Cooking-Up Knowledge 2
Free Associations: Cooperative Interaction [essay]

Introduction

Absolute certainty is a misnomer; however, there are optional opinions. Optional opinions are beliefs based on certain knowledge. Beliefs are associations to conditions, are an individual's (psychological) effect to (traditional, philosophical, democratic) causes during interaction. Knowledge is a convention of wisdom, is the individual's explanation, justification, and/or rationalization of what occurs during an interaction. Therefore, optional opinions are conditions freely associated to a convention of wisdom; optional opinions are perceived effects to causes that are based on certainties derived from an explanation, justification and/or rationalization of a situation encircling an interaction.

Optional opinions catalyze relationships. Relationships are situated by cooperative interaction, and are relative to layers of cooperation that link a type of knowledge consistent with a belief. The layers of cooperation that serve as a portal for certainty are personal, professional, and political.

Building relationships requires interacting on the various layers. There is a simplistic understanding between individuals who interact on a single layer, however, in most situations, interaction tends to occur on more than one layer and thus understanding is more circuitous.

By exploring the permutational paradigms of layering personal, professional and political cooperation through interaction, this essay will discuss the simplicity and circuity of understanding the optional opinions presented within free associations.

Conclusion

Mutuality--agreement in understanding--is the key to overcoming dislocation. Besides the outright disapproval of perspective, individuals disagree when the explanation, justification and/or rationalization of the association to conditions is too convoluted (as described in bilateral dislocation), or too complex (as described in trilateral dislocation). However, while simplicity may be the key to reflecting mutuality, simplicity only scratches the surface of comprehending the traditional, philosophical, and democratic causes that affect the psyche. Simplicity does not give rise to full understanding, only to agreement in principle.

For individuals do freely associate conditions based on conventions of wisdom. The complexity of the individual's conventions is directly proportional to the amount of complexity he/she has in his/her life. The simplicity or complexity of an individual gives rise to optional opinions. Paradoxes such as complex simplicity or simple complexity rarely give rise to mutuality. Reflection occurs when an individual decides/attempts to follow a path of simplicity (agreement in principle) or complexity (agreement in understanding).

Belief and knowledge conflict within the individual, as belief and knowledge conflict within a group of individuals. Such potential for conflict either keeps mutuality at bay, or sets mutuality as a rigid standard. There is little difference for gaining certainty. So, to arrive at certainty, individual's difference needs to be tolerated to the point of gaining certainty. This does not mean individuals must reflect mutually each other's opinions. No. Certainty means clarity of opinion and the ability to (re)locate perspective flexibly.

Flexibility allows the individual to ascertain more clearly what common sense is, what the common goal is, what the common issue is. Henceforth, the individual is able to see the simplicity as well as the complexity involved in a situation, associate the associations to conditions and conventionalize the conventions of wisdom.

Through self-evidence, self-interest, self-governance, one could begin to freely associate relationships between (another's) cause and effect, begin to fathom the key dynamics of unilateral, bilateral, and trilateral configurations, and learn how to protect one's opinions, that is if one can keep one's options open.