How Paradigms Work Summary

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

“It is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possible have gone wrong”.

If you wanna experience massive growth, you need to understand how paradigms works. A paradigm is a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind, including all the assumptions and ways of thinking and ways of interpretation. It is like a self-contained view of reality – like a lens. The trick with them is that they don’t feel that they are a lens, so you are usually not aware that you are using a lens. It just feels like reality.

Science has been evolving in the history of humanity. Moreover, science, in practice, works very different from theory. In theory, we think that science is a very objective and empirical way of investigation which yields valid truths. Thomas Kuhn discovered that science is highly subject to dogmas, cultural biases and old frameworks. In reality, most scientists are very dogmatic, close-minded, traditional and cannot think outside the box. He discovered 4 main ways in which paradigms influence inquiry:

-          What is studied and researched

-          The type of questions that are asked at all

-          The exact structure and nature of the question

-          How results are interpreted

The paradigm shapes what is allowed to be possible and what is imagined as possible. Also, it determines how your imagination is going to work and thinking about various possibilities – there are many of them that are impossible to grasp from a certain paradigm. That is why it is pretty rare to find big scientific revolutions like Newton, Galileo or Einstein.

Paradigms have hidden assumptions inside of them and are considered as unquestionable. The notion of stuff being self-evident ends up being a backfiring mechanism.

Paradigms are broken when we have lots of data that contradicts the existing one and it appears a new one that can substitute the old one. The joke here is that when we look back in retrospective, we think it was obvious.

When you are in a paradigm, you are almost in a completely different reality.

List of Paradigms

-          Platonic’s Form Paradigm

-          Teleology

-          Atheism vs Theism

-          Euclidian Geometry and Non-Euclidian Geometry

-          Newtonian Physics vs Einstein’s Relativity

-          Naïve Realist Paradigm

-          Rationalism vs Empiricism vs Idealism

-          Mathematics itself

-          Karma and Rebirth

-          Consciousness as Brain Activity

-          Quantum Mechanics

-          Logic and Rationality

-          Darwinism vs Intelligent Design

-          Capitalism vs Socialism

-          Pick-up

-          Success Oriented Self-Help vs Spiritual Based Self-Help

-          Freudian Psychology vs Gestalt Psychology

-          Entire Cultures like Islam or Buddhism

-          Religions

-          Eastern vs Western Medicine

-          Western History

-          Modern Academia

-          The University System

-          Astrology

-          Conspiracy Theory

-          Vegetarianism vs Paleo Diet (every diet)

-          Relativism

-          Spiral Dynamics

-          Touch Screen Mobile Devices

-          Building Your Career by Going to School and University

Paradigm Lock

It is when the mind gets stuck in a framework, until it is not able to break out because it is committed to the paradigm. They are so dangerous because once you are stuck in a paradigm, you are not open to study and experience new perspectives. Moreover, you are not open to acknowledge that you are inside of a paradigm and it is a limited and partial view of the world. You are not open to questioning the “self-evident” assumptions that your paradigm makes.

To fully appreciate other perspectives, you need to realize that you are in a paradigm too. You need to step outside your bubble and dive into other bubbles and paradigms.

The problem is that you cannot go from bubble to bubble using the same tools and communications.  They are like self-contained. When people are not willing to experience other paradigms, they are in the trap of paradigm lock.

When you are in a paradigm, you think that reality could not be other way than it is inside your bubble of beliefs and assumptions. Without trying new experiences that goes against your current paradigm, you get trapped and stuck in it. The real tragedy here is that they don’t even have the desire to try new things! THE MORE EXPERIENCES OF RADICAL PERSPECTIVES YOU EXPERIENCE IN LIFE, THE MORE OPEN YOUR MIND BECOMES.

 

All bubbles have blindspots and all of them are limited in some way or another. The problem is that each bubble negates and excludes contradictory information in different ways:

-          Use labels like impossible, paradoxical, useless, foolish, naïve, criminal, dangerous, anti-social, weird, comical, ridiculous, a fantasy, too abstract, unimportant, a waste of time, devilish, demonic, a cult, evil, or offensive.

Examples of Paradigm Lock

-          Christianity

-          Atheism

-          Many Philosophies

-          Naïve Realis

-          Scientific Materialism

-          Skepticism

-          Rationality and Formal Logic

-          Thought itself

-          Language

-          The Self

-          Reality

The 1M Dollar question is how to break from all your paradigms? It is really difficult because of ego, pride, fear, humiliation, loneliness, homeostatic, disapproval, rejection, demonization and so on.

The paradigms you need to break out of to develop yourself fully are:

-          Naïve Realism

-          Rationality and Logic

-          Atheism or Theism

-          Science

-          Persistent Objects as Existing

-          The Separate Self

-          Life and Death itself

-          Language

-          Thought

-          Western Psychology

-          Mainstream Culture

-          Consciousness as Brain Activity

-          Psychedelics as Chemicals

-          Fear as Something Real

-          Problems as Real

-          The Good and Evil Paradigm

-          The Time Paradigm

-          The Success Paradigm

-          Western Medicine

-          That Emotions Happens to You

-          Suffering and Pain as Given Things

-          Reality is Real

To make these sorts of breaks, you need to have a quantum leap. You need to develop 2 skills:

1.       Realize which paradigms you are in right now

2.       Make discontinuous jumps from paradigm to paradigm

a.       From reason to awareness to discover Truth

b.       From Physical Reality to Non-Physical Reality

c.       Realize that emotions are something you are actually doing and creating

d.       Paranormal Phenomena are Real

 

How to break paradigms:

-          Question assumptions very deeply

-          Meditation and Self Inquiry

-          Psychedelics

-          Reading and Research

-          Travelling and Experimenting Different Cultures

-          Philosophy