DO YOU suffer from PARADIGM poisoning?

Terry

Slow death by poisoning is a bad way to go!

Like that old story about boiling a frog. (Gradual heating keeps the frog from jumping out of the pot).

Not knowing why you are slightly ill or not at your best keeps you from seeking remedy.

What if your Paradigm is Poison? Would you even know it?

First off, what is a Pradigm?

a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated;

Huh? What the F**K does that mean?

It means the world view you have, friend. It means the story you tell yourself of how things work. It is your viewpoint and belief system.

What if it has poison in it and you are slowly dying intellectually without knowing you are even sick?

What would your symptoms be?

1.Strong viewpoints, opinions, beliefs, but, life success is minimal; you are troubled, depressed or often angry in general.

2. You see the flaws in everything and offer quick fixes, yet, your everyday existence is a mess.

3. You quickly identify the error in others but fail to achieve peaceful relations with family, friends, loved ones or business associates.

In short, THEY are the problem and you are simply a voice crying in the wilderness; unappreciated, victimized and struggling.

Could your Paradigm be at fault?

What would be the antidote? What would root out the poison pellet? How could you stem the flow of the insidious worm gnawing at the root of your world?

1. Intellectual Honesty: willingnes to be wrong when confronted with error.

2. Skeptical optimisim: willingness to accept new ideas if tested and filtered through rational premises.

3.Refusal to deny reality: never hiding anything from yourself you feel you aren't emotionally ready to accept, but, bravely looking facts right in the eye with a view to meeting challenges by dealing with them.

4. Refusal to divde the actions and beliefs of others into two camps of US vs THEM or GOOD vs BAD or SMART vs STUPID: this leads to a false dichotomy and strawman reasoning. Every group or person thinks they are right. Most people honestly hold their views. By granting to others that they may be honest in their approach you stop demonizing them personally and find a common ground for dialogue.

5.Recognize that "What we Hate, We Become". By fighting a perceived wrong or evil we unwittingly adopt tactics which lower us to their level. Always rising above the negative and reframing each issue in a positive way helps the flow and exchange of ideas.

6.Recognize that the only way to defeat bad ideas is with BETTER IDEAS. Debate should entail comparisons of specifics with the best data being accepted and the least being rejected. Polemic can be mere ad hominem.

7.A Better world is only possible by making each day an opportunity for World Repair. Complaining, bitching, criticising, labeling, makes the world a darker place. Tiny opportunities for praise, encouragement, agreement, help and commonality lead to feelings of trust and support that provide a neutral field for the competition of better ideas.

Ask yourself each day: Do I live in the best of all possible worlds?

Identify what is poisoning yours.

Take steps to use positive action, positive ideas, better ideas, and strong commitment to build rather than destroy; engage rather than divide and improve rather than snipe and erode.

Mall Cop

Terry, You seem to read a lot about many things. Bottom line, what do you actually believe happens to you when you die?

For me, I don't know. I at the present time do not have any belief system about life after death.

For example, I too read a lot about everything and have been following your many topics for years.

The two camps have caused confusion for me. Can you tackle this one example of mine?

I.E. I read Dr. Don Morse's book, "SEARCHING FOR ETERNITY", a scientist's journey to overcome death anxiety.

Then I read Ernest Becker's "THE DENIAL OF DEATH" He is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Here we have two brillant men writing opposing views and beliefs as to what happens after we die. And both are very convincing.

This is just one example that I am asking you about. How do you accept either one's view Morse's we are immortal creatures, Becker's we are mortal creatures and death ends it all.

Go ahead and Google both men.

Blueblades

Terry

Like #5 I believe we DISASSEMBLE!

We become our constituency: atoms. Scattered atoms.

Where does white go when the snow melts?

notverylikely

In short, THEY are the problem and you are simply a voice crying in the wilderness; unappreciated, victimized and struggling.

*sigh*....Terry, it's no fun when you write something I agree with.

Terry

*sigh*....Terry, it's no fun when you write something I agree with.

Well, you keep me honest! That is the white man's burden you live with.

A.Fenderson

I.E. I read Dr. Don Morse's book, "SEARCHING FOR ETERNITY", a scientist's journey to overcome death anxiety.
Then I read Ernest Becker's "THE DENIAL OF DEATH" He is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

I read Becker's book, and loved it, though it's been about thirteen years--I have it and was planning on rereading soon, so this is a good excuse.

@Mall Cop: would you mind briefly summarizing each author's points, arguments, etc, and how that leads to what you feel is each writer's basic overall theory or feeling on the subject?

@Terry: sorry if I'm contributing to an off-topic conversation above. I actually think the idea of the paradigm and its implications is one of the most important ideas I've ever come across, not only as applies to science (though perhaps especially here), but other fields and just life in general as well. I believe that most people would be very well served if they could be shown and reminded powerfully and often that their "knowledge" about the world is hugely filtered and polarized by the largely-unconscious low-level software in their brains, and that perception is an act of imagination and abstraction every bit as much as sensation, if not moreso. There are rare instances of things I've read (and maybe even more rarely seen in movies etc) that really drive these points home and impact me on a deep and even emotional level, revealing the active and flawed nature of perception, and I think it would be great for people who are familiar with the genesis of these small existential moments to be able to craft their own words or works that can induce these types of "light-bulb" moments in others as well. Have you ever tried doing specifically this, and if so how do you feel the attempt was received?

Terry

I think it would be great for people who are familiar with the genesis of these small existential moments to be able to craft their own words or works that can induce these types of "light-bulb" moments in others as well. Have you ever tried doing specifically this, and if so how do you feel the attempt was receive

My own experience is this. The more things I read (and the more widely I read) the more connections I can make. Then, a tertiary phenomenon (if so large a word can be appled here) occurs. Seemingly "intuitive" leaps come to mind.

I can be writing something and I stop and come back later to re-read .....and I'm genuinely surprised that a certain thought I had was even MINE.

Somehow a cognition happens---not necesarily out of intention by by a process of accretion and synthesis.

Most of the rest of the time I bore myself silly.

One such discovery came when I was bored driving to work and trying to fill my mind with something meaningful by way of diversion.

I practiced squaring two digit numbers while I was driving. After about ten days of this I suddenly had a light-bulb epiphany!

I was able to "see" the numbers and the answers were coming by "hidden process" rather than grunt work!

In other words, I had by sheer dint of repetition and lugubration actually developed a "processor" in my head that would do the work AUTOMATICALLY when I fed the problem in! I wasn't thinking---I was reacting at another level of consciousness.

That was really really surprising a very cool!!

DO YOU suffer from PARADIGM poisoning?

Terry

Mall Cop

Terry

notverylikely

Terry

A.Fenderson

Terry

Quentin

Mall Cop

awildflower

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