Entries tagged 'cat:Thinking'

Entry created on 2024-09-19 (edited 2024-09-20) Authors: steeph (337) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Beliefs (2) Humanity (1) Ideas (5) Philosophy (4) Religion (1) Thinking (3) Writing (4)

When I made the resolution to write blog entries more often I thought tzopics to write about would come up and suggest themselves from everyday life, thoughts and things I hear and read about. Especially because I don't impose any rules on what is worth publishing and what isn't. I was right. Topics to write about come up all the time. But I didn't expect my idea of what I deem worth writing about to change so much that I feel shy about writing about anything. It is something I should have expected because it happens over and over. I've published shitposts with a sentence or less, then tried to only write interesting things for a while, then nothing for a long time - over and over. I think it's like a cycle I go through with varying speed. But I don't always intuitively know at what point of the cycle I am. But now that I try to write here regularly, I notice the periods where I don't write anything because nothing feels interesting enough. I intend to not care about whether what I write about is interesting. But I keep forgetting that I intend to not care.

Sometimes I think about a topic that can not be explored in a simple blog enty; or a single book; or by thinking about it for a year or five. Whenever I get into a conversation related to such a (often philosophical topic or one essential to human coexistance) I get a boost from new input, other view points, relativisations or new idea. I might feel intrigues, challanged, disrupted, supported or something else; and from the new input and the thoughts they lead me to in the following days and weeks I get a little bit closer to being able to write a book about such topics. But I would never.

The more I advance into society acting as a normal human being the more people talk freely to me about their beliefs, fears and ideas. And the more I get exposed to ideas that could be described as outside of my world view. And the more thoughts that I categorise as philosophical get fueled by foreign ideas. It's not often that I genuinely think about such topics deeply enough to get to have new thoughts, ideas or even beliefs. But most of those times has been in the last couple of years. Second most times were when I was around 16, 18, maybe 20 years old and talked to friends about pretty much anything freely and naively. I wasn't afraid to to weird out others. If they took offense by my thoughts and ideas (I didn't practicve having beliefs until much later, I believe.) I'm sure they henceforth avoided me or something. (I wouldn't have consciously noticved at the time.) Nowadays it takes the exact right situation plus a fairly large pile of motivation to steer a conversation to a point where fundamental political or societal topics (such as radical or controversial ideas) are accepted as a topic. What the motivation is may differ. I think it's good when convincing somebody of something is not part of it. But when you have ideas, that wish is hard to suppress. It usually at least peaks to the surface, be it only in the form of somebody saying that convincing somebody of something is not their intend.

This entry probably could do with a lot more structuring. It's one of those where I know that there's something that I want to say. But I don't exactly know what it is until I've built dozens of sentences. I think I'm going to just not re-write this entry and see if it makes sense anyway. I bet it will, to me.

One of my greatest desires (Good thing that "one of" can mean almost any number of desires as long as the total number of existing desires is not defined.) has always been to understand those world views that clash with my own. Experiences and beliefs that contradict what I perceive as reality, thought processes that are clearly not rational, beliefs that seem like they must have come from incomplete or wrong information and societal goals that don't line up with what I always come back to assuming to be what's best for society intrigue me. There is a lot of room in the latter, of course. And I'm not one who reads books to get the complete picture oif everybody's world view. I don't know what Nietsche really went on about for so many pages that those that made me loose my interest in reading what he had to say. I don't tend to read what religious fundamentalists on a mission tell me to read. But I peek into all sorts of stuff. I've listened to long lectures/monologues and conversations with Jordan Perersen on YouTube (before he got onto his current, rather close-minded, path of publicity work). I've listened to recordings from a weirdly praised guru (what people call a guru nowadays) and, and I give weird film, music and writings several chances before I really file them under "not for me" or "too weird for me" or "well, I'm a data hoardewr, so I'm not going to delete this, but it doesn't feel great that this is on my hard drive". Mein Kampf is much much more abstruse that most people who haven't read it believe. But it is in good company in my collection of bits. But most importantly - in my current belief - I use chances to talk to people who say things that are "out there" or contradict basics of my world view. When a clearly clinically ill paranoiac came to the hackerspace asking for help in securing his system, I was the one that bought up the patience to show a Windows user how to set up his firewall in BSD. (BTW, I really believe that I'm not trying to boast here, or something. This is just context for the next paragraph, I think.) I've spent many hours discussing spiritual topics with a person who confidently states that she does not want to trhink rationally, because rational thinking is against what she feels to be true. More than once I've ended up discussing politics with a right-wing skin head when I came for a anti-fascist counterprotest. I'm the one who stays when a (watch out, pigeonholing ahead) smelly drug addict asks everybody at the bus stop if they can do a web search for them because they wonder what colour snow is in Australia. I feel solicited when a magazine titles with "Psychology of the Evil". Because I want to understand: How other people think, how basic assumptions can be the opposite in another person's world view, why their normal is so different from mine, what information they base their beliefs on and - if it's the same information I have been exposed to - especiually how they can come to a different conclusion.

Recently I had a talk with somebody who I know also tends to explore different various extremes when pondering over questions of humanity, the coexistance of different types of beings (brains, humans, species, things). To my surprise they drove the converation to question many things that I assumed as given necessities of human wellbeing. Without being specific (for reasons the beginning of this entry may or may not have explained well), I was presented with reasoning and detailed explanations of thought preocesses that lead to conclusions that contradict several of my core beliefs including the assumption that humans generally consider well-being (happyness, satisfaction) as something that is desireable, if not the main goal of the human existance. I like to believe that many things were said against the sayer's belief in order to breaden the listener's horizon or field of thinking. But the fact that I don't know what ideas were shared out of a liking for open-mindedness and free thinking and what parts were shared out of conviction powers many of my late-night trains of thought since then.

Maybe (very probably) I'm interacting with people who would fierely disagree with me, if not hate me, if they knew my political opinions. I'm in contact with so many different people for work. The fact that we get along on a professional level despitze our differences could be food for thought in itself. I am glad that I don't know their political views because it would distract me way too much to try to understand where they're coming from or why they're so wrong while believing the opposite to be true. But I cherrish those moments in which I'm led to undertand parts of the reasoning behind world views that are very different from mine withoput feeling like I'm being guided or steered to such an understanding. I don't want to risk being manipulated into a realisation without taking all the necessary considerations into account.

I think the main reason why I wanted to write this entry is because my mind is still blown over the fact that I could now probably (in principle) rationally advocate for a genocide for the benefit of humanity.

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It's possible to convince somebody of something with the right (form of) argument.

Entry created on 2024-07-09 Authors: steeph (337) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Beliefs (2) Communication (3) Conspiracy Narratives (1) Conversation (2) Corona (12) Opinions (2) Science (6) Thinking (3)

There is this thing that I've noticed happen when I'm speaking about something I've heard or read about but don't feel like an expert on. I believe that one should not spread information unless one truely understands it as well as how the information was gathered, what knowledge it builds on, what relevance and meaning it has in the context it likely will be applied in by the person who receives the information, and a few other principles that are hardly possible to honour every time. Those principles cannot be applied to everday conversations like smalltalk, without eliminating the interaction. (That's another topic, though.) So I don't apply them in general conversations with colleagues and customers and often overlook them in conversations with friends and other peers. So it is almost inevitable that I at some point say something I'm not 99.99% sure is correct the way I present it. It happens a lot with "interesting facts" and "what most people don't know". What happens then is that I feel in the wrong to some degree - because I have not made absolutely sure that I'm neither wrong nor going to be misunderstood - while the person I'm speaking to (if they see me as a peer, take me serious and are listening to me) takes what I say as new information and fits in into what they already know and believe. They don't know about the tiny feeling of guilt that I have. So I am regularly surprised when I speak to someone and seem to influence their set of beliefs inadvertently.

How to convince somebody of something is quite a complicated question psychologically. I've read enough about it to know that and to know that I'm not interested in learning how to do it in any professional way (or with style). But there are some interesting aspects to know about how easily people can change their mind in some situations and how tough it is to make somebody change their mind in others.

There was an experiment done that is often referred to in social media sometimes as an interesting bit of knowledgle and sometimes as an argument of an almost political nature, hinting at the stubbernness or irrationality of people with different beliefs (usually beliefs that deverge from the widely accepted set of scientific knowdlege). The simplified conclusion of this study is often presented as this: Presenting a person with a firm belief evidence that their belief is factually wrong makes it even stronger (see Backfire Effect). The conclusion that people draw from this sometimes is: Arguing rationally with somebody with an irrational belief will have the opposite from the intended effect. That is not usually true, though. Not only are cases where that happened rare even in the study that is referred to, the effect could also not be replicated when several researchers tried.

Sometimes I come across a person and learn of a belief of theirs that I find problematic for some reason or another. An extremist attitude to societies basic questions, fascist ideas formulated into political demands, a conspiracy narrative that results in hostile behaviour, things like that. These are usually beliefs with a large foundation that was built over years if not decades and they are often embedded in a world view that justifies and explains anything that might appear to others to oppose ethical code or the reasoning behind the belief. But "often" is not "always". And even if those things are the case is the assumption that simple, rational arguments won't have a positive effect is an erroneous one that is made too quickly. Yes, it seems like a hard undertaking to craft responses that take the opposite of your own beliefs into account properly, not as the hallucination of the enemy camp but as an equal to your own opinion. It also feels like the work necessary to formulate a response that foresees all the expectable counter-arguments and to answer all the antagonistical follow-up questions. That's the things I expect to be confronted with after objecting to something somebody said in a conversation. Correctly so. But if forging a plan to optimally convince the opponent to abandon a belief of theirs is not what I want to do, then it's not necessary to put that much work into it. You can just respond honestly with a simple thought and even end the conversation if it becomes too cumbersome. When a topic has an emotional component, it's easy to forget that keeping this on the level of a regular conversation with no expectation that it will have any meaning to anybody other than passing time.

The insight that I keep having and intend to remember in applicable situations more often is that it is not necessary but possible to convince somebody to take on a different view on something. My mind is not short of explanations and explanation attempts from opposite viewpoints and I'm ready to share them with others to encourage a broadening of their thinking. If it's my own view, a belief based on my own experience, I'm often more reluctant to share it if it opposes somebody else's belief. But it is worth it. Provided both conversing parties bring forth the necessary trust to take other's assertions seriously, a calm, rational objection is far better than cutting the topic short. The latter can easily have the same effect as saying something like "Oh, you're one of those." Derogatory remarks should be avoided just like dismissing a concern, be it ever so irrational. Ignoring an argument for being too absurd or discrediting a source without a reason, talking down or being in any way not as respectful as you would like to be treated yourself in an emotional discussion will not get you closer to invoking insight nor to learning something useful yourself. Those aren't new ideas. The realisation that is, as a conscious insight, new to me, is that I'm far more likely to influence somebody's thinking than I assumed. If a respectful discussion can't be maintained for after small talk got out of the area of the mundane, I don't need to maintain it any longer. One sincere offer of a different view on something is better than none, and better than one with a snarky remark about anti-science belief systems appended, which will likely not make your conversational partner want to think about any of what you said. Say something positive and let it sink it. The hours and even night after you talked can do a lot for making a new idea a familiar one that can or needs to be integrated with ones world view.

I will not continue to give tips on how to convince people of anything. That's not what this entry was supposed to be about. And I'm not experienced enough to give good tips. But I want to leave a book referral here. I can't recommend it, because I haven't read it. But it appears to me that Lee McIntyre knows what he's talking about in his book "How to Talk to a Science Denier". I conclude that from what he says in book introduction (YT, IV.

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Writing To Think

Entry created on 2024-07-03 Authors: steeph (337) Categories: #100DaysToOffload (41) Blogging (2) Thinking (3) Writing (4) Languages used: en (189)

Over the last two years or so I slowly realised that blogging is something that I want to do more often. Or writing in general. Often it was when I read other people's personal blogs that that realisation became a little push. One blog post in particular helped me realise what sort of mental processing the activity of writing evokes. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find it to link to it from here. Instead, here is another short blog post on the topic: "The two kinds of writing" by Herman Martinus. The principle that writing forces you to think wasn't an entirely new one to me. I just hadn't ever deemed it relevant to my life before and so never thought about it. Maybe I still haven't properly, because I never forced myself to do so for more than a minute at a time. But I'm writing about it now, so …

In a way, writing forces you to think like explaining something to somebody else forces you to understand what you want to explain first. Sometimes it is in the middle of a conversation that I realise: What I'm saying, or was about to say, is actually not a well thought through concept; but I hadn't realised this before because I never properly thought about it. But the conversation usually flows on. Even if you do take the time to think something through before you continue to talk, somebody else will likey use the pause to interject what they think at that moment. At least most people tend to do that. But when I write, I can pause however long I want, think about what I was about to say, what words are the best ones to describe what I know already but have never expressed, think about the relevance of my next thought and in what context it stands to what I wrote beforeand so on. I can fact-check something, search for a name, title or quote, read what I've written so far and in general take the time that I need overthink my thoughts before they are out there. That doesn't mean that I always do all of this for everything that I write. For example I often don't re-read immedietely after I wrote something, which leads to a lot of typos living permanently in my blog. I don't research what I write about for a post like this. But to put things into words and to structure thoughts itself already benefits my thinking. It takes a long time for me to write. Even a sentence like the last one can have several pauses and a tree of thoughts that may all end up being bretty much irrelevant to finishing the sentence. But I couldn't have known that for sure before thinking them through. I'm a slow writer, which is part of the reason why I don't write as much as I did when I worked less hours. For a long time though I didn't realise that writing it itself can be a recreational activity and that the very reason why I write so slowly is something that can help me in my life. Granted, with a topic like this, I'm not getting much therapeutic value out of it. It's mainly throttling my perfectionist-like attitude on forming sentences that slows me down, as well as dismissing thoughts that I eventually regard as not belonging in the entry. But who knows what some of those thoughts can do in the future. Having had them once may help me make the right connection in a completely different situation some day. But when writing a diary, forcing yourself to think about things can do a lot to set you onto a track to improve your life.

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