The reason I am so confident
The reason I often feel confident about my views is because I believe that I have no problem whatsoever correcting myself whenever I’m wrong, therefore it doesn’t matter what I presently believe. Another way to look at it is that I believe I’m always right, only because I keep changing my beliefs in order to stay that way, in essence being only abstractly right like having a variable called “correct_belief” that theoretically takes on any value that happens to be correct in a dynamic fashion but in practice either never gets updated on time or gets updated on the basis of false information. This can lead to a kind of irresponsibility or recklessness as I discuss certain topics with others while actually misinformed, the most recent one coming to mind after a recent United Nations resolution.
Though I would rather this were not the case, there are enough people who will believe everything I say; I’m not sure if it’s because they trust that I’ve done my research, or if it’s because I can type in full sentences. Given the kind of drivel I’ve seen people believe, I’m leaning towards the latter: people will believe just about anything from an authoritative-sounding source. This is potentially problematic due to my lack of commitment or loyalty to any of my present beliefs.
Given that anything I say can be overturned the next day (or the next minute), I see little reason to hold on to beliefs so tightly. Everything is probabilistic with a certain level of risk, no matter how minute. To me, that’s what makes life interesting and fun, although there are population groups who will experience significant distress at the thought of even the slightest uncertainty in life.
Irresponsibility
Addressing this irresponsibility will need some work. As someone who struggles to think from others’ perspectives, often with amusing ramifications, such as believing that women can’t possibly find men attractive because I don’t find other men attractive (as crazy as it sounds!), it almost never occurs to me that people don’t change their beliefs as easily as I do, and hence really shouldn’t be used as sounding boards for my latest conjectures.
Most noteworthy—and what inspired this post—was, for more years than I’d like to admit, I think I was accidentally a Holocaust denier. It was something I read about when I was much younger and believed anyone who claimed to be a “historian”. Their arguments were… logically sound. At least, until I eventually realised far too many years later that the problems were actually in the premises. That is, their arguments would be true if not for the fact the evidence actually says otherwise, making their premises and hence their arguments false.
As most books I’ve read exemplify conspiracy theories using examples of climate change denial, HIV/AIDS denial, or vaccines causing autism. Holocaust denial was very rarely used as an example, instead remaining in that file drawer of beliefs that I will probably never look at again until something prompts me to. In fact, during those years, I genuinely believed that what I understood about The Holocaust was not only true, but the actual consensus among historians. When I eventually found out that it wasn’t, I was very surprised. Thankfully, due to it not being talked about as much, I never told more than a couple people about these beliefs, so correcting myself didn’t involve contacting too many people (yes, people did believe me).
The UN resolution
UN General Assembly approves resolution condemning Holocaust denial
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110202
Though this goes against my principles as I believe anything that can be questioned should be questioned, such an ideal can only be achieved when everyone is actually trying to follow the rules and play fairly. In our imperfect world, then, I am willing to concede that censorship is perhaps, regrettably, a kind of necessary evil.
I even believe that it may be good if they extend this approach to the anti-GMO communities who impede scientific progress and indirectly cause more people than necessary to die from starvation, the naturopaths who purport ineffective cures that mislead people into not only wasting precious resources but even forgoing legitimate medical treatments to the point of dying from otherwise preventable illnesses, or climate change denialists who indirectly advocate for the continued destruction of our environment by denying there is a problem.
Closing
Some may value credibility; I’d rather everyone do their own research. Even if I happen to (well, you never know) publish an impressively well-researched article one day, I would rather it be still viewed with appropriate scepticism.
It matters little to me that this may brand me as someone who cannot be trusted due to being so flippant. A reputation shouldn’t be something that confines anyone to error for life. I try to follow a simple philosophy: if I have any idea or belief stopping me from doing the right thing, I get rid of it. Yes, I’m often perceived as “lacking morals” due to not showing the appropriate reservation when discussing sensitive topics, but in any situation with no physical threat, I find no reason to censor myself in order to accommodate certain social ideals or manoeuvre social taboos.
Or, I just can’t recognise which topics are sensitive topics and all of this is just post hoc rationalisation. It may be autism, but it may not. For example, those who are afraid to contemplate human mortality may simply be too naive (it’s also one of my favourite—albeit arguably unreliable—tests for discrediting the notion that physical age has anything definitive to say about one’s mental age).
Addendum
On top of being ready to adjust my beliefs, there is another philosophy I highly value, and it’s comprised of these three words: “I don’t know”. If I don’t have the time to research something, or contemplate about it (if it’s a more abstract or nebulous topic), then I simply leave it aside. “I don’t know”. The same way I treat any claim when the evidence is inconclusive. After all, is it not the same? My lack of reading thus makes the evidence that I am salient of inconclusive, as I haven’t found any evidence that I can use to make a conclusion—this is independent of whether the evidence actually exists yet. The only evidence I can actually consider is evidence I am salient of, even if only indirectly.
I have a lot more topics that “I don’t know” about than topics I actually am familiar with, and this is in spite of the fact that I tend to know more than the average person even when it comes to these said unfamiliar topics. It sounds conceited, and perhaps it is. Lately, it’s something that’s been bothering me, both in the writings of others and mine despite their otherwise innocuous tone. I wonder if I, too, have been unwittingly plagued by it.
There is oftentimes a difference between the writing styles of professional scientists and scientifically-literate bloggers—even if both can parse scientific literature equally well; the latter tends to exude a certain air of insecurity and its resulting tendencies, such as subtle condescension or an excessive (often subtle, but still noticeable) focus on trying to establish their credibility instead of letting their work speak for itself. There are even many who claim to be against pedantry while writing the most pedantic content, seemingly unaware of their own writing while criticising the same things in others. As someone who also writes, though, this is something relatively easy to empathise with: it’s very hard to review your own work objectively.
I am open to criticism in the sense I rarely hold emotional attachments towards the things I write. Apart from a few select beliefs that run contradictory to evidence and are thus highly unlikely such as “only idiots use social media” or “don’t question religion because they’re all highly prone to violence” (again, there is almost no possibility of these being true, but I still subconsciously believe them due to irrational, emotional reasons that I can’t elucidate because they’re, well, irrational), I’m a lot more open to revision than most, I think.
Though every closed-minded person I’ve ever spoken to thinks they’re open-minded, as someone who writes on a blog, I do find myself wanting to justify or preemptively defend myself at times. Especially when any (if ever) of my posts gets taken as evidence for a case against my entire site—or even myself, personally, I find myself wanting to first clarify that I don’t hold on to beliefs as strongly as you might think. Perhaps I have already at some point, but I don’t remember.
To “re-defend” myself, I want to clarify once again that not only does absolute certainty not exist, we can’t be absolutely certain that absolute certainty does not exist either. There’s always a very real possibility of being wrong, but that’s why we correct ourselves instead of crawling into our shells and doubling down on our views.