Welcome to the forum. You got my attention, it would be interesting to hear what you have to share, if you are willing.

Don't forget to add smilies to your book!

Welcome to Philforum!
Regards,
John

Where there is life there is hope.
Hope you make this place your home.
Look forward to your decorations.

I just noticed that I made a Freudian slip in the title... site not sight, but both work

So far i'm unable to post a new thread besides this one in the introduction section. I will post here and then will make a new thread once i have the ability.

My document is called "Progression of Understanding." The concepts are all clear to me, yet i'm trying to put it onto paper in such a way that those concepts will be clear to as many as possible. Any feedback is more than welcome.

Here is a section to get started with

Section 2: Knowledge vs. belief

We are full of information. We begin gathering it from the moment we are born. We make choices about the information. Simple things like? the sky is blue, his name is Tim, etc. That's the way it is? it's blue. These are simple because the decision we came to carry's the label. We gather information about ourselves. I'm tall, I'm smart, I'm dumb.
Growing up I was taught that teasing is mean. I was teased at school. I began putting things together. This person is being mean. You aren't mean to people you like, so they must not like me. Why? I haven't been mean to them, I haven't even really talked to them. Here is where I really got busy. It seemed like a bad thing for this to happen. Bad things happen to bad people (more information I had gathered). I must be a bad person. Bad people don't go to Heaven? I'm not going to heaven. All of this came from a decision to believe that teasing is mean. Because I believed it was knowledge, there was no possibility for any other option. Imagine how much different my experience would have been between then and now if I had recognized that belief as it was? a belief, instead of thinking it is knowledge.

Through the pieces I put together, I chose my emotional reaction to the event. How I interpreted the event became my reality, so that is what I responded to? my interpretation of the event, not the event itself. By changing the interpretation of the event, we change the reality of it, and the reaction we have to the event.

So, what information do you really know is 100% accurate? I exist. "I think, therefore I am." Discourse on Method, Part IV 1637 ~ Ren? Descartes. Everything else consists of pieces of information fit together like a puzzle in the most likely places. Move some pieces around and see what you find.

Isaac Newton made a statement near the end of his life that really caught my attention. He said "I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Pioneers are pioneers because they know that they DON'T know much, if anything.

Opening your mind to new possibilities widens your view of the world. Everyone can help each other challenge beliefs. Doing this will assist everyone helped, as well as the one giving the assistance. The more beliefs you recognize in yourself, the more you will be able to recognize in others. (for those who would like to) Recognizing the beliefs in others is only the first step. The next step is to ask them questions. One example I have was told to me by an acquaintance. They told me "I can't do anything by myself!" Quite the belief. The question I asked was "So, who is helping you drive??" There are many questions you can ask? that question was appropriate since they were driving me around. Now to be clear, the idea is to challenge beliefs, not change them. The only thing we have control over is ourselves. All you can do for someone else is plant a seed by giving people a new perspective? a new possibility of reality. The seed will have a hard time breaking the surface if the person? lets call him Bob? is very devoted to the belief which is being challenged. Bob may be so set on the belief that there is no place for the seed to break through. As long as the belief is perceived as knowledge there is no more learning in that area. Viewing that belief as fact will narrow your vision of the world and yourself. Someone who believes that they can't do anything only see the things that are out of their control, if you believe all males are selfish you can't accept it is real or genuine when you see a male help someone, even going out of their way to do so.