Dialogue and monologue

How do I prevent myself from becoming extremely monological in my thinking without spending too much time dialoguing with others about certain subjects? I have absolutely no interest in arguing with someone else over anything, but I also do not wish to satisfy myself with delusions I may have about subjects I care about, such as religion, philosophy and literature. Are the only ways to educate myself argument and debate?

What prompted me to post this was my experience with religious forums (I'm Muslim). People on those websites, and in certain corners of twitter, argue incessantly over creedal issues, political, economical, and social dogmas, as well as over public figures, and which one said this or that horrible/un-Islamic thing, etc. I'm interested in religious creed, and I'm not interested in arguing over it. But yet, how do I learn to justify myself as a Muslim by arguing with other Muslims who will force me to justify every single religious principle I hold to, if social interaction of any sort makes me want to crawl out of my skin? These Muslims can be quite cantankerous, and will try to enslave me to their emotions by using charged and suggestive analogies in order to frighten me (for example: they will say, you can't use these particular words about Allah (God) because they are anthropomorphic; jeez man, have some respect for God! You are making him look as limited as a human being!). Of course, I wouldn't dream of using false language about him, or likening him to any human being, but I do not find these charged enthymemes to be persuasive. Nonetheless, I'm given a whole set of labels (infidel, heretic) while my arguments go under the sink, and my position goes uncorrected.

Even positive engagement with like-minded Muslims distresses me, as I find them to be un-critical, and they seem just as disinterested in slowly going over textual details, and just as interested in using emotional prodding as a tool of disputation, as the other shunning Muslims are.

Most interesting post I've seen in years.

I doubt you can avoid disputation, but you can avoid engaging in it yourself with people.
One way is to watch others dispute, or simply learn from someone that just happens to think differently, which probably would be most people to some degree.
Or you can read, probably older texts, maybe they did more disputations in the past in Islam. I know they did in Christianity.

Lots of it can be done through videos today, so you don't even have to be physically present, which is an added bonus. It's possible to be around people and be non committal, so you can let them do your mistakes for you.

You ever watched a classroom? that is what most people do. They are there, but won't commit to anything, and sometimes refuse to take a position. They will let someone else do it for them and get the consequences.

It's still not as good as doing it yourself, but is probably good enough to avoid what you want to avoid.

Thank you for the response. Spectating dialogues between other people does seem like the only solution, as I can be immanent and yet remain comfortably detached. The only problem with this is that I don't have the luxury to fix the discussion around the facts I want to point out and interpret, which is why, like you said, it would be better for me to include myself.... plus, I have a tendency to become frustrated when I think some point is not being highlighted, while feeling no desire to intervene and make myself known consequently, as other people would happily do to "set the record straight".

How do I achieve certainty? I heard certainty comes with age. The problem I think I've had the last couple of years, since I graduated high school particularly, is that I don't know how to achieve certainty from either medium (dialogue, monologue) on their own. When I talk to myself about a subject i.e. monologue, I constantly heckle myself. It's like one self is pro, and my other self is contra, making my internal world polyphonic, and thus endless, as no one ever shuts up, there being a possible counter-response to any premise. On the flip side, when I talk to someone else about something, like interpreting a scriptural verse for instance, I find the interaction very distressing, especially if the other person is adding nothing to my understanding and is instead saying things in response I could easily say to myself in solitude. I leave with nothing but what my intuition latched itself onto already, and I feel disdain for the fact that I even initiated the fruitless exchange.

Obviously, no one can tell me how to find truth in any context unless I learn to find it myself. Naked introspection however won't do me any good. I need to run into people every now and again who know what they're talking about, and I need to stop entertaining negative half-truths that bubble up to the surface within me every time I examine any position, including my own.

What do you think

Hakma1 wrote:Thank you for the response. Spectating dialogues between other people does seem like the only solution, as I can be immanent and yet remain comfortably detached. The only problem with this is that I don't have the luxury to fix the discussion around the facts I want to point out and interpret, which is why, like you said, it would be better for me to include myself....

It can be done subtly, like in just asking a question. Just try to appear innocent. Like I said to someone else with some similar issue in the past, playing dumb is great strategy. You look harmless and let people fight it off for supremacy. There is always a bigger narc.

Hakma1 wrote: plus, I have a tendency to become frustrated when I think some point is not being highlighted, while feeling no desire to intervene and make myself known consequently, as other people would happily do to "set the record straight".

Right, you might find it frustrating. I am watching a forum right now, one I don't really want to involve myself in. Sure, sometimes I might find it frustrating, and would like to jump in. So you learn patience. If you don't get the answer today, you might tomorrow. Or do the above to steer things in the right direction.

Hakma1 wrote:How do I achieve certainty? I heard certainty comes with age. The problem I think I've had the last couple of years, since I graduated high school particularly, is that I don't know how to achieve certainty from either medium (dialogue, monologue) on their own. When I talk to myself about a subject i.e. monologue, I constantly heckle myself. It's like one self is pro, and my other self is contra, making my internal world polyphonic, and thus endless, as no one ever shuts up, there being a possible counter-response to any premise. On the flip side, when I talk to someone else about something, like interpreting a scriptural verse for instance, I find the interaction very distressing, especially if the other person is adding nothing to my understanding and is instead saying things in response I could easily say to myself in solitude. I leave with nothing but what my intuition latched itself onto already, and I feel disdain for the fact that I even initiated the fruitless exchange.

Mmm, well, not everything is subject to the same certainty. Every science has different levels.
So on one hand you have mathematics, which is certain, but on the other side, plenty of different levels. So there will always be uncertainties because the world is uncertain. But you can come to some certainties about some things.

In philosophy, you want to try and start with first principles, and those are certain. You want things that are always true and start from there. Most of them will be simply true by definition, like a circle is round. It's always true, because not round things are simply not circles. So it's the type of things you want to look for. Then you can deduce things from that.

What you are asking though is more theology. It's a bit the same, except you start with the certainty that the text you are reading is true. That's the first principle. So people will try and deduce things from that, and if there is another passage that says otherwise, since they are true then you have to adjust. You can't really get a complete certainty usually, but a certainty you don't go too astray. It's like being in a sandbox, you may not be sure the castle you are building is right, but you know it is not outside the box. Really only the box is certain, what you do inside it is not. It's like following laws, you will be certain you are no criminal, but does not mean you are a good person or will be successful or anything of the sort, but you will avoid prison.

A lot of it comes from experience though it is true. Many things you may not relate to because you are not there yet, or may never be, but often it happens that something you thought you understood in the past, now that you actually have gone through the experience, you can see the wisdom of it. Context matters quite a bit.

Hakma1 wrote:Obviously, no one can tell me how to find truth in any context unless I learn to find it myself.

Right, exactly. If you read about how to act in a war, and are never in one, it won't mean anything to you, and no manner of explaining will help most likely. So you have to have patience there as well, and know that maybe something is not for you to understand ever, it happens.

Hakma1 wrote:Naked introspection however won't do me any good. I need to run into people every now and again who know what they're talking about, and I need to stop entertaining negative half-truths that bubble up to the surface within me every time I examine any position, including my own.

Right, you need a solid basis, and it is what you seem to be lacking. What I found is that it's not so much truth that you need, because there are plenty out there, but a need to cut off BS. That what I focus on, and it's a full time job already. Half-truths are tricky, because you need to already know the whole truth to know what is missing. That comes with experience and searching.

Hakma1 wrote:What do you think

You seem to be doing fine. Truth is a journey, not a destination.

I read that the scholastics and medieval logicians would pray to God and ask Him daily to show them "the middle term". Ibn Khaldun, as well, told students of philosophy and theology to depend purely on the natural reasoning given to them by the Deity and to trust in His guidance when they find themselves lost in speculative conundrums. It's comforting to know that others have been haunted by logical ambiguities, so much so that they had to appeal to the divine and the eternal.

What you said makes a lot of sense to me. Certainty is gradational after the a prioris and first principles and laws have been established. I can sort of relate this to a quote from Schopenhauer in one of his essays where he said thinkers "as such" agree objectively on most things, but that their differences come from their different vantage points, viz. the differences in the sculptures they make within the sandbox. They agree on the nature of the box they're in, but not on what it is which needs to be done with the sand that lies before them.

I don't want to monologue over you, but because you've been an excellent midwife for my thoughts (thank you), I want to relate a recent experience I had with an English Professor, who I regularly harassed after lectures with philosophical interviews on the function of literature as a whole within culture and other tentative subjects. I asked him how I can achieve textual certainty in regards to literary interpretations, since I found how literary critics are generally unable to agree on the most basic principles of narratology, and on what makes a literary work "good" or a classic. He told me he didn't know how to answer that without telling me that there are objective principles which need to be checked when it comes to writing an essay for his class, but that the thesis of the essay could be anything (pertaining to the literary work); i.e, what makes a work good "to me" can be purely subjective, but when articulated in an academic setting, it needs to be logical in how its delivered.

I immediately thought of this when you shared that analogy about the sandbox. The professor was telling me to color in between the lines, but to use whatever colors piqued my fancy. This was the response of another English professor I asked as well.

The reason I'm on this forum asking these philosophical questions is because I'm under the sneaking suspicious that these issues of mine regarding dialogues are psychological. What I've read about the schizoid disorder in R.D. Laing's phenomenal and behavioral study has helped me better understand certain aspects of my nature, although I'm not one to self-diagnose. I essentially am not able to identify myself with my social persona, which would be the one delivering the arguments and viewpoints I developed privately. This causes me to stress over how to address another's viewpoint in the process of a dialogue, although privately I wouldn't be confronted by that dilemma, because I wouldn't feel socially determined, if that makes sense. In lieu of a dialogue, I quietly take what someone says into my private, internal contemplations, and I examine it myself, giving myself whatever time I need to address the ambiguities of their point of view, instead of addressing it right away through my fake social persona.

I was wondering if any other schizoids felt the same way, or if they could, from their experience with an incredibly complex private persona at odds with their social experience, give me some advice as to how I could understand this conflict better. I've typed a lot so far, so I'll stop, but if any of this incited an idea from you, I'd like to hear it, however tentative it may be.

Hakma1 wrote:I read that the scholastics and medieval logicians would pray to God and ask Him daily to show them "the middle term". Ibn Khaldun, as well, told students of philosophy and theology to depend purely on the natural reasoning given to them by the Deity and to trust in His guidance when they find themselves lost in speculative conundrums. It's comforting to know that others have been haunted by logical ambiguities, so much so that they had to appeal to the divine and the eternal.

Yes. Well, the just middle is basically practical wisdom. So while you might now how to act or what to believe in general, the devil is in the details as they say, so faced with a choice, you need to deliberate on the circumstances, and that is what prayer is about, or it's one type of it. It's also why I said uncertainty is part of the world. It's always in movement and changing, unlike purely abstract things like math. So you have to learn to deal with it. That is one way, but there is no end to that process, so truth is a journey.

Hakma1 wrote:What you said makes a lot of sense to me. Certainty is gradational after the a prioris and first principles and laws have been established. I can sort of relate this to a quote from Schopenhauer in one of his essays where he said thinkers "as such" agree objectively on most things, but that their differences come from their different vantage points, viz. the differences in the sculptures they make within the sandbox. They agree on the nature of the box they're in, but not on what it is which needs to be done with the sand that lies before them.

Right. It's one thing to agree sand castles are good, another how big, how much sand to put in, are there any rooms? also you have to deal with the material at hand. Art is practical, so it deals in uncertainties and contingencies. There is also not only one way, most of the time, otherwise you fall into ideology.

Hakma1 wrote:I don't want to monologue over you, but because you've been an excellent midwife for my thoughts (thank you), I want to relate a recent experience I had with an English Professor, who I regularly harassed after lectures with philosophical interviews on the function of literature as a whole within culture and other tentative subjects. I asked him how I can achieve textual certainty in regards to literary interpretations, since I found how literary critics are generally unable to agree on the most basic principles of narratology, and on what makes a literary work "good" or a classic. He told me he didn't know how to answer that without telling me that there are objective principles which need to be checked when it comes to writing an essay for his class, but that the thesis of the essay could be anything (pertaining to the literary work); i.e, what makes a work good "to me" can be purely subjective, but when articulated in an academic setting, it needs to be logical in how its delivered.

I immediately thought of this when you shared that analogy about the sandbox. The professor was telling me to color in between the lines, but to use whatever colors piqued my fancy. This was the response of another English professor I asked as well.

Yes, it's similar. I don't think it is totally the same though. What he is talking is the method, while I was talking about content. What he is saying is here in his course, he will tell you how to build the castle, like where do you start, and overall what a castle looks like, he is giving you the form, and it's up to you to make it a you wish inside those rules. I gave a similar analogy with the laws, but that is only the moral aspect of it. The sandbox analogy actually deals with material content. Like this is your sand, and it is the sand you are allowed to use for your castle, so don't go steal the sand of another child. Or don't use rocks or earth. This is what you got, and play with it.

That is how I see Sacred Scriptures in general, because there is content, not just rules. It tells you many things, like this word means this and not this for instance. So it teaches you how to speak, gives you definitions. They are building blocks like the sand in the box. It is the matter of the art. I suppose in your example, the teacher was also giving you a book, so that is the matter. You can't look into another book, it's forbidden. Trust me I know, I made that mistake many times.

But, yes, obviously he cannot tell you what a good book is, except inside his course, because his goal is different than what most people have when they read a book. Like what's the goal of it? it can be entertainment, usefulness, just being popular in general, make good sells, pass the test of time, or be done according to some art. So he teaches to do the latter, not the other ones. It's his sandbox.

Sacred Scriptures are like that but on a social scale, they give people or a nation a sandbox to play with so people don't go out and fall off a cliff somewhere looking for material.
With the promise there is enough sand there to make a castle of course.

Hakma1 wrote:The reason I'm on this forum asking these philosophical questions is because I'm under the sneaking suspicious that these issues of mine regarding dialogues are psychological. What I've read about the schizoid disorder in R.D. Laing's phenomenal and behavioral study has helped me better understand certain aspects of my nature, although I'm not one to self-diagnose. I essentially am not able to identify myself with my social persona, which would be the one delivering the arguments and viewpoints I developed privately. This causes me to stress over how to address another's viewpoint in the process of a dialogue, although privately I wouldn't be confronted by that dilemma, because I wouldn't feel socially determined, if that makes sense. In lieu of a dialogue, I quietly take what someone says into my private, internal contemplations, and I examine it myself, giving myself whatever time I need to address the ambiguities of their point of view, instead of addressing it right away through my fake social persona.

Ok, I think I get what you mean generally, but not so much as to know exactly what makes you think it is "fake". Like how you can tell the difference? because it can be a lot of things. Like for instance, it could be you simply are having different beliefs than the people around you, for whatever reason, so you don't "fit", but you might be sane enough to know they are not socially accepted, so you retreat and dialogue with yourself, but can't easily "debate" them because of all the rules, and basically their sandbox which is different than yours. That would be a possibility, but there are also emotional possibilities, like there is no real difference between the two, but you just don't "feel" the social as much as the personal, so there is a lack of embodiment, of commitment, so then you have trouble with the intensity of the exchange with people that are embodies fully. And I am sure there are other possibilities. It might be good for you to figure that out, see what ticks and really is causing the problem.

Hakma1 wrote:I was wondering if any other schizoids felt the same way, or if they could, from their experience with an incredibly complex private persona at odds with their social experience, give me some advice as to how I could understand this conflict better. I've typed a lot so far, so I'll stop, but if any of this incited an idea from you, I'd like to hear it, however tentative it may be.

Well, I think I had to deal with both of the above examples I gave, and I am sure I could come up with more.

But I don't feel anxiety when talking to people or interacting. I do feel lots of pain and it lacks fulfillment, so I have to find my interest somewhere else. Private interests, and I have no idea what others get from it. I think they are sexually aroused or something.

But I am probably not a typical schizoid in that regard. I was born fighting and was raised like that, so destroying argument or finding counters is almost second nature. There is no way I would feel anxiety due to some intellectual debate when in it, but I might if I don't engage or after the fact. It takes me time to figure out if I made mistakes, and so on and so forth, and at some point I might get anxious if it gets serious, like if I am on uncertain ground as you said. And in a way, with some people, you don't know how they will respond emotionally and so on and so forth, so there is always uncertainty there, or of course the possibility you might be missing something entirely and that's the one that terrifies me the most. There is also the fear of non performance, like when it becomes to much and too intense, then it is a problem of breaking down nervously let's say.

But I am not sure if that is what you were talking about. I know in the examples you gave me with the type of people you were describing, I would probably keep it short and simple, and if I am smart enough at the time, I would try and address the emotions instead of the content, because it is all they probably really care about. They want something, and want something from you, it's just about knowing what it is. The rest is just filler.

bit odd but i think it may interest u if we debate on some subjects.

i use to be religious when i was young like 10 years ago for 3 years period and most of that time i spend truing to be certain that i am following the right sect/teaching, i was ever evolving from one group/school to another school of slam, in contrast i was really annoyed how many where stuck for 10 years in the same mindset, like u really think u are that lucky to happen to find the right path right away.

most ppl seemed more into community then actual teaching/value, i got a lot of side eyes from ppl around trying to push me to one sect or another, when they never cared before when i was not religious, to a point where it feel they would rather me be nonreligious then following different sect, its like some odd sense of rejection.

i argued against many different positions bit rusty but have a lot of experience from most sect specially that most Muslim seem to prefer to understand other sects from their own leaders words instead going to the source to make sure u being unbiased, my family, friends and country at large is split between different sects/school thought.

PS: i kinda don't believe in god anymore or i don't believe in other ppl version of god, i don't know if i would call me self ex-muslim, i mean islamically i should but i feel it implies incorrect stuff, i still think it have the best teaching and more grounded in reason then others.
sometimes u might catch me arguing against religion other time u catch me arguing for religion its why i don't like the label ex-muslim.
it assume a default position of "i am not a muslim and would like other to be so"
when it more "i am not sure of anything but more interested in "why u believe in x? then what u believe in?" i would typical go against someone if don't like why he believe in something even if i believe in it myself

msg me here if u interest *mod edit*