User talk:Alcmaeonid

It is clear that if we are to live in harmony with ourselves and with nature, we need to be able to communicate freely in a creative movement in which no one permanently holds to or otherwise defends his own ideas [...] after all, it is easy for each one of us to see that other people are 'blocked' about certain questions, so that w/o being aware of it, they are avoiding the confrontation of contradictions in certain ideas that may be extremely dear to them.

The very nature of such a 'block' is, however, that it is a kind of insensitivity or 'anesthesia' about ones own contradictions. Evidently then, what is crucial is to be aware of the nature of ones own 'blocks'. If one is alert and attentive, he can see for example that whenever certain questions arise, there are fleeting sensations of fear, which push him away from consideration of those questions, and of pleasure, which attract his thoughts and cause them to be occupied with other questions. So one is able to keep away from whatever it is that he thinks may disturb him. And as a result, he can be subtle defending his own ideas, when he supposes that he is really listening to what other people have to say.

David Bohm, On Dialogue