Eliminating Errors

Some people might have a favorite error, one that they tend to overlook, tolerate, or defend.  It may grant them a sense of fulfillment or peace, whether they know its falsity or not.  Regardless of what the error is, one thing is very likely: that error is not alone.  Errors are not things that can be easily quarantined, for they often survive in a community of other related errors.  If you find one, others will likely be nearby.

It is very difficult, at best, to hold to even one error without it affecting other aspects of one's worldview.  Every fallacy, assumption, and error is itself rationally unjustifiable, but the cognitive dissonances or behavioral changes resulting from even one of them can prove very destructive on their own.  Unfortunately, many people resign themselves to having errors woven into their worldviews, with some going as far as to say that everyone must have some flaw in their worldview.  This response is fallacious bullshit, an attempt to either deflect away criticism or to exude a false humility, and neither of these motives can make what is false become true.

Just as one drop of water can generate many ripples,
a single error can spawn many other errors.

It is not impossible, despite popular delusion to the contrary, to avoid making even a single error--but to do so one must follow reason wherever it leads.  Just because one person clings to an error does not mean that another person has to make the same mistake, and thus there is nothing about any particular error that makes it a part of human nature.  There is nothing about being human that necessitates that one is incapable of discovering and correcting fallacies; there is nothing logically impossible about having an error-free worldview, though one must be wholly devoted to rationality in order to possess such a thing.  Whether quantitative (having to do with the number of fallacies) or categorical (having to do with the type of fallacy), there is no particular error that anyone has to include in their worldview.

When purging a worldview of errors, there is no basis for stopping until all of them have been identified and tossed out, for only beliefs which are both true and demonstrable can deserve to be held.  All other beliefs, no matter how comforting they may be, can only rest upon assumptions or falsities.  Rationalism is the great light that dispels the darkness of fallacies and ignorance.  Though reason exposes some ignorances that we cannot overcome due to metaphysical limitations, it can expose any intellectual mistake for what it is.  We need not be prisoners to assumptions and errors.