Have you ever noticed that too much time alone gives people strange ideas? Of course, you have. Maybe you’re even reading their blogs. (Not me of course.) When we are unable to have your ideas vetted by others, we only have our own discipline and abilities to correct our errors. Since we are all flawed human beings, eventually, we fail and those errors compound into strange ideas. I like to call this Isolated Reasoning.

The dangers of reasoning without critical feedback is not a new idea. You know it as “in the bubble”, and my attempts to use my term may be pretentious. However, when we say someone is “in the bubble”, we suggest some differences from what I mean by “isolated reasoning”. The difference is that we usually mean “in the bubble” as a state, where “isolated reasoning” is a process. In other words, Isolated reasoning can be how we get in the bubble.

Let’s take an innocuous example and say I am interested in oology (the study of bird eggs). As you might expect, no one I know is interested in oology, I am not an oologist, nor do I have the means and circumstances to become one. But, I’m interested enough to read all the books I can find on them. (Yep, I read all eleven.) Being a city-dweller, I have little opportunity to explore my oological passions. But, on the rare occasions I did, I was sorely beaten by bird watchers and banned from nature preserves by the Audubon Society. Once again, I am only left with my theories. Of course, I did go to online forums, but, given that I hold no degrees in oology, the experts did not want to speak with me, and with those that did chat we, I soon found my knowledge went beyond theirs.

Still, not deterred, I continue with my theories and noticed a reoccurring pattern on white-breasted waterhen eggs (of which I’ve only seen online). Inspiration hits and after comparing spots on eggs with shapes on Mayan temples, I conclude that aliens have altered the DNA of the white-breasted waterhen to pass on their knowledge. That is, of course, only if we learn the read their secret messages. (Fortunately, I’ve just become an expert. I am now the world’s first astrooologyst)

Now, going from bird eggs to alien messages sounds crazy. But, it only sounds crazy because you have not followed my decade long journey of oological discovery.  When I started, I was just interested in bird eggs, but once that first crazy idea slipped in, there was no one to tell me it was crazy but myself.

That’s how crazy sneaks up on you. The ideas we have today are based on the ideas we had yesterday. For most of us, when we have a crazy idea our friends make fun of us, our spouse’s roles their eyes, and our boss throws us out of his offices. Maybe the idea is a good one, and just sounds crazy, but we still must defend it.

What if I had a colleague who looked over my shoulder as I explained my theories on astrooology? He would have pointed out that the spot patterns I’m seeing are dirt and that I needed to clean my computer screen.

What you should notice is that I was not isolated geographically. I was not in a position of power. I did not even self-select who I talked with. (Though others did self-select away from me.) Nothing about my tale includes what we usually associate as “in the bubble”. Instead, my reasoning was isolated because no one was interested in engaging me. This could happen to any of us and probably has.

Fortunately, the same cause of my isolation also kept me from harm. Sure, my theories on astrooology are wacky, but they won’t endanger my job or relationship, as long as I don’t take it too far. And if I did, others would be forced to engage me, and point out my lack of computer screen hygiene.

Instead, isolated reasoning tends to steer us into personal and private problems, such as our self-image, where getting good engagement is hard, or through our own insecurities where we only seek validation. The biggest danger comes to those with forceful personalities with the emotional skill to manipulate others to only validate them.

And of course, isolated reasoning can happen because of circumstances. Here I’d like to offer an alternative view to why famous and powerful people are sometimes eccentric. We are tempted to say that they were eccentric, to begin with, and that eccentricity is part of their talent. That certainly is sometimes the case. However, if we remember that power and fame can isolate us from criticism, we can see how isolated reasoning would create a slow evolution to childishness, paranoia, or delusions of grandeur.

At this point, you would rightly point out that isolated reasoning is often the birth of revolutionary ideas. Perhaps if Einstein had tried to develop his theories as a professor instead of as a patent clerk, he would have been stifled by academic politics and the criticism of his superior. Yes, isolated reasoning can be necessary to fully explore our creativity. But, don’t isolate too long because that revolutionary idea can get buried by the crazy ones you throw on top of it.

Here is one of the motivations for me writing this blog. Even if no one comments, I found that just the knowledge that others might has forced me to check facts and re-examine my thought process. More than once that has it pulled me from the whacky. (Then again, the whacky ideas would be more entertaining.)

So, before you act on that great business idea or revolutionary theory, sit down and write a business plan or proposal. Any exercise that forces you to defend your ideas to someone that is not automatically on your side can save you from disaster. You might even have so many strange ideas that you need to write a blog.