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What is your most absurd belief?
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I also like to think that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.
I also like to think that science does an amazing job of searching for the answer (whatever the fuck that is), but it will never find it. The real answer is to fucking enjoy life.
"Holistic" means "whole," and in healthcare means that a person should be viewed as a whole entity, not just the sum of various systems and symptoms.
Money is as basic and necessary as writing until we come up with a way to have essentially unlimited resources.
Associating value with money makes sense because I can't put my cows in my wallet.
Can't tell you how many situations I've made awkward with that belief. It even convinces me that I'm attracted to people when, after sitting back and examining my feelings (barf), I realise that I'm not that interested in them beyond what they have to say.
I would freak out over historical value.
I like to believe that the day everyone as a species decides to stop worrying about "what's in it for me?" and begins to focus on "What can i do to make things better for others?", world peace is just around the corner.
As my boy Albert E. said:
It is high time the ideal of success should be replaced with the ideal of service ... Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Limed for truthiness and for being part of my absurd belief
I believe that people do things that make sense (in my mind). I am consistently reminded that this is not the case, but the belief is kind of ingrained.
I also believe that is is not contradictory to hold contradicting beliefs. Not really one I justify.
I believe people are fundamentally stupid. Some people might consider this absurd, I guess.
I believe the human brain is an electrochemical computer (as in thing that can compute, I use the term extremely loosely and non-technically, I don't think brains are necessarily turing complete or anything like that). Basically that consciousness is totally non-mystical, totally understandable and totally replicate-able. I believe that humans are driven almost exclusively by instinct, even when it feels like we're being rational. This is where "humans are stupid" comes from too.
God I do the same thing. I usually don't get in trouble with it, but I have to keep an eye on my behavior.
Actually now that I think about it, it seems that girls become interested in me after conversations like that more than the other way around. I wonder why that would be.
Ok, that settles that about acupuncture, but Ayurveda, at least indirectly, can be used for something useful sometimes:
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004153.html
I believe that the only way to make people do that would be to genetically or otherwise biologically modify them. I don't believe that environment alone is capable of changing human nature, but I do believe that human nature can be changed.
I think the confusion stems from a different definition of "rational". I was working with the Spock definition of rational, considering Just The Facts with no regard for emotion. Maybe it's just because I've been reading about the Enlightenment lately, where fallible "reason" was used to justify things like sexism and racism.
The bolded bit pretty much makes us in agreement.
I think we got a winner here.
My justification for it is that people are not stupid, but simply acting in what they believe to be their best interest. It may not be in their best interest, and honestly, whether or not it is in everyone else's best interest is way, WAY back on their list of priorities.
After all, how can we know what is in other people's best interest when we aren't even sure what is in our own? No one is omniscient.
So I guess that means I see disagreements in opinion (i.e. people are morons) as stemming from selfishness and efforts at self-preservation, not any sort of inherit stupidity. It probably doesn't hurt that whenever people say "The masses are idiots" or "People are idiots", they are almost overlooking the fact that they are guilty of what they've called "idiot" behavior.
That, and in my absurdity I'm tired of the raging hard-one society seems to have for the individual compared to its hatred for the group. If you love the individual so much, why don't you marry it!?
I know this is over and done, but speaking as someone who was born, raised, and voted for the incompetent government that the current Chinese Government replaced--it could be much worse. MUCH worse. Really, the KMT doesn't have many accomplishments to brag about in comparison: they lost to the communists, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Soviets, pretty much everyone they've ever had a disagreement with since they first formed. The up side? Well, they managed to steal a huge amount of China's best cultural swag in a shockingly short time and store it in my homeland.
Didn't stop me from voting for them, though. Maybe it's democracy that is absurd?
either that or my brain is broken, which is actually much more likely.
First, I don't believe you're a special individual of a special species with special gifts that sets you apart from all the rest of creation. You are an animal, much the same as any other. You were born. You breed, if you're lucky. And then you die and decompose. I believe this is as true for the species as the individual - we are not special and glorious. We are the result of an evolutionary quirk that gives us an unusual capacity to control our own environment in many ways, but at the core we're pretty simply creatures. And one day we'll all be dead and gone, and very shortly afterwards everything will be pretty much the same as if we as a species had never existed.
Second, I think this is uplifting and right and very comforting.
Conversely, I believe that there is a very good chance that we are the most awesome entities in the universe. The probability of intelligent life developing may be so low that only the anthropic principle dictates that we're here.
An entity lifting itself out of a big, dumb universe into awareness is much more interesting than the setting itself. "Oh no, our species is so tiny and fleeting!" Oh yeah look at how big Jupiter is. Who cares, it's a ball of gas. Look at how long a star lives! Yeah, and it spends all its time fusing light elements into heavier elements. Amazing. But our brain structure and our civilization and our computers? Off the friggin' hook. And there's no guarantee it's going to stop here.
That is just your thalamus getting lazy and sending the wrong signals to the wrong part of the brain and then having to do it over again. That is what causes deja vu IIRC.
It's not precisely known what causes it. What you're talking about is one theory, where sensory information accidentally gets sent to long-term memory before it gets processed by the cerebral cortex, though I wouldn't call the thalamus being lazy.
The other theory is that, since our sensory organs are mostly paired, sometimes a signal from one sensory organ (eye, ear) arrives at the brain slightly before the other organ and the brain interprets it as two separate signals, giving the illusion of the same thing happening twice.
Of course, we all know that it's a glitch in the Matrix.
I disagree with this idea so passionately that I don't have words strong enough.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Ideally, yes, this is what holistic should mean, and sometimes does.
In reality, this more commonly describes "integrative" medicine, whereas "holistic" too often describes homeopathic crystal magnet shit.
The limed statement is very true. Emotions are no more "rational" or "irrational" than a barometer reading.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Maybe it's just the chemist in my talking, but I think nuclear fusion is pretty off the hook.
All of those explanations seem unsatisfying to me, because I've had deja vu that's lasted for quite some time and spanning several decisions of my own wherein after I do something I realize it's something I've done before (according to my feelings) and I try to come up with a novel action to break the sensation.
Because you're a lucky fucker? Either that or you're already attractive to them and the conversation gives them a chance to demonstrate it.
A dream as much as a belief.
But I'll wear them so stylishly that you'll think it's cool!
(Absurd beliefs, remember?)
Before you go punching people who wear sunglasses indoors, remember one important life lesson:
Stevie Wonder could so kick your ass.
I sometimes wear sunglasses indoors when I have a really, really bad headache.
Edit: but I wouldn't stay at a bar or concert with a headache that bad.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
What if your vision is augmented?
Are photochromic lenses acceptable?