Another vital aspect of adopting an experimental mindset is being willing to suspend our prior assumptions and explore the unknown. Learning is not always as comfortable as repetition. Learning new things requires rewriting physical neural pathways, forcing the brain to expend extra energy. Our brains naturally prefer to save energy by relying on existing shortcuts, assumptions, and habits. Driving somewhere new, learning a new skill, or getting to know a new friend can be gratifying but necessitates our active engagement in ways that doing familiar things does not. Gaining new knowledge requires being open minded, humble, willing to make mistakes, and risk failure.
This is also true with regard to learning new things about ourselves which can involve examining, experimenting with, and sometimes challenging the norms that regulate our daily behavior. Attaining a deeper understanding of ourselves, the people in our lives, and the world around us is a key feature of Naturalistic Humanism. An experimental mindset requires that when new evidence emerges, we have the flexibility and humility to change our beliefs, accepting that information we previously regarded as reliable may be only partially accurate, or even completely erroneous. Considering things from a different vantage point is significantly bolstered if our approach is nourished with curiosity, playfulness, creativity, and imagination.