Join us Wednesday, September 11th, for a special program cohosted by Rajani Huded and Glenn Lippman. The topic is Intellectual Humility. Could understanding Intellectual Humility be our first step in understanding our biases, why hate crimes evolved, and how we can be a better version of ourselves.
Intellectual Humility is the willingness to recognize that we are not always correct, and that what we think or believe might actually be wrong. It is not a weakness or character flaw to be wrong. It is about being open to the idea that we all have cognitive blind spots. Is it important to be right or to understand. It is a virtue. Do you solicit and seek out opposing views? Do you enjoy the pleasant surprise of discovering you’re mistaken? Learning something new often happens when we admit we were wrong.
Rajani suggested this first video as a wake up call or Call to Action.
Next videos collected by Glenn serve as background information on intellectual humility.
“We can’t all be right and we certainly can’t all be wrong.”
Top 10 words associated with intellectual humility: humble, not a showoff, doesn’t brag, modest, intelligent, smart, thinker, humility, love of learning, intellectual
Other readings:
Now … our questions:
- What does intellectual humility serve? Is there a reason to be skeptical of intellectual humility?
- What, other than fundamental irrationality affects our willingness to agree to the issues that are presented to us? [For example, gender, race bias, etc.] – open to a substitute example or topic
- What is a good ultimate goal in moving forward in a world where we can’t really fully know anything?
- Given this statement by Sam Harris, “The conflict between religion and science is inherent and very nearly zero sum. The success of science very often comes at the expense of religious dogma. The maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.” Is it then true that civility and hostility happen when we stereotype the other in a way that impedes true empathy?
- Why is it that those without intellectual humility are convinced that their view of the world is correct and everyone else’s view is wrong? By ‘everyone else’ referring to friends, lovers, coworkers, those on the other side of the aisle, etc.
- If AI always has the right answer, would AI correct our continuous desire to be right?