Can this one philosophical sentence be put together any better?

The problem with knowing is the more you learn, the more you have to unlearn as you find more and more of what you learned was not even true.

ETA: Hey sometimes you get lucky.

a reply to: godservant

I think that statement may not be an axiom but rather a opening to further levels of insight. A statement that can offer a good starting point for further expansion.

I think that tie notion of having to unlearn is interesting though maybe it's not the unlearning that needs to be done. Maybe it's the belief in the truth of something that needs to be released. I think this may go hand in hand with the very notion of searching for truth, or, something to believe.

If we don't invest belief into the information we learn then we don't have to unlearn it. I like the concept of verisimilitude, or a degree of truth. One need not believe but rather juggle and balance ''what approaches truth'' . I'm pretty sure here that I have not conveyed this idea as fully as it might be conveyed but at least it's a start.

originally posted by: godservant
The problem with knowing is the more you learn, the more you have to unlearn as you find more and more of what you learned was not even true.

Admitting you were previously wrong is the first step to learning.

What we actually KNOW is very limited.

Some people, if you disagree once, they'll never see your point of view again.

We're all wrong, way more, than we're all right.

I think your sentence was just fine IMO.

originally posted by: MykeNukem

I think your sentence was just fine IMO.

I know, I feel so bad. I can't see like I used to and I thought it was gobsovein and I popped wise. My bad y'all.

I did star & flag.

originally posted by: The GUT

originally posted by: MykeNukem

I think your sentence was just fine IMO.

I know, I feel so bad. I can't see like I used to and I thought it was gobsovein and I popped wise. My bad y'all.

I did star & flag.

Read my post above about admitting you were wrong.

You're a stand-up dude, GUT.

You may still be right, yet, lmao, I thought he made a good point though.

a reply to: godservant

The truth is subjective to knowledge

a reply to: Raggedyman

Can one aquire knowledge based on lies, and what does that mean for it's subjective truth?

originally posted by: Raggedyman
a reply to: godservant

The truth is subjective to knowledge

I very much appreciate everyone input. That is why I have always come here to see the insight of folks who can see that deep.

97.53% of folks here are wonderful with intelligent things to say that only leads us all back to the simplicity of all that we already knew as a child, but in a way we can no longer understand with age.

The other two and a half percent just need patience and/or prayer.

I look way forward to reading more input.

a reply to: godservant


I like that sentence

To conquer truth, you must surrender lies.

The following two aphorisms already exist in the noosphere:

"The more you know, the more you know how little you know."

"Question everything."

There's another pithy quote in many paraphrases, but I gather it's attribution to the Buddha is questionable:

"Believe nothing merely
because you have been told it,
or because it is traditional,
or because you have imagined it."

(read more about that nugget here)

Scientific = experimentally falsifiable.

Science, by definition, can only prove things false. It has no mechanism whatsoever for indicating Truth. Into this vacuum of "well then what should I believe?", Stephen J. Gould offers the following:

"FACT: confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent."

I underline "provisional", because no knowledge is ever final (to a true seeker).
Our most cherished possessions, are our assumptions.

Emily Dickinson had this to say:

"How can I tell
until I go
to Cairo or Cathay,
Whether or not,
this blessed spot,
is blessed in every way?"

and a venerable goodie of unknown provenance:

"He who laughs last, just thinks slower."

The next quote, I read once in a SciFi book (can't remember which), but I love it as a Cautionary Tale:

"I love it when you agree with me: it makes you sound so intelligent."

If what you are learning is not forcing you to reevaluate that, which you thought you already knew, then are you really learning?

a reply to: godservant

Wisdom knocks quietly, listen carefully.

a reply to: godservant

I have heard it put like this. “The more you learn the less you know” which sounds paradoxical but it’s actually acknowledging just how deep things go.

Knowledge and wisdom don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

99% of knowledge is 3rd hand...

originally posted by: godservant
The problem with knowing is the more you learn, the more you have to unlearn as you find more and more of what you learned was not even true.

I don't think you actually unlearn.

Truth is never one dimensional. Truth has many facets, and I don't think we ever see all the many sides of it as can be presented.

The problem is more in our brains and psyche than our eyes.

We see what we want to see. Our brains are preprogrammed to accept what it has already accepted as truth. Anything that deviates from that is often distorted, and the brain will try to make sense out it by combining, twisting, turning, and reflecting, what is has already accepted as truth.

The reason why what is true for you may not be truth for me. My experiences may come with a truth that is completely different than your truth, yet both truths can be equally honest and valid.

Our unwillingness to see through the eyes and and experiences of others, because we have the tendency to believe there is only one truth, and our own truth is the only right one, is what hinders learning and creates dissention.

Sometimes there can be more than one.

originally posted by: Kenzo
a reply to: godservant


I like that sentence

Very touching, Kenz

originally posted by: godservant
The problem with knowing is the more you learn, the more you have to unlearn as you find more and more of what you learned was not even true.

Ummm...actually...that's what's termed...Enlightenment...

In Zen Buddhism...the intent is to..."think not thinking"...until one is able to...not think..."awareness without impingement"

The premise is that the ego clings to emotion and thought...creating a justification for it's own existence...

As you stated...it fills the mind with everything...thus polluting with extraneous and primarily incorrect datasets...

Gnosis...or Enlightenment is achieved by releasing all that detritus...

The true mind...already knows...however...it lays quiescent under...education and environment...


I always use the term..."you cannot fill an already full vessel"...and "A blank page is neither blank or empty...it is filled with infinite potential"...

When one attains Enlightenment...or Gnosis...having emptied oneself of the ego's baggage...one then experiences an elevated state where "the all and the every" is known...it all unzips like a zipped file...

But Gnosis and Enlightenment are fleeting...the files re-zip...but the memory of being everything everywhere and all possibility in infinitude...all in the same instance does fade slowly...

One is left with the echo of that expansion...the after image...

Truly amazing what waits on those next levels...


Thus spake...the experiencer...



YouSir

a reply to: godservant

So to me it simply means be open-minded and ready to adapt to changes.

Only by continually challenging your own best thinking — inviting others to play devil’s advocate on your assumptions and interrogate your thinking — can you do the requisite unlearning and relearning to make smarter decisions as you navigate unchartered ground ahead. Assumptions kill possibilities.

I particularly like the above advice "inviting others to play devil's advocate on your assumptions and interrogate your thinking".

Get out of your comfort zone and march forward.

We are creatures of comfort, and venturing into new unexplored territory, trying out new ideas, innovating new products, and re-engineering old systems will always meet with resistance. Conscious or unconscious.

Yet while sticking to ‘how things are done around here’ can spare psychological discomfort, it puts you at risk of losing your place in a world marching, charging, rapidly forward. All of this will ultimately put you in a lot less comfortable position down the track.

"Poor is the teacher whose student does not surpass him" - Da Vinci

Remember, unlearning and relearning is not a means to an end. It’s an end in itself. As such, the key to unlearning doesn’t lie in the teacher. It lies in the student. In you. In your openness to being challenged — to letting go of what you think you know, so you can relearn what you need to know.

real-leaders.com...

a reply to: Terpene

The best yarns are spun with lies, a good story is never just factual.

If everything is borrowed do the narratives even matter? Subjective truth is at least 2nd hand and objective truth is always 2nd hand.

I've just invented a gubblewubble in my mind, I'd define it for you but it's impossible without lending vocabulary that describes other things. You're just going to have to trust me that I've made this 100% original thing that literally can't be defined...

See how that last paragraph can never work? Maybe everything is lies except the necessity for narrative that leads to understanding.