Standards for Evidence
Before you can approach and prune your ideological tree to ensure it properly serves your objective function(s), you must first establish what information you will consider as evidence. What may be compelling evidence to one person could be ridiculous conjecture to another, so two people with the same lives and experiences may come to build very different ideological trees based on their standards of evidence alone.
Sam has an objective function oriented around minimizing human suffering. Sam may read in a well-respected newspaper that most scientists believe global warming is a very serious threat. Should Sam think information from well-respected newspapers counts as evidence, he may integrate climate change mitigation into his ideological tree. Clarissa, on the other hand, may read the exact same article and have the exact same objective function, but not integrate climate change mitigation into her ideological tree if she does not consider news articles claiming most scientists agree on something as a viable source of evidence.
To be an actualized, effective individual, you must consciously decide what information warrants the creation of new hypotheses about how the world works. This threshold will be your “standard for evidence.”
What evidence do you need to alter a deeply held belief? What would it take, for example, to make you believe—or not believe—in ghosts?
If you do not believe in ghosts, would personally seeing a ghost convince you, or would you assume you were going crazy or suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning? Would you believe in ghosts if five people in your close family claim to have interacted with them? Would a detailed report in the New York Times indicating that most scientists now believe ghosts exist convince you even if you never personally saw one? Would you have to read peer-reviewed, scientific studies in reputable journals concluding the existence of ghosts before changing your mind?
If you do believe in ghosts, what level and type of evidence would be required to convince you that you are wrong?
It is extremely dangerous to hold beliefs that will not change regardless of the type or strength of evidence presented.
Because changing our minds is such a difficult task, decide ahead of time what type and level of evidence is necessary for you to update your beliefs. If you wait to encounter evidence before deciding what level and kind of evidence is enough to warrant change, your natural tendency to resist change will allow you to manipulate your standards in the moment to avoid having to change your beliefs (some people call this “moving goalposts”).
There are seven types of evidence that (almost) every human uses to update their theories about how the world works:
- Logical Consistency
- Personal Experience
- Personal Emotional Experience
- Cultural Consensus
- Expert Consensus
- Scientific Method
- Doctrine
We will discuss each of these types of evidence in turn.
Consider which types of evidence trump others for you. When your personal experiences contradict expert opinion on a subject, which version of reality do you internalize as true? The hierarchy of evidence you create is entirely within your control (and a personal judgment call—there is no clear right or wrong). That said, all humans are naturally drawn to some standards of evidence over others.
We will call the standard of evidence you hold that dominates over all other standards of evidence your “primary standard of evidence.” Though the hierarchy of standards you personally set will significantly influence how you perceive reality, the primary standard you select will make the biggest difference. It is nevertheless possible for lower-ranking standards to “gang up” on your primary standard if evidence is copious enough. This can be seen among individuals who suffer from paranoid schizophrenia—they almost always succumb to believing some aspect of their hallucinations, even if they are entirely logical people, because after personally experiencing something vividly and frequently enough, it becomes difficult to ignore that information, no matter how much it violates one’s primary standard of evidence.