# How we are certain of things Dealing with the [unknown](unknown.md) is vastly difficult, so we tend to find [meaning](meaning.md) in declaring things to be certain. [We must constantly trust](trust.md) everything around us, but we make [decisions](people-decisions.md) to prioritize trusting one thing over another. We "believe" when we consider something to be [reality](reality.md), even without direct evidence. - We all believe (i.e., implicitly trust) we'll have enough food for our next meal. - If you have a job, you believe you'll have it tomorrow. - You believe you will wake up tomorrow morning. Beliefs are how we establish things when we can't really know but have to make some type of [decision](people-decisions.md) based on that information, which is almost every time we have no [direct control](results.md) over something. We start to believe when we [value](people-decisions.md) one thing as [true](reality.md) over another thing. APPLICATION: The only way we can prepare our minds for maximum [understanding](understanding.md) is by opening it up to *all* possibilities. While it's uncomfortable, all we have to do is convert every inner statement into a question to create an [inner conflict](conflicts-inner.md) about it. As children, we start with 100% certainty about various things, but our beliefs become a spectrum as we gain [understanding](understanding.md): 1. A [deterrence](safety.md)-based [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) of worse alternatives. 2. A broad belief that we [understand](understanding.md) something far enough that it's very likely. 3. Believing the thing enough to [rely on](people-decisions.md). 4. Concluding the thing is [indisputable](conflicts-inner.md). 5. [Identifying](identity.md) close enough with the thing to act boldly and publicly about it, even to the point of [confrontation](people-conflicts.md). A giant portion of what we believe in comes through the [authority](trust.md) we hold our beliefs on: - If an authority is physically present, we can only trust it as far as [reality](reality.md) and [consequences](results.md) hold up. - Holding to the authority of the ideas themselves is a strictly [philosophical](philosophy.md) justification. - We end up believing ideas based on other ideas, which usually goes back to one of our [impressions](image.md) or [cultural teaching](people-culture.md). We can only know a small set of facts without needing *any* belief: 1. By [thinking](understanding.md) at all, you prove that you are a thinking thing. 2. [Pain](mind-feelings-fear.md), in whatever form it takes, is real. 3. [Feelings](mind-feelings.md) exist, in whatever form they express as. Everything else, from the idea of a [perfect circle](math.md) to what we understand behind others' [language](language.md), has degrees of uncertainty that we gloss over with [habitual](habits.md) [expectations](imagination.md). Both fools *and* wise people become more certain as they gain [understanding](understanding.md). The major difference is the scope of where they claim that certainty. Wise people claim certainty on specific things and expand outward, while fools start with a broad claim that applies to many more things than it should. We make [commitments](purpose.md) and [predictions](imagination.md) about what we are certain of. Those commitments and predictions (and how well we [follow through with them](results.md)) demonstrate our true beliefs, [contrary to what we claim we believe](image.md). - You expect a noise when you turn the key in your car. - The screen on your phone responds when you touch it. - People say something back when you say, "hello". ## Bad information Belief is a product of a functioning mind, but many things can betray our trust. We're often [deceived](image-distortion.md) or under-informed, people betray us, and we [miscalculate](mind-bias.md). While we misjudge all the time, we tend to fix misunderstandings immediately, and the self-correcting nature of our minds generally tends to fix those misunderstandings without our knowledge. Occasionally, we'll place our trust in a bad idea. When that happens, we'll often get "stuck" on believing it against all sensible approaches, and will substantiate it with various hard-to-disprove reasons: - [Conceit or hubris](morality-evil.md) about [reputation](image.md) or [knowledge](understanding.md). - Believing a group's [promises](people-contracts.md) that they can solve our [issues](purpose.md). - [Addictions](addiction.md) that ravage our ability to [think rationally](logic.md) from [over-identifying](identity.md) with it. - Trusting in the unverifiable unknown, such as in many [cults and religions](religion.md). - Belief in [statistics](math.md) or, on the other end, statistical *unlikelihood* (i.e., luck). - [Shame](mind-feelings-shame.md) over the consequences of changing a thought or action, or of publicly informing people of a change. We can lock ourselves into wrong beliefs with any repetitive action that reaffirms a subconscious thought (hypnosis). By repeating something over and over (e.g., a mantra), we start believing things as if we [understood](understanding.md) them, even when we don't. The more specific, the more we can [feel](mind-feelings.md) it, and the more powerful it becomes. Generally, it takes more work to maintain an [understanding](understanding.md) that something is uncertain. ## Decisions and trust In [decisions](people-decisions.md), we can only trust things we see as the same or better than the alternatives. Since we [understand ourselves](awareness.md) more than anyone else, we tend to use our self-perception as the starting point for practically everything else. Over our lives, we start creating a [purpose](purpose.md)-based hierarchy of what we can trust: - A person may trust their spouse more than anyone else, but will still trust themselves over their spouse on [trade-specific knowledge](jobs-specialization.md). - A lawyer is trustworthy to manage a legal situation, but not necessarily on [moral](morality.md) matters. - Typically, the domain of strangers' knowledge is more vast than friends', though their intentions aren't as clear. We decide with a conviction proportional to the clarity of our [understanding](understanding.md). To [actually create results](results.md), we must stop thinking about the matter at some point to avoid constantly second-guessing ourselves. APPLICATION: We *must* believe things when we're not fully certain. The volatile nature of life means [leaders](groups-small.md) and [artists](mind-creativity.md) venture into less certain places than the rest of society. So, [influence](power-influence.md) loosely correlates with the ability to trust. We don't always remember what we learned and its context, so we trust much of what we do from experience: - If a chair breaks, it's an unlikely event, so we find another chair. - A mother sometimes fails a child's expectations, but the child still trusts their mother because of other things that were good. - If someone loses a job, they'll look for another one because they've perceived other people who had jobs that fulfilled their [purposes](purpose.md). ## Crisis of faith Occasionally, we make bad decisions we think are good. We'll invest a *ton* of [resources](power.md) toward them, but won't get the [results](results.md) we were expecting. This is *completely* irrespective of how well we've [reasoned](logic.md), and comes mostly from [applying experience](understanding.md). When this happens, we suffer a type of cognitive dissonance where we trust two incompatible things at once. A crisis of faith is when we become aware of that conflict because an [expectation](imagination.md) failed with the one that we trusted more. APPLICATION: To find someone's actual opinion, ask for their advice for [resolving a problem](https://adequate.life/fix/), or what they think everyone else believes. We tend to have an [inner conflict](conflicts-inner.md), but many people with [trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) will [mix their trauma into what they believe about others' lives](people-boundaries.md). Some [political systems](politics-leftism.md) and [institutions](mgmt-badsystems.md) take advantage of this. Eventually, a person must decide: accept the new information they perceive, or believe something is "testing" their faith. Either way, they're rebuilding their [story](stories.md), either by changing the [logical](logic.md) conclusion (aka "changing their mind") or adding/removing premises. APPLICATION: Hypnosis is all around us (especially through our [past trauma](hardship-ptsd.md), [public media](creations.md), and [politics](politics-leftism.md)), but we can use it for our [purposes](purpose.md). By repeating something specific, we can channel our subconscious (e.g., "I will find a new job by the end of March."). It's [the secret to most success](success-2_attitude.md). APPLICATION: Everyone, even [leaders](groups-small.md), are subject to changing their views. This can create large-scale consequences for everyone, especially if it's changing a [core view](philosophy.md). When our faith is tested, but we still hold on, we call that "hope". There's a fine line between [sensible](logic.md) hope and blind hope. APPLICATION: Conviction requires focus, so smarter people (who can often [see complexities](understanding.md)) are often lousy at sticking to convictions, which often makes them terrible leaders. If that person starts denying reality to "prove" something, they're removing premises. Once this becomes [habitual](habits.md), they will resort to magical thinking, which is interpreting the world to be what they [imagine](imagination.md) instead of [what it is](reality.md). Magical thinkers tend to share a few traits: - They trust their preconceived beliefs and their [affiliated groups](groups-member.md) more than the perceptions. - They believe reality is dictated more by [saying](language.md) and [doing](people-decisions.md) specific things than from [cause-and-effect](results.md). - If something is outside their [understanding](understanding.md), it doesn't exist or must be purged. - In their [conflicts with others](people-conflicts.md), they presume they're 100% correct, and will often shift their thoughts if they've been [logically](logic.md) convinced. APPLICATION: Magical thinking exists proportionally to how self-trusting someone is, which frequently comes with intelligence. Thus, there are *tons* of magical thinkers in fields with intelligent people like [politics](politics-systems.md), [academia](understanding.md), and [computer programming](computers-programming.md) who won't acknowledge additional elements of [reality](reality.md) that they can't [know](understanding.md): - Many doctors believe the body's healing processes to be strictly mechanical and often neglect the psychosomatic [power](power.md) we possess through our [happiness](mind-feelings-happiness.md) and beliefs. - Most scientists are religiously [atheist](religion.md), but claim to be non-religious. - When large groups have a [procedure or policy](results.md) they deem necessary, they'll become [corrupted](mgmt-badsystems.md) while trying to maintain it. APPLICATION: [MLM](marketing-mlm.md), gambling, and lotteries [appear](image.md) to be ubiquitous because people are deceived into expecting tremendous wealth. In reality, they engage in those things because they *hope* for tremendous wealth from those things, and find [meaning](meaning.md) in a journey that's rarely fulfilled. If we choose to listen to the [feeling](mind-feelings.md) of distrust, we'll disbelieve what we were [trained](understanding.md). We'll enter a type of "agnosis", where we'll live in disbelief about a broad range of related concepts. It can sometimes span a subject, but other times can possess everything we've *ever* known. APPLICATION: While extremists are typically the most outspoken people of a [group](groups-member.md), they often don't [understand](understanding.md) the thing they're [promoting](marketing.md). They're typically acting off [trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) and magical thinking, but devout believers in a thing don't really *need* to convince others to [feel](mind-feelings.md) the thing is [true](reality.md). Disagree with them and closely observe [what they disagree over](people-boundaries.md). APPLICATION: Hope is based around a [purpose](purpose.md), so if someone feels hopeless, they're failing to see how a thing can accomplish a purpose. Understanding that purpose is key to understanding if something *is* hopeless. Since we trust our [habits of thought and action](habits.md), the only way to prevent a crisis of faith from even starting is to continually [revisit old habits](https://adequate.life/habits/) and [beliefs](awareness.md). APPLICATION: It's extremely difficult to change a person's opinions. The only way to do this is to [influence](power-influence.md) them with a compelling [story](stories.md) about an alternative opinion, then wait.