This question can inspire levels of fury beyond my understanding, which is why I couldn’t have casually posed it on Reddit. This seems like a more good faith kind of crowd so I’ll ask it here.
This is a question I’ve put a lot of thought into for myself since 2020. I’m interested in my ideas being criticized and perhaps to criticize the ideas of others (Note: Not criticizing people or their character. Only ideas). I’m going to post my own answer in the comments.
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Ha. As if there’s a process. I just stumble across a hill one day and realizing I’m willing to die on it.
Regardless of what I’ve professed, I’ve discovered that many of my own beliefs were without basis once they were challenged and likely many still are. This is a very human thing I think about a lot.
Process: Idea formation from within or from outside source > Consider this to be a hypothesis and attempt to adapt it to something which is disprovable using data > Look into available data sourced from places which would not themselves be advantaged or disadvantaged by an interpretation of the data (mainly academic) > Accounting for data, form belief which I consider likely to be true, although I can’t be certain it is true. > Take in other perspectives on my conclusion and re-assess if necessary
Explanation: Although there are certainly beliefs which I hold strongly and would fight for (which involve human rights), I believe that having absolute certainty of anything is absurd. Although I can’t be certain Empiricism is the best possible method to determine beliefs, it is the process which I find to be the most effective at this time. As physical beings who evolved for an ecological niche which few of us are now involved with, we may lack the sheer capability to truly understand the underlying mechanisms of the universe. All current philosophical and scientific paradigms which we can be knowledgeable of are only most likely to be true according to what we have collectively learned so far, and paradigm shifts in basic understandings of sweeping subjects have occurred during my lifetime. Because of this, I can’t assume that anything I believe is strictly true, only that it is what I personally find most likely to be true given my limited perspective. For this reason it is important to take into account the interpretations of reality from as many other perspectives as possible who have applied a reasonable basis of empirical reasoning to their arguments in order to have the best possible chance of approximating truth. Although I will make my best possible effort to be as objective as possible, I know that as a human creature I hold inescapable bias which I may or may not be aware of and much of this process is subjective.
I’d guess inquisitiveness? Curiosity? Science?
This is something that im relly interested in lately. I was born in a quiet religious community and as i was exposed to more and more outside information i had to reevaluate my beliefs down to their core.
As i started to rely more and more on the scientific method as a basis of truth i felt like i figured it out (atleast the way to figure things out), but then came an other fundamental shift in how i think about truth. At this point i dropped every belief that stood on anecdotes and authority or an ad hoc framing of subjective experiences etc. However i was also the kind of person that would think trans people and allys are idiots for wanting to use preferred pronouns since they are “male/female”.
Then as i started to read up more on the views of said people i of course realised that the media i listened to previously set up a false narrative of people wanting to deny science, while in reality these people simply thought about this topic in a more nuanced way, separating biological sex and how someone feels and enjoys expressing themselves. This topic showed me how easy it is to be locked in a framework that fails to adress some parts of reality, while still seeming coherent and rational in its simplified framework.
As of now my goal is not building beliefs but to try and put myself in as many frames of thinking as i can and explore how many ways something can be viewed, hopefully managing to adress ever more nuances of reality but never accepting them as facts.
Of course this is the theoretical part of things, but when i have to make a real life decision i have to settle at my current best. Even then, treating everything i experienced and thought as probabilities and imperfect simplifications of reality helps avoid a lot of mistakes and makes it easier and more productive to work together with different people to find answers.
This is very similar to the development I’ve experienced, thank you for sharing the process itself. Our brains naturally chunk information, so the use of schemas to understand abstract concepts I think is completely intuitive. As you pointed out though sometimes a schema can turn out to be an over-simplification which falsely indicates a topic is less complex than it truly is. It’s interesting to look over all of the cognitive traps we’re vulnerable to which we could never escape if we didn’t admit to ourselves we could fall into them.
Yes, it can be a bit overwhelming at times, but at the same time always exploring even seemingly understood questions makes life a lot more exciting!
Somewhat related is the concept of ontological shock. Most recently saw a post on Reddit about it, linked below. I can relate to the idea of my brain building a running narrative of how the world works, and fitting information into that framework on the fly. When I come across things that don’t fit into that framework it’s easy to dismiss the information and run towards people that share that worldview. Ontological shock happens when you reexamine the core of your worldview based on irrefutable new information, and realize that your existing framework of predicting and understanding things in the world no longer works. Facsinating stuff, and it truly shows that we can absolutely be living in completely different realities than our neighbours.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/145kwhw/ontological_shock_is_real_and_you_should_treat_it/
I had quite the ontological shock when I was exposed to methods of investigation and information which was systematically collected and reviewed by people who I became familiar at University. My formerly conservative beliefs were shattered under the weight of the scrutiny which I was now able to apply to them, which caused extreme discomfort because many of the premises which I had planned my life around were not only false, but easily disprovable with the slightest examination. Since then I’ve tried not to be stubborn about the beliefs I hold and will criticize new information instead of dismissing it (although some information can be criticized so quickly it can be dismissed rapidly).
There hasn’t been hard evidence presented for the new claims of extraterrestrials on Earth to my knowledge, nor have the claims been disproven (these specific claims can be disproven). I choose to withhold judgement on the phenomenon until a sufficient amount of evidence is provided (in my opinion, I suppose) or the claims are disproven, but I’m not going to dismiss the possibility that the claims are true off-hand.
