July 1, 2010

Personal Life Experience vs. Reason

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During my years' of CFS, I had an experience: whenever I had to mention my health condition, many people simply didn't believe it; whenever I mentioned to children, they accepted it without hesitation. Later I realized, the reason those people didn't believe me was simply because what I said did not apply to their own life experience, and for those children, simply because inside their blank mind they could not find any existent experience to against my assertion.

So I realized, that personal life experience can be "friend" of our reasoning, also can be "enemy", depend how we use it. If we use it as one of sources for our understanding of human nature, a rich life experience can certainly make our thoughts richer, makes us more open-minded; but if we use it as a the ONLY source for our "reasoning", it will certainly limit our vision, make us narrow minded.

Or, should I say, personal life experience without the guide of reason can only limit our thought; only with the guide of reason, it can go beyond personal, becomes knowledge and leads us to open mind, to wisdom.

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4 comments:

  1. I think it's our ideas that limit us, not experience. Experience will always bring us new people, new things, new situations. But our rigid ideas about how things are or should be will always try to squeeze those new things, people, situations into some pre-conceived mold of reality.

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  2. NP, I think, you are speaking of a higher intellectual level... When I wrote this I was more thinking about those who didn't know what "idea" was... lol
    I agree with you anyway. Our ideas (or poor reasoning) can make us fail to see those raw truth displayed by experience crystal clearly in front of us.

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  3. I believe we are limited by our beliefs. We fiercely cling to these beliefs without recognizing that ideas, theories and beliefs are not necessarily truths. They are not sacrosanct and ought to be repeatedly re-examined and replaced if and when when we discover they underlay self sabotaging behaviors.

    The truth is that a belief is not an idea held by the mind; it is an idea that holds the mind. And, we don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.

    Each of us has to face the truth of our lives based on the decisions and belief systems in which we have invested. If we don’t like the results then it is up to us to change, and that’s easier said than done because it’s hard to view yourself objectively and thus understand what to do next to advance our respective goals in life.

    The Eternal Observer is a powerful tool for self-improvement and personal development. The Internal Observer is an aspect of the Self, the part of the psyche capable of self-observation, evaluation and reasoning.

    I'm investing my energy in the Internal Observer to uncover where the limitations I have set for myself come from and to rid myself of any that are no longer useful.

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  4. @TT, thanks for your insightful comments!
    i assume your word "beliefs" doesn't mean only religious beliefs. in this case, it is similar to NP's "ideas", i guess. yes, just because we believe, doesn't mean they are true. it's not easy to keep our minds open.
    i also consider myself internal observer. i consider our inner world is much more complicated than outside side world.

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