I'm afraid of having concrete beliefs.

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That's not to say I *don't* have concrete beliefs. I do. But I don't *trust* my own beliefs. Everyone says "don't trust "the media"", but quite literally every source you gather information from, aside from first-hand experience, is inherently untrustworthy, and people seem to forget that the sources they agree with are forms of media, too, aside from the direct, word-of-mouth opinions of friends. It's become a buzzword to an insane degree. Without media, in general, we'd still be relying primarily on oral tradition, and human civilization wouldn't be where it is now.

But yes, media can be graded into varying degrees of trustworthiness- it's generally possible to determine how "close to the source" something actually is- until you realize that sometimes it truly isn't.

I hope this doesn't become a political discussion. Hell, I hope for everyone's sake that it manages to stay as *vague as possible*, but I know it probably won't. I'm not even necessarily referring to political opinions, I'm referring to all sorts of s**t, all of life's major questions, scientific, religious (though I'm more certain on that bit than the rest), pretty much anything. My point is just that I'm having a lot of trouble lately feeling as though I (or anyone else) is truly capable of having a grasp on reality. I know what *I* believe reality to be, and I think I've thought hard enough about it (I *know* I've thought and read and considered more than most) but so do you, and so does everyone else, and everyone's vision of what's true and what isn't is going to end up a bit different.

I'm not entirely sure how to cope with that. Especially in the very complex world we're currently living in. I'd like to believe that the best way to sift through it is to just be a kind person, but even then, the urge to butt in to correct what *I* believe to be a mistake in someone's worldview will always be there, when I believe someone else isn't being kind. That's just self-defense. Part of me will want to do it to myself. I could go through every major viewpoint on a topic, really try to understand each, try to come to a conclusion on which seems correct- but there's a reason for a massive swath of people disagreeing with whichever conclusion I come to, and part of me can't help but see their point.

None of this is exactly conducive to living. At some point, I need to just say screw it, and go with whatever I actually perceive to make the most sense, based off of whatever evidence I can gather... but deep down I'll be convinced that I'm wrong. Is there such a thing as objective truth? I'd like to think so, but I don't think any of us will ever find a single grain of it.

(I considered putting this in the General Autism Disorder forum but I decided it was a bit *too* general.)

I have to imagine that there's a decent chunk of philosophy that deals with this sort of thing- any recommendations? I really need a way of sifting through this nonsense because it's getting in the way of having a life.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned how easily our actual perception of things, like how we evaluate people when we look at them, is affected by cultural norms *alongside* whatever we actually think we should believe. That's always a fun sort of cognitive dissonance to deal with.

And what's up with that "I know I've thought more about stuff than most" comment that I made? How's that for overconfidence?

I've felt your pain, although I stopped being philosophical in my teens, and stopped interfering ages ago because my views were rarely (never?) wanted. There are just too many possibilities and variables to ever get a firm grip on anything. I've learned to play at ignorance because whenever I delve deeply into things it causes turmoil - my life is simpler now (sad, I know). I eventually said screw it!
I read constantly and have definite opinions about many things and am always open to changing my viewpoints (or reaffirming them) if I come across new data. I have an over 140 IQ but am no genius - my words are simple and I prefer logic. Solutions oriented and I lack education. The world is fluid. Even when you "know" something other people have their own truths. I can sometimes justify bad behaviours as acts of desperation, a path that an unfair society forced onto them.
By gathering from many sources at least you can feel good about your own decisions and how you conduct your truth. If you have a love of learning and the aptitude you can become knowledgeable on many thing. I believe you need real life experience in the field though to be considered an expert on anything. I truly admire life long learners.
An open mind is a wonderful thing in my book, but after a certain age most people (me included) keep the process internal. To keep a dialog open and have willing participants in most discussions you need to attend university or join a topic specific chat room or club. Or at least reside in a university town to increase your odds of having a like-minded discussion, or the opportunity to overhear something that might interest you and lead you to a new topic.
And when it comes to dealing with cultural norms - move if possible. A multicultural city (my pick), or to a small town, or even to a new neighbourhood in your existing community. Whichever fits most comfortably with your life's choices - to reduce conflict and again, make your life a little easier.
I know you want to expand outwardly in your knowledge - I commend you, you're braver than I am. I wrap mine up in secrecy. But occasionally someone will come to me for an opinion or for my advice. I give it freely, and it's ok if they don't follow it.

@mummel: what your talking about is called subjectivity*, the fact that we all can only live our individual lives with our individual pattern of experiences, knowledge and gaps therein.
Subjective is one term of a three part concept: the others being Objective and Absolute.
Objective: consensus amongst a sufficiently large group of humans with relevant experience & knowledge as to whatever is in question.**
Absolute: there is a real world out there, and it is what it is regardless of our individual or several beliefs about it.***
__________________________
*philosophical sense, before it became colloquial for “I think you’re wrong”.
**Colloquial sense: “I insist this is right.”
***Error: colloquial sense not found

I was also examining everything. Questioning. Not taking anything as truth until I personally looked into it. I developed ways of extracting the truth just like a detective sifts through evidence. Some things surprized me. Somethings did not.
In order to assess one needs a foundational anchor one knows is truth to compare everything else against. If you do not have this, then you are going around in circles, and this anchor better be a steadfast and good one or one is basing everything on a lie. Like an anchor placed by a ship, we will naturally test that anchor to make sure it is steadfast.
My anchor is Gods Word. Some of you have differe t anchors. Why do I start at this point? Because I can't trust anything mankind says when mans truth is based on another mans truth and so on and we do not know for sure if any of it was truth to begin with. We need to test mans truth before we can trust it, but first we need to test Gods truth in our lives (Or if not God, then any foundation we rely on as truth). First, is He or whatever else we use as our anchor who He says He is? I recommend everyone asks questions like these in life. Before one starts accusing me about turning the big questions towards religion (As I only turn them this way because my view of science is that there are some big assumptions which to me don't add up... Though this is up to each person to decide), what anchor points can we rely on in this life that we know stay the same and do not move?
But whatever we use as an anchor, we need an anchor point which does not change and we can 100% rely on as being true.
Once we get this anchor point, we can start slowly comparing everything to this anchor. Other relitively trustworthy anchor points I use is what I personally see, hear, touch, smell and sense. I use these to create a type of web between Gods Word (Which I have personally tested over many years and found for myself that I can rely on it to be true) and my personal senses.
Now what if I come across a subject matter, or subjects that are something that I can't match up to any of these anchor points because the information, or evidence I have is out of my personal reach (I mean, it is a subject that I was not there when it happened so I am relying on whoever was there to try to find out what was going on). Well. The method I use is to gather all evidence I can find about the event no matter how rediculous or obscure this evidence may be. We need everything gathered because we need a full picture before we can chuck out the pieces rhat don't fit.
Now I second chance the pieces of evidence that don't fit just incase I have overlooked something, but I go back to try and compare with my anchor points if I can. For example, if someone says there are millions of flying saucers flying over the skies around here, before I assess if they have come from outer space, I need to go outside and take a look! I go up to a high vantage point, and spend time looking. If I see nothing, and go back to someone living nearby who said they saw lots in the same area at the same time that I looked, I know there is a problem. Either I am blind somehow, or the person who told me this is seeing things that are not physically there. (I can sometimes also see spiritual things so I can assess along this plain as well as some unexplained events are in the spiritual realms which is an area that some don't seem to be able to see... And I know that the spiritual realm is not my imagination because there have been many times when others have seen things at the same time and saw what I have seen. If it was just me that sees such things I would put it down to my minds over active imagination).
So where are we? Well. I enjoyed researching past events. Often we read of so called "Experts" wo come on TV saying how things happened at a specific event. But wait. Were the there? No? Then where did they get there information on and did they gather and look into ALL the evidence they could find, and are they biassed towards a certain slant from the beginning? This last one I have often seen on TV programmes. They start off with a closed biassed mind, so any evidence they gain which does not align to the results that they are looking for is dissregarded or ridiculed. Anyone can do that! They also make things up (Lies) to cover for the omissions of the evidence they have dissregarded. I have seen a lot of famous TV "Experts" do this, and some of them are soo biassed in their oppinions, they do not see what is in front of their own eyes!
One may say that I could be biassed when I rely on my anchor points. This is why I assess my anchor points to check they hold firm, and I also assess the subject from the angles of one anchor point after another.

Something else to take note of. Do not dissregard someone's evidence because what they say does not line up to your own experiences of what ou know to be true. For example. Someone says they have witnessed a flying saucer. The then go off on a tangent about it coming from another planet and alien lifeforms. (Which does not seem to 100% align with the evet they saw). So I do not dissregard their statement of what they saw as from looking at them, and the way they are risking exposing themselves to ridecule, they definately saw something. So one then questions when and where they saw it and did anyone else also see it, and the where it was seen can give a good indication as to what it was. For example, if this hovering thing was seen near a governments secretive testing ground then it is plainly an experiment, as what better cover is there to keep an area secretive, then to point the blame to alien lifeforms elsewhere? I am not saying to you that they don't exist even though I have only seen spiritual, physical or holographic things (Holographic with sound projection via sound towers)... I have yet to see an alien lifeform that is not either an experimental cross breed from a lab here on earth, or is something dressed up in a suit.
But anyway. I am not saying that I can't be open minded.

Anyway. Before my reply goes around the world and back and into the universe and back, I had better share my mornings greetings with a smile, and go onto the next subject matter! Haha.

Concrete beliefs... Believing in concrete! Hehe.

Honestly, I've been masking so much over the years that I'd have no idea what my true beliefs even were if I tried to pin them all down. My political/religious/moral beliefs tend to be either A) whatever the person I'm talking to believes, or B) whatever fictional character I'm basing my overall personality on this week believes.

It always made me excel at debating back in high school, you know the types where they'd pick a topic and set you in the 'oppose' or 'support' sides at random.

So maybe it's easier to just... try not to focus so much on what I believe or don't believe? Focus on my likes and dislikes instead. I KNOW my special interests, my favourite TV shows and video games, my foods I love and my foods I hate, etc.