There is one very valid test by which we may separate genuine, if perverse and unbalanced, originality and revolt from mere impudent innovation and bluff. The man who really thinks he has an idea will always try to explain that idea. The charlatan who has no idea will always confine himself to explaining that it is much too subtle to be explained. The first idea may be really outree or specialist; it may be really difficult to express to ordinary people. But because the man is trying to express it, it is most probable that there is something in it, after all. The honest man is he who is always trying to utter the unutterable, to describe the indescribable; but the quack lives not by plunging into mystery, but by refusing to come out of it.
The man who really thinks he has an idea will always try to explain that idea.
I don’t think that’s the case. There are plenty of shy intellectuals who don’t push their ideas on other people. Darwin sat more than a decade on his big idea.
There are ideas that are about qualia. It doesn’t make much sense to try to explain a blind person what red looks like and the same goes for other ideas that rest of observed qualia instead of resting on theory.
If I believe in a certain idea because I experienced a certain qualia and I have no way of giving you the experience of the same qualia, I can’t explain you the idea.
In some instances I might still try to explain the blind what red looks like but there are also instance where I see it as futile.
One way of teaching certain lessons in buddhism is to give a student a koan that illustrates the lesson and let him meditate over the koan for hours.
I don’t see anything dishonest about teaching certain ideas that way.
If someone thinks about a topic in terms of black and white it just takes time to teach him to see various shades of grey.
G K Chesterton
I don’t think that’s the case. There are plenty of shy intellectuals who don’t push their ideas on other people. Darwin sat more than a decade on his big idea.
There are ideas that are about qualia. It doesn’t make much sense to try to explain a blind person what red looks like and the same goes for other ideas that rest of observed qualia instead of resting on theory. If I believe in a certain idea because I experienced a certain qualia and I have no way of giving you the experience of the same qualia, I can’t explain you the idea. In some instances I might still try to explain the blind what red looks like but there are also instance where I see it as futile.
One way of teaching certain lessons in buddhism is to give a student a koan that illustrates the lesson and let him meditate over the koan for hours. I don’t see anything dishonest about teaching certain ideas that way.
If someone thinks about a topic in terms of black and white it just takes time to teach him to see various shades of grey.