Not owning our beliefs
Julian Baggini argues that we might be more willing to judge our beliefs objectively if we avoid thinking of them as “our own”. I hadn’t thought before about explicitly distancing myself from my beliefs in this sense.
Julian Baggini argues that we might be more willing to judge our beliefs objectively if we avoid thinking of them as “our own”. I hadn’t thought before about explicitly distancing myself from my beliefs in this sense.
Related: Cached Selves.
Possibly related: Beware Identity (originally Paul Graham) (-> Why the Brights Make Me Uneasy), Keep Your Identity Small (-> Avoid Identifying With Anything).
Some practical examples would be very useful.
I used to participate in talk.origins—a creation vs evolution forum. For reasons which now escape me, I took a moderate creationist position in a mock debate for a few days. Though that exercise did not produce enough ‘distance’ to convert me, I discovered that, for months thereafter, I was noticing minor flaws in evolutionist arguments that I had never noticed before.
It might prove to be an interesting exercise if one of the giants here—Eliezer, or Anna, or Wei Dai—were to try to argue against one of the LW orthodox positions under the guise of a sock puppet. It could be a good test of how well us lesser folk understand the justification for the positions we hold. And, it might be a useful stretching exercise for the ‘giant’.