Anchors of Thought

A Working Hypothesis on How People Decide What’s Real

Epistemic Anchor: A Working Hypothesis

We have all been there, talking with friends, acquaintances, or colleagues, the conversation suddenly turns into a debate, sometimes even an argument. Tension rises, but it’s rarely about the facts themselves. The language we use, the assumptions we carry, and the way we structure thoughts are what derail communication.

Words like “truth,” “justice,” and “freedom” get tossed around, but their meaning shifts depending on how someone thinks. Beneath ideology and beyond politics, there’s what I call an individual’s epistemic anchor: the framework they use to define reality, assess evidence, and judge credibility. Understanding these anchors explains why debates collapse, why persuasion often fails, and why even minor disagreements can feel impossible. To be clear, your epistemic anchor is not what you believe, but the method you use to account for what is true or real. It is a lens for deciding what is true, false, or arbitrary. Most people never identify theirs. They confuse method with belief, or ideology with truth. The anchor runs deeper; it is not just what one thinks but how one thinks. Two people can use the same evidence, the same facts, the same context, and arrive at opposite conclusions, not because one is dishonest, but because their anchors define “evidence” differently.

I have had conversations with many people, and they often start simple enough, but the moment somebody pulls in politics, ethics, or philosophy, a calm conversation can descend into shouting matches or arguments from intimation.

You can see this play out anywhere, from debates about Star Wars lore turning into a moral warzone in a minute. This is not due to anybody changing their mind or the facts having changed, but because their anchors never matched to start with.

To make this concrete, I’ll use coffee. It’s familiar, simple, and surprisingly revealing. I’m not labelling anyone good or bad. This is a rough map of the types of thinkers I’ve observed. While these types aren’t fixed, moving between them takes effort and awareness. Your epistemic anchor shapes everything in your life, from how you debate to how you entertain yourself to how you negotiate the world. Understanding somebody else’s anchor is the first step toward communicating effectively, or even avoiding unnecessary conflict.

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The Custodian: Tradition as Compass

The Custodian thinker measures truth through continuity, or rather, if it has worked well in the past. How long an idea, practice, or authority has been around and in effect as evidence of its validity. Knowledge is often preserved rather than discovered; certainty comes from inheritance. Think ancient texts. Their method is about looking behind and asking what has endured, as it must have been tested, and what diverges from precedent carries risk. It can be summed up as “if it has been around for a long time or is used the most, it must be the best, right?”

Their coffee? “Single-origin Ethiopian coffee is the best because my father drank it, and so does the vicar.” The point illustrated is not the taste but the confirmation of belonging and continuation. The familiar as proof against error.

When confronted with either novelty or contradiction, their instinct is to reconcile, not revise. They reinterpret rather than re-evaluate what that thing is. Truth, therefore, is mediated through hierarchy: they ask who said it before what it means. Stability substitutes for direct validation, and moral worth is often equated with deference to established order.

Translation to and from this type is uneven. Custodians are easy to translate from, because their way of thinking is familiar and widely understood. Translating to them is harder. Their outlook is based on history, tradition, and social norms, so ideas outside those patterns are often misunderstood or reshaped to fit what they already know. Even when they try to understand other types, they tend to filter new ideas through their own framework. They focus on stability and continuity, which means communicating with them requires patience and careful framing.

Strengths: Provides stability, preserves social and institutional continuity, and maintains cohesion by binding individuals to shared standards.
Weaknesses: Dependent on external authority, slow to adapt, resists empirical correction, and struggles when precedent conflicts with observable reality.

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The Architect: Patterns and Systems

The Architect sees the world as a system. Social, economic, or cultural structures come first; individual action is secondary. They think in models and frameworks. Examples include Marxists, critical theorists, and technocrats. Their coffee? “Single-origin Ethiopian coffee is perfect; it’s balanced, fair trade, and fits the system.”

For the Architect, understanding the whole is a moral duty; isolated facts are meaningless without a unifying model, and relying on intuition alone feels irresponsible. The danger is that they can end up serving the model rather than the reality it was meant to explain. Their satisfaction comes from consistency rather than correctness.

They think in terms of the whole, not the parts; they want a map of the entire machine, economics, society, or the human psyche, and then explain how each part functions within and because of it. Architects are skilled at identifying patterns and predicting outcomes within their frameworks. However, evidence that doesn’t fit the model is often ignored, and two Architects may reach very different conclusions depending on which system they prioritise.

Translation to and from this type is difficult. Architects are comfortable understanding other frameworks in theory because they naturally see systems and connections. Translating to them, however, is harder. They prioritise consistency and the integrity of the overall system over individual details, so ideas that don’t fit neatly into their model may be ignored or misunderstood. Communicating with them requires framing concepts within a broader structure they can map; otherwise, the message can be lost. Their focus on patterns and coherence means they may value logical consistency more than practical outcomes.

Strengths: Excellent at identifying patterns, analysing systems, and strategic foresight.
Weaknesses: Can become disconnected from practical reality, struggles to communicate with other cognitive types, and overvalues theoretical coherence over empirical evidence.

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The Individualist: Reason from Scratch

The Individualist relies on their own observation and reasoning more than tradition or theory. Truth is discovered, not inherited. They build a personal framework from first principles, grounded in direct interaction with reality. How they interpret that reality depends on their framework; an Objectivist and a classical liberal might see the same facts and reach very different conclusions. Their coffee? “I like Single-origin Ethiopian coffee because I like it. Studies and popularity don’t matter.”

Individualists solve problems independently, resist authority, and operate methodically. They align with others only when the perspective can be interpreted within their framework. Experts who fail their criteria for reasoning are often distrusted, which causes friction.

A rational Egoist and a utilitarian may both think that free markets is the best system, but for completely separate reasons. When you press them, depending on who does the pressing, they often can not translate their justification into another type. It is the same facts, different logic and a different universe.

What makes them difficult for others is their refusal to fake agreement; they will openly walk away from institutions, relationships, or opportunities rather than subordinate their judgment to another. To them, this independence is not rebellion but hygiene, yet the same integrity can look like arrogance to those who outsource judgment.

Translation to and from this type is nuanced. Individualists are often familiar with other frameworks because they grow up navigating worlds shaped by Custodians and Architects, so they can grasp different perspectives conceptually. Translating to them, however, requires precision; they evaluate everything against their own reasoning and first principles. They won’t accept explanations that don’t align with their internal logic, and they may openly reject or walk away from ideas, institutions, or practices that conflict with their judgment. Communicating with them requires framing arguments in terms of cause, evidence, and principle rather than tradition, authority or abstract systems.

Strengths: Independent, rational, systematic, and capable of understanding other frameworks conceptually.
Weaknesses: Framework-dependent, difficulty translating reasoning across other anchors, selective trust in expertise, and challenges bridging to Custodian or Architect thinkers.

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The Untethered: Shifting Sands

The Untethered has no fixed epistemic anchor. Truth, method, and priorities shift with circumstance, audience, or mood. They borrow approaches but rarely commit. Examples include opportunists, social chameleons, and media personalities. Their coffee? “Some days, Single-origin Ethiopian, other days sugary instant, and sometimes whatever the barista recommends.”

Untethered thinkers are flexible and adaptable. They function pragmatically, often following social norms or short-term advantage rather than principles. Lack of a consistent method makes cooperation unreliable, and long-term planning is minimal. They tend to adopt dominant ideas in their immediate group, functioning as instruments of influence without a guiding philosophy.

This type is abundant, especially online: they are the influencer who promotes minimalism one day and the next day is selling 50 different must-have items you need now. Or the activists who are promoting ‘the current thing’ and will change to the next ‘current thing’ when it comes along, even if they are completely contradictory.

Translation to and from this type is often a waste of time, effort, and sanity. Untethered thinkers shift priorities, methods, and allegiances depending on context, audience, or personal interest. They can grasp frameworks superficially, but they rarely commit to any principle long enough for meaningful engagement. Communicating with them is unpredictable; what works one moment may fail the next. Attempting to reason consistently with an Untethered mind is usually futile; the only reliable approach is to recognise its flexibility and accept that genuine understanding is unlikely.

Strengths: Highly flexible, adaptable, and socially perceptive; able to navigate rapidly changing circumstances.
Weaknesses: Inconsistent, unreliable, lacks long-term planning, and difficult to persuade or collaborate with due to shifting methods and priorities.

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When Minds Meet: Sparks and Misfires

I have seen these types in conversation. When you learn to spot them, their tone, rhythm, and logic of speech turn from noise into a pattern. You start to notice when somebody is reasoning from within a hierarchy, when another is following a system or when somebody is pure improvising; it can be both clarifying and unsettling.

As such, debates, discussions, and collaborations often fail because each type filters reality differently, evaluates evidence through distinct frameworks, and values different reasoning methods. Misalignment of epistemic anchors causes more conflict than ignorance or malice.

• THE CUSTODIAN stabilises groups but frustrates Individualists and can be exploited by Untethered actors.

• THE INDIVIDUALIST operate on principle and clash with Tradition-Oriented or Theory-Oriented thinkers due to framework translation issues.

• THE ARCHITECT recognise patterns but struggle to connect with Individualists or Untethered minds.

• THE UNTETHERED adapt quickly but lack principle, creating unpredictability and reliance on social context.

Understanding these anchors helps predict reactions, navigate debates, and choose when to adapt, challenge, or step back. To help understand these clashes, let’s take a real example I had with somebody.

Not long ago, I found myself in what began as a calm, rational conversation about ethics. It wasn’t heated or political at first, just two people exchanging ideas. But within minutes, tension crept in. Every keyword, “freedom,” “responsibility,” “truth”, seemed to mean something entirely different to each of us. What started as an exchange of ideas became a clash of frameworks, and it got pretty heated. It wasn’t that either of us was irrational; we simply defined reality through different methods.

That exchange stayed with me. It made clear that most arguments don’t collapse because of bad intentions or lack of intelligence, but because each person works from a distinct epistemic anchor, a particular way of deciding what is real, what counts as evidence, and who to trust.

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Keeping Your Anchor Steady

Beneath politics, ideology, and surface disagreement lies the architecture of thought. Recognising cognitive types and their epistemic anchors separates method from belief. Disagreement is often not about facts but frameworks.

Awareness of these anchors explains failed arguments, interpersonal friction, and group dynamics. It allows us to interpret behaviour, anticipate responses, and navigate complex social and professional situations. This isn’t about categorising people; it’s about understanding how their minds work and communicating more effectively. Think of it as a tool, not a typology, as it’s not fixed and people can blend between types or switch altogether - I know, I have done it. The Anchors are not immutable, under pressure:

• THE CUSTODIAN may abandon precedent for expedience,

• THE ARCHITECT may harden into dogma,

• THE INDIVIDUALIST may become isolated,

• THE UNTETHERED may drift further from reality.

The challenge is not to just identify your anchor but to keep it tethered to objective reality and to keep it there when strong emotion or external pressures try to pull it loose. This may include adapting your belief systems to compensate for this.

Is this a complete list? I do not know; this is only from general observation. I am sure that with more study, we can get a complete list. However, once you know your own anchor, you can start to understand the background behind every conversation, every argument, every alliance. And that knowledge, more than agreement, is what makes genuine understanding possible.

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Take It Further: Test, Tweak, Run With It

This is just my rough map, observations from conversations, thought experiments, and a fair amount of coffee. It’s far from complete, and I expect some of you with more academic training, research experience, or philosophical interest will see ways to refine, expand, or test it. If you do, I’d be thrilled for the idea to travel further, but give a nod to the original spark. Think of this as a starting point, not the final word. My goal isn’t to dictate, but to offer a potential lens for thinking that others can sharpen, challenge, or build on.