Answerer

But... But many had and have already been living in an unexamined life.

tk

I think the best position to take is simply to doubt everything. Of course, often we'll just need to pick some theory to use for practical purposes, even if it's only an approximation to reality. What I do is to pick the `best' theory (the theory which agrees the most with reality, and requires minimal assumptions). Even then, I still remind myself that the theory isn't necessarily true, just the best I have at the moment.

There are some questions in life which I won't think too much about, simply because if their answer is "no", I'll be lost. E.g. Do I have free will? Does objective reality exist? Can a proposition be both true and false?

Keith Russell

tk said:
I think the best position to take is simply to doubt everything.

Sorry, I doubt that the above is true...

Keith.

Keith Russell

tk said:
"There are some questions in life which I won't think too much about, simply because if their answer is "no", I'll be lost. E.g. Do I have free will? Does objective reality exist? Can a proposition be both true and false?"

Why would you be lost? Reality (whatever and however it is) is what it is. Knowing 'the truth' about reality doesn't change it (or you--as a part of reality) in any way.

So, if you're not lost, why would you become so, just by knowing more than you currently do?

Keith.

99Percent

And the next thing you know, doctors tell you pepperoni causes cancer

Infinity Lover

I think you'd have to ask yourself, whether you'd like to stop liking everything or not.

There's nothing wrong with being a work in progress, we all are, and opinions are there to alter as you learn more.

jofo

I personally think the most important thing to keep in mind is probably "no dogmas" (no, don't say that this is in itself a dogma. I don't think really strict dogmas are possible in the mind anyway, it's just a useful term.)

A dogma is a belief you don't question, perhaps you're not even conscious of it. This of course makes it hard to avoid them, but active looking for them is still better than just accepting them. Of course, dogma *can* be good in practise, but the point is that you don't know that unless you evaluate them. And even if you find that the dogma is working, you don't really need it anyway, because you want to do what's good anyway. After all, things may change.

As long as everything you believe at the moment is still open to criticism, and you're not closing your mind to other possibilities, investigating as soon as you have reason to doubt something, etc, I think you have all the chances of doing well.

Of course, this is very hard to do if you spend large parts of your life in a society where thoughts and opinions that differ from the norm are exceedingly rare; it's always harder to know what you don't see. This is why you must always keep the shadow of a doubt somewhere and consciously evaluate your actions from time to time. Nothing is static; something that worked last time may not work the next.

Not having any opinions is impossible anyway, therefore striving for it seems pointless. Besides, what would life be without them? An opinion is not necessarily dogmatic and as long as it's not, I think they generally do more good than harm.

"An evaluation a day keeps the dogma away!"