There are certain things in life that we would just be biased by. Psychologically. And this will mostly have to do with our upbringing. If we’ve only seen one kind of life, then it would be natural to assume that life in general for everyone is indeed as we have experienced it. For instance, a child born in the last decade, can never understand a world without mobile phones. So much so that s/he thinks that life without phones would be impossible.
A common example that would be asked to test biases is, “James Smith living in the USA is either a librarian or a salesman. His personality can best be described as shy and introverted. What are the odds that James is a librarian”
What is your answer?
James is a Librarian of course, at least a 90% probability. Right? That’s what most people would say. Because librarians are reserved and quiet people while salesmen are all chatty and gregarious. But would your answer change if you knew a fact – that there are 100 salesmen for every male librarian in the US? That means the probability of James being a librarian is just 1%, nowhere near the 90% we were thinking! That’s the base rate.
Base rates apply in spirituality as well. They are here for all to see. How many people got super happy and super rich after they died? Not even 1% of the people. Not even 0.0001% of the people. Because death = bye bye. Yet we crave more and more materiality, all the while ignoring the wise counsel of the gurus and saints who’ve lived this exact life for centuries upon centuries.