Category: "Philosophical"
A Matter Of Taste
A recurrent theme on the blog is the matter of "taste" in regard to the arts - especially in regard to music. It is well understood that "what you like" is determined by all sorts of factors and quite naturally varies from person to person - that song that "brings tears to your eyes" may well "bring tears" to someone else's eyes for very different reasons!
Categories: Philosophical, Music, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
Its Not Just Me
With a huge shout out to Confirmation Bias I am always ecstatic (OK maybe that is a bit too strong) when I find that others are speaking similar messages to my own. Have a look at this video - What is the Speed of Dark - and see how it mirrors many of the underlying themes of this blog site.
Categories: Philosophical, Systems Thinking, Learning, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
..and Another Quote
Our ignorance encompasses, at least, all the things we know we do not know (known unknowns); all the things we do not know we do not know (unknown unknowns); all the things we think we know but do not (error); all the things we do not know we know (tacit knowing); all taboos (forbidden knowledge); and all denial (things too painful to know, so we suppress them). Medical ignorance seems especially threatening to many of us. If, however, we are to cope with our vast ignorance of the human body, its powers and processes, we must learn to acknowledge our nescience and optimize it. To do so, we need to rethink the nature and interrelations between knowledge and ignorance. We need to expand our capacities for self-learning and refine abilities to map our complex experience.
Categories: Philosophical, Learning, Worldview, ----------
Still Hungry!!
The title of this blog "Feeding My Ignorance" is derived from the Terry Pratchett quote that appears at the top of the Wiki page. This allied to the Einstein quote on the Home page illustrates that my take on ignorance is not a negative one - and that the fact that my 'perceived' ignorance is increasing is actually a very positive (if paradoxical) sign of increased knowledge.
Categories: Welcome, Philosophical, Knowledge Management, Learning, Worldview, Books, ----------
Is There Such A Thing As Friendly Manipulation?
It is no real surprise that when blogging on a reasonably regular basis there is a tendency for similar themes to recur. Anyone who has read through some of my posts will have seen some of these repetitive refrains and this post is yet another angle on the recurrent theme of "there is a lot of grey between black and white"!
Categories: Philosophical, Friends, Complexity, Decision Making, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
More On Changing What Is Acceptable
The previous post on acceptability talked about some reasons why things become unacceptable over time and raised a point regarding the width of the "boundary of acceptability". In this follow up I want to discuss a bit more the grey areas surrounding acceptability - from a number of viewpoints including cultural and personal.
Categories: Philosophical, Systems Thinking, Decision Making, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
Selective Memory?
In History Is What We Make It I wrote about the vagaries of our memories - how we remember some things, forget others and make up yet more!! Yesterday I was given a rather clear example of just how 'strange' our memory can be when it comes to selecting a particular event to forget!!
Categories: Philosophical, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
On Changing What is Considered Acceptable
It is interesting to see how our understanding of what is "acceptable" changes through time. Things change in both directions - some things that are "acceptable" become "unacceptable" whilst other things go from "unacceptable" to "acceptable".
Categories: Philosophical, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
A Paradox of Ignorance
We all - inevitably - view the world through a series of prejudices and biases. This is not a criticism, merely a fact. Just yesterday I clipped an article to OneNote which listed "58 Cognitive Biases That Screw Up Everything We Do"!! In addition to these inbuilt mistake inducing biases we also have our own personal list of "things we know" that colour every move we make.
Categories: Philosophical, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
Who Ties The String?
One of the recurring themes of my posts here (the most recent is Someone Is Pulling The Strings Again) is my thoughts on the applicability of the "Red Thread of Fate" - East Asian folkore that is specifically about the way in which we are "bound" to our soulmate, but which I see as a useful metaphor for the way in which we are "connected" to each other in a multitude of ways (perhaps there out to be more colours to denote the 'nature' of the connection! We could then have a rainbow world - in whatever dimension that thread resides!!!)
Categories: Philosophical, Systems Thinking, Friends, Faith, Cognition, Worldview, ----------
