Everyone likes to believe they’re thinking independently. That they’ve arrived at their beliefs through logic, self-honesty, and some kind of epistemic discipline. But here’s the problem - that belief itself is suspiciously comforting. So how can you tell it’s true?
What if your worldview just happens to align neatly with your temperament, your social environment, or whatever gives you emotional relief? What if your reasoning is just post-hoc justification for instincts you already wanted to follow? That’s what scares me - not being wrong, but being convinced I’m right for reasons that are more about mood than method.
It reminds me of how people think they’d intervene in a violent situation - noble in theory, but until it happens, it’s all just talk. So I’m asking: what’s your actual evidence that you think the way you think you do? Not in terms of the content of your beliefs, but the process behind them. What makes you confident you’re reasoning - not just rationalizing?
Analyze after the fact. I just try to convince myself I’m wrong about things and hopefully I’m not successful the majority of the time. Think about any specific situation I feel I need to, and compare how I acted with how I would want to act. It’s an active maintenance process that means hopefully i have more interactions that line up with what’s desired. More than if I just allowed myself to act entirely on instinct