Masters of the Game

[Gregorygregg1]

Since joining the philosophy forum, two things have become evident.  First is that my new iPad is ignorant regarding spelling and grammar.  Second is that, being human means we feel the burning need to connect all the information and all the misinformation we have accumulated over our lifetimes into some kind of coherent whole.  How much sense we make depends on two things: the relative proportions of good information and bad information, and the kind of connectors we use to link things.  In our desperation to find links, we most often create them with our imaginations.  Occasionally we have intuitive leaps, which when assessed logically add to the knowledge of man.  The trouble is that we also tend to believe everything we think, so we are not in a position to judge our leaps of logic objectively.  Knowing we are all subject to this same failing we bring our ideas to the forum for validation or refutation.  I believe most of my ideas are bunk, because Most of what I think I know either came from school, books, or experience, and we all know the reliability of these sources.  When I make a hypothesis, and argue for its validity, it is because I can't trust your judgement if it is not expressed logically in terms of information that we can agree is good.  This difficulty is compounded by the fact that new good ideas usually require a different perspective.  It is like a game of chess.  Most of us have been playing by ourselves for a long time.  Here we have the opportunity of testing ourselves against our peers, and sometimes, but rarely against the masters of the game.  I want to play, but I don't expect to win any time soon.

[Keep_Relentless]

Heheh.
Chess is good... another good insight from chess is "Vote Chess". Without extremely strong guidance, any master will, without question or effort, crush the masses, and those among the masses that see the mistakes are marginalised and frustrated. A bit of a blow for democracy, especially since we also vote for our masters, so they are "artificially" inflated/deflated, like most historical figures' influence rankings; if we believed the masses at every turn, we would hail Elvis as the greatest human being of all time. Not to mention asking the fish to vote as well, to use a rather rude analogy. But this is perhaps a tad off-topic, let's veer back...
We are subjective minds, so treating any information objectively goes against nature. But it is just like the concept of "perfection": Our aim is impossible so that in attempting to achieve it we will achieve the greatest possible, which is our "secret aim". Personally, I try my very best to care neither for other's opinions nor my own, and respond only to logic as I see it. Imagination, or intuition (which imagination is a subset of), are necessary to provide all of the data; then as you state comes rational consideration of it. These are natural qualities, and one cannot be blamed for the process. Being able to receive many thoughts alone is objectively useless, it is their application that is useful. But rational conclusions can be horrible with misleading thoughts or misleading "evidence", hence the more thoughts the better, assuming we are not overwhelmed... i.e. The solution to over-calculation is more calculation!
Communication is key, as I hope everybody who has come here understands well... I will give a Stephen Hawking quote that says it all:
"For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen. Speech has allowed the communication of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future. With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking."

[Keep_Relentless]

The main difference between communication and chess is that chess is a competitive, combative game, whereas communication, while also a game played for benefit, can be mutually beneficial, therefore we must co-operate to win, and win together.
But if our wishes definitively do not coincide, no matter how much communication we have, we will turn on each other. That is the main problem, the pessimistic, realistic touch.

[Gregorygregg1]

The main difference between communication and chess is that chess is a competitive, combative game, whereas communication, while also a game played for benefit, can be mutually beneficial, therefore we must co-operate to win, and win together.
But if our wishes definitively do not coincide, no matter how much communication we have, we will turn on each other. That is the main problem, the pessimistic, realistic touch.

I agree, since the common goal is the advancement of human knowledge and/or understanding. The analogy I was making was a game of argument. The premises are our pieces. If the opponent takes your bishop, it is necessary to replace it with a bishop of his own, which you can then use to figure out your next move. It may be to continue the game in light of new information, or to concede and start a new game. Chess players, like philosophers play the game of give and take. Both are games of learning to think, Chess players and philosophers want the opportunity to play with the big boys. Us average guys just hope that with an unusual perspective on things, we might just shake them up enough to make them change their game a bit. if we can, we all win.

[cladking]

All true knowledge is experience.

This is one of the things that made people so powerful before the language became confused; language itself was a sort of experience. It could directly impart experience on some level.

These same problems with seeing what we expect and making connections that are false or not being able to see what we don't expect are not the result of confused language but are hardwired into the species and all animals to some degree. Other animals are more dependent on hardwiring called instinct but suffer the same problems we do.

If you don't know something in your guts or in your bones then you don't really know it.