Opinions

No, this is not a thread to collect a bunch of opinions, that would be too big.

I don't really understand opinions. I mean, I can understand beliefs and political opinions because they help humans to progress and change and all that shit. But I can't understand why we have opinions on every single thing, from music to food to the smell of oil, it doesn't seem very practical.

But what really amazes me is the apparent need of people to voice their opinions, again, in every single thing. Why do we feel the need to talk to someone about what we think about a single, often trivial topic? Why do some people talk to unknowns about what they think? Is this why forums and open letters exist? Will our heads explode if we don't voice our opinions?

What do you think about this? No, I am not gonna pothole to that...

Because Twilight is the best thing EVER!

Because really, what would we have to talk about if we didn't have opinions on stuff?

I was going to say something, but nobody pays any attention to my opinions :P

In this consensual shared hallucination, I think we want to believe that other people see things the same way we do. "Isn't that a pretty dress?" really means "Is that dress still in style? Am I still in touch? What is the accepted standard of 'pretty' now?" Sharing opinions, in this troper's opinion, is more important than having opinions.

Well, if we don't talk about what we think... what will we talk about?

Yes, sometimes you have to let your opinions out, because if you didn't you would go nuts.

Philosophically speaking, our entire perception of reality is an opinion.

I am one of those people who constantly needs to voice their own opinions. I can't honestly say why, but I can't really understand why others don't. I read something. I form a thought about it. What's the point of making that thought if I can't share it with others? It's...if I had to compare it to anything, I'd compare it to an addiction. I'm not even kidding here. I have to bite my own finger and ground my feet into the floor when I have to take an 'observing' role in the socratic seminars in AP Eng.

edited 17th Mar '11 3:48:31 PM by MrAHR

Sharing opinions is a good way to expand your own.

Philosophically speaking, tautological cat is tautological.

edited 17th Mar '11 3:49:45 PM by Tzetze

In my opinion, I exist. Therefore I go on with my life as usual.

Those are things people experience regularly. Most people do not, however, have opinions on, for example, the White Army's wartime conduct, or how important glial cells are to cognition, or the legitimacy of the coup in Niger, or whether silicon-based lifeforms are possible, or any number of things. Personally I think it's kind of weird when people have opinions on things they don't regularly experience.

Why do we share opinions: Because we find it amusing. It's not complicated rocket science. Now why we find it amusing is a harder question.

Exchanging opinions is also, basically, learning. Which is just humanity's shtick, evolutionary speaking.

I think "humanity's evolutionary shtick" is tool-use, actually.

I think humanity's evolutionary shtick is language and the ability to share knowledge. So, yeah, I guess opinions kind of are part of that.

edited 17th Mar '11 5:28:05 PM by LoniJay

you're both wrong

humanity's evoltionary sctick is the ability to formulate on an abstract level beyond that needed for survival (or that level of abstraction really is necessary for survival, which would make us all a bit like Mickey Bricks compared to the rest of terrestrial life)

I think humanity's evolutionary shtick is the ability to form complex models of reality in our heads, share knowledge and use tools.

edited 17th Mar '11 5:44:13 PM by LoveHappiness

Optimistically speaking, expressing opinion with others can improve our knowledge and view upon the world by exchanging information and making corrections accordingly.

Pessimistically speaking, expressing opinion with others is a method to turn others into your liking way of thinking, thus making them part of your "party". At the end, it is to make more people to agree with you and your world view.

Then, we share opinions so we can have more opinions? Like some kind of Pokemon game or something? But if so, what about close-minded people who doesn't want to change their opinions? Are opinions like vestigial organs to them?

Also, I am interested in this "addiction to voice opinions" thing. Is this why forums and internet and anonymity and letters and yearbooks exist? What happens if a person addicted to opinions can't voice them?

The opinions build up in their heads and explode! Or, in the few cases when they've been oppressed enough for that to be possible, they do underground things.

Basically, I guess we are coded that way, since more knowledge (there are quite a grey area between it and opinion) usually translates to better survival and mating rate, I guess it would be plausible to have it coded into our nature, if you're into it. Moreover, collecting information from others to know better about the world is basically how our learning system works.

edited 17th Mar '11 6:01:20 PM by renovalino

Damn tautological cat...it's so...Shaped Like Itself. So annoying.