The scientific method. Try to falsify your own beliefs.

For me, one of the biggest indicators is that I’ve actually changed my mind on several issues. I even keep a list of things I’ve changed my mind about or been proven wrong on. I don’t resist being wrong – I take pride in it.

Similarly, there are things I’ve changed my mind about and then later changed back to my original position. To me, that signals a certain mental flexibility and openness to new views, which I see as crucial for error correction.

Another thing that comes to mind is that there are topics where my opinions fundamentally differ from those of my peers. That alone isn’t concrete evidence of independent thinking, but at the very least, it shows a willingness to resist conforming under peer pressure.

By remaining self critical. Listening to new ideas. Trying to not hold it against myself when I'm wrong. Also reading, lots and lots of reading. I've been reading at a college level since the middle of elementary school, and Ive used that time to read a ridiculous corpus of books, tomes, treatises and manuscripts. Can even speak and write a little Old Babylonian.

I urge everyone who feels like this post resonates with them to check out Eckhart Tolle. There's no way to be sure our beliefs are true so it's important not to get attached to them too closely.

It's funny. I've seen research about LLMs "reasoning" and "introspecting" that has shown that they make up stories when you ask them why they answered questions in certain ways that don't match how their neurons actually fired, and a common response in the comments is to triumphantly crow about how this shows they're not "self aware" or "actually thinking" or whatever.

But it may be the same with humans. There's been fun experiments where people would have neurons artificially stimulated in their brains that cause them to take some action, such as reaching out with their hand, and then when you ask them why they did that they'll say - and believe - that they did it for some made-up reason like they were just stretching or that they wanted to pick something up. Even knowing full well that they're in an experiment that's going to use artificial stimulus to make them do that.

I suspect that much of what we call "consciousness" is just made up after-the-fact to explain to ourselves why we do the things that we do. Maybe even all of it, for all we currently know. It's a fun shower thought to ponder, if nothing else. And perhaps now that we've got AI to experiment with in addition to just our messy organic brains we'll be able to figure it all out with more rigor. Interesting times ahead.

I'm not terribly concerned about it, though. If it turns out that this is how we've been operating all along, well, it's how we've been operating all along. I've liked being me so far, why should that change when the curtain's pulled back and I can see the hamster in the wheel that's been making me work like that all along? It doesn't really change anything, and I'd like to know.

i'm constantly in conflict with myself, always seek out perspectives that challenge my own, not just to understand them, but to see if they break mine. that inner war keeps me from trusting my first instincts too easily. it doesn’t guarantee i’m reasoning, but it forces me to notice when i'm just agreeing with what feels good

Short answer? I don't.

What if your worldview just happens to align neatly with your temperament, your social environment, or whatever gives you emotional relief?

It does. The things is, though - I happen to prominently share basic human values, such as kindness, mutual aid, cooperation, and care, all of which are normally seen as "good".

My social environment is very median, and I do understand the regular person as I am one. I know the struggles people in my group face, and am open-minded about struggles of others outside it.

I feel relieved in the world where people are good to each other, and if that's not what we strive for, then humanity has abandoned the very core of its own morals. When such basic things are betrayed, it's always a sign of corruption, an attempt to justify greed, or selfishness, or something else.

Then comes the critical examination of ideas that claim to lead us there, whether they could be contradictory and leave us with a very different place than we intended, either because not enough thinking went into original concept, or because it was a con to begin with, clearly serving the corrupt interest of the few.

If your reasoning is entirely based in evidence available to everyone else, that's about as trustworthy as you can get. The less people know about it (or the more they've already been misinformed about it by people they -did- trust), the more likely they will not follow your reasoning.

That, for example, is why it took Tesla years to get anyone to help him build the first AC motors and generators ... including Edison. Most either knew little about it or were already convinced that it couldn't be done.

Everyone likes to believe they’re thinking independently.

Can you elaborate on that claim?

I exercise some critical analysis, but for the most part I just have trust in human ambition. For example: the reason I believe human CO2 emissions are driving climate change is not because I've looked at the evidence and evaluated it for myself.

The reason I believe that human CO2 emissions are driving climate change is: that seems to be the consensus of people that have worked hard to impartially develop expertise and gather data to understand climate science.

There are two important systems at play

1: Scientific research, which harnesses human ambition by rewarding impartial research and discoveries which overturn old assumptions/paradigms.

2: Journalism, which harnesses human ambition by rewarding impartial reporting on various fields of human interest. (Reporting is why it seems to be the consensus of the scientific community)

The impartiality of these systems is (has always been) under assault by capitalism (which also derives its power by harnessing human ambition) and so one must, to an increasing degree, evaluate the appropriate level of personal mental effort to allocate to identifying biases in the reporting.

What if your reasoning is just post-hoc justification

Relax, part of it is :)

The brain is able to do many different kinds of thinking. Reasoning is one of them. Dreaming is another, etc.

When you are thinking logically, then it is reproducible, and it is understandable and verifiable by other people.

When you do scientific research, such verfification by others is even required, before your results are considered meaningful and true.

Self examination. Question and challenge your beliefs constantly. Dig into anything that makes you uncomfortable especially

If you're not growing, your views are not getting closer to the truth. There is no end point, only growth

That’s what scares me - not being wrong, but being convinced I’m right for reasons that are more about mood than method.

I think that'll be the case most of the time. The only known way to get a grasp of reality is cooperation, and the agreement to let experiment be the arbiter of truth. Which is difficult, as many systems can't easily be experimented on in isolation (and you're left with counterfactuals only).

Histories greatest thinkers struggled with this too. Descartes changed his famous postulate "je pense donc je suis" to "je doute donc je suis" later in life. ("I think therefore I am", became "I doubt therefore I am"). I read that as trading reason for emotion as core to his being.

Analyze after the fact. I just try to convince myself I'm wrong about things and hopefully I'm not successful the majority of the time. Think about any specific situation I feel I need to, and compare how I acted with how I would want to act. It's an active maintenance process that means hopefully i have more interactions that line up with what's desired. More than if I just allowed myself to act entirely on instinct

I somehow answered this wrong thread.