DMT-Nexus forum

Opinion is similar to belief, so we already hold many of them just by being born into our specific culture.
Do they even hold any weight without constantly remembering and setting a value on them?

An angry man running toward you with a knife wouldn't care about your opinion of him.
It feels like our opinions are like scaffolding for our personality to feel in control and in accordance with the culture at large.

Sorry, but that's widely held to not be the case :^)

Anyone got an inkling of where I'm going with this?

If it's something specific, no.

If we all have false beliefs unbeknownst to us, and a fact is only a fact the paradigm generates and substantiates it, and such paradigms are predicated on unverifiable metaphysical assumptions, then how much is a fact any better than a belief?

Everything I said falls into the same scope

IMO it's about usefulness. We can't reach any complete truth, but we can get our imperfect beliefs to be good enough for whatever we may intend. Some of it is already ingrained in our instincts to keep us alive. As they say, "all models are wrong, but some are useful".

Yes yes yes! What we strive for epistemically in an absolute sense may be far removed from our pragmatic uses.

Depends on why someone holds the opinion. If the mass opinion is based off of scientific evidence it would hold much more merit than someone whos opinion is based on personal belief or the constant stream of misinformation we see nowadays.

While i tend to value more thoughtful opinions too, they don't hold anymore objective weight than any other. It doesn't matter what the opinion is based on, it's still an opinion.
Couldn't we say that things that are popularized are based on a collection of personal beliefs. And those color their own bias.

I tend to disagree. I guess it's the difference between agreement and conformity. The mass opinion is that jumping off a cliff is bad and one guy has the opinion that jumping of a cliff is good. I think the mass opinion holds more merit as a means of survival. If people follow the guy off the cliff, that is conformity. I highly doubt I thought this out as thoroughly as you have. Waiting for the slap down.

I'm playing a sticky game, so no slap down. Its all good.
Read my post after the "where" meme (if you haven't) and then see where you stand.
Also, I tend to agree with not jumping off cliffs too, however that's predicated on the idea survival is good

Let's take for example music. There are songs that are more popular than others. Does that mean that they have more merit because more people like them? Some would say yes... I'm saying all the opinions are still opinions and by definition not really better than any other (even saying better brings it into that scope).

I guess you are right there. The United States government used Metallica, Enimem and Deicide at high volume for sleep deprivation torture on prisoners of war. They got Noriega to surrender with Van Halen. Would not work on me, I listen to all these bands at high volume all the time. Oh boy.. but play some new country at high volume and I will tell you whatever you want. Just turn it off!

I am on the left. Void is on the right.

There was a study that I found interesting. They put a bunch of people on a music forum. They thought people would simply pick music they liked. Over time, they noticed people generally tend to drift towards what's most popular or getting the most attention, not really as much what they thought of the music.