The Secret of Open-mindedness

By Gary Z McGee – fractalenlightenment

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” – Niels Bohr

The secret of open-mindedness is having a healthy understanding of the concept of probability. Moreover, it is the ability to take things into consideration rather than simply believe in them. Belief can be blinding, and so it has a high potential to lead to close-mindedness. A more reasonable strategy is to have a healthy skepticism so that we’re open enough to accept radical new ideas, but not so open that our brains spill out.

The best way to maintain a healthy skepticism is to take things into consideration rather than believe in them. Taking things into consideration is superior to belief, as it pertains to open-mindedness, exactly because everything is allowed to be possible. But just because (on a long enough timeline) everything is possible, doesn’t mean that everything is probable. That’s where probability comes in, and gives us something we can hang our hat on.

For example: I’m only close-minded about one thing: being close-minded. I don’t technically “believe” in anything. I simply consider some things more than I do others. The only thing I’m certain of is that certainty is useless. Probability, however, is exceptionally useful. Everything falls along a line of probability. From the .0000000001% probability that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is God and a Jewish Zombie saved us from our sins, to the 99.999999999% probability that the earth actually revolves around the sun and isn’t flat.

Everything from ghosts moving through walls to bats being made of wood (or flesh) falls in between. I may take evolution into consideration more than unicorns, but neither one will I have absolute certainty in. Certainty just leaves us reeling in myopic inertia and prevents us from thinking outside the box, or breaking a mental paradigm, or stretching comfort zones. It stifles our creativity and leads to close-mindedness. Certainty is for amateurs and close-minded people, anyway. Like renowned physicist Richard Feynman said, “I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure about anything.”
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