Connecting The Dots
Why trying to reason from first principles is often helpful
There are three basic approaches one can adopt when encountering new information. Only one of the approaches can help us avoid forming beliefs that are not merely invalid but often harmful.
The first approach one can take is simple to accept whatever is being said. This is the easiest approach, and one that is therefore favored by a great many people.
The second approach is to reject whatever is being said. This is also an extremely easy approach, and one that is therefore favored by a great many people.
The third approach is to consider whatever is being said and then attempt to assess the probability of it being consistent with information that has been validated in the past and is therefore a somewhat reliable basis for the thought experiment. By means of such comparisons one can reason from adequately-established first principles. This is not an easy approach and therefore it is one that very few people even consider, much less attempt.
The third approach, however, is the only one that has any chance of avoiding the adoption of misleading or entirely false beliefs.
So what does it mean to compare new information against reasonably reliable pre-existing information and thereby…
