The Paradox of "Knowing"

In my exploration of different therapies to treat depression, right away, I figured out the main problem. We live based on what our brains tell us. This is usually adaptive, as we receive input from stimuli, and act according to our brain's interpretation. But what happens when our brain is just wrong? How can we know the difference? Wandering through a library crammed with untapped knowledge, looking up at an incomprehensibly vast starry sky, hearing tales of lives completely unlike our own... it's not difficult to see evidence of how little we really know. Besides which, as little as 10 weeks of studying Intro Cognitive Psych will tell you that our brains are disturbingly fallible, even if you DON'T have a mental disorder. Predictably, it's much worse when your neural chemicals are going haywire and you're believing all sorts of awful things. But it goes against our most basic instincts to operate outside of what our brain tells us. We are not built to do this. If we can't trust our own brains, we may become basically incapacitated. But I think too much trust in our brains can lead to just as much trouble.

I observed at some point that when we were children, we were significantly less settled in our worldview, meaning we were more likely to believe what we were told. However, as we grow, we develop a repertoire of what we think we know, and orient our brains around it. As an example, when I was a young child, some kid tried to convince me that you could summon a ghoul called Bloody Mary by saying her name three times in front of a mirror. Although even at that age, I knew it was unlikely, part of me still thought it could be true, and I was super freaked out. But now, I look back with a bizarre fondness for a time when I could believe something so fantastical, when I could be frightened by something so silly. It makes me wonder, what other amazing, incredible things were we able to believe back then, but no longer can today? We dismiss things like that out of hand as being unrealistic, but we do so mostly because it doesn't fit into our worldview. What if we're limiting ourselves by trusting our imperfect knowledge?

We assimilate information based on what we already believe. And if you think about this, it really is kind of a broken system. How can we increase our awareness and understanding about the world if we're only retaining the information that makes sense with what we already know-- which is incomplete-- and dismissing the rest? This explains why people are often so resistant to accepting new ideas. We are utterly disempowered without our reservoir of knowledge, and yet, on the other hand, I'm thinking we rely on it too heavily. With imperfect knowledge from which we refuse to deviate, how can we grow? As they say, the wisest thing you can realize is that you know nothing. So perhaps it is only when we find the ability to reject what we once believed to be true-- a mighty feat unto itself-- that we can actually gain new and innovative insight.

Thoughts?