Posted on September 1, 2015
“the mark of an educated man is one who can entertain an idea without having to accept it” – Aristotle
Information Overload
Should you do the Atkins diet or become Vegan? Should you invest your money in property, shares or something else? With so many contradictions and competing ideas, how can you know what to believe? Information is so abundant today that practically everywhere you look, data is coming at you, whether from academic journals, books, newspapers, TV, YouTube, social media, or word of mouth. The internet has made the acquisition of information so accessible that the average person can have answers to their questions on almost any subject within seconds. Yet, with this great gift comes great challenge. How do you know what information is right or wrong? How do you know what information to believe and integrate into your life, and what information to disregard?
This great abundance of information can be a help or a hindrance, depending on our skills of discernment.
False Beliefs
Without possessing the critical reasoning skills or the emotional intelligence to know when we are kidding ourselves, many of us fall into the trap of biases and logical fallacies. One of the most common mistakes in thinking is ‘confirmation bias’. Confirmation bias is when you only accept information which is consistent with your existing beliefs, and rejecting any information which is inconsistent (cherry picking). If we fall into this trap, our beliefs can become skewed, and further from the truth, which ultimately leads to poor decision making.
It’s not what we don’t know, that is most dangerous, it’s what we think we know to be true, that isn’t.
By giving ourselves the opportunity to move outside of our existing beliefs and consider alternative perspectives, we can draw closer to an approximation of truth. The more skilfully we can consider an argument from both sides or all sides, the closer we get to the ever elusive truth.
Ways to improve your thinking:
- Be skeptical of all information – don’t accept things blindly (even from authority figures or bodies).
- Emotional Intelligence – be mindful of when emotions creep into arguments.
- Self awareness – be aware of your own beliefs, tendencies, thinking patterns, triggers etc.
- Become familiar with common logical fallacies – ways in which logic can be twisted to deceive.
- Ask – “how do the ideas in this argument connect?” and – “are the claims justified or explained?”
- Don’t be too attached to any of your beliefs
- Assess information from all sides of any argument before coming to a decision.
- Actively search for the opposing arguments to the one you currently believe.
- Be open and empathetic with other opinions and ‘really listen’.
Not only will being mindful of the above points protect you from making simple mistakes, but they will also allow you to gain a balanced appreciation and empathy for others, and help you to make better decisions in your life!