Skepticism

Continuing on the idea from my first post, as to the idea that I hold myself responsible for the risk of being wrong...

To risk being wrong puts one in a closer position to being right. If and only if one maintains this tenure can truth come into scope. The strict adherence to a paradigm that considers itself correct leads to stagnation that is unsuitable to maintain healthy systematic integrity. Living systems require healthful input, capable processing, immunological response and filtration, and finally, excretion of non-required material dejecta. So too with ideas...

It is on this note that the idea of skepticism undergoes a semantic schism. It is defined amongst status quo skeptics as an inherent doubt in anything irrational; with irrationality considered a sufficient enough concept to contain anything and everything that has not been explained away already. Ordinary skeptics abide by the ever-so-beneficent scientific guardians of absolute knowledge who have already bequeathed unto us unworthy goyim as much of the fundamental truths that our meager computational brains can handle. Skepticism thus defined becomes adherence to popular scientific opinion. Nothing more nothing less. Let's call this skepticism A.

I, however, am perhaps more skeptical. Seeking to create my own intellectual demarcations, I have to first taste an idea. Chewing it up and getting a good feel of the taste and texture an idea has, I can decide whether it's appropriate for me to ingest. If the idea has a nice flavour, an appropriate toothsome quality, and seems to have nutritive substance to it, then I'll feel good about having eaten that idea. Feeling my existential curiosity temporarily satiated, the idea then passes through my multiple intellectual stomachs that are required for adequate rumination, and eventually my unconscious intestinal tract will extract all the substantive nutritious ideas into my bloodstream and pass the bulk of the matter through my system as waste. Next!

My hungry mind can eat just about anything, so long as it's new, interesting, and will expand my mental frontiers. But that's not to say that everything it eats tastes good, goes down easy, sits well in my stomach, doesn't cause cramping in my guts, or passes through the exit system peacefully. Alas, I have a rugged disposition about me, as well as the capacity to digest even the most vile of concepts without being encumbered by illness or disease of mind. My digestion stays pure as I remain skeptical of everything until I've given it a chance, and everything gets a chance. This is my healthy skepticism, and I call it here, for convenience's sake, skepticism B.

Some pills are hard to swallow, I know, but upon consumption can have drastic effects. Consider, generally, someone who is suspicious of the status quo reality of his or her time and place, whoever, whenever, and wherever they happen to be. If such a skepticism is voiced, that individual has undertaken what has been historically proven to be one of the greatest risks of all. That symbolic act is more often than not met with physical violence. Ordinary people maintain common skepticism by identifying with the status quo and defending it unto the peril death by vanquishing the moral realm of infidels, i.e., to challenge skepticism A, is the highest degree of heresy and one's neighbour will most likely to be the first in line to lynch the offender. This challenge is what is required by a healthy skepticism, that is, skeptical mode B. Thoughtful questions challenge accepted reality, and this is the honest heart of skepticism. Red pill or blue pill? Follow the white rabbit down the rabbit-hole, see how far it goes.

"It is more noble to declare yourself wrong than to maintain you are right, especially when you are right. Only you must be rich enough for it"

- Nietzsche