Eclectic Views

    
...after all the appearances are shorn away...
  

    
I believe many things, a few of which run afoul of majority opinion...

I believe we share common ancestors with dogs, cats, and pigs, not to
mention African apes.

I nevertheless believe in the possibility of a sort of divine meddling, in
the form of extraterrestrial intervention.

I believe scientists (physicists, biologists, paleontologists, etc.) mostly
know what they're talking about, even if they don't yet know everything
there is to know.

I *don't* believe that traditional creation stories should be taken
literally, not even by those who otherwise follow tradition.

I believe the relatively enlightened education I received in Kansas public 
schools in the 1960s and early '70s has recently been ill-served by the 
ideological meanderings of the Kansas state school board.
  

    
What sort of discussion are you looking for, <satyr>? It's not
entirely clear from your posts.
  

    
I believe in taxes and death.  All the rest of the nitty gritty life
stuff that goes on in between is an illusion, because everything
changes according to our interpretation of the sensory perception or
event.  Humans are doomed to classify and compartmentalize all  input
into neat packages, while ignoring the interconnectedness of
everything--
Scientific theories will also change in the future, but in the sense
that we are building on top of some already concrete-knowledge.

I don't believe that God really talks to George W., and certainly not
the Kansas State School Board.
  

    
I believe that science converges on the truth more quickly and more
closely than any other field of human inquiry, in those fields where it
can be applied. 

I believe that traditional religious, philosophical, and literary
works contain valuable, indispensable knowledge, but must be
continually reinterpreted.

I believe that we have moments of free will, but that we have to be
prepared if we are to take advantage of them.

I believe that the mind and the body are different things, that this
is a problem, and that it can be corrected with practice.

I believe that we are for the most part in a morass of moral
ambiguity, in which it is anyone's guess as to what the best thing to
do might be; and that every so often the mist clears and there is a
moment of terrible clarity, in which we have the opportunity to do
something utterly wrong and wholly irrevocable.

I believe that if God made anything better than love, he kept it hid.

I believe that no human work, except for some humans, is as beautiful,
complex, rich, or interesting as a forest, a shore, a mountain, or a
skyscape.
  

    
> What sort of discussion are you looking for, <satyr>?

What do you believe strongly enough that you couldn't change your mind if
someone offerred you a million dollars to do so?  What is *REAL* for you?
  

    

Send the men with white coats over, because I believe that the world has
just entered a great transition; that people a hundred years from now will
look back and not recognize the present.

I believe that many people are recognizing this change. Whether it's
science 'singlularity' proponents, end of the world religious types,
environmentalists seeing the world go into the toilet or ordinary people
feeling that things are going downhill, people sense the end of the
current world is coming and that, as with all births, the process won't be
pain free.

The most recent example I'd pick is the Renaissance, but to me that was a
walk in the park to what's started to happen.
  

    
I'm not sure exactly what I believe or don't believe.

But the best expression of belief that I know of is the Apostles'
Creed, developed between the 2nd and 9th Century.

By "expression," I mean the best summary, the most compact language. 
  

    
I believe simple, graceful actions can make a difference in the world.

I believe that neither wealth nor poverty are character flaws or
character strengths.
I believe the greatest love comes to and from children.
I believe the greatest damage comes from not embracing the above
belief (about chiildren). 
I believe in G-d.  (I do not believe in any organized religion.)
I believe people get caught up in their own agendas so much so that
they lose sight of one anothjer and the better good.
I believe none of us can truly know what the better good is until it
is part of history.
I believe tolerance of others is more important to the success of our
species than any other single act or belief.
  

    
I believe I am hungry.  Maybe I should go buy lunch.
  

    
<lrph>, I am moved by your list. May I copy it to tack up on the wall
by my desk? You have captured my heart precisely...
  

    
Except for the belief in "G-d", what <kath> said!

> I believe that the world has just entered a great transition

I wish I shared that belief more than I do.  Clearly there's more going on
- more change happening more rapidly - than ever before.  So in that sense
you're certainly right; there's a great transition underway.  But which
transition?  It seems to me that there's at least three great sea changes
underway, one of which has to do with concentration of the vast majority of
wealth into fewer and fewer hands (and the waste of time and talent that so
often accompanies it), another of which has to do with destabilization of
the climate and biological systems upon which we depend, and a third that
has to do with rapidly improving sophistication of the methods we bring to
bear to solve practical problems, those exacerbated by the first two trends
included.

It reminds me of a chemistry experiment, the outcome of which depends upon
the rates of various reactions.

I'm optimist enough to think that it might all turn out well enough, but
pessimist enough to think there's at least a significant chance that it
won't.
  

    
<kath> Yes, you may. And thank you. I do try to remember these daily.
It really helps keep things in perspective for me.

Happy Channukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and a Wonderful New
Year to all!
  

    
I believe it's all going to be fine.
  

    
Yes, what <eidolon> says, too.
  

    
what if he was kidding?
  

    
That's his problem. I believe it's all going to be fine. Oh, yeah,
also, I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.
  

    
Not, however, where that drop falls. Which is probably just as well.
  

    
I believe humans spend too much effort on formulating, elaborating on
and defending beliefs and too little effort observing the world.  This
comes in, in significant part, from the seductive idea that we can
change the world by how we think and/or talk about it. 

We are vulnerable to such seduction, in part, because our egos
function in ways that we are, at best, barely conscious of . We also
exist in a social context that prefers certainty to the contingency
that is fundamental to sound observation. 

These characteristics are among those that have brought us to our
current state of development, such as it is. It is an open question as
to how well they will serve us in the future.
  

    
> I believe humans spend too much effort on formulating, elaborating on
> and defending beliefs and too little effort observing the world.

Learning by observing and/or direct experience is great, but it takes
time, and, given the linguistic capability for doing so, it's so much
easier to tell a story, or to combine a story with a surrogate experience,
like a game, than it is to arrange for every child to learn everything
they need to learn through observation and experience.  A consequence of
this is that we come to rely habitually on language and too often neglect
to ground what's learned in direct experience.

> This comes in, in significant part, from the seductive idea that we can
> change the world by how we think and/or talk about it. 

The idea of the magical word has been around for a very long time, and
probably developed alongside language itself.

Changing how we think and talk accomplishes little by itself, except as it
can lead to changing our behavior, and except as it changes the framework
that serves as the background for the next generation, who are more likely 
to behave differently.
  

    
>Changing how we think and talk accomplishes little by itself, except
as it can lead to changing our behavior, and except as it changes the
framework that serves as the background for the next generation, who
are more likely to behave differently.<

Great point. We can change our point of view and/ or attitude toward
reality. We can also select different analytical tools including
terminology that will improve our perception of reality.  All such
actions, however, require some degree of ego suppression which can be
impossible for some and difficult for the rest of us. 

BTW, ego suppression doesn't feel "natural" to most of us.
  

    
 <#16>
someone will come..to show the way..



(no "rapture" ref. intended or implied -R)
  

    
> BTW, ego suppression doesn't feel "natural" to most of us.

As I understand it, the "ego" is supposed to be a mediator between the
superego and the id.  Somehow suppressing the mediator seems like a bad
idea.
  

    
#20<improve our perception of reality>

No one-size-fits-all "reality" for this ego. Life's more interesting
than that.
  

    
I believe the WELL interface design is shit.
  

    
I believe Engaged is good enough for me, and the Well is a fantastic
place to hang out.