(July 26, 2013 at 11:37 am)whateverist Wrote: Interesting. By contrast, from a similarly young age, I realized that my opinion, worldview, 'reality' -call it what you will- was not coterminous with myself. I realized my understanding was like a fish. If a better explanatory system came along, it would eat the one I was operating under but that would diminish me not one bit. Instead, I would merely start operating under the 'larger fish' explanatory system. So ideas are not something to identify with and needn't be defended. That is why I don't enjoy debate as such. I'm much more interested in discovering what to think on a topic than in defending any particular formulation even if that describes what I currently believe to be true. I'd always prefer to take on the larger fish.
I quite agree that I love discovery of new viewpoints rather than debate over the same territory.
I think it is interesting that you experience yourself inhabiting your expanding explanatory systems, exchanging the more limited for those better able to cover all the various aspects of lived experience. While I have tended to keep all the systems handy and move about among them. I'm the fish moving between habitats. None of them completely satisfies all aspects of my lived experience. All of them work very well for parts of my mental life. Some are way better at at holding together almost everything. I usually stick with those and visit the others!
But it looks like we're the last ones left here. Not so much interest in this type of exchange?
having passed through many states of believing I was right I have come to the place of finding "rightness" rather irrelevant to the project of becoming human
