Being Wrong
I don't like falling into human cognitive traps. But I do, often. Sometimes I believe I have expertise in one area because I have demonstrated expertise in a different area. I also sometimes find myself susceptible to blindly following guru-type figures who really seem to have the world figured out. There are many more examples.
But it's not so simple as just avoiding these behaviors. I don't have the resources to verify the universe. To replicate every experiment that's ever been done. I need trust and heuristics.
Imagine if the Truman show were real and you were the star. Or if you were living in a simulation. When you have that many people working against you for your entire life, you don't stand a chance. Even if you somehow came to the correct conclusion that you were living in a simulation, would it cause you to live your life any differently? You would be doomed to partake in the lie.
So, in order to move through your day, you need to build an intuitive sense of the world. A sense of where you can perform the trust fall and not end up on the ground.
But the crucially important step in this is acknowledging that might always be wrong. That this might be the simulation and everything you ever thought you knew was in fact bullshit. Every law of physics could be changed tomorrow. Uncertainty is the rule.
This kinda sucks to think about. The part of our brain that loves to know will thrash around. But ultimately, if you enjoy thinking of yourself as a rational person, getting past the thrashing is the best gift you can give yourself. Because the conscious background disclaimer that you can always be wrong is the antidote to most of our cognitive traps. And the unavoidability of it can be pretty freeing.
I honestly have no fucking clue if all of this that I just wrote is bullshit. There's something in my brain that feels true and this is my attempt to write down some things in a constrained block of time. Trying to put the stuff from my brain into words feels a bit like playing blindfolded darts. Part of me wants to stop doing this because the confusion is deeply unsettling, but another part knows that the confusion is a byproduct of trying to touch something real. My choice is to either maintain the false reality where I understand this perfectly, or to accept that if I can't explain it in words then I don't really understand it. I'm going with the latter. Even if I don't really understand it, this exercise is the best thing I can do to get me closer to understanding.