Orange Lightning
Purple Belt
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2015
- Messages
- 306
- Reaction score
- 88
What you suggest.. some of it is easier said than done, no? I mean not ignoring thoughts counter to ones own opinion means accepting ones own opinion may not be the best opinion to have.. that is easy for you to accept?? Not maybe for everyone.. like just look at this forum or any other.. it is full of inability to accept.. what is the mindset that permits the thought.. I concede my opinion is maybe not the best opinion.. what need to happen to bring this about?? While it seem prudent, still it also requires an openness and humility not everyone have.. how can this be taught? I think you are insightful btw Jx
It's not so much ignoring you're own thoughts as it is exploring other possibilities. It's not dropping your own opinion. It's foraging for new data to gather as much truth as you can. Who knows. Maybe you were wrong. Or more simply, there's more to it than you currently understand. Only one way to find out, and you can only gain from it. Unless you've really understood, in depth, a different perspective from your own, you can't know for certain how right or wrong you are. Or how much you fully understand something. Additionally, in debate, it results in people arguing points that don't stick or don't apply, because they aren't addressing the real heart of the thing or why someone thinks the way the do.
For that reason, I think it's good to understand as many opinions as you can. Even if you disagree with them. Even if you initially find them flat out ridiculous. You might learn something and stilli disagree. xD
It's different when educated people argue about things they already understand. It's not an inability to accept. It's a difference in one person's gathered data making a person come to a different conclusion than another due to potentially infinite variables.
What needs to happen open someone's mind? Well...I can only think of one essential prerequisite that needs to be. Besides that, I think coming on to this way of thinking could be different for everyone. Basically, you need to believe that the knowledge or understanding you already have is not complete. Ever. Technically, I suppose it's possible to reach a point where it is complete I any specific subject, but that hypothetical point will like likely never be reached. You need to believe that you have more to learn about everything, and that it can be found anywhere. Even in unexpected places. You need to be on the hunt for truth that is yet to be found.
I heard it once like this. Think of life like a block of stone your trying to carve a statue out of. That statue is truth, and everything around it is just other stuff. You will always be scraping away more and more stone, building a more and more detailed statue. People often believe that they are currently the best version of themselves, even though they've changed in the past and are even now, changing constantly. They are the latest version of themselves, perfection and flaws both, and they will change again in the future. Trying to build a better statue.