Comments and Cognitive Reverie

One of the problems, which incidentally is simultaneously a blessing, when I dutifully post in Facebook each of this blog's articles (which are published through Google's Blogger site), is that readers tend to not only know me personally but also know, should they choose to place a comment, that their opinions will be open for all to read and that they will be instantly identified with them.  Sometimes, as mathematician John Nash, while speculating on a win-win mathematical model scenario, once remarked to a friend in the movie A Beautiful Mind, "You have no respect for cognitive reverie", I like to just sit back and look at things from different perspectives.  I want this blog to be more oriented toward open speculation and "cognitive reverie" as well, but I'm afraid that, with a couple of noteworthy exceptions, folks just aren't comfortable with opening up with their thoughts and reactions.  There is a solution to this, though: anyone reading this blog, whether through Facebook or directly on the web, can submit their own comments to me.  I have it set up on my blog to directly take comments (bypassing Facebook) without them immediately appearing. Before I publish any, I need to first review them...my initial primary reason for this was to avoid publishing the numerous spam comments that were beginning to proliferate.  Now, though, pre-screening is useful in that anyone can submit to me his or her comment and then ask me NOT to publish it...I'll comply with any such request.  Also, anonymous comments can be submitted as well...if they don't sound like spam and aren't demeaning or profane, then likewise they'll be published at the end of the article (within the blog).  In any event, I always endeavor to respond to any reasonable comment, regardless whether I agree or disagree with the expressed view, in a respectful and appreciative manner...

Cognitive reverie to me is an activity in which one isn't tied down to any kind of dogma or ideology, instead just taking a particular subject and breaking it down...sometimes coming to conclusions that don't fit the mainstream of socially-promulgated thought.  Therefore it grieves me somewhat when I go down this road and then get a reaction from someone who is an ideologue, forming their opinions on just about everything based on what somebody else wrote or said that fits their "party line"...to me, that is the opposite of what I would call cognitive reverie.  Such people can easily disprove this about themselves by simply revealing to me at least one issue (the more the better) in which they agree with the "other side's" views.  Another way is to make their opinions more personal and to explain how they interact with their own life and experiences...or explain the thinking process that led them to their conclusions. To me, a natural product of thinking for yourself is to sometimes arrive at different conclusions to things that a particular ideology or doctrine espouses.  Thinking for yourself through the vehicle of open speculation and cognitive reverie also makes you more interesting to others instead of sounding like an obvious one-dimensional, unimaginative copycat hack...