Into The Quest For Truth.

From First Principles, Starting With Science.

There’s a Naval quote, which goes like:

Naval: Making something social destroys the truth of it because social groups need consensus to survive — otherwise they fight and can’t get along — and consensus is all about compromise, not truth-seeking.

Science — at least the natural sciences — was this unique discipline where you could have an individual truth-seeking on behalf of the rest of society.

Naval: The more groupthink you see involved, the farther from the truth you actually are. You can have an harmonious society while still allowing truth seekers within the society to find truth and to find the means to alter and improve reality for the entire group.

Historically, most of the scientific breakthroughs didn’t come from scientific institutions. The big ones came from individual natural philosophers who were very independent thinkers who were reviled in their time, often persecuted, who fought against the rest of society on the basis of their truths. And it took decades or centuries — often after their deaths — before those truths were accepted.

The Superpower Of Starting With Science

My perspectives in life as of now, challenging that status-quo, not following the conventional, not accepting blind beliefs, be it around Feminism, Politics, LGBTQ or even Climate Change. To not accept the ordinary wasn’t taught, nurtured or encouraged for me. I forged my way into this myself. But, how & why is my question. What exactly did forge my thinking into truth-seeking & open-minded, if none influenced me to?

Surprisingly, It was Science & I realized this myself when I read about Naval quote explained at the top. Interestingly, I got really curious about space science, rockets & physics around my 9th Std & all until 12th Std this obsession kept on silently growing in the shadows. During my high school years, I also found a friend, Gokul, who was also into these & we used to have endless hours of conversations on this.

But, why does this matter now? Turns out, Science teaches you to think with rationality. Everything in science is driven by evidence, which is the core metric for truth-seeking. This involves asking Why to every single instance until the answer is found, which is First Principles Thinking. One doesn’t accept blind beliefs in science, backed up by proper proof significant.

This stabilizes an universal analyzation metric & acts as the fundamental foundation. The more you venture into science, the more start questioning even the smallest of aspects, the more you choose to concur only based on rational answers, the more truth-seeking you become & don’t fall for pseudo-normal beliefs unless it makes any sense.

Because, as Naval explains, Science is built by individual philosophers on their quest for truth, by challenging the existential beliefs & not blinding accepting them. This is when the truth is sought. Groups search for consensus, something to agree upon, for settling & individuals seek for truth.

Naval: “Money won’t make you happy” is a social truth, but it’s not an individual truth. Look at all the individuals trying to make money. They know money can remove a lot of sources of unhappiness and get them to a point where happiness is under their control. It becomes their choice, as opposed to being inflicted upon them by external forces.

Society does not just lie to you. It programs you to beat yourself up when you transgress one of its truths. Guilt is society programming you so effectively that you become your own warden. Guilt is society’s voice speaking in your head.

Truth-seeking is a hard business. You essentially have to understand, with deep conviction, things that you’ve been programmed to misunderstand.

As I look back, I feel extremely grateful for venturing into science, because it taught me to think rationally & not accept blind beliefs.

Science is such a beautiful world, especially Astrophysics. I can go into the rabbit-hole of curiosity all day long.

Seek The Truth. Seek What’s Right.

Seek Peace.

I’ve moved this to my second-brain. Check it out :)