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Thursday, March 2, 2017

My Mind Is Already Made Up, Don't Confuse Me With Facts

I found the article under the title, "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds." The author seems to have a liberal bias, but that doesn't necessarily mean that she's wrong about everything. Of course it doesn't necessarily mean that she's right about everything either.

I have observed the phenomena that she describes, and I always figured that it was just part of human nature. Whenever we encounter new knowledge, we compare it to our existing knowledge, that's how we learn. If the new knowledge is incompatible with what we already know, or think we already know, the natural tendency is to reject it. It takes a certain amount of self discipline to overcome this natural tendency, although it can be done. But does that mean that it should always be done? If we throw out everything we have learned to embrace every new idea that comes along we will never develop more than a superficial understanding of anything, for tomorrow that new idea might well be challenged by another new idea. If we keep jumping from one new idea to another, we won't have time to properly evaluate any of them.

In real life situations, we often don't have time to submit our notions to the crucible of reason. If a tree falls in the forest, and we perceive that we are in the path of its fall, the prudent course of action is to get the hell out of the way. We can analyze the reasons for the fall of the tree later, but not if it kills us first. Dead men do not reason.

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