Opinions

[Ruth]

Or maybe it might have something to do with you being nuts and speaking a lot of rubbish? Or is that impossible?
Like if someone says "you're wrong" - is that possibly only when a person wants to control you?

I can see that you think (automatically?) that my opinions versus anybody elses must be 'nuts or a lot of rubbish'. This is a very sweeping statement, since you cannot possibly know everyone elses opinion in comparison to mine.

The situation under discussion is most likely an example of lifetimes programing and my reactions to it coupled to my observations and some real live interactions - and as far as I know you weren't there to observe them. Unless you are commenting of something completely different?

Thank you for providing such a wonderful example of one of my favourite conversation stoppers. Do you have much experience doing this in a real live situations?

It seems you have used those sweeping statements which in my previous experience had a tendency to be said in conversations about opinions that some people need to control. The thing is, some people believe that if they can control a person's opinions (as in what they say) then they can control a person, group or situation. I'm not really sure what sort of control these people believe they have, but its certainly worth thinking about. Ortherwise they wouldn't bother doing it.

 

[anart]

Really, are you quite sure about this? A person who is sticking to their opinions etc. and really believes what they say must automatically have:
1. No ability to self-observe and therefore is probably an OP or a psychopath.
2. Absolute faith that they are NEVER wrong.

Actually, you're mistaken here, since from my understanding, Graham didn't say what you are suggesting. He is merely questioning whether or not there may be a connection in the very specific situation where the person who is 'sticking to their opinions' or 'expressing no self-doubt' is, objectively, incorrect. In other words, they are 'sticking to their opinion' even though their opinon is not true and doing so in a manner that exhibits a complete lack of self-doubt.

He posits that in that particular situation, something else may be going on, other than someone just lying for the sake of lying, and he's wondering if a lack of ability for introspection may be a cause of this behavior. If a person has no self-doubt, then they can believe they are right even when they are wrong - is this a function of a lack of ability to understand their own 'machine' - a lack of ability to step outside oneself momentarily to pay close attention to what is really going on inside?

This is the crux of the question because anyone who is able to step outside their own mental and emotional processes to see what might be really going on will experience, at one point or another, significant self-doubt as they realize that not everything that goes on in their head is necessarily 'of them'.

So, that's the question he seems to be asking - osit - hope that makes it a bit more clear.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I think 'opinions' is one of the ways the 'predator' gives us its mind. Because we are totally mechanical, and we cannot truly create anything, the only opinions we have available are those provided for us by the ruling elite. Through these manufactured 'foreign installations', we are controlled. Because we cannot think for ourselves, we become the sheep in G's 'evil magician' tale. We forcefully and emotionally regurgitate only the opinions that we are supposed to believe.

Is O perhaps seeing that for some people self-observation is an impossibility, the faculty is not there? Could this faculty be linked to the function of higher centres in some way, so that for an OP/psychopath there is no way to 'go' there?

I think you're right here. For a psychopath, he wouldn't even know that there was a 'there'. It's like they are 'colour-blind' to certain things, like emotions and self-doubt. So, the fact that they lack higher centers is like a colour-blind man who lacks the right 'parts' to see and interpret colour.

Such people seem to share the no self-doubt thing, and from observation seems in their own mind they are NEVER wrong.

I think this 'type' of person are those who do NOT have an 'informed opinion' (based on facts, and being open to new facts), but instead latches on to one of the 'ruling elite program' opinions and doesn't let go. These people (for example someone who will NOT have a conversation with you because you think a 757 didn't hit the pentagon) obviously have little capacity for self-doubt, because they ignore reality and are not open to even reviewing evidence that might change their mind. These people probably fit into one of these two categories:

1) OPs who do not have the 'organs' for this type of thinking/self-doubt/self-observation
2) non-OPs who are ponerized and programmed to think like OPs

Category 2 has the ability to self-observe, but it is atrophied, and they need shocks to awaken their abilities. There's probably no way this can happen for an OP, though, as they can only go so far in their thinking before hitting a 'brick wall'. (Just like a colour-blind man can differentiate between certain shades, but when it comes to differentiating certain colours, it's impossible.)

However, it's not easy enough just to observe behaviour and label "OP or non-OP". Both OPs and non-OPs can behave the exact same way. It's the old Turing-machine problem, I believe. Even if a computer could answer questions just like a human would, does that mean it 'understands' and 'thinks'? Not necessarily.

 

[jar]

My former boss once told me that it's not whether your opinion is right or wrong it's the confidence you have in that opinion and how you present it that counts. And naturally his opinion, which he often presented as fact to clients, was wrong more than half the time. Now he was telling me this because I have a tendency for self doubt, as I would use phrases like, "I think..." or "I believe" or "Maybe" or "In my opinion", even if I had substantiated my thinking with backup. (Which I guess would no longer be an opinion?) Needless to say I later spent considerable time delicately resolving his opinions with the clients!!

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

Or maybe it might have something to do with you being nuts and speaking a lot of rubbish? Or is that impossible?
Like if someone says "you're wrong" - is that possibly only when a person wants to control you?

I can see that you think (automatically?) that my opinions versus anybody elses must be 'nuts or a lot of rubbish'.

I asked a simple question, I did not in any way suggest that your opinions vs anybody else's must be wrong - what is it that made you think I said that or even implied it in any way? It seems to me that you're seeing incorrectly.

This is a very sweeping statement, since you cannot possibly know everyone elses opinion in comparison to mine.

But it's not a sweeping statement - it's a proposal of an alternative possibility, and an inquiry as to whether you acknowledge the existence of that possibility.

However, what you said does appear to be a "sweeping statement":

No. 1 discussion stopper (for me) is when divergent opinions come up and the response is: "No, that's completely wrong, you are 'nuts' and I've never heard so much rubbish in my life". Haven't figured out a way to get round that one yet... I figure it may have something to do with a person's desire to control others.

The reason for that is because your analysis allows for only one possibility, you do not even consider other possibilities. And when I asked you if you allow for other possibilities and proposed another possibility, you called it a conversation stopper. I truly do not understand your logic.

Thank you for providing such a wonderful example of one of my favourite conversation stoppers. Do you have much experience doing this in a real live situations?

I don't understand why what I said is a "conversation stopper" unless it is your intent to avoid the question, but then, doesn't that make you a conversation stopper, and not me?

It seems that the recurring pattern in any thread where your "opinion" is challenged, is that you completely misunderstand what is being asked and why. Of course you could say that it is I and others who are misunderstanding and whose logic is faulty, not yours. But in the end, this is not a game of dice or luck of the draw. The devil is always in the details. Person A can say "you're wrong" and then Person B can say "no, you're wrong" ad nauseum. But who is to say who is REALLY wrong? To the insane it's everyone else who is insane. Sometimes it IS everyone else who is insane (this group is an example of a sane minority in a pathologically insane world)! But that's where the data and ability to apply logical thinking to the data comes in. If the person has no ability to do this, and yet is convinced that he is, how in the world can he ever know that he's wrong if no one can ever use logic to prove it to him? Of course he can never use his logic to prove THEM wrong either because they see his logic is faulty. Then it turns into a game of pure chance again - that there is no way to determine who is right at all, that it can be either person just as easily. But is that true?

Because then the question arises - how to tell which logic is in fact, objectively correct logic? How to say who is truly critical, and who is not? How to tell who is right, and who is not? Between Person A and Person B above, is there a way, a proven method, that works to determine who is more likely to be right? Or are we forever doomed to only use the logic we have, and never know if that logic is right or wrong so we're forced to just assume it is right because that is the logic we happened to be using? Because then those who are "hopelessly insane" will never ever be able to realise that they're insane - they'll have no reason to ever believe that their "logic" and thinking is faulty, and that someone else's could be correct. But is that really the case - that it is a game of pure chance and accidentally stumbling on objective logic? Or is there a way to determine this and correct our logic? I think there is.

 

[highmystica]

Wow, so much to comment on ... I'll have to streamline this a bit.

I believe that everyone has the right to their opinions, and I see it as unavoidable until we all know more. As it is I hold that opinions are one step short of belief and niether have much merit, if I have either an opinion or a belief that happens to be correct - it is correct for the wrong reasons. One of my irritants is when I offer an opinion it becomes a conversation stopper, when I say opinion it means I DON'T KNOW! And it drives me nuts not to know. Anyway I have noticed that if I use "I think" or "I believe" instead the discussion continues, but those phrases are misused by me in those situations - I haven't based whatever it is that is being discussed in enough objectivity to consider it a thought or enough emotion to consider it a belief. Why is it that opinions become the conversation stopper anyway? I guess people like to disagree with the thoughts and beliefs of others more - oh the joys of an STS reality. Well, thanks to all that have posted on this thread thus far - I now understand something that has been bugging me since high school.

As an aside a couple of weeks ago I described opinions as being like a man drunk in the bar who manages to place a half filled glass of beer on the table so that it is half on and half off the table. Belief is like when the glass falls off the table and he fails to notice and reaches out to grab where the glass used to be. That being said I like the connections between being drunk and opinions - I didn't actually know that - though perhaps on some level unawares I did ... hmm ... perhaps from reading Rumi ... *shruggs*

 

[kenlee]

What I have noticed is that if I am discussing any new ideas with certain people there seems to be a point that they simply will not go beyond and they come to a kind of impasse where they close themselves off to any new facts and ideas and then, like gramophone records they just keep repeating a prerecorded script that they won't go beyond It's as if this script or "thought loop" is the way in which they validate an emotional feeling that have about the subject of discussion and this emotional feeling or 'prejudice' is the energy that drives the thought loop into it's ever repeating ways to validate itself.

Basically its like their thinking process is one big reflex mechanism which says "this is my opinion and this is the way it is only because it is my opinion. Although I am open to new opinions I will have mine and you will have yours".

They are unwilling to use their 'will to think' but rather they become 'willful' and let their thinking be done for them, from some external will. From what I can see it is this reflex mechanism that locks them into a belief system and it is therein that they appear to get their opinions and subsequently, their 'comfort.'

An opinion appears to me to be just an inner reflex that jumps our thinking processes into some kind of comfort zone, since to go beyond our opinions means that we must make an effort of the will 'to think' and this is 'work.' So I see opinions as lazy thinking.

I think there are things that a man has opinions on based on hearsay and then there are things that he may know based on his actual experiences. What he "opinions" to be true seems to be based on this reflex mechanism that 'thinks' for him and then there is what he may actually know based on his making direct correspondences between his inner experiences and how they may correlate with outer circumstances. In the former he is just simply guessing based on aped imitation of other peoples opinions who may have similar emotional prejudices as himself and in the later he may be seeking to establish an actual "relationship of correspondences" between what he thinks he knows to be true and with what he can actually observe in terms of behavioral dynamics in his outer world. But when he begins to defend some emotional attitude that he has about something (an emotional prejudice) then he begins to mix his true experiences with what he "opinions" to be true and then his opinions become certainties. In this way he omits all those things that go contrary to his opinions and beliefs and only allows, thru selective recognition, only those facts that validate his emotional prejudices.

When his reaction machine or 'reflex mechanism' usurps the higher thinking faculties (which are more objective because the higher thinking functions establish a "relationship of correspondences" between his inner and outer worlds) then his higher thinking faculties become dominated by his reaction machine and then his reaction machine isolates itself from his totality and he falls into an entirely subjective state of delusion. He looks for actual facts and seeks to draw false conclusions. A good example of this is Rush Limbaugh where he speaks with such 'certainty' using all kinds of intellectual wiseacring but it is really his reaction machine which is driving his thinking processes. His reaction machine has isolated itself from his human individuality (assuming he has one) and it speaks as if it is his totality speaking for him. He may speak or appear to think like a normal human being with all the sensitivities of a human being but he is driven by primitive childish impulses that allow him to form elaborate mental constructs so as to validate and preserve only his deeper primal primitive motivations that come from the depths of his subconscious.

 

[Ruth]

I asked a simple question, I did not in any way suggest that your opinions vs anybody else's must be wrong - what is it that made you think I said that or even implied it in any way? It seems to me that you're seeing incorrectly.
<snip>
But it's not a sweeping statement - it's a proposal of an alternative possibility, and an inquiry as to whether you acknowledge the existence of that possibility.

Ok, let me 'rephrase'. Most people who hear an opinion they don't like refuse to discuss it and will try to turn the topic either by using 'lets agree to disagree' or by finding fault in the person who has the opinion rather than discussing the opinion itself. In fact, I haven't found many people who do not do this...

Most people I meet and interact with do not seem to be at a level to discuss an opinion, but would rather dismiss, put down or totally rubbish someone with an opinion divergent from there own (presumably in an effort to avoid discussing, thinking or looking objectively at anything). Suggesting that it may be me who's nuts, wrong etc, as an alternative situation, tends to suggest to me that you think I've found innumerable people who don't do that. What are the odds? To be able to discuss opinions with people who are open minded, interested in alternative explanations and are absolutely non-threatened by an opinion that is divergent from there own. Not to mention not manipulated by the Matrix or sts.

I'm not doing too good with that so far. There aren't that many of those people around. This is what made me comment on how strongly opinions are controlled and how often people wish to control others.

So far I have never met or discussed with someone an opinion where the other person, who didn't like what they were hearing, didn't then try to make me the problem rather than what I was saying. Well, with only two exceptions that I can think of.

 

[CarpeDiem]

Most people who hear an opinion they don't like refuse to discuss it and will try to turn the topic either by using 'lets agree to disagree' or by finding fault in the person who has the opinion rather than discussing the opinion itself. [...] Most people I meet and interact with do not seem to be at a level to discuss an opinion

Why to discuss opinions in the first place? It's fruitless imo. Opinions are subjective and based only on our programs, social, parental, educational, religious, etc. conditioning.
Different case is imo when opinion is based on facts, but in this case it becomes a hypothesis and could be discussed. In this case there would be a conflict not of subjective opinions but of facts to discuss. When somebody tells me what he/she thinks of this/that i always immidiately ask: OK, what are concrete facts that your opinion/attitude is based on? Often person immidiately retires, often attacks, sidetracking and bypassing the point of disscussion, trying to "blurr" it.
Ruth, I would like to ask you a question: what is the purpose or goal of discussion in your opinion? Not this particular, in general terms.
I think that we label with the same term "opinion" two intrinstically different phenomena: opinion as a cliche, a wishful thinking, when a person is conditioned by societal programming machine to adopt towards something or someone a programmed attitude; and, on the other side of "opinion" coin, there is an opinion, based on solid facts, as an explanation of nature of these objective phenomena as to how they operate, what is the mechanism, how do separate phenomena coordinated, etc. And there could be a "discussion of opinions" as Ruth wrote, based on wishful thinking and "discussion of opinions" based on facts. So i think "opinion" is a mixed and confusing term.

 

[arkmod]

So i think "opinion" is a mixed and confusing term.

To have a "working hypothesis," and data that support it plus data against it, is "good". To have an "opinion" is "bad" or , at least, "cheap". This is my "working hypotheis". In this particular case I do not have any data against it.

When someone is aksing us: "what is your opinion about ...." - we tend to give an instant answer, because we are being programmed in such a way that to not have an "opinion" is considered to be inappropriate. But we should not submit ourselves to such programming. We should be on guard. On certain subjects we may have "working hypotheses", while on other subjects we do not have enough data to form them. We should be sincere about it.

So, when someone is asking us: "what is your opinion about ..." - it is better to answer: I do not have any opinion, but here is what I know:

a) these are the data that seem to be credible, because they can be double checked and they fit the totality of other data
b) and this is the gossip ....
c) and this is what I know about gossipers

 

[Mikey]

It would be good if all forum members would follow this scheme. I remember lot of discussions full of "IMHO".

 

[ScioAgapeOmnis]

It would be good if all forum members would follow this scheme. I remember lot of discussions full of "IMHO".

But the weird thing is, I always read "IMHO" or "OSIT" as the opposite of "opinion". In other words, I always read it as "This is what the data that I have and my understanding of the data seems to indicate, but this is not my opinion, nor my assumption or belief, and therefore I'm open to being wrong, and open to new data and to corrections of my reading instrument that I used to analyze that data". So the "IMHO" is not used as a "well everyone is entitled to their opinion and this is mine!" (that would be the closing of the mind and discussion), but the direct opposite - as reminder that the mind is open, the conclusion is not "final", and the discussion is completely open.

But the "everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine!" statement seems to have a totally different context, different reason for being said and different meaning. It seems to be a way to avoid having to discuss the data and the logic, and basically means "It doesn't matter what you or anyone says, I already made up my mind on the subject, so just back off - I have the right to make up my mind if I want!". And perhaps that's the meat and potatoes if this thing, the "making up of the mind" aka "closing" of the mind. But when people use "imho" or "osit" in casschat for example, I see that as the opposite - the reminder that the mind is not made up, and the person is open to all new data and discussion.

 

[timothykey]

IMHO> Reality, for most people, is their response to the wrong assumptions they make. As we learn, our old beliefs give way, are modified, so that better constructs may more fully explain the situation we see. All of the individual's knowledge forms only their opinion. Some people's opinions are more reliable than others. It is the opinons of others which can spark insights. Those wild flights of fantasy, which might be true, often flash light into the darkest corners of another's theories. I believe that Gurdjieff often used this technique in this story telling.
"Trick, Semi-Trick and Real Supernatural Phenomena." The audience was invited to distinguish between them and reminded that "the study of the first two was held to be indispensable to the study of the third, since to understand the last a perfectly impartial attitude and a judgment not burdened by pre-established beliefs were necessary.

 

[ark]

When you write "IMHO - that indicates that you do not have enough data to form a working hypothesis. If so, what is the point of having HO at all?

It is much better to avoid O at all, whether H or not. It helps us to avoid running a program. It helps us to become a more conscious human being.

 

[timothykey]

The use of "IMHO" is meant as an indicator of our respect for the opinions of others and our concession that we personally are never 100% correct about anything, but do we have a working hypothises? yes . It minimizes the self importance of the thought offered. If this is unneccessary in the context of this group, perhaps it can be dropped. It is meant as a courteous way of interacting.