Part 1 series: True, False or Incomplete?

GOOD FOR YOU VS BAD FOR YOU and
TRUE OR FALSE VS CONCLUSION OR OBSERVATION

As I've gotten older and presumably wiser, (58 at time of this writing), there have been various times when I've felt pretty confident, perhaps even arrogant at times about what I thought I knew "for sure".

However, with the passing of a few years, I've sometimes felt embarrassed to realize I once believed something to be true and even more so, that I held that view so strongly.

A recent distinction that I've made however, is that, although, I know that A is A, in that a fact is true or not, limited information or faulty premises often lead us to draw conclusions or generalizations too quickly.

Put another way, referencing the scientific method, we may be getting to "Conclusion" too soon when we should spend more time at "Observation" stage.

An assertion may make sense and be properly derived by reason based on available information, but as additional information is found or additional distinctions are made, we find that assertion to be false, or more likely incomplete, out of context or only applicable in certain cases but not others.

Kind of like the group of blind guys who all have one hand on an elephant and are all describing different things based on their limited perception.

This is part 1 of what I've been writing and thinking of for a while and originally was going to make into one long blog, but as it kept getting longer and longer I've decided to break into parts.

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Purpose of this series:

It is my perception, that many people, including myself as well as many people whose reasoning minds I greatly respect , tend to make assumptions, generalizations and absolute statements in instances where I feel they are doing so prematurely. This blog post has two purposes:

-to challenge their thinking.
-to gather feedback as to errors of reasoning I may be making in this series of entries.