Meet your educator: Ajay Pabial

We all hold beliefs grounded in fact, emotion, life experiences or various mixtures of all three. It’s natural to view our own beliefs as rock-solid and believe those who disagree with us ‘just don’t get it’.

Our beliefs form our perspectives, and we use those perspectives to engage with the world. In that way, our basic perceptions and viewpoints shape our worldview, not the other way around.

Considering this vicious cycle of belief creation, is there any way to be sure that what we believe is true?

Probably not.

As adults, we may feel in control of our current beliefs. But the seeds of those beliefs were planted in childhood when we had no control over the ideas and experiences we were exposed to.

Those seeds come to inform every perspective we create afterwards, so, really, what we believe now is directly informed by the didactic inputs we received as children.

Dogmatic perspective assertion leads directly to the clustering of similar mindsets. That leads to groupthink.

We may never be able to undo or even identify the assertions and mindsets we developed in childhood. We may never be able to overcome our biases – and that’s not what this course is for.

Instead, this course asks you to accept that nobody, including you, has a monopoly on knowledge. It asks you to take a step back from your worldview and question the validity of your beliefs, no matter how obviously correct they may seem.

As Socrates allegedly said:

‘The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.’