I AM WRONG AND YOU CAN BE TOO !!!
This post is to address a simple and powerful technique and philosophy I think anyone can benefit from .I realized in coming out of Scientology and seeing how completely wrong I had been despite tremendous certainty on literally thousands of things that I can hold incorrect ideas no matter HOW sure I think I am.
I decided to permanently incorporate as a precaution the idea that not only are others SOMETIMES mistaken , but I should always factor in that I am to some degree WRONG on at least some of my ideas and conclusions and ALWAYS and should not just be careful to get things right BUT to never forget I am never totally right in all my ideas and beliefs.This is not just the" there is more to learn idea " - it is the I am incorrect and question , DOUBT and to some degree play devil's advocate and try to see how I could be using logical fallacies or reaching wrong conclusions idea .
The total fanatical certainty in Scientology led me to a dead end , almost literally .I think I want to be a skeptic , but I am not sure . I have seen a pattern of falsification ( you know like in science ) enter my thinking - and not just on Scientology and scholarly matters . This can be applied to just about anything - WITHIN REASON AND BALANCE AND MODERATION .
I had a conversation with a never in where I told him I expect that I am always wrong about some things unknowingly and expect to always be this way based on the past .I asked what does that make me - he said " someone with half a brain ! " and it did not even cost a half million dollars , 25 years of my life or my sanity to get this lofty status !
I am so proud ! I hope that others can have similar gains !
Please share any similar revelations or stories here !
I want to be clear that the idea that I am trying to get across is that I am ALWAYS wrong to some degree about things UNKNOWINGLY is the idea I am trying to express - NOT I have been wrong before and learned from it or something like that .
By always knowing I am not completely right I think it helps to look at others ideas and be more skeptical and critical with my own .
It can also introduce moderation and consideration to some things.
I recently found about Naive Realism and feel this is very relevant to this issue :
Naïve realism (psychology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The three "tenets" of naive realism are:
Biases including the following have been argued to be caused at least partially by naive realism:
- That I see entities and events as they are in objective reality, and that my social attitudes, beliefs, preferences, priorities, and the like follow from a relatively dispassionate, unbiased and essentially "unmediated" comprehension of the information or evidence at hand.
- That other rational social perceivers generally will share my reactions, behaviors, and opinions—provided they have had access to the same information that gave rise to my views, and provided that they too have processed that information in a reasonably thoughtful and open-minded fashion.
- That the failure of a given individual or group to share my views arises from one of three possible sources—
- the individual or group in question may have been exposed to a different sample of information than I was (in which case, provided that the other party is reasonable and open minded, the sharing or pooling of information should lead us to reach an agreement);
- the individual or group in question may be lazy, irrational, or otherwise unable or unwilling to proceed in a normative fashion from objective evidence to reasonable conclusions; or
- the individual or group in question may be biased (either in interpreting the evidence, or in proceeding from evidence to conclusions) by ideology, self-interest, or some other distorting personal influence.
- False-consensus effect
- Bias blind spot
- Curse of knowledge
- Hindsight bias
- Biased assimilation
- Hostile media effect
- Attitude polarization
- Reactive devaluation
- Fundamental attribution error
- Empathy gaps
- Some forms of confirmation bias
- Above quotes from Wikipedia
Mockingbird's Nest : http://mbnest.blogspot.com/search?up...08:00&max-resu
stuff at ESMB
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthrea...390#post989390
Waking up with the cognitive house afire is a moment of terror and beauty. I had my own ten-year journey out of magical-thinking. Now, I've learned that it's a never-ending process, not a destination of certainty. Your post has been a hugely helpful reminder for me, not of how far I have to go, but the tools I need for the journey.
ReplyDeleteThank you , best of luck with being free and choosing your own life .
ReplyDeleteA very interesting post because this realisation happened to me too a few years back. I had been brought up as a Christian and the powerful indoctrination of the religion still had a grip on me.
ReplyDeleteThen I discovered the subject of Scientology - and decided after a few hours on the Internet one evening that it was nonsense. Looking at the complete ridiculousness of Scientology, I could not fathom how any intelligent person could become an adherent.
But then it made me wonder - here I am laughing at Scientologists in their bubble of stupidity, but could it be that I am sitting in a bubble of stupidity? And so I re-examined my own personal faith, and decided to challenge everything I believed in. Just as Scientologists were not allowed to read critical books, I realised I would not allow myself to read critical books. Very nervously I decided to read a book by Satan himself; Richard Dawkins. Half way through the book and one night I allowed myself to consider that there might not be a God. Wow - that was a sleepless night. It took me a few months to adjust to the new perspective, and it was actually very troubling to consider the atheist perspective. But I'm there now, and the heaven hasn't fallen in and I'm still the same person.
I want to thank you and make a couple of points. A lot of others who study critical thinking reject religion - and truth be told I think like an atheist but try to accept agnostic beliefs as most ...appropriate intellectually . On the Dawkins scale he would call me a six "a de facto atheist" . But I make a very strict personal point of following a simple rule : I attack Scientology - I do not attack religion .
DeleteYou are free to follow whatever you choose . I hope you find happiness with whatever it may be . I know many intellectuals who upon studying certain concepts or perspectives reject religion and it is quite common . So , you have plenty of company .