Occupy a house or apartment, and it will acquire junk. Much the same can be said of your mind. In the years you have “occupied” it, you have doubtless acquired mistaken beliefs. Many were acquired when you were too young to thoughtfully sort through the things people told you, deciding which to believe and which to reject. And when you gained this ability, you might have failed to exercise it. You might, in particular, have uncritically accepted the misinformation disseminated by “news” outlets on the internet.
As we have seen, a Thinker’s goal is to optimize their mind by filling it, to the extent possible, with beliefs that are true and useful, and to accomplish this, they will engage in a mind-optimization program. In my previous post, I introduced the first component of this program, a mindcare regimen in which we take care in choosing the sources of information to which we expose ourselves. Fail to do this, and our mind will end up stuffed with mistaken beliefs, the way a hoarder’…