About Ryustel

About I like to think about conversation, knowledge,
why is that sometimes, we think that something we're told is absurd ?...

++ Excuse my english since I'm young, french, and inexperienced.


I - Why I’m writing to you.
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I have ideas in my head.

We share a language, which is composed of words that make us think about particular things when we hear them.

I want you to see the shape of these ideas in my head, so I pick and order the words we both know to attempt to make you think that shape.

I make assumptions about the way you’ll react when you’ll hear/read those words, and you make assumptions about how I think you’ll react to the words I use.

By working together on a conversation, we will eventually manage to transfer (approximately) this idea from one head to the other.

Once you understand my idea, you can use your own knowledge to evaluate it, and you’ll probably notice things that I didn’t.

You could then make use of language to make me think of the things you noticed, and help me correct or enrich my ideas, the same way I could have helped you before.


II - What we all know about the meaning of life.
===

There are these two things : the feeling of wanting something, and your intention.

There are these times when you wanna eat a cake, but you don’t eat it.
The feeling of hunger is what you feel that you want, while the decision of not eating, decision that results from your thoughts, is your intention.

You always attempt to do what you intend to do.
I said attempt, because you can still miss what you’re undertaking.

We all know that we feel happier when we do what we intend to do. (when what we want to happen happens)
The less we do what we intend to, the more frustrated we become.

Then I could say that we all want to do what we want to do, and that’s what we want to do in our lives, ultimately.

I think we should ask ourselves more often, “what do I wanna achieve by doing what I’m doing ?”


III - How could knowledge help us do what we wanna ?
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When we know something (like “bananas taste bad”), we can use that knowledge to make predictions about the world. (like “if I eat that banana it’ll taste bad”)

When we know something true, we predict reality better, and the consequences of our actions are more like what we thought them to be, so what we want to happen happens, so we’re more satisfied.

On the contrary, some things increase our odds of not doing what we intend to do… (I’m really bad at examples)

* Knowing false facts about reality : (I thought coffee was very salty, I drank one cup wanting to taste something salty, and obviously didn’t get what I wanted)

* Not knowing facts about reality : (if I didn’t know that some fish is poisonous, I could die eating it)

* Not thinking about facts I know : (I know that one street is always crowded and that there is a faster path to my workplace, but I drove in that street anyways because I was in a hurry and didn’t think through)

* Thinking too long about facts I know : (It was very late and I had to find a restaurant. All of them closed by the time I made my mind)


IV - What’s a useful thing to know ?
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Propagation of knowledge…
I know things. But what I know, I either discovered or heard from someone or a media (a book, a video, …).
Those who made the books (or spoke) either discovered by themselves or heard from someone else.

All of the knowledge is eventually discovered.
That discovery can result from senses (sight) and tools (microscopes), from a thought process like deduction / induction (also depends on sensors), or can be made up, like when someone says something completely false just for the lulz.

Anyways, I need to know things. (part III)
So I have to (either or both) trust people or my own thought and sensing capabilities.

But how do I give my trust ?

If I make a prediction, and it doesn’t happen, then my trust in the knowledge I used for predicting will decrease. (for example : ‘I ate a banana, and it tasted good, so my trust in the knowledge “bananas taste bad” gets a lot lower’)

Testing allows us to properly attribute trust to knowledge, see if some knowledge is detrimental to our prediction capabilities.

Otherwise, since we act to do what we intend to (part II), the more something we know proves useful to decide what to do in the real world, the more we tend to trust it, and so the more we tend to use it again to guide our decisions. (why inductive reasoning)

The criteria of Relevancy is very important since it lets us decide which knowledge to test for truthfulness, and which to ignore.
Not testing some knowledge is good for thought efficiency (end of part III) because testing takes time.

Also some knowledge is hard to test, even not testable (“there are invisible intangible unicorns floating into space”).
The less testable it is, the more risk you take assuming it’s true, since you can’t know if it’s wrong.
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Favourite quotations "Relevancy should be considered before truthfulness when evaluating one's statements."

"That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise." (hume)
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