[Talthyr Malkaviel]

Originally posted by Sir Michael: From Moraine: quote: I stand by what I said, you base your statements on unsaid assumptions which you do not even think about before you talk. This prevents you from considering others may not share these assumptions. Doing thus, you deny yourself the beauty of the human diversity, and you deny yourself the possibility to be enlightened by other people's views. That's how one gets richer, by allowing oneself to see greater pictures by looking at things from the wider number of angles. You are not controlling your own mind, Dramnek, it is controlling you.

In Dramnek's defense, I must disagree with your statements. I think his arguments have evinced a lot of thought and careful consideration of the words that he would write here. I think you've confused disagreement with certain opinions, and his insistence on one world-view, with an inability to see others. I am also a very opinionated person who is convinced his way is right, but that doesn't mean I don't consider other options and views, before either changing or coming to the conclusion that mine is right. BTW, he seems perfectly in control of his mind to me. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that he is insane, which I highly doubt.

BTW, I am not a philosopher, but it seems to me that "4+4=8" isn't so much a truth as a shared understanding we've developed amongst ourselves to make our lives easier. As in ...

[img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] + [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] = [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]
2 + 2 = 4

But what if we all agreed that 2+2=5? Then "5" would represent the four happy faces, and perhaps "4" would represent five happy faces. The point is that the number of objects remains the same, but our designation of them is completely arbitrary.[/QUOTE]Yup, that's what I tried to say earlier but I had a headache and was getting confuddled so it probably sounded odd and muddled.