One evening, I was walking with a friend through one of the buildings at the local college when we found on a professor’s door the demotivational poster shown above.

I took a moment to read it, and I found it hilarious. So much so that I had my friend take a picture and send it to me.

This sort of thing matches my humor quite well. I mean, the idea of telling someone that they’re so thoroughly wrong that every particle of their belief system is exactly as wrong as their entire outlook on life (which is also wrong) strikes me as a hilarious hyperbole. It’s absurd, much like childhood insults. “You’re such a bad shot that if it wasn’t for gravity, you couldn’t even hit the ground!”

Then I went looking for the same image online and found that there are actually people who believe there is a such thing as fractal wrongness in the real world.

The truth is, no human being is thoroughly wrong on every level. The human condition is far too complex for that. To give you a sense for how complicated things get, let’s walk through the different ways we learn.

The Senses

First, you have your senses. Through your senses you can see, smell, hear, etc. Through sight, for instance, you can see old people tottering along, small children running and screaming with glee, cars traveling down the street, some poor chicken running haplessly out into traffic, etc.

You also see nations declare war on one another, people condemning other people over pulpits, entire villages starving in Africa, and so on. You burn your hand on the stove, and it hurts. This world can be a pretty ugly place sometimes.

If you take only what you see, this is what would inform your worldview (i.e. the way you view pretty much everything). But there is more that goes into it than just what you perceive with your senses.

Interpersonal Influence

No matter how hard they may try to avoid it, people are taught by other people. Your parents may have taught you that hard work is its own reward. Or they may have taught you that the only reason you go to your job is so you can retire someday.

You may have been taught that so-and-so was the worst president ever, or that you should never discuss religion with your friends, or that science is the only way to be sure of anything, or that lima beans are good for you.

I don’t see how anyone could be convinced of that last one. Seriously.

The point is your worldview is in some way influenced by other people in your life. Maybe you didn’t take your parents’ ideals to heart. Maybe you rejected everything they taught you simply because they were the ones to teach it. But at some point, you’ll inevitably find someone you at least sort of respect, and you’ll find that the stuff they say is stuff that you want to believe. Why? Because you think the person is the most amazing being to ever walk this planet, and as such, they must be right.

Life Experience

Other knowledge is obtained through personal experience. Stuff happens to you, and you draw a conclusion from it. For instance, if you eat lima beans, you’ll inevitably find that they are gross beyond gross, and that experience will inevitably lead to the conclusion that something so repulsive could not possibly be conducive to a long and healthy life.

You may deliberately experiment with ideas. Depending on how you experiment with it, you may draw different conclusions. For instance, a fellow who tries apple juice immediately after brushing his teeth may erroneously conclude that it’s nearly as gross as lima beans, while someone who has had it on multiple occasions knows otherwise.

Incidental Misinformation

Some conclusions are influenced by ignorance. A rough example would be a fellow who is completely oblivious to his own social ineptitude. As he attempts to date various women, he may draw the very wrong conclusion that all women are stupid and would prefer to date jerks rather than a “good guy” like him. In reality, they mainly avoid him because he has a tendency to stare. And stare. And stare.

Conscience

And some knowledge comes by instinct. You believe something because it feels right. For instance, most people cannot bring themselves to kill another human being. Sparing a life feels too right, and taking a life feels too wrong. It’s sort of like when your dear old grandmother told you she was really disappointed in you that one time.

A Statistical Impossibility

Long story short, the human experience is a multilayered smorgasbord of knowledge gained through senses, indoctrination, rebellion, ignorance, interpersonal association, independent study, and that quiet nagging tug in the back of your mind that reminds you that Grandma would not approve.

To the point, then. Put simply, the way we perceive and interpret the world around us is so complex that complete fractal wrongness is a statistical impossibility. You’re bound to be right on some things, and you’re bound to be wrong on others.

Sure, maybe someone somewhere in this universe has a worldview that is so perfectly wrong on every level that a full mental reboot would be the only solution. Theoretically, anything is possible.

Theoretically, you could take an infinite number of monkeys hammering on an infinite number of typewriters and eventually end up with a perfect copy of Don Quixote. But the odds of that happening are so statistically small that it’s not even worth considering, is it?

Plus, you’d end up with a nearly infinite number of almost perfect copies lying around, including many where the man of La Mancha tilts at chickens instead of windmills. And no one really wants to sort through all that, amusing as it may sound.

But that’s beside the point.

No matter how smart you are, no matter how rational you think you’ve been, in some way, somehow, you’ll have been deceived during your lifetime. Likewise, no matter how dumb or inexperienced you may believe that one despicable person online is, they’ve probably gotten at least a few things right.

After all, they at least know how to use a computer.

What are your thoughts? Think my worldview is fractally wrong? Let me know in the comments! Also, share this with your friends. All proceeds go toward St. Brigid’s Hospital for Run Over Chickens. Really.