Archives for posts with tag: confusion
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Facts, interpretations, beliefs

May 7, 2015 //
1

A fact is just that, a mere fact.
An acknowledged fact asks for an interpretation, otherwise the human mind finds it hard to accept its very existence.
An interpretation that seems to make sense becomes an understanding and regardless of that understanding being right or wrong it generates a belief.
Until that understanding is proven wrong and even then… eventually a new understanding is generated and, in its turn, it leads to a new belief.

That’s why we should indeed reserve the right Patton Oswalt speaks about and then use it sparingly, only when other believers tries to forcefully impose their beliefs on us.

In fact Oswalt is right. We don’t have to respect other people’s beliefs, only their right to have their own beliefs.

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Categories Choices we make, Culture, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

Maybe you should just be glad you can afford them…

May 6, 2015 //
0

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Categories Choices we make, Economy, Frames of mind, politics, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

Science is wrong. By definition.

May 6, 2015 //
11

This quote is so wrong that it makes me wonder if Neil deGrasse Tyson is even aware of it’s existence…

Karl Popper has long ago produced ample proof that science is true only till proven wrong so it ever being true depends solely on us temporarily believing in it…
Maybe the guy who wrote this should have put it a little differently.

The good thing about the scientific mind-set is that whenever we find proof to the contrary it makes it easier for us to stop believing an erstwhile scientifically held truth.
And to continue from there.

Karl Popper: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
Falsifiability: https://explorable.com/falsifiability

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, Psychology

‘Abstinence based sex-ed’

April 23, 2015 //
0


‘I nearly fell off my chair when [the instructor] summed up: ‘You’ll find a good girl. If you find one who says ‘no,’ that’s the one you want.’ Photograph: Alamy

Click on the picture and read a very interesting article about what’s going on in some schools.

Before that I’d like you to consider something.
How, and what, am I supposed to teach you about a certain activity if the gist of my lesson is going to be that the best thing you can do, supposedly for a while (?!?), is to refrain yourself from engaging in that activity?

Duh…

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Categories Frames of mind, Psychology

Let’s get this straight

April 22, 2015 //
0

This image constantly pops up all over Facebook.

And while the caption does harbor some truth it somehow completely misses the point.

So:

– Those who don’t study the history have all the chances to repeat it but only if they are just as callous as their ancestors.

– Those who do study the history and stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it have studied it in vain. They still haven’t got a clue about what really happened outside those books they’ve been reading. Had they learned a real understanding of what went on they would have been able, and willing, to explain it to their contemporaries and thus help them move forward, to a totally different set of mistakes waiting to be made.
Just as Plato (and Marx after him) thought of having found the absolute truth and did his best to lead his people to it …

But don’t despair. There is a safer way. To let things take their own course, to develop naturally. Just as Lao-Tzu taught us.

http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-the-wicked-leader-is-he-who-the-people-despise-the-good-leader-is-he-who-the-people-revere-the-lao-tzu-188515.jpg

Karl Marx and Max Weber, two different pupils of Plato:

https://nicichiarasa.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/karl-marx-and-max-weber-two-different-pupils-of-plato/

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Categories Choices we make, politics, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

Still a Virgin?

April 21, 2015 //
0

First take a look here:

Had your laugh? Wiped your tears?

Now tell me whose question was the mommy answering?
Her daughter’s?
Or was she trying to get off her chest something that was nagging her since she’d been told by the good doctor: ‘congratulations, you have a beautiful baby girl!’?

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Categories Choices we make, Frames of mind, Psychology

Social experiment?!?

April 6, 2015 //
0

While the facts remain – there was a thinly clad teenager shivering in the middle of Manhattan and a lot of people passed by without offering any assistance – the whole incident raises some fresh issues besides those flagged by the ‘pranksters’ who staged the whole thing.
The person starring in the so called experiment was almost certainly underage. Exposing him to such temperature for so long is cruel. To do such thing in order to demonstrate the obvious – that we, the inhabitants of larger cities, have become rather insensitive – is rather… you name it!
Self serving callousness, to say the least?
It doesn’t matter that the authors purportedly want to promote a good cause. That’s no way of winning somebody to your side.
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Categories Choices we make, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

“Public shaming as a blood sport must end”

March 30, 2015 //
0

“Public shaming as a blood sport” is the difference between keeping the public up to date with what is going on in the public square and transforming the same public square into a stand up comedy venue.
When this happens the public becomes hypnotized by the antics presented there and forgets to choose himself which are the really important issues and what to be done about them.
The public becomes easy prey for callous political operators (they don’t deserve to be named ‘politicians’ since they don’t give a damn about the ‘polis’) and democracy becomes mob-rule.
That’s what happened before the fall of (Ancient) Rome.

If you want to watch her speaking you can also click here to open the original TED page about her:
http://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame#t-86823

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Categories Choices we make, Culture, politics, Psychology, Respect Mutual., The kind of world we live in

Seeing is believing, right?

March 5, 2015 //
2


But eyes alone are not capable enough.
To see ‘right’ one has to think first about what is actually going on in front of his naked eyes!
And you should also take into consideration that all the tricks shown below have been purposefully put together by people who command intimate knowledge about how our brains work.

http://www.smash.com/10-amazing-perspective-tricks-will-mess-mind/

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Categories Choices we make, Psychology, Respect Mutual.

“Nothing to see here people, move along…”

February 26, 2015 //
0
This was inspired by the title of a Facebook post that shared an article from The Telegraph.
“A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a man to death for apostasy after he filmed himself tearing up a copy of the Koran.”
The guys ‘in charge’ of Saudi Arabia must be in a terrible situation.
Punishing the guy according to their own laws will further the perception of Islam as a ‘violent religion’ and thus make it less acceptable for the rest of the world.
Not punishing him would mean tacit acceptance of the fact that laws are made and applied by humans, not by any God, thus totally demolishing the brand of legitimacy the Saudi’s have worked hard to build for themselves.
Terrible predicament. I suggest we allow them to settle this among themselves.
Blaming ‘Islam’ indiscriminately for some horrible acts perpetrated in its name by a bunch of zealots would make things worse for everybody. So yes, let’s ‘move along’!
What we can, and definitely should do, is to insist on the ‘humanitarian’ side of the whole business.
PS Here is an interesting article about Sharia: http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/saudiarabia/11431509/Saudi-Arabia-court-gives-death-penalty-to-man-who-renounced-his-Muslim-faith.html
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Categories Choices we make, Culture, politics, Psychology, The kind of world we live in
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