Can You Have a Completely Original Thought?

Or does your upbringing, culture, education, and world experience shape those thoughts and ideas?

I have been watching and interacting with conversations about education, politics, religion, indoctrination in general, science, and philosophy.

All of these conversations are skewed by the bias of each person’s education and life experience. This would seem obvious. But, it is tragically not apparent to those speaking! They believe their opinions to be universal truths. They don’t see that the opinions they have come from the collective consciousness of the environment they keep themselves in, and rarely move from that stance when presented new information.

It takes an intelligent and critical thinking mind to be self-aware of it’s own biases. To understand that you favor one side or another of a topic and be capable of evaluating that bias and adjusting it based on new information is an incredibly rare ability.

That is a cliche because it is true. We resist change even though we know and experience the fact that it is constantly happening.

Why then do we resist the possibility that new information could alter the conditions of a controversial subject? The answers are: fear, pride, prejudice and ego. We fear change. We take pride in what we think we know. We are prejudiced toward what we prefer and against that which we don’t understand or find distasteful. Finally our ego is so fragile, that we can’t stand to be seen as fallible. I experience these things myself, but I try to be aware of them and try to adjust when when compelling information is presented.

To know that everything we currently believe has been part of an incomplete education since birth can be a freeing understanding. Knowing that everything we have learned could be outdated,incorrect, incomplete, only a portion of the whole, the beginning of a greater understanding, and a continual education should allow you to open your mind to new information. It should protect your ego and allow for adjustments in opinions on subjects.

If you can explain why you feel strongly about a subject, then, when presented new information that alters that view, you should be able to explain the change in your opinion without fear or embarrassment. I respect that much more than someone that cannot, or worse, will not learn from new evidence that gives a new and additional insight into an issue. It isn’t waffling on your stance. It is the wisdom to adjust an opinion afforded by the opportunity of seeing a more complete and sometimes very complex picture.and adjusting your position based on that new evidence.

Original thoughts if not impossible, must be exceedingly rare. But I think evolving thoughts and ideas that improve and become more complete are of tremendous value and should be encouraged

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