On Truth and Usefulness

Here's a pretty useful idea, I think:

Just because something is useful does not mean it is true (and vice-versa).

A worldview or a concept may be completely false, yet still be effective. For instance, let’s assume that the concepts of chakras or meridians (energy centers or patterns in the body) are untrue objectively. (I’m not saying I know that they are, but let’s assume that they are.) There may still be a powerfully subjective usefulness to those concepts: by helping a person to condense and make sense of the overwhelming amount of information coming from their bodies and brains.

Likewise, a worldview or concept may be objectively true, yet counterproductive. For instance, the idea that depression is rooted in neurochemical imbalances may be true, yet this idea can lead to a disempowered mindset in patients that makes it harder to overcome depression.

This is not an original idea or a huge epiphany. But understanding it rationally is one thing—absorbing it into your worldview is another.

For those of us who are natural skeptics, internalizing this idea can make us more open to benefiting from tools/methods that we would otherwise steer clear of because they seem unscientific.

And for those of us who are natural believers, internalizing this can make us more resistant to fully believing in bogus concepts simply because they reliably benefit us and thus feel true.

So many of my friends tend to fall squarely into one of these two camps, while very few actively play in the middle. The middle would be less lonely with more of you in it.

Useful ≠ true.

True ≠ useful.