What I think really happens is if you are stuck, only then are you open to consider other ways and sure enough someone will get your attention to attempt something different. It has been some time since reading Pirsig, but I seem to recall he had some essays on being stuck or stuck-ness.
Certainly at such times one is more open to considering a different way. Yet, more than that, when I've re-oriented my thinking even when it seemed rather sudden in retrospect it was gradual. A conglomeration of things that swayed me in another direction. Even if nothing happened and suddenly the switch flipped it may have been one thing, but it was not one thing in isolation. Most of these times I even later could recall I could have done the same thing much earlier. Often there were people showing me the way which I ignored or somehow didn't hear at the time. So likely these people are around and you are ignoring them until you are ready.
This part of your comment was very interesting. The idea of being stuck being a catalyst to having to open one’s mind is certainly resonating with me right now.
I grew up interested in science and nature and reading magazines like sceptical inquirer and I continue to hold science as the obvious gold standard, with a very dim view on fringe, alternative medicine, and anything that smacks of “woo-woo.”
So for any malady I’ve ever suffered I simply availed myself of established medical science and treatments.
So what does one do if you come down with a condition that is so new science hasn’t even figured out what it is exactly, and certainly doesn’t have any established treatment? When the doctors say “ sorry we don’t even know what this is for sure, and there’s no known effective treatment.”
It seems to force you out into that dreaded realm of “
doing your own research.”
Which of course, is what has led to any number of kooky maverick or layman ideas and treatments. (Ivermectin, anyone?)
Ok so… just using myself as an example for the general principle I’m getting at… I am currently “ stuck” what should I use this as an opportunity to be “ open to?”
Well, on one hand, it can seem like the best one can do is to keep one’s feet on the ground, and look to whatever research there is on the topic, and which might be suggestive of possible treatment routes.
But there’s also the issue that medical science moves so incredibly slowly, and you don’t know when any scientifically established treatment will show up. It could be a decade or longer, if it ever arrives.
So then, and this is where the “ stuckness leading to openness” arises if only from desperation - you can start looking to people who have actually recovered, investigate their stories and see what worked for them. That sort of where the community who has these type of currently untreatable conditions are at.
On one hand, the properly scientific sceptical mindset recognizes you are in the realm of anecdotal evidence. On the other hand, given how incredibly slowly the science is likely to progress given typical scientific structures (as well as lack of funding) such communities may well happen upon some level of viable treatment before the science catches up.
So I’m just trying to depict the sort of excruciating situation where one is absolute about the relevance of the scientific method… and yet circumstances casts one adrift, or into a new country science hasn’t yet made a foothold.
Being stuck and desperation can force one into being more open I guess. (while keeping one’s brain from falling out.)
I think even some of the discussions on ASR have faced that. For instance, there are discussions about
tinnitus which of course course some people can really suffer from. And yet science is still trying to figure out precisely what causes it, and there is no known treatment that has been scientifically firmly established as efficacious. So there’s a real “ you’re on your own” aspect, with members discussing various intriguing, treatment ideas and sharing experience.
I suspect quite a few members in a forum they probably skews older have experienced something like this in their medical history, where they have to become sort of their own doctor in a way.
