Michael Eriksson
A Swede in Germany
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Changing opinions

2024 introduction and meta-information

This is one of many texts written in 2012 but only published in 2024.

For now, the text is a somewhat edited version of most of the 2012 text plus the odd addendum. A large portion of the 2012 text dealing with music, however, has been removed. While the example was legitimate, the sheer amount of necessary explanation of circumstances made the “information-to-noise ratio” poor.

The original title referred to the pain of changing opinions and much of the current contents naturally still match that take. I dropped the pain aspect from the title because (a) the actual contents were not always on topic for that title, (b) considerable later additions might take place. Such additions will often address different aspects of changing opinions, which would either make the original title misleading or force the use of separate pages. I have, indeed, had quite a few thoughts on the matter of changing opinions in the interim and might even have one or two (much rougher) drafts that arose independently. (In part, because I had simply forgotten the existence of the 2012 text.)

As always with these texts, my 2012 take on a particular issue does not necessarily match my 2024 take (as a special case of changing opinions) and I have not necessarily adapted the text where differences are present.

2012 introduction

One of the problems that can face the critical thinker and the striver for knowledge and understanding: the often painful transition from one set of believes to another, sometimes even antithetical, set. This applies in particular to believes from youth and childhood, including belief in factually faulty statements by authority figures (notably parents and teachers), what the child wanted to believe out of a wish for superiority, and misinterpretations of events/correlations/causalities.


Side-note:

But do not underestimate the risk that adults form poor opinions. A critical difference, however, might be that opinions formed by an adult are less likely to see future revision than those formed by a child, as the expected further growth is the greater for a child (and, maybe, as many might find it less painful to admit that “I was wrong when I was 10” than “[...] 30”).


Below I will give some examples from my own life. I encourage the reader to try to find similar examples for himself: This exercise can be a good source of self-knowledge and a help to avoid similar errors in the now.

God

Pre-separation, my parents were both officers in the Salvation Army, my mother later became a priest (and re-married another priest). That God existed, was wise and benevolent, all-knowing and all-powerful, was taken for granted—a fact as indisputable as the existence of aeroplanes.


Side-note:

While my family was deeply religious, it was very far from e.g. the stereotypical religious family depicted in U.S. fiction. For instance, no-one questioned my reading children’s books about dinosaurs or astronomy—nor do I, with hindsight, think that my parents believed in more than a metaphorical interpretation of Genesis.


As I grew up, however, the lack of evidence and the many errors of the Bible made me a highly reluctant skeptic—and over a period of possibly ten years, I grudgingly moved from an everyday Christian child to a looking-for-excuses-to-justify-belief 12 y.o., to a 15 y.o. agnostic, to a 19 y.o. atheist. (Ages are to be seen as very rough approximations.) Indeed, aged 37 and in light of decades of observation, knowledge of science, and readings on the background of Christianity, I consider it less likely that God (in the Christian sense) exists than Jessica Alba being a man. (I deeply doubt that there are any beings, at all, that would qualify to be called gods; however, a less categorical statement than for God is needed. A 100m world record of less than 8 seconds might or might not ever happen; however, if it does happen, it is far less likely that a specific runner will manage it than that some runner will—and e.g. Danny DeVito can be ruled out entirely. Similarly, there is so much speaking against specifically God, specifically Allah, etc.)


Addendum:

Concerning Jessica Alba, note that this was written before the gender-/trans-mania that afflicts the world in 2024. The statement refers to the low probability that I and the rest of the world would have misunderstood her to be a biological woman while she actually was a biological man—not the likelihood that she would suddenly self-identify as a man.

Looking at the bigger question of religion, I have not had cause to re-evaluate my opinions of the correctness of religion; however, to some degree, my opinions of the believers have changed. While most believers (and most followers of e.g. a political ideology) tend to be quite naive, I have seen cases of much subtler belief, as with e.g. C. S. Lewis, who might still have been wrong but who was wrong for a much better reason than so many others (including the pre-agnostic versions of me).



Side-note:

Of course, even if God existed, it would not follow that being a Christian (in the conventional sense) was a necessity—or even a good idea:

For instance, from an ethical POV, I see no automatic reason to follow the commands of a god (ipso facto) because they were issued by a god. Instead, I would prefer to make my own value judgments. Notably, looking at the theodicy problem, it can be disputed whether (the hypothetical) God is also actually good—we only have his word for it. Bringing humans to follow his bidding by threats of purgatory and promises of paradise (even be it through his emissaries) certainly is no confidence raiser—he should use factual arguments and logical reasoning instead.


Own abilities

I am very bright, yet I am very far from perfect. Learning my limitations was in many ways painful and unnecessarily costly in terms of effort invested. Lessons include that if I just passively read a book once (as opposed to more actively and/or more than once), I will have forgotten most of it six months later, that being able to cruise through freshman math in college did not imply that I could cruise through graduate level math, and that there are problems that overtax my short-term memory when I try to solve them in my head. Perhaps most notably, I have had to come to terms with the fact that gaining an in-depth understanding of even half of all the fields (taken in a wide meaning, not restricted to the academic) worthy of it, is far beyond what I could achieve in one life-time.


Side-note:

The last goes hand-in-hand with the unrelated realization that e.g. a Master’s degree does not signify mastery of the field in question: At a best, it implies some degree of mastery of a sub-field; more typically, just a sound base for future development. Frustratingly, as my knowledge of a field increases, the more I invariably become aware of the many things that I do not know, making learning akin to Herakles fighting the Hydra—for every head chopped off, two more appear.

More generally, there are many with a degree of some sort who have no true understanding of the field at hand or are too slow-minded to draw the appropriate conclusions in a related situation. This is particularly common in the softer sciences, where diligence or sufficient adherence to the opinions of the faculty can often compensate sufficiently for a lack of brain-power to ensure a B.A. or even something more advanced.


In addition, I have over the years discovered a number of areas (in particular, with regards to “people skills”) where it might seem that I would have a natural advantage, but where my actual development has trailed my age-peers. Some of these, I have turned around by now; others yet remain.

Women

My image of women as a youth and a young man was in many regards highly naive and faulty. Problems include the Feminist/politically correct idiocy that men and women differ only in external attributes, the sexual attitudes of women, a far too positive view of women when it comes to areas like peacefulness (for instance, statistics show that women are the perpetrators and men the victims of domestic violence more often than the reverse).


Addendum:

The original text contained an internal link to a yet unpublished 2012 text on sexual attitudes, which has been removed. (Gist: women are more, not less, interested in sex than men are.) TODO re-instate after publication of that text.

It also contained a link to an external statistics page, which has gone dead in the interim. This link is replicated here but has been removed from the main text. TODO find a replacement.


Many of the changes of opinion in the romantic and sexual area have been very hard and troublesome. In other areas, the adjustments have had a more harmless character, but have still often taken a long time. Various forms of doublethink were common with the young me, as well as the problem of “under-generalization”: I have a history of considering humans who do not behave as expected as rare exceptions even when the “exceptions” have accumulated to the point that the expectation should reasonably be questioned.

Competence, rationality, etc.

Another good example of “under-generalization” is the competence, rationality, whatnot of humans in general and co-workers in particular: The adjustment from “almost everyone is competent” to “almost everyone except for members of group A and B are competent” to “at least almost everyone in groups C and D are competent” to “almost everyone is incompetent” has been long, has cost me many opportunities, and is still incomplete (in as far as I tend to forget the lesson again and again).