Do You Think What You Think You Think?
Do You Think What You Think You Think?
I think, therefore I am, said Cartesio. So you can’t be wrong about what’s in your mind. If you think you’re afraid, you’re afraid. If you think you’re sad, you’re sad. If you see an elephant it could be a hallucination, but there’s no doubt that you really believed you saw an elephant. Logical, right? No. Not at all. The horrible truth is that your thoughts are continually proved wrong by the facts. You thought you had indigestion, instead you’re pregnant. You thought you were a socialist, but after seeing your income tax statement you realized you weren’t. You were convinced for years that working all day is satisfying, only to find out that you were just trying to run away from yourself. It’s not your fault: managing to understand what’s really in your head is a lot more difficult than you ever imagined. Don’t worry: Do You Think What You Think You Think? is just what you need. There are quizzes and questions that seem innocuous but which actually conceal queries that have stumped even the most astute philosophers. Start answering, put yourself to the test to discover what you really think. The effect is guaranteed beneficial: you’ll have what is absurd in human rationality right at your finger tips, you’ll strengthen some of your weakest convictions, you’ll discover some still unexplored corners of your world view. But careful, all this might be very different from what you thought you thought!