A discussion in Sociology, as well as my Speech class made me questioned humanity.

One of my professors stated the following, and I did take careful notes on this:

2 big problems with common sense:
1) Flexbility
-can go in either good or bad directions*

2) Belief
-Basic beliefs about society.. is that you don't question it. You are forced to take things as it is. Things are given to you, you just in-take it into your head

* = Example, there's 2 armies. Imagine this carefully, one army has 12 members. This army is easier to gain rankings and advance, etc. The second army has 6 people, however, they may be a more knit-tight family. This army is harder to up your own ranking.

Put this in perspective, you might ask "What are you getting at?". Here's what I'm trying to explain, which army is it easier to gain troops-morale? Why?

Correct answer is, both are easy. Because 1st army is easy to gain rankings and go up the ladder, that's a great motivation. 2nd army on the other hand, has more meaning to it. If you were to advance, you'd feel more of an accomplishment.

You should be asking yourself this, which of the two is common-sense? They both are, that's the answer to it. Common-sense really is not that common.

Here's what I think. As far as beliefs goes, if a child in class were forced to learn "1+1 = 2", the child cannot say "Teacher, you are wrong. Why is that 1+1 is 2?", the teacher will say "Henry, the answer is two. That is just the answer", and will attempt to demonstrate it to the child.

Sometimes, this can be applied in other situations as well. There is a saying that goes "Not everything is written in stone", to me, this demonstrates a lot. Nothing is solid and profound, you have to be willing to ask questions, such as "Why?" and "How?". We as humans, tends to take things in as it is, and never question enough, or question at all.

Back during my College days, I would always ask "Why is that so?" to some of my teachers, not to be arrogant or smart-assed, but I enjoy asking to gain knowledge. I would even question my own teacher's logics. Some of them, will gladly admit that they are not always right.

I'm sure somebody is going to disagree with me in this thread.

PS: In fact, I think answers and truths can only be found by asking questions. If you do not ask, you do not learn. You must question everything in life. One does not gain knowledge by assuming one knows everything. Because of the intensity of my questions in class today, I had the professor raising his eyebrow saying..

"Ken, you brought up a good point, I'll have to get back to you on that during the next class' lecture"

Er, 1 + 1 = 2, because that's either a definition or a result of a definition, not because one believe it or not. It's true because we've defined it that way. It's like saying "I set x = 100", and then somebody comes up with the question why they do that. It's to either explain a point or to explain mathematical definitions.

And answers and truths can not be found with only questions and answers. That would mean that the first human knew everything. Mathematicians/Physicians are also a counterexample to that. Einstein didn't just ask the question to someone who already knew it.

Though that being said, some topics, like history, are based on lies. I doubt you could teach kids recent history without teaching them lies, because practically everyone who has anything to say about it has some kind of spin to put on it.

Though, in every period, people believed things that were just ridiculous, and believed them so strongly that you would have gotten in terrible trouble for saying otherwise. Our period is no different. But there is a difference between belief and truth (Math = absolute).

Math is absolute, I agree with that. Maybe I shouldn't have used math as an example, but you get the idea.

/saving post for later, I'll probably edit this whenever I'm out of this crappy Economics-class.

This is one of those things that would explode your head if you thought to deeply about it.

Technically math was invented. The world could exist without it, though this is completely unconcievable at the moment, and I won't even try to venture into it.

Think of it as the object of money. We don't need money. It's simply paper we put value on. There are no fees and expenses, they've all been made-up. Nothing says we can't run this world without money. We could build things, and there'd be no expenses, because money didn't exist. But, we can't because of human greed.

This is one of those things that would explode your head if you thought to deeply about it.

Technically math was invented. The world could exist without it, though this is completely unconcievable at the moment, and I won't even try to venture into it.

Think of it as the object of money. We don't need money. It's simply paper we put value on. There are no fees and expenses, they've all been made-up. Nothing says we can't run this world without money. We could build things, and there'd be no expenses, because money didn't exist. But, we can't because of human greed.

Practically, theoretically and technically, math was invented through axioms. The world exist perfectly fine without it, but what has that to do with its absoluteness?

And it is debatable whether money were made because of human greed or not. It's a very efficient way of trading items indirectly you see. If you had to get a house, you would need to trade a car and other items. You would not have a bank, but a storage of valuable items. And how would you pay your bills and get your wages if you did not have money? Through items. It would require so extremely much more work to do it that way, and that's where money comes in: It's undoubtedly a way more efficient way of doing things.

No trading at all, you say? Just giving away stuff to others? Hello, communism.

Practically, theoretically and technically, math was invented through axioms. The world exist perfectly fine without it, but what has that to do with its absoluteness?

And it is debatable whether money were made because of human greed or not. It's a very efficient way of trading items indirectly you see. If you had to get a house, you would need to trade a car and other items. You would not have a bank, but a storage of valuable items. And how would you pay your bills and get your wages if you did not have money? Through items. It would require so extremely much more work to do it that way, and that's where money comes in: It's undoubtedly a way more efficient way of doing things.

No trading at all, you say? Just giving away stuff to others? Hello, communism.

But you speak of communism as such a negative thing. Doctors wouldnt get paid more in our society if money wasnt an issue in the first place. Who says that everyjob isnt equal, everything in the world is equal, it's all in how we view it. But how we view it is all based on how we were raised and how the media brainwashed us.

Sorry if that made no sense, i can't really put it into words.

But you speak of communism as such a negative thing. Doctors wouldnt get paid more in our society if money wasnt an issue in the first place. Who says that everyjob isnt equal, everything in the world is equal, it's all in how we view it. But how we view it is all based on how we were raised and how the media brainwashed us.

Sorry if that made no sense, i can't really put it into words.

Pure Communism in itself is the best type of government, except it is impossible to have that because humans want more based on how much they do, and want reward for their risk. Doctors get payed more because they are PLAYING WITH YOUR LIFE. They have to be able to make a dying body stop dying, which is something I doubt any person off the street could do. You get paid based off the amount of difficulty in your job, and what it means you have to do. I highly doubt that you could rate a doctor and a janitor as "equal" in job status.

Pure Communism in itself is the best type of government, except it is impossible to have that because humans want more based on how much they do, and want reward for their risk. Doctors get payed more because they are PLAYING WITH YOUR LIFE. They have to be able to make a dying body stop dying, which is something I doubt any person off the street could do. You get paid based off the amount of difficulty in your job, and what it means you have to do. I highly doubt that you could rate a doctor and a janitor as "equal" in job status.

I understand what you're saying but what I mean is it's a job and yes they have the ability to save lives but..ugh i really cant say this in words...

But you speak of communism as such a negative thing. Doctors wouldnt get paid more in our society if money wasnt an issue in the first place. Who says that everyjob isnt equal, everything in the world is equal, it's all in how we view it. But how we view it is all based on how we were raised and how the media brainwashed us.

Sorry if that made no sense, i can't really put it into words.

Makes sense, but why work harder for something when you can do nothing and gain the same? Money helps because supply and demand indirectly forces people to work with things they wouldn't want to if their pay was equal to something else. And that helps innovation too. If it weren't for this, we'd most likely be stuck in the medieval age.

And answers and truths can not be found with only questions and answers. That would mean that the first human knew everything. Mathematicians/Physicians are also a counterexample to that. Einstein didn't just ask the question to someone who already knew it.

But Einstein did ask questions, at least in the way Khoi suggested. He questioned whether classical physics was the end-all to the universe. He wanted to know more, and there was no one to ask about it, so he went and did his work and came up with theory of relativity and etc.

But Einstein did ask questions, at least in the way Khoi suggested. He questioned whether classical physics was the end-all to the universe. He wanted to know more, and there was no one to ask about it, so he went and did his work and came up with theory of relativity and etc.

There are things that cannot be explained with our current scientific knowledge. It's a well accepted fact that we don't know everything. However, that doesn't mean we should just give up on trying to explain something until it can be explained with 100% certainty. We have theories on how things work, and these theories are generally accepted as a whole unless something that makes more sense comes up. We know there are solid objects, and know their composition, so accept that for now.

I think I see where Khoi is getting at. A better example may be something from the past. For instance, when people thought the Earth was flat. Well, they had nothing to prove Earth wasn't flat, and it certainly seems as if it is. They had more evidence pointing to a flat planet than a round one. The science they had at the time could only prove that much, but it was widely accepted by everyone because they grew up with that in mind.

Obviously, today we know this isn't true. But that has to make you wonder how many theories we have today that will be laughed upon far into the future.

"Haha, those blungerzilts actually believed in something as dumb as atoms."
"YAWIKKO, sklues! Have a look at this! They had to go to these buildings called 'school' every day to learn!"
"OHAHAHHAHAHA, zap me another learn capsule my dear likka, I want to learn more about 2000"

But Einstein did ask questions, at least in the way Khoi suggested. He questioned whether classical physics was the end-all to the universe. He wanted to know more, and there was no one to ask about it, so he went and did his work and came up with theory of relativity and etc.

I see. What I thought he meant, was that there was someone who already knew the answer. Which is bogus.

I see. What I thought he meant, was that there was someone who already knew the answer. Which is bogus.

No, not what I meant at all. I meant 'reaching out' for the answer. I didn't mean it by the literal definition of asking.

I think I see where Khoi is getting at. A better example may be something from the past. For instance, when people thought the Earth was flat. Well, they had nothing to prove Earth wasn't flat, and it certainly seems as if it is. They had more evidence pointing to a flat planet than a round one. The science they had at the time could only prove that much, but it was widely accepted by everyone because they grew up with that in mind.

Bingo, bingo, bingo~. Correct. People from the old days thought the Earth was flat, because they all agreed to it that.. the Earth was flat. Once they found out the Earth was indeed a 'circle', everyone says "Ah, it's a circle, the Earth is not flat". I guess if you put this in a different perspective, perhaps Christopher Columbus wanted to know the answer. So he seeked it by asking himself, by reaching out for that answer. Though in my readings, it seems more like an accidental occurrence because the guy just got lucky -shrug-.

Is this along the lines of: " I taught my kid that what we call blue is actually called Purple, and what we call green is, to him, red; Does that make it true?" ?