Comments on: Confidence: At the Price of an Open Mind? http://blog.craigdossantos.com/2005/07/15/confidence-at-the-price-of-an-open-mind/ Blog of Craig dos Santos Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:00:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: Kalid http://blog.craigdossantos.com/2005/07/15/confidence-at-the-price-of-an-open-mind/#comment-15 Kalid Tue, 19 Jul 2005 05:26:00 +0000 http://blog.craigdossantos.com/?p=28#comment-15 Interesting post. Regarding confidence vs. keeping an open mind, I try to remember that most of my philosophical beliefs are based on assumptions and my interpretation of my past experience, not absolute "fact". Facts are even hard to find in science, technology, or even math -- we have postulates in geometry, theories of relativity & evolution (well-founded, but not incontrovertibly "proven"), Godel's theorem, etc. So, assumptions aren't bad (you need to start somewhere), but I try to recognize that my assumptions can be different from someone else's. I can feel perfectly content with my own beliefs and not threatened by the beliefs of others. That's how I get around the conundrum, anyway :) Interesting post. Regarding confidence vs. keeping an open mind, I try to remember that most of my philosophical beliefs are based on assumptions and my interpretation of my past experience, not absolute “fact”. Facts are even hard to find in science, technology, or even math — we have postulates in geometry, theories of relativity & evolution (well-founded, but not incontrovertibly “proven”), Godel’s theorem, etc.

So, assumptions aren’t bad (you need to start somewhere), but I try to recognize that my assumptions can be different from someone else’s. I can feel perfectly content with my own beliefs and not threatened by the beliefs of others.

That’s how I get around the conundrum, anyway :)

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