First, thanks a lot for replying. I love talking to people on this site and these are great questions.
I’m not 100% on what it means for an opinion to be an image of an image.
Now thinking, I firstly should have limited myself to “An image of a belief” instead of “An image of an image”.
An image of a a belief would be something like this. Say you’re at some kind of family friend event, and get to talking about economics.
The person you’re talking to eventually says “I actually believe in trickle down economics, man. I just think that’s the best system for this country, absolutely.”
You reply “Oh, really. Why is that?” and he says “You know man, it’s really just the way things work, like in reality. Hey, you ever listen to Milton Friedman? I like him a lot.” And then the subject quickly changes, or maybe they just speak in vagaries of what Milton believes.
Really, they just have an image of Milton’s opinion. They don’t have anything of their own. I guess you could argue they may have a cached thought, but there’s no doubt some instances where there wasn’t any real opinion formed—the person listened to a few Milton lectures, had a strong feeling at some point watching them, does not remember a single thing from these lectures, but somehow feels as if this is an opinion. Maybe they read a book at some point, maybe they read two, but they never really examined and tested the idea for themselves, though.
I am saying this only because I have been guilty of this myself in the past. Heck, hopefully I’m not doing it now.
If it’s not easily felt, nor easily identified by others, what are the subtle signs to look for
This is a bit tough to answer, admittedly. In the end, I suppose you could look for these
The ability to speak for 5 − 10 minutes about the topic.
The citation of specific examples.
The ability to simply explain a new concept to you, à la Feynman.
The knowledge of the arguments against their opinion.
The admittance to the shortcomings of the position and instances where it cannot fully explain phenomenon.
Also, I say that a corollary to this is that I do not think many people actually have many opinions. They have mostly images.
Also, I am not trying to bash Friedman here. That’s not the point of this post. The specifics of the example really are not as important as the general idea of the person referring to a thinker and then pivoting subjects quickly.
First, thanks a lot for replying. I love talking to people on this site and these are great questions.
I’m not 100% on what it means for an opinion to be an image of an image.
Now thinking, I firstly should have limited myself to “An image of a belief” instead of “An image of an image”.
An image of a a belief would be something like this. Say you’re at some kind of family friend event, and get to talking about economics.
The person you’re talking to eventually says “I actually believe in trickle down economics, man. I just think that’s the best system for this country, absolutely.”
You reply “Oh, really. Why is that?” and he says “You know man, it’s really just the way things work, like in reality. Hey, you ever listen to Milton Friedman? I like him a lot.” And then the subject quickly changes, or maybe they just speak in vagaries of what Milton believes.
Really, they just have an image of Milton’s opinion. They don’t have anything of their own. I guess you could argue they may have a cached thought, but there’s no doubt some instances where there wasn’t any real opinion formed—the person listened to a few Milton lectures, had a strong feeling at some point watching them, does not remember a single thing from these lectures, but somehow feels as if this is an opinion. Maybe they read a book at some point, maybe they read two, but they never really examined and tested the idea for themselves, though.
I am saying this only because I have been guilty of this myself in the past. Heck, hopefully I’m not doing it now.
If it’s not easily felt, nor easily identified by others, what are the subtle signs to look for
This is a bit tough to answer, admittedly. In the end, I suppose you could look for these
The ability to speak for 5 − 10 minutes about the topic.
The citation of specific examples.
The ability to simply explain a new concept to you, à la Feynman.
The knowledge of the arguments against their opinion.
The admittance to the shortcomings of the position and instances where it cannot fully explain phenomenon.
Also, I say that a corollary to this is that I do not think many people actually have many opinions. They have mostly images.
This comment really explains your idea better than the original post
Also, I am not trying to bash Friedman here. That’s not the point of this post. The specifics of the example really are not as important as the general idea of the person referring to a thinker and then pivoting subjects quickly.