being open minded
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The last few years I’ve become more curious about my own ways of thinking and how open minded I am.
The last few years I’ve become more curious about my own ways of thinking and how open minded I am.
It’s normal to think we’re open minded but its easier said than done. To be open minded means you have a well functioning belief updater. This isn’t a real biological thing but a metaphor for your ability to update what you believe based on new information as it arrives.
But it’s hard. Think about how you instinctively go on the defensive when someone starts saying something you disagree with. There is a chance they are right and you are wrong but our belief updaters are naturally stubborn.
Here’s Charlie Munger:
“The human mind is a lot like the human egg which has a shut-off device. When one sperm gets in, it shuts down so the next one can’t get in. The mind has a big tendency of the same sort.
And it doesn’t just catch ordinary mortals; it catches the deans of physics. According to Max Planck, the really innovative, important new physics was never really accepted by the old guard. Instead a new guard came along that was less brain-blocked by its previous conclusions.”
If Planck’s crowd had this consistency and commitment tendency that kept their old conclusions intact in spite of disconfirming evidence, just imagine what the crowd that you and I are part of behaves like.”
It’s normal to think we’re open minded but its easier said than done. To be open minded means you have a well functioning belief updater. This isn’t a real biological thing but a metaphor for your ability to update what you believe based on new information as it arrives.
But it’s hard. Think about how you instinctively go on the defensive when someone starts saying something you disagree with. There is a chance they are right and you are wrong but our belief updaters are naturally stubborn.
Here’s Charlie Munger:
“The human mind is a lot like the human egg which has a shut-off device. When one sperm gets in, it shuts down so the next one can’t get in. The mind has a big tendency of the same sort.
And it doesn’t just catch ordinary mortals; it catches the deans of physics. According to Max Planck, the really innovative, important new physics was never really accepted by the old guard. Instead a new guard came along that was less brain-blocked by its previous conclusions.”
If Planck’s crowd had this consistency and commitment tendency that kept their old conclusions intact in spite of disconfirming evidence, just imagine what the crowd that you and I are part of behaves like.”