Is it true to say that if you have a completely open mind, you will never be able to answer a question?

Question

Because there are just too many damn possibilites if you allow yourself to think about it.

Are people that have an answer just unable to see any more possibilities... Is that why theories are proved wrong everyday? Because someone dared to say, you are not as clever as you think you are... Is someone with an answer just admitting that they have reached the limit of their own intelligence?

Answer 1

Good philosophy question - no joke.

I think there are two parts to this answer:

1. Having a truly open mind could mean the willingness to understand and evaluate each possibility as it presents its-self.

2. But (and here we have what is called the "aporia" or "endless regress" of your question) at some point you have to either give up or make a decision and take a stand. Which means you close off competing possibilities.

What we can hope is that the place where one chooses to take a stand is based on intellectual honesty and rigor rather than passion and unexamined beliefs. We can also hope that people are wise enough to understand they don't have all the answers and may be confronted with new information that makes existing positions untenable

Sapere Aude!

Answer 2

Good question.

It depends on how you define "completely open mind". Since there are limitless possiblities, I will have to select my own definition to answer that one.

If someone with a "completely open mind" must consider every possible answer to a question, then some questions must go unanswerd due to the range of answers.

If someone with a "completely open mind" simply refuses to embrace absolutes, they may very well answer a question, but it will likely sound like this:
"well, here's what I would do/I think/I believe, but you have to make your own decision".

I do belive in absolutes, and I'm not very close minded. I used to think that .999... was less than 1, for instance.

Answer 3

You assume an answer is a single thing. Sometimes an answer is a process to allow for an individual's preferences. Since my priorities are different than yours, I might could handle consequences of one kind whereas you might could handle different ones that I wouldn't have chosen.

I answer to put my 2 cents into the pot of perspectives. I edit when my perspective has broadened. And I vote for Hillary when I want someone who admits they can change their mind based on new information. (This opinion is strictly that of this person and should not reflect on the rest of her family or answers in this forum.)

Answer 4

An open strategies does no longer mean popularity of all recommendations, in basic terms attention and putting them on the venture of different recommendations. technology, for occasion, says that there's no longer something particular approximately people and their place in the universe, they are in a position to be analyzed and spoke of as the different merchandise. The Bible assigns a undeniable status to people. whilst thinking those recommendations you carefully word their area, what they're speaking approximately, their conclusions, their strategies, and their history. Does the actuality of one mean the falseness of the different? Are there factors of fact in the two? Can the two be misused? would desire to I make up my strategies stunning now approximately which I desire? would I withhold judgment and in basic terms watch for greater tips? Are they incompatible for on an prevalent basis life or basically for the "huge questions" that don't effect on an prevalent basis life? many stuff that seem so extreme and significant to people, merely do no longer make a distinction. issues that do make a distinction, for some reason, do no longer seem significant.

Answer 5

What is it that's 'open' in an open mind?

A closed-minded person thinks they know the answer... but they are more than JUST someone who thinks they know the answer. After all, someone who changes their answer in the face of new evidence isn't closed-minded at all.

A closed-minded person, then, must also be unwilling to hear any information that might change their answer, or not willing to change their answer even when forced to accept contrary information.

Contrariwise, an open-minded person must give new information a fair hearing. They must not necessarily be swayed by every piece of information - this is foolishness, not open-mindedness. An open-minded person must be willing to adopt a new position.

Now consider this: What is the difference between a person who never changes their position and one who refuses to adopt one in the first place? Neither can be influenced by any amount of data. In a real way, both of them are being just as stubborn. I personally would say they are BOTH closed-minded... just in different ways.

Answer 6

Good question. What it boils down to is...are there absolutes? The skeptic says no - nothing is for sure. So they keep trying to prove, for example, that reindeer don't fly yet leave the door open to that possibility.

There is no possibility. Reindeer do not fly. We know enough to be able to say that with 100% confidence. But those with an 'open mind' won't go there. They have no firm convictions and never really get anywhere. Like you said, they have no answers.

What you want to have is an ACTIVE mind - critically examine ideas...apply them to reality....look at the evidence. Don't give equal status to everything you are told. Don't stagnate in nutrality. If you don't know something, that's fine. Keep researching and thinking.

Answer 7

It may be the limit of my intelligence, but that would still make me smarter for being the snwerer and not the asker....of course, at some point in the past I waould have been the asker so I cannow have an answer..but other questions lead me to question the original answer...so, no, it's not the limit...it's just part of the progression.

Answer 8

What is a correct answer today might possibly be proven to be inaccurate in the future. But the declaration of todays facts are not necessarily an admition of limited knowledge. The answer given today may well be the correct answer, but only time will tell.

Answer 9

"...if you undertake the task of philosophical detection, drop the dangerous little catch phrase which advises you to keep an 'open mind.' This is a very ambiguous term--as demonstrated by a man who once accused a famous politician of having "a wide open mind." That term is an anti-concept: it is usually taken to mean an objective, unbiased approach to ideas, but it is used as a call for perpetual skepticism, for holding no firm convictions and granting plausibility to anything. A 'closed mind' is usually taken to mean the attitude of a man impervious to ideas, arguments, facts and logic, who clings stubornly to some mixture of unwarranted assumptions, fashionable catch phrases, tribal prejudices--and emotions. But this is not a 'closed' mind, it is a *passive* one. It is a mind that has dispensed with (or never acquired) the practice of thinking or judging, and feels threatened by any request to consider anything."
Sooooooooo, you are absolutely correct! 10 points to you!

Answer 10

No one has a completely open mind.
From the day you are born, you learn and you have your own answer, to any question.
As your life progresses, and you gain more knowledge your answerer's will change.
No one has reached the limit of their own intelligence, you will always learn more, this is life!
In this life and the next?????