaning. If you don’t earnestly search for it, you’ll never be sure that it’s not there.
just my tuppence worth…
well you cant say its not a downer. i mean it does kinda ruin some hope i have for the future of humans. i find it kind of interesting though. its easy to ignore as well. i like to think of it this way. if youve ever played a strategy game it works like this. you start out small and gradually progress through time and then eventually you get your ass kicked by your oponent. then because you are all frustrated you throw the mouse at the monitor. games are fun. and you can be a winner in the game of life just not really.
We all subconciously seek happiness. Can we assume/think/know/postulate that much, for now?
A child, has his first spoonful of ice-cream. This sweet taste is pleasurable to him, and he seeks it until he knows of other, greater sources of happiness. These sources continue to grow, and the realization tat instant gratification can be sacrificed is developed. E.G. Going through the acts of common courtesy and discreteness in order to obtain the higher happiness of a friend.
The sources continue to grow, until one point the happiness source becomes intangible–not necessarily unreachable-- but the mortal seeks understanding of some mnute issue that puzzles him. This also continues to grow, until a great, big, mental-brick hits him; there’s a shitload of stuff out there, a lot of it I don’t think anyone could ever know and understand. However, the inate realisation that knowing everything would be the Great Happy having been already developed, he realises that the Great Happy is unnattainable by conventional means. What we seek, I think, is the means to find this Great Happy, if it is attainable in this world or some other one.
“The Great Happy” certainly is a piss-poor word for describing enlightenment.