I’m fascinated with human nature, and recently, I’ve been diving into books about epistemology, denial, and self-deception. Why have I been reading so many of these books lately? Because it’s absolutely amazing how many of us (yes, you and me are included) are 100% positive that we know the truth. Recently, I’ve had a few encounters that really highlight this, and I can’t help but think about how massive our egos must be to have such certainty. When we take a step back and really recognize this, only then can we even begin to get closer to the truth.
I’ll be honest with you, I’m about to tell you some stories that will seem extreme. I assume that as you read about my encounters, many of you will think, “Well this person is just ridiculous and possibly suffers from delusional thinking.” But we must realize that we’re actually not much different than these same people who we criticize or even make fun of.
What inspired me to sit down and write this piece was an encounter I had this morning on Twitter. Although many people argue that “Twitter isn’t real life”, we have to remember that these are real people who are often sharing their real thoughts.
These people are carrying their thoughts from the real world onto social media platforms, and these are the same people who are in our lives. They’re our parents, siblings, and relatives. They’re our coworkers and neighbors. So, I think Twitter is a great place to try to have conversations with people from all around the world to try and understand their way of thinking.
The conversation I had this morning was ignited by a response I had to a Tweet from Jay Van Bavel. Jay is an incredible psychological researcher and has been in the field for 20 years. In this thread, he debunks the idea of “mass formation psychosis” that anti-vaxxer Dr. Robert Malone popularized recently on the Joe Rogan podcast.
I’ve had Jay on my podcast to discuss his amazing book The Power of Us. He and his co-author Dominic Packer are some smart dudes who wrote one of the best books I’ve read about tribalism and social identity, and I really enjoyed my conversation with Jay.
I replied to Jay and mentioned this book I recently finished:
That’s when I came across my interlocutor. He replied by saying, “Wow...if you need to read such a book to understand logic, facts, universal balance and how humans work in term of 'digestion' cognitive capacity. Then you may end up reading for the rest of your life without fundamentally understating Creation and its intricacies.”
He then went on to retweet me and say, “How easy is for you to just be completely...'mesmerised' by your so called 'true'. You couldn't stand truth for a second if you could be able to actually encapsulate a small part of it. Everyone likes the truth until it reaches depths that hurt their comfort zone.”
Next, he explained his certainty to me with the following responses:
”No book can open your mind, with the exception of the Bible(if you can understand it)...hence why reading only won't help you have a fundamental understanding.”
“True wisdom and understanding can be received by asking Father for it. Many people for example read the Bible but how many actually make sense of its teachings/meanings? Less than 001%.”
“I happened to went through a past experience in regards to our Creator and Father... and in a prayer I asked Him to open my mind's eyes to understand everything within what was left for me to comprehend...and I was left with an infinite resource of understanding.”
If you’re an atheist like me, or even if you’re a less extreme believer, you may find these responses way off the rails. But as I mentioned earlier, even if aren’t this guy, we still often express the same levels of certainty.
The other encounter that comes to mind happened a couple weeks ago.
This guy with a large Twitter account that panders to the anti-woke said something borderline transphobic and scientifically inaccurate:
I retweeted him explaining that this is incorrect due to the ongoing scientific and philosophical debates about the “self”. Then, one of his followers replied to me and started to tell me with absolute certainty that you are your body. I proceeded to ask him some questions about the self and what makes us who we are. He didn’t have answers, but he was totally sure that he was right.
The Audacity
During both of these conversations, I pointed out that people have been researching these topics for decades, sometimes centuries, and in the case of the self, it’s been thousands of years. I told them how we’re in the 21st century, and some of the brightest minds in the world are still researching and debating these topics.
A great example is Anil Seth, one of the leading researchers in the science of consciousness. He’s been studying this for decades now. The amount of money and resources that goes into studying this would blow your mind. I spoke with Anil about this on my podcast when he came on to chat about his new book Being You. This research is done by scientists from fields like neuroscience and physics. And you need to dabble in some philosophical questioning as well.
Or in the case of the first guy who is religious. He was arguing with Jay, who has dedicated his life to psychological research and is highly respected in his field as well.
Now, take a step back and think about this. These two random people on Twitter have the audacity to basically say, “Nope. I have the answers. I know more than them.” The amount of ego that takes is astonishing. But what’s even crazier is this is just two out of the millions of people who do this on Twitter on a daily basis.
I told you that you and I are no different than these people, and to try and lower your defenses, I’ll use myself as an example and why I’m so passionate about this topic.
Certainty Almost Killed Me
For nearly a decade, I was a drug addict and alcoholic. My addiction almost killed me. Nobody could help me because in my mind, I truly believed that I was the smartest person in the room at all times. Everyone else was stupid, but I saw the world for what it really was and knew everything.
That’s insanity in it’s purest form. I’m sitting there killing myself with drugs and alcohol. I lost everything in my life including friends and family, and I wasn’t even allowed to see my son.
I tried to get sober multiple times, but I couldn’t. I suffered from the same problem that kills thousands of addicts each year; I lacked any semblance of intellectual humility. Nobody from 12-step programs or treatment centers could teach me anything because I believed I knew more than them.
Finally, in 2012 when I got sober for good, it was due to dozens of life-changing “a-ha” moments. One of them was the fact that my mom got sober in 12-step programs 7 years earlier. My mom has a Ph.D. in psychology and managed to humble herself and get sober. So, one day, I thought, “I’m a college dropout. My mom is one of the smartest people I know. If she was able to humble herself and realize she didn’t know how to stay sober and needed help, then who the hell am I to think I’m too smart for this?”
This was the point in my life when I had to deflate my ego and realize that I don’t know shit.
Today, I read hundreds of non-fiction books each year to learn as much as possible. I interview some of these experts on my podcast who have been researching these topics for years. The more I learn about each topic just shows me how much I still don’t know, and it drives my curiosity to learn more.
Why Do We Do This?
Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with this on a daily basis. This is something built into our DNA. What I’ve learned is that the most important thing any of us can do is recognize how silly it is for us to fall victim to our egos and believe we have all of the answers. But the question is, why do we do this?
This is the topic of numerous books, so I won’t be able to do the topic justice. For now, I’ll just give a couple quick reasons for why we love certainty and struggle to stay humble.
The first reason is that certainty feels good. We evolved to recognize patterns and make causal inferences. It’s how we learn. Since this helped us survive, our brains developed in a way to give us pleasure when we feel like we know something. So, basically, we get dopamine hits when we’re certain. Certainty feels good. We chase it like a drug. But if certainty feels good, that means uncertainty feels bad.
If you’re someone like me who struggles with anxiety, you know how bad uncertainty can feel. Fortunately, through therapy, meditation, and medications, I’ve learned to accept uncertainty for the most part, but it’s tough. But this has helped me understand conspiracy theorists and others who have irrational beliefs. Those beliefs give them a sense of certainty, so it’s basically a coping mechanism.
At the end of the day, it all boils down to fear. Yes, the ego is playing a big role, but I think the ego often acts out of fear as well. It’s scary not knowing, so I can understand why people believe in God or another form of a Higher Power. And take a look at conspiracy theorists. They use conspiracies to make sense of this world where we feel like we lack power and control.
So, if you’re reading this, try to let go of some of this fear and be alright with not knowing. We have a major issue with everyone from your average person to so-called experts believing they know everything and have to be certain. We need to normalize saying, “I don’t know.” Frankly, if anyone ever says they’re 100% certain about anything, I’m immediately skeptical of just about everything they say.
But the last thing I’ll leave you with is the question I’ve been wrestling with for a few days now. If certainty feels good and uncertainty feels bad, how do we incentivize curiosity and intellectual humility?
This question has been bugging me for a while now, so now you have to share that burden with me. And hey, maybe we just don’t know.
I’m currently writing a book about how we’re manipulated by the news, social media, technology, advertisers, and each other. It dives into the psychological history of manipulation, our biases, tribalism, and more.
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