IS IT MERELY A PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION?

I see a lot of words like "fight" or "proof" or "expertise", etc. But why is this seen in the spirit of competition, of a fight to win? Why not seen instead in the spirit of exploration? After all, this is an "alternative" board where one can freely ask questions and offer suggestions, nay even speculations, since "against the mainstream" has that implication even in its title. Yet, when people offer ideas, though some are really out there, there seems to be an innate resistance from the start, as if something big is being threatened.

My philosopher friend said to me recently that the reason people have an instinctive aversion to new ideas is because of our limbic system, which is the most primitive portion of the brain programmed to either fight or flee from new situations. Philosophically, I'd rather think that I have some conscious control over this urge, and that I am above the intellectual level of the animal, though they too may have some pretty good smarts. I am not against critique if it is in the spirit of counter-offers, but if it becomes a fight, then the idea of exploration is suppressed. If suppressed, I am philosophically disinclined to offer an idea. The fact that some ideas are so deeply ingrained in us that they constitute our body of belief is a fact. The other fact is that some ideas are truly irritating to others, even coercive. I'd rather look for constructive ideas on which agreement and consensus can be formed rather than antagonism. If an idea must be defended so fiercely that it almost always leads to a fight, then I philosophically must consider the idea flawed at some level. This happened to the dogmas of the Church, where their challenges were repelled aggressively, but when successful these new ideas launched the Renaissance.

I offer that we do not get caught up in our limbic system's urges when contributing to discussion, but rather see others ideas in the spirit of a search, especially if it is ATM.

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Caveat Lector. Experimentum summus judex...