The Philosophy Of Belief
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Before my article, I’m experimenting with sharing a few good things from my week. As always, I encourage feedback and discussion, so please don’t be afraid to leave a comment!
🎵 New Musical Discovery
Blow My Fuse by KIX. This song rocks in and out of the gym.
🔉Podcast I’m Listening To
The Huberman Lab Podcast: Effects Of Fasting & Time Restricted Eating on Fat Loss & Health. “In this episode, Dr. Huberman discusses the science and practice of fasting, also called time-restricted feeding. He reviews the data on how limiting food intake to specific portions of every 24-hour cycle (or fasting longer) impacts weight loss, fat loss specifically, liver health, mental focus, muscle, longevity and more.”
✍️ Quote of the Week
“If I only worked out when I felt good, I’d be a fat fuck.” - Joe Rogan
There’s a little joke in philosophy: every answer is the right answer, as long as you can explain yourself. As a typical over-thinker—where thoughts sound much better in my head—reading, writing, and participating in discussions of philosophy was essential in sharpening my thinking.
Philosophy forces you to re-evaluate your own beliefs, assess the your own evidence and reasoning you have to support them, and maybe even change your mind. It forces you to listen and empathize with other people, and it even helps you become more comfortable with speaking up.
Most college classes are about learning new things, but so few are about reflecting on the things we do and believe. Philosophy emphasizes learning through reading but encourages skepticism through discussion and writing.
🤔 The Importance of Skepticism
The author Tim Ferriss said that if someone tells you to do something, you must ask them what evidence suggests that. You have to test assumptions.
If they can’t answer you, then you shouldn’t take that advice. There’s a lot of speculation and just making up of the rules as we go along ... People get trapped in prisons of their own making because they accept limitations that other people place on them or that they place on themselves. - Tim Ferriss
Epistemology (the philosophy of knowledge) is a fascinating topic. Below, I’ll be sharing the first paper I wrote for my philosophy class last year. The first part is my best attempt at a summary of the assigned paper, and the second page is my interpretation. I hope you enjoy my dry philosophical tone.
The paper assigned was “Escape the Echo Chamber” by Thi Nguyen, and while it’s a long-ass read, it’s incredibly relevant in today’s polarized society.
📓 Summary of the Paper
Nguyen begins by introducing both echo chambers and epistemic bubbles as “social structures that systematically exclude sources of information.” An echo chamber is a phenomenon where people do not trust outside views: even though they are exposed to outside information, they have a proclivity to disregard certain authorities. An epistemic bubble occurs when people only have exposure to certain sources. The author gives relatable modern examples of the former and the latter, respectively: Rush Limbaugh’s cult following and a Facebook group.
In considering how to break up these groups, Nguyen claims that epistemic bubbles can be “easily shattered” because exposing these groups to other unseen views is an easy task. However, echo chambers are far more “pernicious and robust” because exposure to contrary views could reinforce their own views. Nguyen mentions that an issue in modern society is that the groups have been merged together, which is problematic in explaining polarization because the inability of people to be persuaded by strong contrary evidence should be explained by the echo chamber alone.
Nguyen also claims that people in an echo chamber are not irrational but are just “misinformed about where to place their trust.” The author explains that the order of information presented should not matter because people will still inevitably become opinionated. However, he claims this is false, as the real source of the irrationality in an echo chamber is an overemphasis of early evidence.
Then he connects these ideas to Descartes, coining the term “Cartesian epistemic reboot:” removing all beliefs and starting anew. He reasons that because it is difficult to start from nothing, we have to begin by assuming something and trusting someone. Nguyen asserts that the most important element of helping someone escape an echo chamber and conducting a reboot is restoring trust through social encounters. While a complete reboot is impossible, trust restores the possibility for a person to consider all sources of information in a composed manner.
💭 My Thoughts
With regard to lumping echo chambers and epistemic bubbles together, the author is correct in explaining how modern polarization is a function of echo chambers. People are not moved by concrete contrarian evidence because they don’t trust it—a characteristic of echo chambers that Nguyen refers to as “post-truth.”
However, I think it is understandable how the two could get combined: obviously, as the author describes, both of these groups exclude sources of information and also exaggerate people’s confidence in their own belief. But more subtly, there are ways in which the two could influence each other. For example, members of an epistemic bubble are only exposed to certain sources, so that when this bubble is broken through exposure to outside sources, the members may only trust those sources they first came in contact with, which is also proven by the fact that humans trust first information the most.
Conversely, once trust has been established and an echo chamber has been broken, if the social relationships that this person has only provide a certain type of information or opinion, this person has transitioned into an epistemic bubble. While one cannot be in both groups at once, they do influence each other, so it is conceivable that the two could be confused as one idea due to their correlation.
Nguyen also makes an interesting point that members of the echo chamber are not irrational: they still use reasoning and critical thinking skills, and examine credibility “using what they already know about the world.” From personal experience, it seems that these people are not exactly rational. Although they can think critically, these people are, to some degree, irrational: knowledge is defined as justified, true, belief, and they lack justification. Furthermore, their belief may not be wrong, but it is not justified because to be justified, one must have enough evidence to be rational, and since echo chambers do not trust outside sources and thus do not use diverse evidence, it can be reasoned that they lack evidence. Therefore, echo chamber members do not have knowledge about the world, so they may not be rational.
🗣️ Further Comments
When was the last time you changed your mind on a strong belief or purposefully exposed yourself to opposing views? This is valuable because:
1. You understand your biases better. Our first instinct after reading a sentence we strongly disagree with is to immediately stop reading and to internally say, “no, that’s wrong."
2. It makes us smarter. We get a better understanding of our own beliefs and the evidence we have to support them:
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. We can better empathize with people and find some middle ground. As Ric Elias perfectly puts it:
“There’s always three sides to an argument. Yours, theirs, and the truth. And if you start every argument understanding that you don’t have the truth—you have your truth—it’s really easy to surrender to that. Most things in life are a shade of grey.”
4. Most important of all: through exploration of ideas and active open-mindedness, we realize that we know a lot less than we think we actually do.
We always have something to learn from other people, no matter how crazy their beliefs seem. I challenge you to keep reading.
To view this on my website, click here.