Many say it is of vital importance to hold true to your beliefs. Belief is a concept that is central to “being human”. I would like to suggest that it is more important to have doubts. That Doubt is not so much central to “being” as to “becoming”.
Learning
The Reality Of The Past
There are a number of “recurring themes” within my writing in this blog – no surprise there as my thoughts on particular topics are developed – and one of them is the subject of memories – an interesting topic in and of itself, but my particular area of thought is with regard to how real our memories are – both in terms of what (we think) we remember and also what we have banished or simply forgotten.
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.
…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.
Ann Kerwin
Another Quotation Of Ignorance
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance
from East Coker (The Four Quartets) Thomas Stearns Eliot
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 this 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.
Challenging The Status Quo
Whenever an innovation occurs there are a couple of things that the innovating authority needs to do in order to ensure adoption. First there needs to be some “market” for the innovation – i.e. a need of some sort – and secondly they need to put forward a convincing case to show that the innovation meets the need.
Words Of The Day
It struck me as quite strange today that there were two words that sprang into my vocabulary out of, seemingly, nowhere that turned out to be much more ‘apt’ than anything that I could have used to replace them. What was even stranger was that these words were both adjectives, both used to describe “me” and almost entirely opposite in meaning!
A Partial Summary
Although the entries in this blog are sporadic and are not following any particular pattern there are a few themes that run through them and which recur in different posts. I’m just thinking that it might be as well to provide a bit of a summary and a few links to enable easier browsing between related posts.
Listen To Me!
One of the great benefits of the so-called social networks online is that you become exposed to a vast variety of perspectives – different points of view that were we to limit ourselves to our ‘normal’ circles would never get close to penetrating our hectic schedules and overworked brains.