Are You a Lawyer or a Scientist?

Our minds are hypothesis machines, constantly observing, drawing conclusions, making predictions. 

As I’ve talked about in previous posts, the world involves so much information that our brains have to find some way to efficiently connect the dots into concepts, narratives, and ideas by which we can make sense of things.

These ideas that we use to make sense of the world are necessary, as without them we’re left totally overwhelmed by just how endlessly complex the world really is.

But they can get us into trouble if our ideas about the world don’t stay up to date with the changing world, or our changing selves. When there’s some misalignment between our ideas of the world, and the world itself, then it’s like we’re walking around a city with an outdated map. Our map no longer matches the landscape.

So, how do you keep your ideas of the world up to date and in line with what’s actually real?

Well, let’s look at two common directions we can take in reaction to our own ideas about the world, which I call “the lawyer” and “the scientist”.

The lawyer’s approach is to build an argument. The lawyer starts with an idea, and then tries to strengthen this idea or defend it by collecting as much evidence as possible that points to this idea being true. The goal here is to win, to successfully defend an idea, protecting it from any possible attack by having a counter argument or bit of confirming evidence at the ready.

The scientist’s approach is quite different. The scientist develops a hypothesis after a period of observation, an idea that is a possible guess at explaining what’s been observed. This hypothesis is not the truth, but just a possibility that needs to be tested through experimentation. The scientist doesn’t look for confirming evidence, but for disconfirming evidence.

The scientist knows that no hypothesis can be THE truth, because it’s only drawn based on what’s been observed so far. A new piece of information can change everything at any time. The best the scientist can do is constantly seek disconfirming evidence, and as long as a hypothesis stands up to these attempts to disprove it, then it’s the strongest explanation we’ve got available - for now.

So which do you tend toward?

When you have an idea about yourself, other people, or the world do you then look for evidence that confirms your ideas - the lawyer’s approach?

Or do you look for evidence that challenges your ideas - the scientist’s approach?

It seems like we generally tend toward the lawyer’s approach first, which makes so much sense. We can’t have our ideas about the world changing too quickly or we’d never have anywhere to stand, and could quickly get disoriented.

The problem with sticking to this approach, however, is that we can get stuck with ideas for too long until they become outdated if we never let new, even disconfirming, evidence in.

So every so often, it’s not a bad idea to catch some of our main hypotheses about the world and run them through some experiments to test their truth. 

This is part of how therapy can be useful, by helping us to identify just what our hypotheses about the world are in the first place, and then by coming up with some ways to put these ideas to the test to see if they hold up.

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