The Four Corners of Doubt

Suppose a new concept, edict, or law comes your way. In simplified terms, you have four options, rejection, acceptance, understanding, and belief. The “pusher” to anyone of these is your degree of doubt. Total doubt leads to rejection, while absolutely no doubt (or certainty) leads to belief. I’m not convinced the latter is absurd as claimed by Voltaire, as total belief a necessary state for the creation of or proof of new ideas.

Others prefer to understand or at least try to understand the condition at hand. This illustrates partial doubt but a measure of conviction necessary for understanding. Finally, a state of resident doubt but required compliance leads us to acceptance. For example, in your work you may accept some rules of the employers but neither believe nor understand them. In politics, you will see much belief and rejection but little understanding. Many simply accept what is promoted.

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Accepting Fake Information

Every day, we are all bombarded with information, especially on news channels. One group claims it's false; another calls it the truth. How can we know when to accept it or alternatively how can we know it's false? There are several factors which influence acceptance of fake or false information. Here are the big four. Some just don’t have the knowledge to discern fact/truth from fiction/fact/false*. Some fake information is cleverly disguised and simply appears to be correct. Some fake information is accepted because the person wants to believe it. Some fake information is accepted because there is no other information to the contrary. However, the acceptance of information of any kind become a kind of truth , and this is a well studied topic. In the link below is an essay on “The Truth About Truth.” This shows simply that what is your point of view, different types of information are generally accepted, fake or not. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/g-donald-allen-420b03

Problem-Solving - Obsession

Problem-Solving - Obsession Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "Economy," 1854. Introduction . Many facets of problem-solving are well-known and understood. They range from vast knowledge to critical thinking, to intuition, to insight, and to experience. Today, we add a characteristic, though an important ingredient. It’s more like a condiment-to-food, or a sauce to a delicacy. It’s needed though sometimes not essential. It is mostly helpful with big problems, difficult problems, or imossible problems. It is the quality of obsession. Each of us has experienced obsession in one form or another and is often relieved when the problem is solved. One literally leaves oneself becoming an engine driven to resolve the matter. Obsession is an all-consuming state of mind, possessive, jealous of distractions, and impervious to interruptions. T

Your Brain Within Your Brain

Your Bicameral Brain by Don Allen Have you ever gone to another room to get something, but when you got there you forgot what you were after? Have you ever experienced a flash of insight, but when you went to look it up online, you couldn’t even remember the keyword? You think you forgot it completely. How can it happen so fast? You worry your memory is failing. Are you merely absent-minded? You try to be amused. But maybe you didn’t forget. Just maybe that flash of insight, clear and present for an instant, was never given in the verbal form, but another type of intelligence you possess, that you use, and that communicates only to you. We are trained to live in a verbal world, where words matter most. Aside from emotions, we are unable to conjure up other, nonverbal, forms of intelligence we primitively, pre-verbally, possess but don’t know how to use. Alas, we live in a world of words, stewing in the alphabet, sleeping under pages of paragraphs, almost ignoring one of

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