PsiPog.net

I was reading Steve's new blog post on skepticism, The Death of Skepticism, and it got me thinking (of course) .

The line that really hit me was this one: "Ultimately skepticism is rooted in fear. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of being gullible. Fear of living a foolishly."

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks that it's true. It seems obvious now that I look at it like that, and all my past experiences are starting to line up. The universe was preparing to deliver this lesson to me today, based on recent experiences too. Now all I have to do is digest it .

If you've read my blog in you past, you know how I used to struggle with the idea of skepticism, and what is the correct level of skepticism. Now, I see an easy way to detect: if my skeptical attitude is based on fear, then it's unhealthy. A lot of times it is based on fear. The two predominant fears are: 1. if I had an amazing experience, I fear being skeptical will make the experience less amazing, so I don't want to be skeptical, and 2. if I had an amazing experience, I fear by not being skeptical, it's possible I'll be fooled by it, and make myself look like an idiot.

Since having an amazing experience generates both of these situations, I fear all amazing experiences as well. I enjoy experiencing something amazing - but at the same time, it's also a burden to my skeptical mind, and I have to traverse this fearful landscape of what to do next.

As a very clear example, look at the geiger counter experiments. When I first got results that I could see with my own eyes, it threw me into a state of fear. I paced my room, debating what to do... wondering if my fingers made the spike... and if so, then my entire experience was false. Or if something else did... I sat and feared testing my finger on the geiger counter, wondering if it would produce false results. After about 10 minutes of pacing around, I decided I had to test my fingers. When I did, there wasn't any spike, and I was relieved.

Now, I'm not saying I shouldn't test things... what I am saying, is that this experience shouldn't throw me into a state of fear.

Now that I know what the experience shouldn't do, I need to figure out why I throw myself into a state of fear, and fix it . This will then show me what state I should go to instead. The universe has done a good job presenting me with this lesson... although I still probably have a few coincidences that I need to see before I totally grasp it. Fun times.

~Sean