Debating

Lecture contemplations:

I remember one of the lectures on our timetables being directed toward the philosophy and introspective theories behind literature and language. I personally was very interested and excited about attending these lectures, but within 5 minutes it would always fall apart, by the end of the year no more than 4 of us even attended these. I always found my classmate's opinions on this fairly disrespectful; they justified their lack of attendance on the pointlessness of attending when they could be spending that time working on deadlines and essays, fair point to that. It was the end of the year and our work load had piled up, deadlines were drawing close and we all had to rush to get our assignments in and get the grades we desired, however they failed to see that the reason the lectures were so pointless was not entirely to the fault of the lecturer, but the fault of the students for allowing themselves to be caught up in almost always pointless debates with each other, indeed these debates were sparked by our lecturer and he did little to attempt to put his teaching schedule back on track, but at a university level it's the duty of the student as well as the teacher to learn. When the class attendance had been minimised to 4 of us we did actually learn stuff, yes we debated but it was easier to resume topic and take notes when the volume of opinions and discord had been reduced.

Food for though: is it easier to learn via debate when arrogance is taken out of the equation? Or is it the sheer mass of people involved that causes the underlying point to be drowned out? Perhaps the reason our world is thrown into chaos is due to the amount of opinions that the bearers of which retain with such self righteousness. If everyone put forth their opinion regarding it as just that, and actually attempted to learn instead of just making points, more of the humanity's problems and strife's would cease to exist, or be invented in the first place. My perception was that it wasn't due to the small quantity of students attending the lecture, but the fact that the students who chose to remain were there to learn and to reflect, instead of boasting and trying to make themselves heard, that the lecture succeeded in its prospects.

It's easier said than done, well for some anyway. I find it hard to remind myself from time to time that just because I disagree with something, no matter how many disagree with it alongside me, doesn't automatically mean that I'm right. If you're going to debate correctly and yield productive results retaining a self righteous stance and a closed mind will always end in failure. Actually listen and consider the other person's points, and then consider your own response. Even if you cannot see their point of view or reasoning put yourself in their shoes, there's always a reason for the point they're making and trying to understand that reason as well as their point will help you both reach a positive conclusion.

None of the above is truth or fact, it is not a definite answer to issues or arguments, it is merely my perspective on how to appropriately exchange opinions without ensuing chaos, and how to learn from one another. It is all opinion but with that opinion I feel maybe we can better ourselves from it.

Share your opinions, make them heard, but remember they're not the only opinions and they're not automatically correct.

Intro

"What do we know … of the world and the universe about us? Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos, yet other beings with wider, stronger, or different range of senses might not only see very differently the things we see, but might see and study whole worlds of matter, energy, and life which lie close at hand yet can never be detected with the senses we have." - H. P. Lovecraft

The concept of factual reality is little more than fiction, invented by humans to comfort our lack of understanding of the world, and our irrational need to make sense of everything. 
There's a theorised notion of the "other", a nameless, shapeless and indescribable sense, the unknown and a term used to describe all that is indefinable, in short. Reality, and everything that pertains to it is more of a concept than anything else, there is no way to prove the irrefutable existence of reality beyond our own perception. One of the things I love the most about Lovecraft's work is his ability to not only understand this but use it in his literature, to play around with the notion of alternate realities and the fact that there is very little difference between reality and our own imaginations or psyche's.

This will be my main source of influence throughout my script and fiction when creating narrative designs within this blog and hopefully one day in a professional environment. My love of the fantasy genre is nothing new, it has retained a heavy influence throughout my life and toward most aspects of that life, however as much as I love the pseudo medieval fantasy worlds of witches and wizards, dragons, goblins, knights and elves, of the work of writers such as Chaucer, Tolkien, Carroll and the classic fable of Beowulf, my obsession with fantasy goes beyond just that.
Fantasy is, to me, the contrasting concept to reality, anything we identify to not be a part of the "real world" and so with that anything that is either conceived of or embraces the idea that there is no one true reality, or perhaps none at all. I've never believed it made sense to confide one's perception to the status quo of "this is reality" or "that's just how things are" nor to trust one's perception to provide proof to the existence of anything. Not dis-similar to the script and storyline behind The Matrix, though not limited to just that. In other words reality is nothing more than what our brains allow us to experience, there is no way of knowing if the people we talk to, the things we eat, feel, touch etc. are actually there, or what "there" even is.