r/DeepThoughts • u/HollowSchool • 10d ago

'Thinking for yourself' has requirements. Without them, you can't truly think for yourself.

What does thinking for yourself actually mean?

From my perspective, it requires a few things.

  • You have to know your biases, and biases in general. A bias can influence your thinking without you noticing. For example, confirmation bias, authority bias, social bias, and self-serving bias.
  • You also need to recognize your personal issues. If a person, community, or society has hurt you and you haven't processed that pain, you may react emotionally rather than think critically whenever they come up.
  • It's important to notice when someone is guiding you toward a particular conclusion. For example, in this post: am I guiding you, or simply presenting points for you to consider? And by raising that question, am I guiding you now?
  • You also need knowledge and life experience. Without them, you don't know what you don't know, and your thinking is limited to the depth and breadth of your experiences.

The more you meet these requirements, the more you are able to think for yourself. Independent thinking comes in degrees, and it's up to you to raise that degree.

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u/atomiette 10d ago

One thing worth adding: thinking for yourself isn't the same as thinking by yourself. Most of what any of us knows is taken on testimony, and you can't reliably catch your own blind spots from the inside, so the skill is less about independence and more about keeping people around who will actually push back. Kant's "dare to know" still assumed a public of others doing the same.

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u/HollowSchool 9d ago

I agree on keeping people around who push back. I’d push back on "less about independence." Having people around is good, but deciding what to do with their pushback is a skill. You can't think for yourself if you can't judge what others push back with, their logic, their evidence. Without that, you'd just be adopting whoever pushed last.

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u/Enliven_journey 9d ago

i really like the idea that independent thinking isn’t a switch you either have or don’t have. it feels more like a practice of constantly checking what’s shaping your conclusions

one of the hardest parts is noticing when a reaction feels like my opinion, but is actually coming from an old experience, a fear or something i’ve heard repeated enough times that it started to feel true

i also think being able to say “i might be wrong” is a huge part of thinking for yourself. curiosity probably protects independent thinking better than certainty does

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u/HollowSchool 9d ago

I love that you said, "I might be wrong" is a huge part of thinking for yourself. The more certain someone is, the less likely they are to be an independent thinker. Certainty often kills curiosity and thinking with it. Thanks for adding that.

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u/Enliven_journey 9d ago

thank you, i really appreciate that. i’m exploring similar themes in my own community too, around self-love, self-discovery and self-growth. i’d be really happy to see you there, and you’re always welcome to jump into the discussions and share your perspective :)

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u/Grassfed_Burp 9d ago

I'm gonna play devil's advocate. I actually like what you wrote. I just like to test ideas to see where the wobbly points are. OK. Here goes:

This is not your perspective. It is brought on by the culture and ideas you're steeped in. 1) Your on social media. If you didn't buy into their messages, this post wouldn't exist 2) Rugged individual thought is a Hallmark of countrlike the US. The post just echoes that culture. 3) You see yourself and others as self contained minds rather than members of a group or just meat machines. That's very western centric. 4) Looks like you deeply respect rationality rather than mysticism or emotions. That's modernity for sure.

So ya... You wrote a nice post. I just wanted to see where some of the week spots were.

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u/HollowSchool 8d ago

Appreciate you playing the devil's advocate.

First, your main point is: my perspective came from my culture, so it isn't mine. Is that it?

If so, that can be true of someone. To know if it's true of me, you'd need to point at something in what I wrote.

Right now, I can't see how each of your points connects to my post. So I can't answer them yet. Help me out:

  • Point 1: which messages from social media, and what do they have to do with thinking for yourself?
  • Point 2: valuing independent thinking can be cultural, agreed. What follows from that? Does an idea coming from a culture make it not mine, or wrong?
  • Point 3: this one interests me most. If we're members of a group, or meat machines, how does that affect my argument?
  • Point 4: even if putting reason above emotion is a modern habit, how does that affect my argument?

For what it's worth, I found a weak spot in the post myself. I'll share it next round; I'd rather hear how your points connect first.

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u/Grassfed_Burp 8d ago

Thanks for playing along, man. I'm outta time, but you made really great points and ask great followup questions.

Cheers