Useful Lies

When you went to school you learned that the primary colors are red, yellow and blue, that atoms are tiny dots with electron dots spinning around them, that the Earth is a sphere, that animal fats are bad while vegetable fats are good, and that you think with your brain and feel with your heart.

These are convenient fictions - claims that are inaccurate, but true enough for our purposes. Most of us can get through the day without needing to understand additive color theory, or knowing that the Earth is in fact an oblate spheroid that bulges at the equator.

But how should we handle a person who says it helps them believe in ideas that are objectively false? For example: a person who believes that astrology makes sense of their life, that visualizing chakras helps them deal with their emotions or that homeopathy makes them feel better?

Excerpt

When you went to school you learned that the primary colors are red, yellow and blue, that atoms are tiny dots with electron dots spinning around them, that the Earth is a sphere, that animal fats are bad while vegetable fats are good, and that you think with your brain and feel with your heart. These are convenient fictions - claims that are inaccurate, but true enough for our purposes. But how should we handle a person who says it helps them believe in ideas that are objectively false? For example: a person who believes that astrology makes sense of their life, that visualizing chakras helps them deal with their emotions or that homeopathy makes them feel better?

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