| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 10:09:37 PM | I was just debating with JustDukky, and he brought up a nice challenge. He asked me to describe how i would feel if some of my most secure knowledge was proved to be wrong. Like if there is an animal on earth smarter than us, or if it turns out somehow there really is a god with a white beard to talks baratone.
My response was that i would LOVE it if i turned out to be wrong on a MAJOR premise. We are all wrong from time to time on minor things. But to be proven wrong on something as important as an upcoming alien attack, that would be life changing.
I would LOVE it if animals could communicate on a level on par with humans. Even though i "know" this not to be true, i would love to be wrong. I might even cry out of awe! :)
So my question in this thread....what would the rest of you do if your most cherished "truth" turned out to be wrong? | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 10:19:25 PM |
what would the rest of you do if your most cherished "truth" turned out to be wrong?
I'd probably break out the beers & celebrate for awhile (my most cherished truth makes a lot of demands of me)
After awhile, when it sunk in that the current state of humanity is the best that we could do, I'd probably either hang myself, or make sure I never sober up.  | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 10:21:42 PM | I would say "holy shhhhh....nikies"
Then i would profess i knew it all along.
But really, what could i do but feel dumbfounded and learn more about the other side of whatever it is that's completely thrown me for a loop. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 10:23:09 PM | | i would say "holy testicle teusday!!", and then kiss the nearest female | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 10:41:29 PM | the only response i had was "haha" but that was too short of a reply.
oh, there we go. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 10:43:47 PM | | actually, i would say......my lord, you really DO have to stop at stop signs!! And holy stuntman mike, you can't judge a girl's age by her shoes?? i'm in big trouble | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 10:55:21 PM | yeah, that would be like if in my mind I realized there was no creator!
it might be a little like winning the lottery ,in that I would have no idea what I would do.
let it sink in for a few days or weeks first, I suppose.
then seek some kind of medical help maybe, I don't really know!
spiritual help wouldn't do me any good anymore then now, would it? | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/28/2009 11:03:59 PM | What if we are wrong?
We are wrong, about a lot of things. .
I believe we are wrong about uniformitarianism with regard to earth geology and human history.
I believe that those that think that we have reached the pinnicle of our knowledge and there are many of them here on POF, are absolutely mislead.
I know that we are only tapping the tip of the iceburg with regard to the human brain and what it actually does.
Quantum physics is going to change the world as we know it and our understanding of our place in it.
But !
We are getting there on some things
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 2:17:28 AM | One of my most cherished truths is that its extremely healthy to be 'proven wrong'. Having stated that...if that were to be proven wrong then I'd accept my 'all knowing self' and swagger about confidently with my winky hanging out swinging wildly from left to right as I went about my day :).. No one could prove to me that that was a wrong thing for me to do because I would be safe in the security of my unquestionable knowledge 
I feel like a hamster in a running ball trying to smash down the great wall of China on some occasions. I'm wrong sometimes and I learn from it. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 5:11:21 AM | Typically what happens is a nervous breakdown, possibly as extreme as a psychotic break (temporary psychosis), followed by an astonishment that everybody else hasn't been converted from Freudian to Jungian psychiatry for example.
It's called an epiphany. The nervous breakdown reference is only for the extreme case you described however, the irrevocable alteration of an entire premise for which many of your assumptions about reality lay. This actually happens frequently, and victims are undergo medical treatment for a psychiatric condition they can do nothing about, though it can be managed.
A limited example, you are on holidays in Indonesia and become lost during a forest walk, separated from the tour group and far from any major villages or settlements. After several hours you realise you are being stalked by a Tiger. Over the next two days you discover without any shadow of a doubt the tiger is taking a distinct pleasure in terrorising you. It even mock attacks you before proudly pouncing off, circling back and growling from nearby bushes to surprise you, etc., yet it is clearly hungry, wild and not in any way being whimsical or territorial. The locals told you tiger territories were far from here. It is getting off on terrorising you even though it is starving, it's savouring the pleasure of slaughtering you, feeling your wriggling wet body relenting under the power of its jaws, but oh it wants you horrified first.
Later, upon rescue you are resoundingly told this was your imagination, delusion, it was acting in a dominant male fashion, it was responding in a territorial manner, but you knew, you know. It was pure malicious intent, beyond even the wont to feed itself and in fact it had wandered miles from its territory to have stalked you. It wanted you so fearful you would actually welcome becoming a meal, solely for its pleasure.
Congratulations this would make you delusional, no matter how true. We just don't recognise that kind of behaviour I'm afraid, even among humans unless aberrance is proved. We can however offer you medication to help with your anxiety issues every time this is brought up, and the fact you still can't sleep which is merely post traumatic stress disorder. We also have medication for that. Here, watch animal planet, a show about how cute they are.
My advice is to not love the idea of a life changing shift in your perceptions too much. Careful what you wish for. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 5:30:21 AM | I don't think it would change anything at all for me. There's nothing I necessarily believe without some sort of evidence to support it's veracity.
It's difficult to explain this to some people because they assume that everybody else thinks just like they do. There's nothing at all closed-minded about my position : In fact , it's as open as possible without being a perpetual vacuum of ideas.
When the facts change , so do my beliefs. This means that I'm not terribly attached to any ideas in a dogmatic way. If they're wrong , they're wrong and I have no trouble at all changing my perception as the facts dictate. | |
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jbogie
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Joined: 9/30/2008
Msg: 12 | |
| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 7:36:10 AM |
I was just debating with JustDukky, and he brought up a nice challenge. He asked me to describe how i would feel if some of my most secure knowledge was proved to be wrong. Like if there is an animal on earth smarter than us, or if it turns out somehow there really is a god with a white beard to talks baratone.
My response was that i would LOVE it if i turned out to be wrong on a MAJOR premise. We are all wrong from time to time on minor things. But to be proven wrong on something as important as an upcoming alien attack, that would be life changing.
I would LOVE it if animals could communicate on a level on par with humans. Even though i "know" this not to be true, i would love to be wrong. I might even cry out of awe! :)
So my question in this thread....what would the rest of you do if your most cherished "truth" turned out to be wrong?
can't happen to me. as a pure agnostic, i realize that the human mind is incapable of knowing anything absolutely. there is no absolute truth. if you think there is, you need to keep thinking. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 7:58:06 AM | what would the rest of you do if your most cherished "truth" turned out to be wrong?
I have two chalkboards. One has my "truths" and the other my "beliefs." I place a mark on a board when I reason to myself whether my "cherished" beliefs are just beliefs, or actual truths. The beliefs board is filled with marks. The truth board has very few. On the truth board:
The circumference of a circle is two times the radius times pi. It was the first mark, and it is cherished among my few truths for that reason. Imagine what would happen to my beliefs if you could prove it false? I might overcrowd the beliefs board with another mark.
Another truth seems to have significance, but it is personal, and you may not agree. It has a lot of refined and required contingencies, some of which may not be illustrated in this sentence for purposes of brevity.
"Laughter is good medicine, as long as everybody is laughing, and nobody is being laughed at." (First exception: the clown who made you laugh knows he is being a clown, and enjoys being laughed at.)
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 8:17:27 AM | | I love it when one of my beliefs is shown to be wrong. I would quickly discard the old erroneous "truth" and adopt the new, and love every minute of it. I am always blessed with growth and increased understanding when this happens. | |
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jbogie
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Joined: 9/30/2008
Msg: 15 | |
| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 8:21:11 AM |
The circumference of a circle is two times the radius times pi. It was the first mark, and it is cherished among my few truths for that reason. Imagine what would happen to my beliefs if you could prove it false? I might overcrowd the beliefs board with another mark.
ah ha. so tell me. pick a circle. any circle. lets say one with a radius of one inch. now exactly what is the TRUE circumference??? hmmmmm? careful, pi can be a tricky **stard. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 8:21:11 AM | This is a long winded intimation directly related to the subject material, as I feel the scope of the subject is being largely overlooked as something trivial.
I got to a point once, several years ago with proliferant and extended meditation where I could control my heartrate. It wasn't intentional, but after I gave myself the full on scare of my life...basically had to "think" myself into preventing an induced heart attack for several hours, like I was having a potentially deadly uncontrolled panic attack, and here was me thinking on the way there how cool it was I had learned to think myself into feeling completely and ecstatically intoxicated with a snap of my fingers...ah big mistake. The self induced hallucinations were cool too, like having your own movie show on tap, I was figuring out this third eye business at an exponential rate, though I'd inevitably have exposed it as a sham to anyone who listened that's just me. I see no difference between creationists and new age spiritualists but the form of willing misrepresentation.
Anyway further problems ensued, I wound up on medication over this for a period. Here is what I discovered, though largely anecdotal: the part of the brain which controls heartrate is like breathing, it's a part of your brain. The only reason your heart beats is because you're not thinking about it consciously but you are thinking about it.
There is no barrier between conscious and subconscious intellectual processes, any barrrier is an introduced concept of psychology, it's just that beating your heart was the very first thing your forming brain thought of in the womb, and you've forgotten about that. You're basically mimicking mum's placenta which is keeping you alive, because brains like to grow. It is a thinking process however, and accessible. That's not actually so much fun.
These regions in the brain which are accessible but engaged in processes you've forgotten are the same place we get imagination from. Imagination is like a film of oil on the surface of a pond, reflecting a beautiful array of electric blues and bright emerald greens in the sunlight with visible depth to it. It needs to be on the surface of a pond to do this or it would just be a dark puddle of oil in the dirt. Your subconscious thinking processes, ie. those running your vital functions are the pond.
So what I learned the hard way was by inducing hallucination through meditation, I tapped controlling my heart rate and then realised you immediately lose all mental imagery (imagination function) to be a wholly instinctive/emotional creature and have to actually use conscious mental exercises to keep a gigantic, permanent panic attack under control so you don't have a fatal heart attack.
It took about three years to regain some semblence of normal physical and mental function. That was over ten years ago and I've got it ~mostly~ under control I guess. My imagination is back, though sporadic. It did up my IQ about a dozen points overnight though, I've no idea what that's about but I'm thinking pattern recognition, I've got an instinctive eye for that now and never did before.
So when you find out everything you thought was even your perceptual reality is based on false precepts, well it is a fundamental shift in perspective, it does change your life, it might be insanity, or it could be death. If you're lucky it's just meeting aliens. In any case no philosophy, no belief system can protect you from it. Religious fundamentalism is clearly designed simply to help you survive the change and pick up the pieces, but won't prevent it. Atheism or Agnosticism can't protect you any better, psychologists are hit and miss, I found medical professionals sympathetic, helpful and completely open to the craziest sounding descriptions with a perfectly open mind, but they provided no tools for me to work with when I had to go home again, simply didn't know any though intimated they believed everything I said was clear, concise and repeatedly told me I wasn't loopey or anything.
But I couldn't sleep without medication for several weeks for example, because I was so terrified if I tried to shut down my conscious mind I'd have a heart attack, and what was worse when I got so tired I just didn't care anymore and tried to sleep anyway, the act of relaxing that much sent my heartrate through the roof, which of course is the definition of another panic attack. How does dozing off no longer caring if you died cause a panic attack? Dumb question, but your mind just can't cope with the shift in perspective, it's so used to thinking how you used to think, ignorantly of your current crisis.
No trigger did this, no psychotic break, no post traumatic stress, no psychotropic drug use. I did this with meditation, drank about three cans of scotch a week and smoked a few cigarettes, was otherwise very active, fit and healthy in every respect.
Fascinating experience. I highly recommend against it. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 8:29:55 AM |
I would LOVE it if animals could communicate on a level on par with humans
Umm, animals CAN communicate on a level on par with humans. In fact, most animal communication is much clearer than most human communication, so in a sense, they are better communicators than humans are
IOW, you're wrong. I'm sure you're loving it, and
YOU'RE WELCOME!!! | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 8:37:56 AM | can I be honest?
I have many beliefs that I can not prove scientificaly, in order to make life livable and make sense to me.
man knows .00001% of what there is to know, [my guess] so thats all I can use to arrive at conclusions about what I consider lifes important issues?
no one uses only what is proven.
I don't believe what is disproven, I think! | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 8:49:01 AM |
can't happen to me. as a pure agnostic, i realize that the human mind is incapable of knowing anything absolutely. there is no absolute truth. if you think there is, you need to keep thinking.
Okay, can you reconcile for me this statement and your statement that EVERYTHING can be reduced to purely black and white if you think about it enough? Because at the first gloss, they appear to be diametrically opposed positions. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 9:02:08 AM | exactly what is the TRUE circumference???
2 times pi.
I can be tricky too. 88/14 is a very close approximation, and is the one they used in ancient times. It is not exactly 2 times pi.
A serial estimation of the exact number might yield better results in determining true pi than the use of fractions. 44/14 (22/7) is an unending paradoxical value. 11 and 7 are prime numbers. Your engineering tolerances determine the required accuracy of your calculation values. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 9:09:59 AM | | I treat knowledge as being a best understanding so far, a work in progress, belonging to its own place in the evolution of what has been known before and what is yet to be learned. Being wrong in this sense would come with a new way of being right, and that is progress and I like it. The whole idea of learning is to strive to improve knowledge, so you have to look at what is currently known as being only one step along the path towards something else. If there needs to be some core of unchanging truth for the world to function, I'm sure my understanding of that would be slight at best anyway because what exists on Earth and in heaven exceeds that which is dreamt of in my philosophy. I'm always wrong if you get right down to it. The only way I am ever right about something is within the immediate and practical limits of the scope of whatever application is at hand. The definition then of what is right and what is wrong is purely contextual. The context is a dynamic system and as it changes so will the definition change of what is right. You guys can be wrong in your own ways but that's my way. All you have to do to be wrong is disagree with me! | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 9:35:46 AM | | Being wrong is a Blessing, for to know you are wrong is to be one step closer to the TRUTH!! | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 9:58:47 AM | Hmmm Good question
i think it would be quite liberating , because it would mean that if your wrong about what you thought was right , then you could also be wrong about everything you thought was wrong lol
so it would allow you to complety come up with a new lense for veiwing reality .. | |
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| What if we are wrong
Posted: 7/29/2009 10:31:40 AM |
The circumference of a circle is two times the radius times pi. It was the first mark, and it is cherished among my few truths for that reason. Imagine what would happen to my beliefs if you could prove it false? I might overcrowd the beliefs board with another mark.
Get ready for a nervous breakdown (or an epiphany)...In non-euclidean geometry, C ≠ 2 π r becomes true (picture a circle drawn on a sphere for instance; then c < 2 π r where the measure of "r" is taken on the surface of the sphere. The typing is a bit much, and the proof a bit technical, so it's probably better to do some googling. It may even be (I'm actually pretty sure) that what we call euclidean geometry is just an illusion born of scale (in much the same way that the earth looks flat to us at this scale) in terms of "real" spacetime, so it may actually be a more accurate measure to take C ~ 2 π r ("~" is "approximately") in general "real" life.
So did I "shatter" your worldview? 
If so, beer is the great normalizer...I highly recommend it... | |
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