“Humans have the unique ability to construct abstract concepts that have no anchor in the physical world, but we often take this ability for granted.”
Marcel Just, professor of psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.
Abstract thinking, or as dictionary.com puts it, is “the ability to use concepts and make and understand generalizations, such as of the properties or pattern shared by a variety of specific items or events.”
Maybe another way to think about it is the ability to think or believe something you cannot prove is one of those things that separates humans from all other animals (as far as we know). Furthermore, we have no real proof for most of the things we believe. Wars are fought over ideas and thoughts that no one could prove or disprove.
But how do we come to our beliefs, and can we trust them?
We have discussed truths and beliefs before, and that conversation focused more on our ability to separate when we had a truth and a belief. It also framed the idea that we need to find our own 'truths' and how that should be a journey. This time, I want to dig into what becomes our beliefs or thoughts we take as facts without proof.
Facts without evidence
We are all full of ideas of things we believe to be true that may not be. From the following list of seven things, which are true, and which are not?
You lose most of your body heat through your head
Specific tastes correspond to different parts of the tongue
Cracking knuckles leads to arthritis
The earth orbits around the sun
Sugar can be as addictive as heroin
Wet hair can cause a cold
Shaving makes hair grow back thicker
As you might have guessed, none of these are true (proof here). Some are just fairy tales, some are urban myths, and some are shortcuts that help rather than harm us. The idea of shortcuts has come up before when discussing the book Thinking Fast and Slow.
Kahneman's learning is that we have two systems in our brains - a fast one and a slow one. System 1 is immediate, automatic, and emotional, while System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. If we believe something because System 1 tells us to, that might be OK, and life would take too long and be too complex if we had to use System 2 to make every decision.
So how does System 1 go about believing something?
Many think it works this way: you hear something, decide if it is true or not (confirmation bias), and then if it makes sense to you, it becomes a belief. Research says this may not be the way it works.
According to the work of Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, the decide/not decide step doesn't happen until after we have already believed. The way System 1 works is for us to assume everything is true until we prove to ourselves that something is not valid. It can take lots of work to disbelieve, and you must work through your current beliefs and compare the new idea to your current understanding.
The way that process works is to engage your confirmation and so many other biases. Not the least of these is the Illusory Truth Effect. As Gilbert puts it, “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.”
The illusory truth effect convinces us that something is true after being exposed to it multiple times. This also can be seen as a part of the Availability Heuristic. The availability heuristic operates on the notion that if you can recall something, it must be necessary, or at least more important than alternative solutions you cannot remember.
So, however you get to what you believe, you may need to accept that it is not based on 'facts,' but you believe your 'truths' are.
Just a story
But what can you do with all of this?
Well, it might be worth considering a framework for understanding your and others' beliefs.
What you believe is often not based on facts but on how you have internalized what you have heard.
Facts are not truths (see here) as much as you want them to be.
Everyone comes to their beliefs through a journey, and you should take time to understand their journey if you want to understand their beliefs.
Finally, accept that most of what you believe to be true is a story you tell yourself. Being open to being wrong or learning the story is more significant than you think.