Why do we have the convictions, ideologies and opinions that we do?

[Yetra Flam]

Why is it that two people, with all the facts presented in front of them can see something so completely differently? Does it mean that they're both right? Or does it mean that there is no right?

For example, "I believe in xyz and I don't understand why anyone would think any differently. "
I know that one explanation would be that some people tend to let their experiences/religion/political party affiliation dictate what they believe, but I dont think its that simple. Most people are more complex than that.
When I was younger, I had really strong opinions about things, and was certain that I was right, and would try to understand why anyone would have an opposing view, but I couldn't.
Over time, some of my opinions have changed, a lot. Some of them without me realizing it!

So Ive been trying to understand why this happens. Is it maybe that reality is relative and varies from person to person? I really dont know.

[Bob]

are we talking about opinions about facts, like "god created the earth 6,000 years ago vs. the universe is billions of years old starting with the big bang, p.s. dinosaurs existed, we found the bones", or opinions about moral issues like "abortion is murder vs. no it isn't"?

for the former, i think there must be one correct truth; the reason we disagree over it is because we either haven't conclusively figured out what it is yet, or because the conclusive truth that was discovered disagrees so violently with what we desperately wanted the truth to be, that we choose to disagree with it anyway, ignoring (or brashly misunderstanding) the evidence to the contrary

for moral stuff, well, i don't think there is an objective truth there, that just comes down to what we value and how we value it. sometimes it seems like there must be an objective truth, because there are things that we've (mostly) all agreed are no-brainers: murder's bad, don't fuck your sister, and so on.

i don't believe there are objective, natural rules of morality, no right and wrong, no justice: if you want proof of that, consider the fact that black holes exist, or that on a long enough timeline, the sun will expand and consume us all in a merciless inferno no matter what we do between then and now. the universe doesn't care about right or wrong, or good or bad, those are just rules we've made up on our own. some of them seem obvious to us, some of them we have a harder time agreeing on, as a species i mean

[Yetra Flam]

Yeah, Im talking about both of those things - religious beliefs, and those societal sort of 'grey areas.' To me, these differences in people, especially people from the same area, same generation, similar life experiences is so interesting.
But also stuff like taste in music, movies, interests etc. Like for example right now my boyfriend is watching Squidbillies and thinks its hilarious, but I think its really stupid and unfunny. Why is that? Am I right? Or is stuff like taste unmeasurable?

[Bob]

for stuff like that i don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" outside of what we believe. to say "squidbillies is funny" or "squidbillies isn't funny" is just a shorthand way of saying "i think squidbillies is funny" and "i don't think squidbillies is funny". phrased that way, you're both right, in that you're accurately describing what you believe (and you each have your reasons and your evidence for believing that).

but if you try and frame it as some objective "there is this natural and objective thing called 'funny', and squidbillies is not that thing," i don't think that's the way to go about it

as for what leads someone to have those beliefs, iunno

[Dorothy Wood]

I think people are too sure of themselves when it comes to their own ideologies. Even if you have hard facts to dispute a person, or even just common sense, they are just so fucking sure.

I tend to shy away from political type arguments on facebook anymore, but I'll dabble a bit if I think someone's being a weirdo. Recently, a fb friend of mine posted an article (http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/) that was discussing why so many people have these unfulfilling busy work jobs, and it was pretty interesting. But one of her friends took issue with it, basically saying "no, that's not true, that guy's an idiot". But the author very clearly had much more experience and education than the commenter. I called out the commenter, pretty gently, saying "hey, maybe read it again because you're missing the point". So he got angry and started attacking and using a bunch of big words for no reason and none of it convinced me of anything. It went back and forth for a bit, but I ended with something like, "sorry dude, the author seems really smart and you sound like you didn't even read what he wrote, so no offense, but I'm gonna go with what he said." and it got a couple of likes and he stopped talking.

Then some other dude tried to argue his point (that bullshit jobs don't exist) by saying "well, writing, rocket science and anthropology weren't jobs 100 years ago and people only lived to be 40." Which had nothing to do with anything and is completely false. And I looked at his page and he was a CFO of a company and obviously rich. wtf? In his mind, in 1913 no physical science or writing or studying human history happened yet. Or at least you couldn't do it as a job. And he spoke very confidently as if he made complete sense.

Anyway, I think reality is relative, sure. But I do think that sometimes people choose a reality and convince themselves that it is the only reality. That's where people get angry and things get violent. My reality is that I don't know what is going on and the universe is so vast and crazy that it'd be impossible for me to figure it out, so I don't try. I just observe and do my best to learn every angle to the best of my ability...which seems to be uncommon.

[Waus]

I read something by John Wesley once that made me think. Basically, he wrote nicely about the fact that we all have our own opinions, and we necessarily regard our opinions as true while simultaneously (if we have any modicum of humility) know that we must be wrong about something.

Sometimes I really do believe in objective truth, sometimes I have a hard time. In either case I never believe I possess it exhaustively, you'd have to be pretty arrogant to think you weren't wrong about anything.

Oh, I found the quote:

...although every man necessarily believes that every particular opinion which he holds is true (for to believe any opinion is not true, is the same thing as not to hold it); yet can no man be assured that all his own opinions, taken together, are true. No, every thinking man is assured they are not, seeing humanum est errare et nescire: "To be ignorant of many things, and to mistake in some, is the necessary condition of humanity." This, therefore, he is sensible, is his own case. He knows, in the general, that he himself is mistaken; although in what particulars he mistakes, he does not, perhaps he cannot, know.

[Bob]

I think people are too sure of themselves when it comes to their own ideologies.

yeah, i don't like getting into debates anymore, even about trivial stuff like movies, television, or music, even with friends. everybody's opinion is so goddamned strong, if i'm going to go into a debate with someone i need them to acknowledge the possibility ahead of time that their belief could be wrong (and i'm not saying i succeed all the time, but i try my best to do that too)

it's especially awful in politics. i feel like there's almost no point to debating anymore, nobody's willing to listen or have their mind changed about anything because it's a sign of weakness or something. i go in with my opinion, you go in with yours, and we shout at each other about how right we are until we run out of words and walk away angry and further apart as humans than we were when we started.

the second you start to give, and introspect, and show some sign of "hmm, i never thought about it like that, maybe you have a point", you've lost! you're a loser! i'm the winner! ha! i'm guilty of it too, i'm not saying i'm not, i'm just saying that something's definitely gone wrong with our culture (define "our" as broadly or narrowly as makes sense to you)


back to the objective truth thing: i can only bring myself to believe in it as it applies to facts, things that can be objectively proven true or false. the earth is ____ years old. the universe began when ______. god is _____. the way i see it, there's only one answer that can go into those blanks, and when people disagree about what that answer is, the best case scenario is that all but one of them is wrong (the other scenario is that all of them are wrong). i dunno how you ever know for sure when you're right about those things though. like you said waus, it feels arrogant to me to feel too strongly that you are.

but all the other stuff. abortion is ______. murder is ______. the best kind of spaghetti is _____. we make that stuff up as we go, there's no one answer. some of the answers we make up have more mass appeal than others, but we do make them up. there's nothing wrong with that i don't think; whatever it takes to get us to stop murdering each other, really


that's my opinion anyway, i could be wrong

[Waus]

yeah, i don't like getting into debates anymore, even about trivial stuff like m
but all the other stuff. abortion is ______. murder is ______. the best kind of spaghetti is _____. we make that stuff up as we go, there's no one answer. some of the answers we make up have more mass appeal than others, but we do make them up. there's nothing wrong with that i don't think; whatever it takes to get us to stop murdering each other, really


Right. I just had to read some book about something or other last semester and the author talked a lot about how we separate "value" from "fact" now. He made a pretty good case. The real problem isn't so much that people disagree, it's rather that we have to legislate something. We have to sometimes admit that we have a hard time committing to relative morals when another culture approves of child prostitution some kind of ritual abuse or whatever.

It's a lengthy and involved debate if you try to sort these issues out with anyone who studies ethics, and it's a short shouting match with anyone who doesn't.

I think it's at least a positive sign that people who are committed to being reflective and informed will talk with you for a while about it.

[Bob]

Right. I just had to read some book about something or other last semester and the author talked a lot about how we separate "value" from "fact" now. He made a pretty good case. The real problem isn't so much that people disagree, it's rather that we have to legislate something. We have to sometimes admit that we have a hard time committing to relative morals when another culture approves of child prostitution some kind of ritual abuse or whatever.

It's a lengthy and involved debate if you try to sort these issues out with anyone who studies ethics, and it's a short shouting match with anyone who doesn't.

I think it's at least a positive sign that people who are committed to being reflective and informed will talk with you for a while about it.

yeah, it's hairy. it's easier to pass a law against child prostitution with the grounds of "it's a fact that child prostitution is wrong" than it is to argue "i really, really, really believe that child prostitution is wrong, and i know that most of you do, too, so.....c'mooooonnnnn"

but at the end of the day, i think that in situations of value and morality and what have you, the word "fact" in that first argument is ultimately just a surrogate for the reality of the second one

just to head off any of the standard cultural relativism arguments: i'm not saying that any of the things i'm saying are excuses to turn a blind eye to things like child prostitution, or female genital mutilation, or honor killings, to say "well i guess their culture doesn't think it's wrong so who am i to look down on it?" no, i think that you're totally allowed to consider other cultural values in the light of your own. i'd guess that even in cultures where things like FGM and honor killings are legally allowed, the women aren't crazy about it and would do something about it if they had any power at all—historically, western cultures have been truly terrible to women too, even more than we are now, so let's not pretend that progress doesn't happen or that we aren't allowed to suggest that it should. it's just the "what are you supposed to do about it?" question that gets weird

[Yetra Flam]

I dislike political debate too, it gives me indigestion. A lot of the time it turns into "I'm gonna debate AT you until you relent and agree with what I'm saying."
And I think there's a few people, if you tell them "You will never ever convince the other side of your views" they have a hard time handling that. But why? Isnt that a benefit to us (humans) that we see all things differently?

[MC Moot]

Geography,Parental Effect,Socio Economics,Ethnicity Influence,Educational Process,Religious Indoctrination,Political Disposition,Spiritual Inspiration,Personal Experience,Media Sway...oh and also whether or not you're left handed...and especially which direction your feet point while you sleep...that changes everything...

[abbott]

I love thinking about black holes and how I personally believe our entire universe will be broken down unto its own black hole. It is also a fact that our universe is going to collide with another universe.

During the field trip the the VLA, I loved it when the kid asked "what will happen to earth when our universe collides with another?" and the teacher "dont worry about that, the earth will have been destroyed by that time by our Sun. But, our universe will be mixed together with another."

Anyway, if you will explain the XYZ we are having a problem with I will be happy to explain it to you.

[Documad]

The older I get, the more I despair. Some people are just hopelessly stupid.

There are some things where you can have a differing opinion but there are other things that are right or wrong and I don't want to "debate" those.

[russhie]

Not really sure how this fits in with the discussion so far, but last weekend we stayed with some friends over the weekend and politics was quite heavily discussed as it was election time.

Majority of my friends voted Labour/Rudd (though I believed Shorten would have eventually replaced him) because we have regular employment, believe in marriage equality, have more faith in Rudd as a foreign embassador (especially in regards to asian countries, offering better prospects for a viable and humane refugee solution), and hasn't used the term 'austerity measures' when discussing creation of a budget surplus among a few other things.

Two of my friends in particular voted Liberal / Abbott. Abbott opposes marriage equality, wants to "turn the boats back", believes Australia should enter a period of austerity measures (while simulatenously paying women more to stay at home to have babies) and is anti abortion. He also wants to stop planned increases to superannuation over the coming years and this was the reason for my friends voting his way - they wanted to protect their business from having to pay more super to their employees (currently 9.25% with an increase to 13% - I think - over the next few years).

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but at what point do you look at your country's leadership and think "I'll take the candiate who displays less tendancy towards equality and morality to save my business a few thousand dollars now (but will probably come back to bite me in the bum when Australia's ageing population can't support themselves with their super and become part of the welfare system)".
Is it better to vote based on personal circumstances? Or should we take a broader view and vote for policies that will benefit society beyond our little bubble, even if they don't directly benefit you personally? Not saying they are wrong for voting based on their hip pocket, but it makes for interesting thought.