Hi Andris,

You would make a good teacher.

You are patient, kind, and have something to say.

Rare qualities.

a critical source of learning for me has been 45 years of training in and practice of Yoga.
Andris,
My sources of learning for me were seeing reality by living in reality & surrounded by it ! Real people good & not so good !
I practised work in essential service industry ! At times my work was as contorted as some Yoga positions due to insipid bureaudroids & mostly child engineers being dumped on us !

Hi Andris,

Thanks for the discussion,

Throughout life we change our minds a million times over. Its through learned experience in the form of discussion and reasoning, through contact with others, influenced by teachers, writers, scholars, friends, family, acquaintances, public figures, a whole myriad of sources that influences use and thus results in a "change of mind". Unless one lives in isolation one can not help but be influenced, even in isolation a person will learn from "doing" and change their mind. Communication through the spoken, written, and these days the electronic word, serve to influence our views and opinions. Often we purposely seek knowledge from others through "education" so we can hopefully better understand, other times it comes upon us by accident, and sometimes from very unlikely sources. Not that all such influences are for the good, they can be very destructive as well.

Ignorance through irrational preconceived ideas is a danger, it can lead to mistakes being made in life, bigotry, hatred, violence etc on a micro and sometimes a macro scale, from the individual level to the whole of society. These mistakes are often the result of ignorance and irrational opinions, purposely peddled by some to satisfy their agenda of influencing others to their way of thinking.

mistakes are often the result of ignorance and irrational opinions, purposely peddled by some to satisfy their agenda of influencing others to their way of thinking.
Paul1405,
Yes, such as ideology & its failure to overrule natural instinct !

The only thing that could or should change my views on anything is new data, new facts.

So a discussion or series o discussions might change my opinion on this or that issue if it elicits new information or, more interestingly, if the discussion reveals new ways to look at or understand already known facts.

For example, back in the 1990s I was really quite well versed in the facts and data around climate change. But it was a book called "The Greenhouse Trap" by a great Australian named John Daly, which looked at that same data in a ways I hadn't considered or seen before that started me on a path of a new understanding of the science and my current views on AGW.

A discussion can also help to refine your own view. Often putting pen to paper, so to speak, causes you to critically analyse views that you've formed but which are perhaps somewhat vague.

That is why I inhabit sites like this. Firstly to look for gems of new information or new ways at looking at known information. Second, as a means to record and formalise my opinions on this or that issue. And finally as a means to keep track of the changes in my views. I have a searchable database of every post I've put up here, in this site's previous iteration and in similar sites via which I can check my past writings and understandings and compare and contrast with my current views .

The following link is an interesting read:

http://www.nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/facts-dont-change-peoples-minds-heres/16242/