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WHY YOUR BRAIN LIKES TO THINK STUFF IS TRUE
We form beliefs in a haphazard way, believing all sorts of things based just on what we hear out in the world but haven’t researched for ourselves.
This is how we think we form abstract beliefs:
We hear something;
We think about it and vet it, determining whether it is true or false; only after that
We form our belief.
It turns out, though, that we actually form abstract beliefs this way:
We hear something;
We believe it to be true;
Only sometimes, later, if we have the time or the inclination, we think about it and vet it, determining whether it is, in fact, true or false.
Back in 1991, Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert summarized centuries of research on belief formation this way: “People are credulous creatures who find it very easy to believe and very difficult to doubt. In fact, believing is so easy, and perhaps so inevitable, that it may be more like involuntary comprehension than it is like rational assessment.”
Via David Hain
