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Can’t we just hold it?
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Can’t we just hold it?
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coberst
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Can’t we just hold it?
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14/05/2009 13:30:27 »
Can’t we just hold it?
Accept or reject are not the only options one has. The most important and generally overlooked, especially by the young, is the option to ‘hold’.
It appears to me that many young people consider that ‘to be negative is to be cool’. This leads them into responding that ‘X is false’ when responding to an OP that states that ‘X is true’.
When a person takes a public position affirming or denying the truth of ‘Y’ they are often locking themselves into a difficult position. If their original position was based on opinion rather than judgment their ego will not easily allow them to change position once they have studied and analyzed ‘Y’.
The moral of this story is that holding a default position of ‘reject or accept’, when we are ignorant, is not smart because our ego will fight any attempt to modify the opinion with a later judgment. Silence, or questions directed at comprehending the matter under consideration, is the smart decision for everyone’s default position.
Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I claim that ‘hold’ is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.
Do you accept, reject, or hold judgment regarding my claim?
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coberst
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Can’t we just hold it?
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Reply #1 on:
15/05/2009 11:37:46 »
Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
Freud and Darwin are frauds.
God made me.
You are driving too fast.
When faced with these statements does it matter which of the three buttons ‘accept, reject, or hold’ that you push?
Just what impact does a decision of 'reject or accept' have on my future considerations?
It is my assumption that such a decision causes me to either stop or at least to slow down any further consideration of the matter. It appears to me that many of our conclusions are “worked out” within our unconscious, especially while we sleep.
Our educational system is designed around the basic premise that the students will accept what is told to them and that this acceptance is very important for their future welfare and for the welfare of the community.
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graham.d
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Can’t we just hold it?
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15/05/2009 15:43:29 »
Another good post, Coberst. I have long thought that it is better to delay a decision until there is sufficient evidence to suggest the best route, although it goes against the commonly held view for management that it is better to be "decisive". However, this view can result from real situations, as it can often be the case that it is better to make some decision rather than make none at all, and that it can also be importent (politically) to give others confidence that the decision was the right one unless or until proved otherwise.
In your last set of examples I would answer no to all of them (at the present time) to signify my view. The last one I am definite about because I am typing on a computer, not driving, but I could give a qualified "no" to the first three if I wished to be pedantic.
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techmind
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Can’t we just hold it?
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Reply #3 on:
15/05/2009 15:47:55 »
My (very good) GCSE English teacher told me more than half my life ago that I "couldn't sit on the fence forever". He did have a bit of a point, but was himself opinionated in the extreme!
Society (and especially politics) seems to view having no opinion on something as "weak". I think it's part of scientific training to realise that it's not helpful to hold unfounded opinions or suppositions.
On the other hand, many things in science are, at least in principle, provable as true or false. In some aspects of politics there really can be more than one valid approach to a situation which may achieve similar or at least acceptable outcomes, and you can never know for sure what the outcome might have been form at alternative course fo action.
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Last Edit: 15/05/2009 15:53:51 by techmind
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"It has been said that the primary function of schools is to impart enough facts to make children stop asking questions. Some, with whom the schools do not succeed, become scientists." - Schmidt-Nielsen "Memoirs of a curious scientist"
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