This question can inspire levels of fury beyond my understanding, which is why I couldn’t have casually posed it on Reddit. This seems like a more good faith kind of crowd so I’ll ask it here.
This is a question I’ve put a lot of thought into for myself since 2020. I’m interested in my ideas being criticized and perhaps to criticize the ideas of others (Note: Not criticizing people or their character. Only ideas). I’m going to post my own answer in the comments.
I guess it’s reading new information, checking whether or not it’s based in reality and then either incorporating it or not. Then it sits there until called upon or challenged and the process repeats. Eventually I feel like this builds up a robust personal belief system that’s still open to changing information.
In our age of misinformation, how do you determine whether the new information is based in reality?