Question on Quora:
In your opinion, what is the strongest form of confidence one can have?
The strongest form of confidence is one backed with humbleness, knowing how little I know and how much more there is still to learn.
As the Dunning-Kruger Effect has taught us, both mastery and ignorance can be the source of confidence. We wouldn’t want our confidence to emerge from the latter.
Question on Quora:
Is religion the best “social media tool” for connecting strangers around the world? Do religions actually have apps for that, to keep up with businesses?
No. History tells us that money, but not religion, is the best tool that connects people around the world.
Question on Quora:
What is wrong with being a hedonist?
Being a hedonist is not necessarily “wrong,” but neither is hedonism an adequate philosophy of life for people who seek tranquility as a goal in living. However, personal choice of lifestyle aside, the idea of hedonism by itself can still be problematic for two reasons:
First, the paradox of hedonism makes hedonism literally a self-defeating philosophy of life to live by: We will likely fail to attain true pleasures if we deliberately seek them. For example, which of the following efforts would bring us a more profound pleasure?
Pleasure seems to be best treated as a byproduct of other goals we commit ourselves to in life, not the other way around.
Question on Quora:
Is the Mona Lisa truly objectively beautiful?
Marcus:
There’s no evidence than anything is objectively beautiful. Can you think of a single thing that all people, of all cultures, find beautiful? So, no, the Mona Lisa is not objectively beautiful. Though I like it.
Yink:
Can anyone genuinely appreciate the Theory of Relativity without the knowledge of science? Probably not. So can one truly see the beauty in things without ever spending a minute in life learning aesthetics? Surprisingly, most people think so before being asked the question.
Question on Quora:
As an atheist, what is your view of the idea that some kind of sentient being could have kicked off the events that led to the Big Bang?
Maybe. Maybe not. But let’s not confuse imagination with Science.
To quote the great scientist, Thomas H. Huxley: “The great tragedy of Science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” Science requires falsifiability and is built on observation and empirical evidence. Imagination, on the other hand, requires nothing but a creative mind; literally anything can happen in the world of fantasy.
Question on Quora:
Are photography contests really worthwhile competing in?
I did the math when I entered the annual National Geographic photo contest back in 2012: For every $15 you get to submit one photo, which gives you a 0.01% chance to be one of the winners and 1% to be picked as one of editors’ weekly favorites. Better yet, each photo gets only 6 seconds of the jury’s time assuming they judge through the entire pool nonstop in a week (which is unlikely) and spend an equal amount of time on every single photo (which is even more unlikely).
Question on Quora:
Why do I find most people around me stupid and keep getting a feeling that I don’t belong here?
Here’s a true story. A man was told that he was the wisest of all. “How could I be the wisest one?” The man was puzzled and set out to prove it wrong. He started wandering around his town questioning anyone he saw about the knowledge they claimed to possess. The man soon came to the conclusion that… he was indeed the wisest of all, for a little piece of wisdom that he but no one else had: the knowledge that he knew nothing. The man’s name was Socrates.
I love nature and have been traveling the world in search for the perfect shots. I am neither a professional nor an artist but hope that my personal experiences would help contribute to the topic. Here are some of the challenges that I have personally been struggling with:
I will use some of my own works as examples to elaborate a bit.