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Eric Grovum

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What can we do to confront our own cognitive biases?

Everyone has a world view. We each have our own point of view that has been molded by our experiences, relationships, religious backgrounds, etc.

Sometimes, when we are confronted with an opinion that is in opposition to our world view, we experience cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable feeling that creates a wall in our mind around the beliefs that we feel define our very selves. Sometimes we are wrong and have a hard time allowing new information to be considered. Sometimes we are right, but we think so for illogical or unsupported reasons.

What techniques work for you when you deal with these cognitive barriers? Or do you believe you are infallible? Socrates said in rough translation, "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."

Is it reasonable to look at things from new perspectives, or should we draw a line in the sand on certain issues?

My goal is to come to a truer understanding of my world, but it is a challenge to overcome mental inertia.

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    edward long 100+

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    Aug 18 2012: What we believe and support, our world view, is the result of much invested effort and time. I think there is a tendency to "close each particular file" and to be very resistant to the idea of re-opening it, especially for in depth re-evaluation. A strong sense of confidence in the correctness of each folder makes us much less likely to dust it off and delve into it again. We put that subject (folder) to rest and it tends to stay at rest, that's inertia. The line in the sand is another way of saying, "I cannot possibly be wrong about this, so why revisit it?" Knowing the difference between Fact folders and Opinion folders is a skill much to be desired.
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      James Zhang 30+

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      Aug 18 2012: There's always new discoveries and newfound knowledge that change the way we think about some things on a fundamental level. It's just, are we ready to accept these new discoveries or not?
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        edward long 100+

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        Aug 18 2012: True that, James. One big contributor to that school of Epistemology is the "time will tell" group who's mantra is, " Do not accept any recent ideas. Give them time and we will see if they are correct or not.".
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      Eric Grovum

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      Aug 19 2012: Thanks Edward. I hadn't thought of it that way. Is there any time when different information is learned and we should decide to recheck to folder for incorrect beliefs?
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        edward long 100+

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        Aug 20 2012: I believe there are absolute truths which never need reassessment, but, for the most part, life is a constant examination and introspection. The least uncomfortable way to learn you have been believing an untruth is to discover it for yourself.

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