How to Think for Yourself

Fastidiousness about truth means more than just not believing things that are false. It means being careful about degree of belief. For most people, degree of belief rushes unexamined toward the extremes: the unlikely becomes impossible, and the probable becomes certain. [5] To the independent-minded, this seems unpardonably sloppy.

Can you make yourself more independent-minded?

The third component of independent-mindedness, curiosity, may be the most interesting.

The second component of independent-mindedness, resistance to being told what to think, is the most visible of the three.

Because the independent-minded find it uncomfortable to be surrounded by conventional-minded people, they tend to self-segregate once they have a chance to.

I wish someone had told me about this distinction when I was a kid, because it's one of the most important things to think about when you're deciding what kind of work you want to do.

We need to look at the internal structure of independent-mindedness.

You can also take more explicit measures to prevent yourself from automatically adopting conventional opinions. The most general is to cultivate an attitude of skepticism.

It seems to me that it has three components: fastidiousness about truth, resistance to being told what to think, and curiosity.