How To Be Open-Minded But Not Gullible

[The Renaissance Man]

13 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Are you open to that being true? 🤭

Nice hahah

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

but giving an exact formula that applies in all situations

 

4 hours ago, The Renaissance Man said:

But it's still quite simple as a framework, and that has its pros and cons, so don't tear me apart on the edge cases.

It's not meant to be exact, nor to apply in all situations. I never said that. In fact, I stressed the OPPOSITE multiple times, on purpose.

 

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

is often ironically the opposite of what you're trying to achieve.

I agree with you on that, but that's not the purpose of my post/principle.

My post should be viewed as: what's the alternative? View it from the perspective of the gullible person that falls for dumb theories in the name of openmindedness. The solution is clearly not more relativity. Wouldn't you agree?

I thought my heuristic was a good generic solution. I was very careful in the post to point out how broad and generic it is, and how it is not the same as closedmindedness. Literally because I expected to receive critiques on "what is wrong", "what is proof", "prove your principle is not wrong then", "what about this situation". Apparently it wasn't enough (I don't think there's an enough).

Edited March 1 by The Renaissance Man

[UnbornTao]

Notice that it is much more than just an intellectual exercise. You center yourself on your current experience, and get real with yourself. If you haven't experienced it, you don't act as if you have. You aren't artificially adopting ideas and affectations for any reason but are instead willing to search for what is true, regardless of your conceptions, presumptions, or opinions about the subject matter. You keep your feet on the ground--on functional perceptions. 

Edited March 2 by UnbornTao

[Carl-Richard]

Just now, The Renaissance Man said:

Nice hahah

 

It's not meant to be exact, not to apply in all situations.

 

I agree with you on that, but that's not the purpose of my post/principle.

My post should be viewed as: what's the alternative? View it from the perspective of the gullible person that falls for dumb theories in the name of openmindedness. The solution is clearly not more relativity. Wouldn't you agree?

I thought my heuristic was a good generic solution. I was very careful in the post to point out how broad and generic it is, and how it is not the same as closedmindedness. Literally because I expected to receive critiques on "what is wrong", "what is proof", "prove your principle is not wrong then", "what about this situation". Apparently it wasn't enough (I don't think there's an enough).

"Wrong" and "proof" are actually quite specific, especially in combination. Ironically, I think the answer for how to be openminded but not gullible is simply wisdom. Wisdom is about striking the right balance, of hitting the mark, of clear seeing and seeing the whole picture, which is again hard to make specific.

As for examples of general things that would make you openminded but not gullible: being driven by what you think is true rather than expedient, by curiosity rather than necessity, holism rather than reductionism, being thoroughly integrated as a person (emotionally, interpersonally, spiritually, etc.), having experienced traps, pitfalls and dangers and not being naive to them, etc.

When you think of somebody who is openminded but not gullible, what kind of person pops into your mind?

[The Renaissance Man]

13 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

"Wrong" and "proof" are actually quite specific

They are, but I think more relativity in the already confused gullible mind (gullible because groundless and confused after all) is only harmful. Less relativistic solutions are automatically more gross by nature. You can't have both, there's a tradeoff.

14 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

is simply wisdom

True, if it wasn't that wisdom is the exact opposite of being gullible which is the problem. The best way to not be obese is to be skinny. Just be skinny! Trump is so immature... maturity would be the perfect solution to that!

 

While wisdom is the goal, you've got to work with what you've got until then. It's the whole notion of skipping stages of development in a sense.

[LastThursday]

On 28/02/2025 at 9:01 PM, The Renaissance Man said:

@LastThursday Yes, this is meant to be a general rule, especially for people who feel a bit lost after learning about openmindedness and the limitations of science for the first time.

What you said is true, but it's more sophisticated and needs a lot more wisdom. And probably even then, everybody will need to fall toward the wrong until proven right, either consciously or unconsciously. As long as you're not closed, you're good

Rant: I have to congratulate you on actually engaging with your own question, many on the forum make a post but don't bother to actually engage with the answers. Rant over.

I suppose you could look at it from the other end. What does being gullible involve? Such a person would take anything they're told to be true. They will go about their day acting as if X fact is suddenly now true. Maybe they believe they're God, or that they'll reincarnate when they die, or that the world will end in 2027, or that eating peppers is bad for the gut, or that you can survive on air alone and so on. Maybe all of those things at once.

Applying your heuristic, then you could fairly say that the aforementioned are all wrong, and you'll then need to wait patiently for proof of each of them to come along (or look for proof proactively). Some things you may never know until it actually happens, for example the end of the world, effectively making the belief unfalsifiable - you can neither say it's right nor wrong, and you can't take a position at all (logically).

If you do proactively look for proof, then you're admitting a more neutral position: why waste your effort if it couldn't possibly be true? I think it's this that you're arguing not wasting time on.

My point then was that discernment works better than proof. If a belief is unfalsifiable, then you just move on, and cut the potential BS at the root. If you do have a modicum of belief then your discernment should kick in first. For example, is reincarnation real? Well, you have to look at the numbers of reports of it compared to the number of people in the world (or who have ever lived), hmm it's probably BS, since that ratio is near zero. Another example, do mobile phones give you brain cancer? That's less clear, but you can still be discerning, i.e. radio waves don't travel well in water, and your brain is mostly water, it's probably BS then.

In short most of us have some ability to discern things and judge whether something is true or not. Gullible people just choose not to be so discerning, they want to be believe, because it's exciting or through wish fulfilment or it makes some sort of sense, or they just "know" it's right. They are actively guillible (if not consciously so).

 

[Letho]

6 hours ago, The Renaissance Man said:

I have a new heuristic to explain this forum: always assume that the only person who actually read the post was OP.

Funny because I am also guilty of this.

@The Renaissance Man you're getting hung up over nothing, just have fun. Mine was a clear add on. You're probably not used to being around creative types, that's what they're like. ALL the time.

[Carl-Richard]

23 hours ago, The Renaissance Man said:

They are, but I think more relativity in the already confused gullible mind (gullible because groundless and confused after all) is only harmful. Less relativistic solutions are automatically more gross by nature. You can't have both, there's a tradeoff.

True, if it wasn't that wisdom is the exact opposite of being gullible which is the problem. The best way to not be obese is to be skinny. Just be skinny! Trump is so immature... maturity would be the perfect solution to that!

 

While wisdom is the goal, you've got to work with what you've got until then. It's the whole notion of skipping stages of development in a sense.

I think it could make you less gullible, but again, I'm unsure about the openmindedness.

What I will say though is that a more general gist of what you're hinting at can be helpful, namely being aware of standards of evidence or reason and being aware of assigning a status (e.g. true, false, probable, reasonable) to things.

I notice in myself that I treat most things like an onion: I can entertain some evidence or suggest some position at one level of analysis, but when I peel back some of the layers, it gets clear that the evidence or those suggestions are not the whole story.

Like, I might in one scenario talk about the importance of having a strong feeling of your own values and sense of what you think is reasonable, but in another, I might talk about how those things are highly confined to your limited window out on the world, and that in some sense, it's highly probable that you are missing something, could be called out on something, or that you can often probably argue the opposite position from just as seemingly convincing and strong position.

So at one level, you assume the lens of the "lone" individual and its innate tendency towards bias, while at another, you question those assumptions. You can go back and forth between them, up and down the layers, but we tend to stick with a few layers at a time, and then it's more likely to do something which comes off as closemindedness, even if you have contact with some deeper layers.

So being able to operate across different layers and essentially being cognitively complex, is one defining feature of "mature", "wise" (less gullible) openmindedness.

Edited March 2 by Carl-Richard

[Aaron p]

On 27/02/2025 at 7:56 PM, The Renaissance Man said:

How To Be Open-Minded But Not Gullible

It's actually quite a difficult thing because on one hand you need to be hardcore but you can't be hard-headed but you also can't be soft-headed. Assertive but not arrogant, powerful but not power hungry, graceful but stern. 

Such an endeavour requires an acute intelligence and balance.

[The Renaissance Man]

@LastThursday Yes, discernment is actually the better word. Gets a bit harder to communicate in one concise phrase, doesn't hit as hard I don't know hahah

Like any quote the shorter and punchier it is the more precision it tends to lack