Ok, so we often disagree around here. It's my foolosophy to take what I can from another mind, eat what I can digest. The spirit is a stomach said Nietzsche. It's a good line.

I've learned bits and pieces here that I hadn't taken the trouble to study as such bits and pieces weren't my specialty. Don't we all have a self-concept to serve? But I conceive myself as a Holy Blob. I'm going to eat your ideas, assimilate them, make them "mine," fit them in with the ideas I already had.
What percentage of "our" ideas were created by us in the first place? (Not that that stops me from trying...)

Thoughts on the matter?

Nothing is new and everything is novel to the observer. We have a duty to listen and refine our opinions. I have not studied philosophy, just observed with attitude.

95 percent I agree, but occasionally someone makes it fresh. no easy matter of course and then originality is only a concern of those who suffer the dreaded anxiety of influence. i confess. i suffer it part time myself.

I hope never to take another's view as gospel and question ever accepted notion. It has caused me no end of problems and has got me evicted from lectures. There must be a clinical expression for my complaint.

Questioning just for the sake of questioning seems to me just a waste of time. You need a positive reason for questioning. Otherwise, it is empty, and what Peirce called, "paper doubt". I would, for example, not waste my time questioning the dictionary on how it spells a term (except if I had a very good reason for doing so). I would take what the dictionary says on spelling as gospel. Extreme skepticism like yours is, I believe, a form of paranoia.

Who said I question for no reason...You of all people should question me about be cantankerous.:perplexed:

I pointed out the distinction between just questioning, and questioning for a positive and definite reason. The idea of just never taking anything "as gospel" raises this issue. I take a lot of things, "as gospel" unless I have some reason for not doing so. How about you?

I take certain things as gospel but not those i find contestable. I thought that was obvious. Your reply was cantankerous, it made assumptions for the sake of a reaction not to invite reason. You are guilty of the crime you accused me of...... Then the trap was easily sprung, sorry about that. :bigsmile:

What percentage of "our" ideas were created by us in the first place? (Not that that stops me from trying...)

Thoughts on the matter?

I think we create many ideas. Usually we create them because of some learned ideas and methods, so they aren't original.

You can solve a riddle, but it's doubtful you'll be the first to solve it.

****

If I remember right, one of the things that distinguishes an expert at something is the ability to recall lots of information about the subject with ease. Like a doctor seeing a set of symptoms and realizing what it points to due to how much he knows about the symptoms and various diseases etc that he can access quickly.

I see the study of philosophy as something similar, the more familiar you are with the various ideas and arguments the more you can bring them to mind when you need them. So being a blob could work out well for you

It is never creation out of nothing. But most of my ideas I just filch in their entirety, and hope no one is looking. I try to disguise them a little, though.

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

- Einstein

Funny. I did not feel cantankerous. I just thought I was pointing something out you had missed. Of course you don't take things as gospel you don't think are gospel. If you had said that, I would not have replied to the post. I would have thought it obviously true. I thought you had written this:

I hope never to take another's view as gospel and question ever accepted notion.

But maybe someone else wrote it when you weren't looking. My mistake.

The diagnosis of paranoia was the object of my reply. Not taking the word of others as gospel, is not paranoia.

Never believing anything people ever assert no matter who they are, or what credentials they have, is a form of paranoia. Take Descartes' resolution to doubt everything that can be doubted. If taken literally (which it shouldn't be in Descartes' case) is what I mean.

Yes but you concluded I had this affliction without scrutiny and you therefore fell foul of your own prognosis. You need to examine the patient before you come to a diagnosis and any doctor worth his scope has to be prudent. Your lack of examination could be called paranoia.

We have emotional reasons for doubt and belief, I think. We are "networks of beliefs and desires." If what a person says is something that strengthens this net, we try to fit it in. If it's threatens this net, we creatively negate it. If one of our beliefs is that it is better in the long run to assimilate rather than reject, we'll go a long way to make an offensive idea digestible. Like Hegel's idea. We pile up the determinate negations. We don't just forget an idea. We take what is good negate the part that doesn't work. Build on the stump.