009 Why it's wise to re-evaluate our beliefs often
Hello, hope you're having a great weekend! Here's your weekly Newsletter from arjunkhemani.com.
Human bias can creep up and cheekily distort reality, yes. But in many instances it can even go against our own perspectives. Let me explain.
All humans have certain tendencies which make the worlds reality go up the spout. Especially some of our beliefs that are too strong and kept with us for a long time, we have a certain kind of a very strong bias for them. We only think that they are true and anything to the contrary to our deep-rooted beliefs is false. Most "beliefs" as such are mostly assumed, but not all. Some are real. But even the compelling reality in those beliefs aren't enough to overturn our assumed beliefs and accept that we are real-ly wrong. For example, lets take the assumed belief that the Earth was the center of the universe. That wasn't true. And it was proved wrong by Copernicus' theory. But there were still critics who thought that that just couldn't be true. Earth is the center of the universe and it will always be that way. They didn't want to believe that the Earth was not unique and that even they were not unique, proved by realistic observations and not from assumed beliefs. They would rather be wrong and unique in a false world than be right and common in a real world. This is how they distort reality. But sometimes, these beliefs are so powerful that they can even distort our personal perspectives. And can contradict our personal views with some other assumed beliefs.
This is the reason why it's so necessary to constantly be re-evaluating our beliefs. Asking ourselves, why do I believe what I believe? And what forces, influences like the media, or immediate environment may have led me to have certain thoughts. And what can I do to make them align with reality?
This re-evaluation makes us more aware of our beliefs, and furthermore makes them less biased and less influenced by the human tendencies. Because awareness is the first step to eliminating these natural biases which make the world so unnatural and false.
Amazing Things & Ideas this week:
- A quote I found great this week: "The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." —Dolly Parton
- Book I've been reading this week: Factfulness by Hans Rosling. One of the most mind-set changing books I've ever read. You can buy it here if you'd like.
- Some amazing news: On September 6, 2021, NASA's Perseverance Rover collected it's first Mars rock sample. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. This rock sample will answer just that. Was there life (even if microbial life) flourishing in the past on Mars? You can read the whole story about the rock sample here.
All articles from this week on arjunkhemani.com:
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And as always have a great week ahead!