Who knows?

"The only thing I know for certain is that I know nothing."

How much do you know? Consider for a moment the vast amount of information that you've accumulated in your lifetime: the facts and trivia you learned through school and work, your day to day experiences, the memory of your internal thoughts and feelings over the years, what you've read, what you've seen with your own two eyes...

It's easy to take for granted that we know something. The human brain is unparalleled in its ability to make short-term predictions extrapolated from sensory input. At its heart, this ability has to rely on the assumption that said sensory input is valid.

Unfortunately, the same mental processes that let us catch a ball thrown through the air or have successful social interactions also cause us to favor our existing mental model of the world over new information that makes us question previous assumptions. This can manifest in a number of ways, from logical fallacies in otherwise well-intentioned discussions to social media echo chambers that only reinforce already-held beliefs.

We build our entire worldview on our previous assumptions. Obviously it would be an impossible task to rethink everything we've ever known from first principles every time we had to make a decision. It's a much more efficient and practical necessity to assume what we already know is pretty much true and tweak it as new incoming information comes in. This works great most of the time. Questioning the fundamental nature of reality doesn't help you buy bananas at the supermarket.

However, these adaptations that make it possible to cope with the day to day world make it nearly impossible to accept information that would fundamentally conflict with our preconceived worldview. We will hold on to any shred of anecdote to support what we already believe in the face of a mountain of evidence to the contrary. We will shut out those we once counted friends if they share something sufficiently misaligned our beliefs. We will choose where we get our news and entertainment, where we shop, who we spend time with, even where we live, based on creating an environment that doesn't challenge our views.

Once we "know" something, it's exceedingly difficult to take a step back and really think about how or why we know. Taking this to its logical conclusion results in the deepest rabbit hole of all rabbit holes, but I think it's worth the effort. It's turtles all the way down, but we'll dig as far as we can.

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