You're one out of seven billion, what does your experience mean? (Everything and nothing)

I have a problem with you people.

Just kidding, I have a problem with a few here. Some posters here put way too much emphasis on their own experience. It's almost as if they think that if they haven't experienced something in their own lives, it doesn't exist. I don't know if anyone here literally believes that. But, I know many people do literally believe that so I want to examine how realistic the belief is.

Unless you believe in solipsism, you know that you are one out of seven billion plus people. Your experience is equivalent to taking a poll with a sample size of one from a potential population of seven billion. Any statistician would laugh at the thought of taking that seriously. And yet, even people who don't believe in solipsism seem to take that idea very seriously. However, from a scientific and logical perspective, it's ludicrous.

On the other hand, I would say that while our experiences mean virtually nothing from the point of view that I just described, they mean everything to us personally. I hold that opinion because I believe strongly in the concept of "personal truth." This is how I believe "personal truth" works in a nutshell:

A color blind person may never know that grass is naturally green through direct experience.

In that case, the truth for almost all of the rest of us concerning the color of grass is irrelevant.

That's why I would say that your experience means everything and nothing simultaneously.

a reply to: Profusion

That's why I would say that your experience means everything and nothing simultaneously.

Cool.




Now what?

I read in my psych textbook that it's less common for people to learn anything without first experiencing it.

Which means... most people don't learn things through story-telling, and in fact disregard/throw away/entirely ignore stories and information that don't feel immediately relevant to their own personal experiences. In a way, empathy, or having a really good imagination, leads to learning things without experiencing them. And in my personal experience... this seems to be the case, lol.

Anyway, idk how I got here but. Hope this helps ya.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Profusion

That's why I would say that your experience means everything and nothing simultaneously.

Cool.




Now what?

I don't read posts from posters who tend to only write about their personal experiences. I wish I could elaborate on that but it's against the rules.

My Experience means everything to me, Does yours?
It doesn't matter what the rest thinks, as they will all be dead and none of it will matter

Their loss really for not keeping an open mind and wasting brainpower trying to deny reality and probable truths therein whether intentionally or not.

By the way geezlouise is that you in the picture? Hubba hubba. I might have to stop stalking Rukia and start reading your stuff.

a reply to: Profusion

Well, as it so happens I'm the centre of my own universe, like, quite literally... There's not much anyone can do about being the centre of there own universe.

But, I'm always looking for my perception of what is to be challenged by others, with fact and logic.

Why not just step up to the plate and try to change peoples personal perceptions, though intelligent conversation and debate?

You know, rather than just complaining that people only know what they have learnt... lol.

Peace

One time when I was at band camp....

If Jung had it right and there actually is a collective unconsciousness; then all experience is meaningful. They add to the archetypes and symbols that make up the collective cultural residue.

and as the world get smaller thanks to the www. it's going to get interesting.

a reply to: Profusion

This reminds me of the Baltimore stockbroker parable as related by Jordan Ellenberg in How Not to Be Wrong

[He] explains the pre-Internet parable of the “Baltimore Stockbroker.” This devious broker mails a paper newsletter to 10,240 recipients predicting that a certain stock will either rise or fall in the following week. He sends the newsletter for 10 consecutive weeks and is correct in his prediction every week. On the eleventh week, he asks recipients to invest money with him based on his shrewd prescience in selecting stocks to buy or short.

The odds of the Baltimore stockbroker being correct 10 weeks in a row are 1/1024 or 0.00098 (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2). How did he defy such long odds?

On week 1, he sent the newsletter to 10,240 recipients; half were told the stock would rise in the coming week and half were informed the opposite. In week 2, the newsletter went only to the 5,120 people who got the correct prediction the previous week. This winnowing process continued until, after the final newsletter, only 10 people were left who had received a correct prediction every time. Some of them undoubtedly thought the stockbroker was a seer and were likely to rush to “invest.”

In conclusion, as you point out, anybody's individual experience may not be sufficient to infer any particular conclusion.

a reply to: Profusion

I don't read posts from posters who tend to only write about their personal experiences.

I read them.
Often don't find much reason to reply though, if that's the only content. When I do it's more often than not an effort to point out that our perceptions are not necessarily accurate or transferable. More or less what you said. People sometimes don't take well to that.

a reply to: Profusion

how do you know there is 7 billion people in this world. that number is impossible to measure, especially since the people that "count" people are payed government(s) employees, and as we all know the goverment(s) skews numbers to fulfill their agenda.

originally posted by: Profusion

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Profusion

That's why I would say that your experience means everything and nothing simultaneously.

Cool.

Now what?

I don't read posts from posters who tend to only write about their personal experiences. I wish I could elaborate on that but it's against the rules.

I find it kind of ironic that both the OP and your only answer in this thread, are based on YOUR personal experience..

Now, i get what your saying, but, your really only have your own experience to rely on, everything else is just fate.
So what your saying is, that if someone discovers something new, based on his experience, you wont listen to him, before enough people have fate in his statement, not based on personal experiences, just poor fate, then you will listen?

I do have fate! I believe in the "church" of science - but science changes everyday, what you believed yesterday, might not be true tomorrow... So i have to back it up with personal experience, to believe in it, even if its just my own truth..

I think, that if we ALL only believe in faith, nothing would ever change - and does more believers even make it anymore truth? Well, take a look at religion, so many religions, so many believers, they cant all be right, can they??

Iam aware, that so many people in here, just pops into a thread to say something like "Never seen one, so it doesnt exist" with absolutely nothing to back it up, other than their personal truth, wich they often dont elaborate on, but we got a name fore those people - Trolls! and i dont like them anymore than you do, so i just ignore them

Because almost all 7 Billion of us will be departed from this world in 120 years or less, I don't think any of our experiences, or opinions, mean anything at all in the long term.

It's amazing to me how our egos make us spout opinions as if what we think is actually important, when in reality, they mean no more than the opinions of anyone else.

Take ATS for example... There are members here who are extreme in their emotions and opinions. It's probably internally/mentally healthy for us to say what we feel or think, but those thoughts don't carry the weight and influence that we think they do. So, in my opinion (which means nothing!), it's best to keep a cool head and healthy brain by always realizing how miniscule we are. From what I read, some members actually care what other members think of them, and are insulted when attacked, or disagreed with. We should not give other humans the ability to mentally hurt us like that! We're all nothing in the grand scheme.

Whether you have 5 academic degrees, or have led a nation, or are a full-time beggar in the streets, we're all just a drop of water on the windshield that will soon be wiped or evaporated away!
-cwm

I have to be honest so far you are the only person I came across that keeps on continuously saying they have a problem with us.. I never came across a thread that doesn't state that.. the thread always screams you don't care about anyone's opinion (yet you keep pushing yours) and that you are not here for discussion

I had to say it because this is the forth thread
I always hope I come in and see something positive but I never do

I hate conflict but this is starting to frustrate me
It is your thread so I shouldn't biatch here so for that I apologise

I do care about others and their opinion and I would love to know about they personal experience life would be pretty friking boring on my own.. anyway

a reply to: Profusion

I believe you are confusing certain beliefs that are actually mutually exclusive:

a) Only what I experience can be proven by me
b) I can only speculate on what others experience based on their anecdotes
c) Things probably exist outside my mind, but I cannot confirm these things

Can you actually prove to me that there are approximately 7 billion people on planet Earth? Have you personally met all the people on Earth? If not, then your belief that there are approximately 7 billion stems from anecdotal means.

Wow, interesting topic.
Honestly don't know what I think... Sure we're tiny, tiny, tiny in the grand scheme of things, but one could also argue the other side. Our personal experience is the only one that's relative, therefore it is the only perspective that matters at all.
It's our special gift or a great fall that we have realized we are separate from this sort of self renewing natural universe we love in.
It's definitely not only a scientific discussion, but a philosophical one as well. Thank you for opening a new dimension of thought in my lil universe!
Sara

Where does the meaning stop? With the billions and trillions of microbes within our bodies or among the countless stars in the night sky. As I travel around I have never found a place exactly the same as another. Is it all really infinite and the meaning is with the 'now' that we all share.

Anything divided by 0 is described as undefined because it does equal everything and nothing, it is infinite.

I must stop creating you folk.These threads become confusing.

People that have actual experience with anything that is or has been discussed, at least have a valid entry they can make in the collective history of everything. That does not mean they cannot be biased or truth stretched.

As with most events or stories, the chronology of comments and discussions are based upon the first entries made, which are usually sourced as first hand experience.

In the grand scheme of things. Zilch!
Like life itself which is irrelevant, pointless and a downright waste of time. Billions before us could testify to that!
Actually there is very little point to life or being born in the first place. Born to die. Best to skip it.
If life has to end then best it not begin in the first place.
Your experience came and went. Bloody pointless!!