Provoker
Permabanned
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2008
- Messages
- 252
- MBTI Type
- INTJ
Recently, I have noticed a pattern. The pattern is this: after putting forth some different possibilities a person asks, "what do you believe?" Yet it has become so frequent in recent history that my instinct is to greet this question with an ironical smile. This smile is convoluted to say the least and reflects the frequency with which I am asked that question, my anticipation of the reaction to my answer, and perhaps a sense of shame for having tilted my head up and slightly to the left and having to actually think about what I believe. One may think that strong beliefs would not require deep contemplation, but instead should be immediate. But this is not the case with me. As soon as a person asks what I believe in I get stuck in chess, paralyzed by deep contemplation of logical combinations.
The professor who asked me this question the other day could not have known the meaning behind the mechanical head-tilt to the upper-left followed by a crooked smile. He could not have known that the immediate answer I calculated, and always calculate when asked this question, is that I am an atheist and whenever the question of belief comes up nothing comes to me at all. If anything I have a lack thereof. The smile, the contemplation, all of that is if anything a consideration of how to answer this question in a diplomatic way. For example, I am inclined to say, "I believe in magic," with a slight ring corresponding to the popular song but that would be to mock the person asking the question. So I do not. Part of the pause and contemplation is really a reflection of how I want to go about answering the question so as to not completely condescend from heights unknown to man. They seem to put such high hopes in what I might conjure as if I am a magician or something, that I might churn out some logical combination or insight that will unearth all kinds of new ideas in them that as yet have no names. How cruel would a thinker have to be to give an answer that only mocks them for having asked the question?
Furthermore, I have resigned myself from engaging in ethical debates, except to clarify or contradict the position of others. This followed automatically once I decided that I want to be a logician on the side; and that the business of ethics could be no business of mine for it could only lead to error in thinking. This is based on the supposition that if a logician is on one side of an issue he is on the wrong side; for taking sides inevitably stifles one's ability for sober and dispassionate logical thinking. On that note, logic is what makes it all stick. Logic is to philosopher as telescope is to astronomer: a tool of discovery. It might be said then that I believe logic will lead me to higher truths and that a problem that is invented by the mind can be solved by it.
My entire psychology obeys the laws of mathematics. It is a system built on a set of axioms and with clearly defined rules of inference. As such, it is perfectly predictable, and with enough information could be predicted from start to end. Every day I follow the same routine. I leave nothing in my life to chance; I only follow methods that have proven to work over and over again. I am completely formulaic; my capacity for improvization is low. I am linear in logic; nonlinear with an initial intuition, but then I drive my intuition forward in a linear way through rational thinking. I have difficulty following the thought process of other humans as they often depend on different sets of assumptions. When humans reason incorrectly with confidence it can make it difficult to sort out the information. For example, on a daily basis I hear stories that proceed in the following manner. "Like..either I'm going to the grocery store or I'll go and get gas. I am not going to get gas, so I'll go to the mall and pick up some shoes" Here we have A or B, not B therefore Z. This way of thinking is completely alien to me. Yet, even though people do not always reason in a logically valid manner, they nevertheless follow rules. All things in the entire universe, both animate and inanimate, take place according to rules; nowhere is there to be found any irregularity. Should one try to jump as high as the empire state building or run as fast as the speed of light one will soon discover one is unable. Even when logic proper is wanning, humans follow physical, biological, and psychological rules. Nevertheless, from this we can deduce what I do not believe in:
(1) I do not believe in disorder; for rules entail order. As such, when people say things like "I'm disorganized" they are really referring to their lack of efficiency rather than any objective statement about the organization of the world.
(2) I do not believe in spiritualism or mysticism of any kind. But, I do think it is a reasonable conjecture that there are life forms elsewhere in the galaxy; after all, we were able to form.
The professor who asked me this question the other day could not have known the meaning behind the mechanical head-tilt to the upper-left followed by a crooked smile. He could not have known that the immediate answer I calculated, and always calculate when asked this question, is that I am an atheist and whenever the question of belief comes up nothing comes to me at all. If anything I have a lack thereof. The smile, the contemplation, all of that is if anything a consideration of how to answer this question in a diplomatic way. For example, I am inclined to say, "I believe in magic," with a slight ring corresponding to the popular song but that would be to mock the person asking the question. So I do not. Part of the pause and contemplation is really a reflection of how I want to go about answering the question so as to not completely condescend from heights unknown to man. They seem to put such high hopes in what I might conjure as if I am a magician or something, that I might churn out some logical combination or insight that will unearth all kinds of new ideas in them that as yet have no names. How cruel would a thinker have to be to give an answer that only mocks them for having asked the question?
Furthermore, I have resigned myself from engaging in ethical debates, except to clarify or contradict the position of others. This followed automatically once I decided that I want to be a logician on the side; and that the business of ethics could be no business of mine for it could only lead to error in thinking. This is based on the supposition that if a logician is on one side of an issue he is on the wrong side; for taking sides inevitably stifles one's ability for sober and dispassionate logical thinking. On that note, logic is what makes it all stick. Logic is to philosopher as telescope is to astronomer: a tool of discovery. It might be said then that I believe logic will lead me to higher truths and that a problem that is invented by the mind can be solved by it.
My entire psychology obeys the laws of mathematics. It is a system built on a set of axioms and with clearly defined rules of inference. As such, it is perfectly predictable, and with enough information could be predicted from start to end. Every day I follow the same routine. I leave nothing in my life to chance; I only follow methods that have proven to work over and over again. I am completely formulaic; my capacity for improvization is low. I am linear in logic; nonlinear with an initial intuition, but then I drive my intuition forward in a linear way through rational thinking. I have difficulty following the thought process of other humans as they often depend on different sets of assumptions. When humans reason incorrectly with confidence it can make it difficult to sort out the information. For example, on a daily basis I hear stories that proceed in the following manner. "Like..either I'm going to the grocery store or I'll go and get gas. I am not going to get gas, so I'll go to the mall and pick up some shoes" Here we have A or B, not B therefore Z. This way of thinking is completely alien to me. Yet, even though people do not always reason in a logically valid manner, they nevertheless follow rules. All things in the entire universe, both animate and inanimate, take place according to rules; nowhere is there to be found any irregularity. Should one try to jump as high as the empire state building or run as fast as the speed of light one will soon discover one is unable. Even when logic proper is wanning, humans follow physical, biological, and psychological rules. Nevertheless, from this we can deduce what I do not believe in:
(1) I do not believe in disorder; for rules entail order. As such, when people say things like "I'm disorganized" they are really referring to their lack of efficiency rather than any objective statement about the organization of the world.
(2) I do not believe in spiritualism or mysticism of any kind. But, I do think it is a reasonable conjecture that there are life forms elsewhere in the galaxy; after all, we were able to form.