Not gain knowledge or gain the right knowledge or even think better, because those are constrained to certain assumptions. I want to escape illusions. How do I do that and get better at that?
Not gain knowledge or gain the right knowledge or even think better, because those are constrained to certain assumptions. I want to escape illusions. How do I do that and get better at that?
This assumes that ideas have a central significance. I suspect that this is an illusion of perspective.
Step two: Try not to be so pretentious and closed-minded.
Being “smart” comes from the ability to see the world from other perspectives. Perspective is the gift books give us, and the reason you’ll get “smarter” from reading them. You gain nothing from taking the easy route and writing these sorts of things off as “beneath you.”
right back at you
If you’re truly looking for some grand “Truth” of the world, the only people that can provide that to you are religions and con-men. So my honest advice in that case would be to go to your choice of religious gathering and talk to the people there.
Not looking for truth so much as a method for getting truth. Even the finest logic is only as good as its assumptions. And even the finest ideas are just ideas.
At the end of the day, you’re right - we can only perceive the world from our own flawed perspective. There’s no guarantee to anything, hence Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes struggled with the same foundational thoughts about the world that you seem to be struggling with, and he wrote books to pass on his conclusions to us.
There are, in fact, many people that have had these same struggles throughout history, and there are whole branches of philosophy and logic to address exactly what you’re talking about here.
But the only way to learn what they’ve found is to read what they wrote (or I guess to consume some other media explaining it).
It’s your refusal to seek out and accept this knowledge that makes me worry that you may have symptoms of schizophrenia. I know people dealing with this, and the way you talk about the world being “illusions” and your desire to be “smart” (using an alternative definition) sounds exactly like something they might say. I’m not trying to be an asshole, I just want you to be aware it might be worth looking into, just in case.
That, or you’re 14. I guess that could also do it.
Ouch. My ego.
Surely there are methods for modifying your perspective in a less-than-biased way.
If perspective is illusory, then learning more subjective perspectives will help you see commonalities and find additional ways to address them.
You may not believe that the writer has valid perspectives, but you will learn more about how perspectives are presented.
I don’t mean that the writer might have invalid perspectives, I mean that the assertion that ideas have a central importance is itself an error of perspective. Thinking might not matter as much as we think it does.
Wow you are truly insufferable, aren’t ya?
I’m playing it dead straight. It is you who is the source of any suffering here.