do you respect differing opinions?

[Chiropteran]

I always respect my opinion, even when it differs from the popular opinion.

For others, most of the time their opinion only differs because it's wrong. No need to respect something that is just wrong.

 

[realibrad]

I always respect my opinion, even when it differs from the popular opinion.

For others, most of the time their opinion only differs because it's wrong. No need to respect something that is just wrong.

I respect that people can have them, but I dont respect opinions. I respect the arguments made to support the opinions, but not all arguments.

 

[who?]

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/147...t-everyone-s-beliefs-no-you-don-t-that-s-what

 

[Moonbeam]

I'm a psychiatrist. It's my job. Literally.

I am still trying to understand your words. I am not very smart. I did not know what you meant by literally. Help me understand something here. Is it literally your job to try to understand the motives or others, or understand your own motives or both. I had no real answer to your question as to why a free mind would be posting on Anandtech for a couple of reasons. The implication, never established or stated by me, is that I have a free mind nor do I see why, were I actually to have one, it would make the slightest difference as to why I post here. I enjoy the interchange was the first answer I originally came to. More likely is that it gratifies my ego in some unconscious way.

i: What did I say that appeared defensive? Although a generic answer of "everything" is correct, I'm not sure it is helpful to me.

M: Perhaps nothing at all. As I said, I am trying to understand your words and am not very smart.

i: I thought you might have been interested in my engagement in your discussion. If one lacks an ego, then why else might they ask?

M: I don't understand the question but I am interested in your engagement. Seems it's not my discussion out ours.

i: An alternative explanation is not interest in the answer but rather interest in the communication of a need to explore such an answer. Which is the other question I had. Why have you assumed that I need such a prompting, and had not been considering this and other motives all along? Or I suppose that is defensive in its own right. More prudent to simply state that such a prompt is unnecessary for me.

M: Since I failed to understand your first statement all the rest seems to have been a worthless reply and if it's ok with you I'll simply drop trying to puzzle this out. Maybe we can just start fresh.


i: Then I would see my own projective ego-defense. It is interesting that you have imagined that what I might project to you is arrogance.

M: Or it was arrogance.

i: To cut to the chase, I am not certain that it is possible to shed one's ego-defenses entirely, and I am similarly not certain that such a thing is desirable. Nonetheless, I do value complexity and understanding motivations and emotions and exploring them as a shared experience. Since you speak in this language and have proffered a degree of advancement, I'm curious.

M: Then this is where we should begin. I no longer ask to set the rules. I will proceed on the basis that we are two interested individuals who have a common interest. Of course I can only do what I am able to do to uphold my end of that. I may actually have unconscious resistance and simply be fooling myself.

My question would be what do you think the ego is and what purpose do you think it selves. I believe the ego is a survival mechanism designed to keep us from feeling pain, the pain we experienced as children, our psychic deaths, prior to which we floated in a sea of undifferentiated bliss of unity. Out psychic deaths were the price of conformity, the place where we could be safe, where our behavior could pass muster. Had we not capitulated we would have died as children, physically. We were broken early to save us from being broken later by folk who wouldn't love us.

So, in order to return to our state of original unity, a place of perfection symbolized by the Garden of Eden, we will have to take the hero's mythic journey through hell. But the resistance to this is tremendous, the last thing we will ever do. I believe your skepticism as to the desirability of ego loss stems from this unconscious recognition, that what is involved is a memory of our own death., the day we took up the burden of feelings of guilt and evil.

I believe also that the true self is what you have with you after a ship wreck, the original evolved state of monkey joy that lies at the ground of our being.

This is my opinion.

 

[Moonbeam]

I always respect my opinion, even when it differs from the popular opinion.

For others, most of the time their opinion only differs because it's wrong. No need to respect something that is just wrong.

Just wrong can be a number of things. A thing may not comport with the logic built into the human brain by evolution. You may still have a grasp reflex that initiates at a sense of falling, but it's no longer a good idea or a sound opinion that humans should sleep on a tree limbs.

A thing may be wrong because it defies experience, that it's a god idea to confront evil at any and every turn.

A thing may be considered wrong because it does not comport with some early childhood brainwashing, like that black people aren't inferior if you were so trained to believe.

Thus, whether or not you value your opinion over the opinion of others, you may still be the one who is full of shit. You could use a bit of humility, perhaps.

 

[Moonbeam]

He believes he has shed his ego when he found the real "god". He has a circular logic that he knows truth because he knows nothing. He knows you have an ego because he knows "god" and he also knows nothing because he has shed his belief he knows anything.

Its rather complex.

Actually the complexity is all what you introduce. The facts are rather simple.

Opposites integrate at a higher level of understanding. That understanding isn't theory or words, but a conscious state, a different way of seeing. Let's put this in psychological terms since you were addressing somebody in that field. A emotionally troubled person enters psychotherapy. First off he has come to the realization that he needs it even though most people enter therapy in the hopes of being better at being sick.

Said person after some time and some inner exploration and some feeling of things long past gets an insight in to, say, why they can't form a stable relationship, that they experienced something that made them feel too worthless to be loved. This is an understanding that can change the attitude in which they previously pictured the world, allowing them to see what they previously couldn't understand at all. They have had insights into the self that change their basic conscious state. Nothing on the outside changed. The world didn't suddenly become more relationship friendly. All that happened was that an unconscious assumption no longer is in operation and the world changes color.

 

[werepossum]

That's my job, Moonbeam. Quite literally, I mean.

SNIP

Man, are you in the right place!

You will however be limited in your inability to prescribe narcotics and restraints . . .

 

[werepossum]

I know a grand total of zero people that have ever declared bankruptcy. That includes loose acquaintances.

My father used to own an auto parts store. I've known far more than I could have wished, and virtually every one is due to getting heavily into consumer debt.

I maintain that it is possible and that one can be 99.999% sure of it.

There is a story of two famous sword makers in Japan and a contest people conducted to see which was the greater master. A sword from each was stuck into a stream and leaves dumped into the water. The leaf that hit the first blade was cut in two, but the a leaf went around the other. The latter was declared the winner. The mind that is awake meets no resistance. If resistance is felt, there is unconscious issues involved.

Not to disparage your ancient Japanese anecdote, but by that standard, the best crafted sword would be a two by four.

Look! The leaf always goes around it! Bow down to my superior, um, swordmakery!

 

[bshole]

The ultimate goal in life is NOT respect for differing opinions. The ONLY thing that matters is your own happiness. If you can delude yourself into being happy, you have happened on to the right model of reality. The majority of Americans like myself have the wrong model and are miserable. I really don't understand it. We have more material blessings than previous civilizations could have conceived of. We have removed ourselves from the food chain. We are fat, idle, pampered and miserable as all hell. The day will come when scientists will be able to program all brains to be happy. That will be the day when man will have created the ultimate model of reality. Until then, if it makes you happy to disrespect another's differing opinion, lucky you!

 

[Moonbeam]

The ultimate goal in life is NOT respect for differing opinions. The ONLY thing that matters is your own happiness. If you can delude yourself into being happy, you have happened on to the right model of reality. The majority of Americans like myself have the wrong model and are miserable. I really don't understand it. We have more material blessings than previous civilizations could have conceived of. We have removed ourselves from the food chain. We are fat, idle, pampered and miserable as all hell. The day will come when scientists will be able to program all brains to be happy. That will be the day when man will have created the ultimate model of reality. Until then, if it makes you happy to disrespect another's differing opinion, lucky you!

I have tried again and again to show you that none of the things you believe make you unhappy have anything to do with why you are unhappy. There is no meaning to life. There is no God to bring you to heaven. All the misery and injustice in the world, all those who suffer just suffer and are dead forever. The existential 'no exit' in which you are mired is real. Your problem is that you can't and don't accept what you know to be true. You long to go back to the cocoon of a true believer where you had faith that your ego self was something special, that you were loved by God and would be cared for eternally. You bought a load of shit and called it your treasure and having lost that absurdity you feel cheated.

What you seek is the state of unity and perfection you were born in when everything you were sprang from the joy of being, when you swam in a sea of love that had its source in itself. And then you were robbed. You were told that you had to believe this or that to be happy. Your love was stolen by God and he said to you there is no love because I am a monster and don't exits. So you forgot that you are God and that all the love that fills the universe with light has to come from your own heart. You need nothing to be happy. Happiness is a delusion. What there is is the infinite joy of being that can never be taken away. All you need to do is awaken to who you are.

 

[Greenman]

I have tried again and again to show you that none of the things you believe make you unhappy have anything to do with why you are unhappy. There is no meaning to life. There is no God to bring you to heaven. All the misery and injustice in the world, all those who suffer just suffer and are dead forever. The existential 'no exit' in which you are mired is real. Your problem is that you can't and don't accept what you know to be true. You long to go back to the cocoon of a true believer where you had faith that your ego self was something special, that you were loved by God and would be cared for eternally. You bought a load of shit and called it your treasure and having lost that absurdity you feel cheated.

What you seek is the state of unity and perfection you were born in when everything you were sprang from the joy of being, when you swam in a sea of love that had its source in itself. And then you were robbed. You were told that you had to believe this or that to be happy. Your love was stolen by God and he said to you there is no love because I am a monster and don't exits. So you forgot that you are God and that all the love that fills the universe with light has to come from your own heart. You need nothing to be happy. Happiness is a delusion. What there is is the infinite joy of being that can never be taken away. All you need to do is awaken to who you are.

You've argued both sides Moonie, and state as fact things that can't be proven either way. That doesn't work. You're also trying to make the point that RAH postulated many years ago, that all "now's" are equal. That at any given moment every single living person is experiencing the same reality, the same amount of happiness. It's a cool idea, but demonstrably untrue. Somewhere a couple is holding their first born moments after birth, not far from them someone is dying alone and in agony, those two aren't even a little equal.

 

[Vic]

I have. Just because I may be right about something doesn't mean I'm right for the right reasons.

I would argue that differing reasons cause more disagreement than anything else.

 

[Vic]

Other people have "opinions", i have truths.

Solipsism inevitably prevails.

 

[Moonbeam]

Greenman: You've argued both sides Moonie, and state as fact things that can't be proven either way. That doesn't work.

M: i WOULD LIKE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN And perhaps could if you could be specific as to what the arguments were.

G: You're also trying to make the point that RAH postulated many years ago, that all "now's" are equal. That at any given moment every single living person is experiencing the same reality, the same amount of happiness. It's a cool idea, but demonstrably untrue. Somewhere a couple is holding their first born moments after birth, not far from them someone is dying alone and in agony, those two aren't even a little equal.

Who or what is RAH? This argument you say I am making makes no sense to me.

 

[Greenman]

Greenman: You've argued both sides Moonie, and state as fact things that can't be proven either way. That doesn't work.

M: i WOULD LIKE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN And perhaps could if you could be specific as to what the arguments were.

G: You're also trying to make the point that RAH postulated many years ago, that all "now's" are equal. That at any given moment every single living person is experiencing the same reality, the same amount of happiness. It's a cool idea, but demonstrably untrue. Somewhere a couple is holding their first born moments after birth, not far from them someone is dying alone and in agony, those two aren't even a little equal.

Who or what is RAH? This argument you say I am making makes no sense to me.

RAH = Robert A Heinlein, science fiction writer, among other things.

 

[Moonbeam]

RAH = Robert A Heinlein, science fiction writer, among other things.

I see. This reminds me of a Mulla Nasrudin story I am often reminded of. Once the Mulla found a Parrot that had somehow managed to be blown thousands of miles from home by a storm. He looked at it, collapsed and weak on the ground and took it home to care for. There he nursed it back to health, died it's feathers brown, and trimmed it's claws and beak. There now, ne said, back to the wild with you. Now you look more like a bird.

I hope you don't mind if I resist this beak trimming you seem to want to perform on me as I am sort of used to that attempt. For reasons difficult to figure, I seem to have a beak built for cracking nuts, and have grown fond of it being that way.

 

[Squeetard]

Opinions: Yes

Incorrect Logic: No

Made Up or disprovable "Facts": No

Boolean AND any of the above for complex arguments.

I concur.

 

[Dude111]

Depends on the opinion/how it's justified. I don't respect someone's opinion just because they have it.

Its hard to!!!!!!

Like with Trump!!!!! -- How can all these idiots NOT SEE THRU HIM!!

 

[dank69]

Its hard to!!!!!!

Like with Trump!!!!! -- How can all these idiots NOT SEE THRU HIM!!

I don't know. How can people get their vaccine information from websites warning about chemtrails?