TwIsTeD Reflections

"The only thing that I know is that I know nothing."

This was a quote from the Socrates. Or so it may seem as there was never any written record of what socrates really said, only through heresay and plato's impression of the man. Plato, Socrates' disciple, relates to us how socrates would associate with the people around him. For one, he was never afraid to tell the truth of how little people knew, especially to 'Sophists'. Or what we like to call them - the Experts.

How he would do so, according to plato, was to pretend, or act, less knowledgeable than the other person. This causes the person, or Sophists to ramble on, when they sense weakness. Complacency typically leads to mistakes and socrates would trap them using their own words and by questioning them. He never told them they were wrong in the face, but by questioning them, let them realise themselves that they were wrong.

This was called socratic irony. By pretending to be less intelligent, you prove the other that they are not as smart too. Which brings us to the opening quote, one of my favourites from Socrates. His belief was that intelligence and knowledge was overrated. people who knew more than others tended to stop learning and give advice, such as the Sophists, when in actual fact they know nothing. In fact, he knows nothing; we know nothing. Cos in relation of what we know, to the information around us, is small and insignificant.

How many of us, take advice from experts and blindly accept it as fact. If the answer is yes, then it is akin to walking around with your eyes closed, relying on 4 senses instead of 5. This blind acceptance, from these so-called Experts, leads us to accept fact too quickly. We do not stop to question if the fact is actually wrong, or if the fact is partially wrong.

How does the scientific community create fact? It goes frm observation to hypotheses to theory and finally a law. In between each stage is many years, and accepted as truth when nobody QUESTIONS the theory.

So when you come to me and have a friendly debate, and pull an expert's opinion out, expect me to say: how do you know he is right? What makes you think he wont make mistakes? Do not read books and pretend that thats the end of the story. For example, do not read psychology books of freudian concepts and accept that it is the only theory around- go into the field, test it.

This is a long post already, and yet i still have tons of things to say on the subject. I am exasperated by people's ignorance, by my friends' ignorance. Why are you so eager to prove the other person wrong based on what little you know? why not keep quiet and question his reasons? And if you have no questions, no REAL questions, then kindly accept it until you have reached a better hypothesis. Knowledge is fluid, not solid. It is changed and affected by people's bias, ignorance, assumption and opinion. Which is a reason why facts change everyday.

Thus the reason to add a widget called 'useless facts' to remind us to learn more, but also understand that facts can be useless. Have fun.