Trusting inclinations

Probabilistically, it feels ("probabilistically" and "it feels" successively..)* implausible that an individual can be wrong about most things they reason about back and forth. This makes me think that we must be correct about basic, big, reasoned-out ideas concerning ourselves more often than we are not. Therefore, it it seems sensible to (figuratively) follow one's original navigation of directions nearly all of the time in order to be correct most of the time. I reckon a smarter or more self-aware person can use nuances and be right a bit more frequently by correctly identifying and analysing the very complex cases, including the relative weight of factors involved and their own instinct. Needless to say, all of the aforementioned involves a lot of unavoidable self-certifying. We can't model our feelings; many of us cannot even fully articulate and express them.

*I know that mathematical probability has no relation to feelings. However, I do think all humans have an accurate, intuitive sense of probability concerning basic, original, self-oriented ideas. This 1) is really just my belief 2) can be backed by that research someone did that found the average opinion of populations about simple questions (if I recall correctly this was on electoral outcomes) tends to be an accurate predictor. I am aware of the unsophistication of our rudimentary sense of probability once problems have multiple layers of logic and delineation, thanks to the Birthday Problem.

Back to the point of this writing–doing what makes sense to me presently is sensible even if my past self felt differently because now I am faced with new facts, i.e. non-fleeting feelings and less importantly, subsequent reasoning. More specifically, I mustn't do what made sense to my past self if it doesn't serve my current self well. If I don't serve my current self and go against the grain of my current beliefs, this action seems unlikely to develop into something that my future affirms either.

Does this imply that I should be gratifying myself all the time? No. Right now, I am saying this in reference to large time commitments (eg. more than a few minutes or hours) that were planned but don't seem the most appealing in the moment. It is important to delineate the difference between bad self-gratifying, i.e. accepting one's whims that will become a source of regret, and my proposition above. Prior to self-gratifying in x way, one is aware that there exist negative costs that are greater than the gratification to be received by paying them. Even if not immediately obvious what those costs are, there is a sense and observation of their existence, however fleeting, and of the likely effect. So, it is an irrational decision to go through with an act whilst having a belief about the high likelihood of its negative impact on you. Meanwhile, my proposition is not despite opposition beyond reasonable doubt, and certainly not while having a simultaneous certitude of/strong belief in greater cost than benefit.

On another related note, I'm thinking that time is a factor of rightness. David Reich writes "researchers studying ancient.....never fully be replaced." Countless others have written countless certitudes for time immemorial. The only perennial truths seem to be simplistic statements that are immediately observable truths–a suggested certitude that is a complex, or even complicated, process (such as the outdating of researchers) is inevitable to lose its tag of certainty. That is to say, competing perspectives will develop as humans progress and render what was a reasonable certitude to not be a certitude anymore.

I relate this proposition to my inclination towards majoring in mathematics and philosophy. Their study involves reasoning through long and detailed basic claims based on truly minimal assumptions. Examples: set theory, the necessitation of proving a general case, debates on morality, et cetera. I don't claim that the two provide more important knowledge than other subjects. Instead, I think they compel their learner to comprehend simple ideas really well in order to build an understanding of a main claim made by stacking several simple ideas.