Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Pantagruel]

Greetings from Canada!

I'm a self-taught IT professional. I've been I guess somewhat fanatical about opening the doors of the mind from a quite early age. I crammed a minor in philosophy into my last two years at university, after which I decided to dedicate every waking hour to absorbing as much material from as many domains as possible. My goal being to elucidate a 'theory of everything.'

So for three years that's what I did, planted myself at the local library and read and wrote, a lot of cognitive science, some natural science, molecular biology, evolutionary biology, more philosophy, of course. I was there so much eventually they hired me. From there I eventually got into IT, been doing that for over twenty years now. In the last decade I've been trying to fill in some gaps, sociology, quantum physics. A lot of exciting things happening in the physical sciences! It seems the more we learn about the physical universe, the more we realize we don't know. Ninety-five percent of the universe is a complete mystery, a placeholder, dark...something.

That's where the mind comes in. A lot of credible physicists now believe that physical reality and mental reality are inextricable. Of course. My current focus is on the limits of knowing. At what point can a theoretical understanding - knowledge - achieve such a high level of certainty that it can exert itself as an imperative at a conscious level? What are the limits of understanding? If you know that knowledge is the ultimate goal, what exactly is it that can hold you back or delay you in realizing that goal? Is it only a matter of making a choice? Making the right choice? Or is a there a component of effort involved? How do you quantify 'cognitive effort' of this kind? In this vein, my quest for transcendental understanding becomes almost an exercise in personal growth, practicing mindfulness to eradicate personal biases and embrace what leads towards better communication and tolerance.

I'm looking forward to some expanding my awareness here by becoming part of the actual living current of thought as it evolves through dialectic and debate.

Mike

[Sculptor1]

Greetings from Canada!

In this vein, my quest for transcendental understanding becomes almost an exercise in personal growth, practicing mindfulness to eradicate personal biases and embrace what leads towards better communication and tolerance.

I have to say that the eradication of personal bias is not a thing that can be achieved.
A person without a bias, is a person with no view point, no opinion; is not person at all. Bias is the result of your lived experience. It is what makes you you.

[Pantagruel]

A perspective is not the same as a bias. In the (epistemological) sense in which I employ the term bias, a bias is an opinion which tends to be held in the face of contradictory evidence. You can have a perspective on the causes of the second world war (that it was a product of the unfair terms of the Versailles treaty and the economic hardships it engendered) or you can be biased to believe that it was the work of one charismatic and insane individual, despite clear evidence that there were multiple causal factors (as there are for most human events).