Belief and conviction - a n00b question

[indifferent betty]

i don't like you either   

[Telarus]

It's hard to give a generalized rule when there are so many possible applications. In general, I think more people could benefit from learning to verbally distinguish facts from their opinions. Miscommunication frequently occurs when people say stuff like, "Modern art is crap" when they meant to say "I don't like any of the modern art I've seen". More specific language would resolve a lot of headache for a LOT of people.

But on the other side of the spectrum, when you apply e-prime too much, you end up spending so much time qualifying statements and addressing grammatical minutiae that accuracy becomes an obstacle to communication. Sometimes it seems like the extreme e-prime camp will argue with any statement which isn't so vague that it loses all concrete meaning.

So I think a balance is necessary

I like the direction of this thread. Cram's comments reminded me of the "Do you believe in a soul?" thread, so I'll quote my pertinent comments from that thread:
http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=18406.msg612899

This whole thread is a clusterfuck of semantic tentacle-demon anime porn concepts trading labels like masks to confuse you all.

'Energy' in science (~science: a (meta)language that deals in observer-observed repeatable phenomena) means the ability to do work, to change the environment/subjects of the environment.

But in every day parlance, words can signify into two 'NameSpaces', the objectified-external non-simultaneously-apprehended Universe, and the subjective internally-projected mental-emotional I-space.
...
Words can signify into two 'NameSpaces', the objectified-external non-simultaneously-apprehended Universe, and the subjective internally-projected mental-emotional I-space. And here you are tossing the word 'Semantics' out like it's a fortune-cookie, merely something to ad a cheap joke to for a laugh.

SEMANTICS are the basis of all communication. Pay attention to your semantics, for the spaces between semantics are where the Fnords live.

My no-nonsense neo-pagan not-a-witch friend rolled into one of the local herbariums here in Portland. Upon chatting the cute, dreadlocked pagan behind the counter, said employee says, "Y'know, you really can't trust any of the doctors. Right?"

Stop.

Matrix pan to the right, as the scene flickers and revolves my friend finds herself thinking, "This chick is a fluffy idiot. Of course you have to trust some doctors, or the basis of society begins to breakdown as highly contagious diseases ravage large geographic areas. This person is stoooopid, and I don't need to take her seriously anymore."

Meanwhile, the cute register girl has merely made the semantic mistake of using language that references some imaginary state of 'Reality' where all medical professionals will cut your kidney out to sell on EbayChina, when what she really meant to express was: "Gee, some doctors I've gone to have refused to treat me like a human being, and that makes me Angry. Agree with me and we can hang out, 'cause our memes like each other and we can bitch about the medical profession, except this one cute doctor I saw..yadda, yadda, yadda."

Needless to say my friend left without buying anything, and she kept the grrrArghStoopidItHurts karma back home long enough to complain about it on liveJournal.

But public school and society has taught the cute register girl only to use language that references an external-objective reality and not internal-subjective space, so it goes through the USA2008 Filter and comes out, "Y'know, you really can't trust any of the doctors. Right?"

I figure nearly 40-60% of human miscommunication is due to the participants crunching incoming language signals through the wrong Grid, internal-emotional-I-space or external-nonsimultaneously~apprehended-objective-space. See, cute register girl was still making an accurate statement about part of Universe.... just the part in her brain-sack and meme-collection.

This is one of the most overlooked themes in NLP and most Occult systems, and 'is' the dualism embedded in our language that practices such as Zen sitting and walking meditations (and getting hit with sticks) tries to escape, if ever briefly, from.

WHERE ARE YOU RIGHT NOW

Meme Collections: Gotta Catch them All.
~Hi, I'm Telarus, and I'm a Zenarchist Discordian, Erisian Pope, Illuminatus Primi, and Commodore to the Floating Republic of Mu. This comes in handy as I lounge in New Alamut, discussing LULZ and SRS BSNS with my Discordian, Subgenious, Satanic, Thelemic, Technocculty, Occultnik, Non-Linear, Weird friends. We hit each other with sticks. We're not fluffy and we never wear fuzzy bunny ears, except when we do. We're all Absolutely Infallible, except when we're not. Welcome to the EndGame, Aftermath, 2008. War is a fiction, join a Faction.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

As always Telarus...