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Some systems posit that beliefs are true if they are useful and produce good results. What’s your take on that?

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That is SO well stated Anne. I wish I could grant awards for a geniune great comment. I think, for almost everyone as an observer, and most any system as the observed, that is perfect. I think that almost everything can be approximated and that is almost always sufficient. People do a lot of damage to themselves trying to focus on perfection when they will be best served by progress.

I admire and try to emulate exactly what I think you are describing. It is easy to get off track spending too many cycles worrying about the absolute objective truth of anything. For me, the truth is, we don't know anything with certainty anyhow.

While it is a corny reference, I enjoy a speech that Robert Duvall gives in a movie as a boy is coming of age. He explains to the boy that he is tellling him a story that he needs to hear. The boy dwells on and just wants to know if the story is true. Duvall explains that some things are WORTH believing whether they are true or not. While the movie will win no awards, I liked it b/c of that little speech.

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Author's Confession:

I use some tools to make sure I avoid spelling errors, keep decent sentence structure and my tone I am shooting for is right. A couple of readers have been kind enough to point out my gaps in this one. In truth this post is a bit of a word salad and I couldn't quite figure out how to straighten it out. I hope it made sense to some of you. I think I know what Writer's Block is...

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