Make Friends with Your Ignorance

Make Friends with Your Ignorance

Knowing nothing is an excellent place to start. In a Socratic inquiry, we can begin by questioning what we think we know and see what we can build step by step. If we want to arrive at some rational understanding, we need to plot an honest route there, rather than beginning with the end we most want, then assuming that our personal biases and idiosyncrasies are the correct ones just because they're ours.

Ask yourself this: What do you know?

Be careful, because what you "know" can quickly become a set of blinkers over your eyes, making sure you never see anything that could challenge this prejudice. If you start with a certain premise and it begins, "Well, obviously XYZ is the case, so that means . . ." stop at once and look closely at the mental step you have taken. Is XYZ really all that obvious? Why do you think so? Many people love to think that they are open-minded, but have never once found themselves in the position of changing their minds on any of their personal beliefs—strange, isn't it?

Unless you can correct your pre-existing beliefs, though, you are not really learning, and certainly not doing science—you are simply going around and looking precisely for those bits of information that will fit the conclusion you started with. Happily for you, the world will conveniently appear to be filled with precisely the kind of evidence you are looking for! Online algorithms will helpfully supply you with all the data you like best. You'll feel confident, comfortable, and vindicated. But what you won't be is any closer to the truth.

Feynman says that you are the easiest person to fool, because if you agree to lie to yourself, nobody else will know or care enough to be able to convince you otherwise. When you take a good hard look at what you know, look closest at those things you assume to be absolutely resolved and proven. You may be right . . . or you may have grown intellectually lazy in this area just because the conclusion suits you. Why not make every belief you have "earn its keep"?

Make your goal to be a beginner, not an expert. Seek out and relish the feeling of ignorance, rather than the feeling of having everything figured out. Find that level of inquiry in which you are more often saying "I don't know" than "I know." That will be the place where you are actively learning and growing.

To separate the "wheat from the chaff," i.e., to tease apart faux knowledge and wisdom from real knowledge and wisdom, try the following:

• When you are learning about a controversial or unsettled topic, pick material from both "sides." Do not read an explanation about Party A's position from Party B, and vice versa. Even better, try to find some neutral ground entirely. If you only ever expose yourself to strawman arguments, you are doing yourself a disservice. One very practical habit is to use search engines more consciously by deliberately searching for quality information that counters your position. Challenge yourself to genuinely consider their argument.

• Can you think of something you used to "know" in the past . . . but which turned out to be completely wrong in the end? Try to remind yourself of this the next time you are feeling super certain about something. It's great to have convictions, but don't hold too tightly—you never know what things may look like in five or ten years' time!

• Find people who are very different from yourself and talk to them. They know something that you don't (yes, all of them!), so can you try to find out what it is? It's great to have role models like Einstein and Socrates, but ordinary people can also become our teachers if we are humble and stay curious. Sometimes, simply seeing the world through someone else's eyes, and without the burden of our own intellectual lens, can open a whole new world of possibility for us and show us our own blind spots.

• Finally, learn to take yourself less seriously! The ego melts in the face of a little playful mockery, so laugh at yourself whenever you can.