Op-tion-al il-lu-sions

Good post coberst. There is indeed a third side to matters most would tend to bifurcate.
'Hold', in the absence of convincing evidence, is the only rational choice.

Do you agree that ?'hold' should be the option of choice in almost all occasions?

Op-tion-al il-lu-sions

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 think that ?'hold' is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.

Do you agree that ?'hold' should be the option of choice in almost all occasions?

Ok, ok, I'm ready to take this post seriously now.

coberst wrote:

Op-tion-al il-lu-sions

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'.

I agree that "holding" as you put it (in other words, leaving one's mind option to the possibility of truth or falsehood until further evidence becomes handy) is often a wise decision. I try to hold as often as I can but sometimes I make mistakes, we all do. Young people's minds are more easily coerced and that is because they have not learned the necessary discretion because what seems to be true at first is not always true.

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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.

But whenever they are negative to one thing, they are necessarily being positive to something else, which usually also has a large following. Yes, they like to be rebellious...but it's usually in predictable ways isnt it?

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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'.

That all depends on the person's ego, and opinion is the same as judgement.

Quote:

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.

Whether or not it is "smart" is debatable. If smart is defined as not being false as much as possible, then you are correct. However, if "smart" is defined to be being right as much as possible, then you may be wrong. It really depends on the person's personality whether they'd rather believe ONLY what they know is true, or EVERYTHING that they think is probably true.

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Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I think that ?'hold' is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.

I disagree, it really depends on the situation. Sometimes it is best to play the odds.