How to be open-minded?

[AgnosticBoy]

Being open-minded I believe is one of the things that agnostics are known for, and its definitely one thing that Thomas Huxley advocated for. Here's Huxley explaining part of the Agnostic principle:

And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction. Agnostics who never fail in carrying out their principles are, I am afraid, as rare as other people of whom the same consistency can be truthfully predicated. But, if you were to meet with such a phœnix and to tell him that you had discovered that two and two make five, he would patiently ask you to state your reasons for that conviction, and express his readiness to agree with you if he found them satisfactory.

Source: Agnosticism 1889

Two ways that I've found to helpful when it comes to being open-minded:
1. Be willing to listen to information from both or any side, and that's especially the case on hot button issues where it's even harder to do.
2. Be willing to always change your mind in response to new information. This takes having a mindset that your views are subject to change. Hard to have in personal life, but very doable in an intellectual context.



For Discussion
What are some good ways to be open-minded?*

If it's hard to think of any then also bring up ways to be close-minded and then think about ways to counter that. Also, feel free to share any good articles that deals with the topic of open-mindedness. For instance, seeing how partisan American politicians are, I also think that partisan behavior leads to close-mindedness. So I spend a lot of time crafting how to be non-partisan which also leads to being open-minded.

*Being open-minded in a good way doesn't mean that you are open to any view imaginable, but rather it's that you're open to evidence, no matter where it leads or what it supports and/or proves. You can even consider unevidenced views (perhaps to use them as hypotheses) just as long as they are not proven false.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

The last couple of years I’ve been experimenting with just letting a point of tension be there.

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For examples, the numbers show the American middle class has declined only modestly, but that sure conflicts with people’s lived experience! So, for the time being, just let it be there. And maybe ask, Okay, what can we draw from and learn about this?

And starters, maybe rebuilding the American middle class is an eminently winnable situation, how about that?

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

This is a model for Thomas Kuhn’s book from the 1960s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

If a world view works in some areas but has problems in others, you’re not just going to throw it out. Basically, you’re going to wait forever a world view that’s more promising, and this is a huge judgement call!

PS The guy has interesting ideas, but is not the greatest writer.