The Paradox of Certainty

There is a situation in the practice of medicine so critical doctors must always be alert to its possibility and guard against it. Smart patients are also alert to it and get 2nd and 3rd opinions. Call it the Found-It-Bar. A doctor reviewing a case will find evidence that the condition is Affliction X, and having arrived at a diagnosis, will stop looking further. The malady might very well be Affliction X, but having found it doesn’t mean it is the only thing wrong. Further investigation might reveal another affliction, or that it isn’t X after all but Y. A thorough physician will do a battery of tests to garner an abundance of evidence, so as not to settle too early on the first diagnosis.

That’s what science is. Not accepting the first diagnosis that shows up on the meter.

It’s also what resolves a curious paradox, the inverse variance between certainty and proximity to truth. It’s an old saw that the more you know, the more you realize how little you know. Those who are less certain about what they know are usually closer to the truth than those who are absolutely certain about what they consider true. In other words, if you’re so positive something is true you can’t imagine ever changing your mind about it, you’re less likely to be right than someone who can imagine changing his mind.

It’s the Found-It-Bar at work. The dead certain person has stopped looking. The less certain person has not stopped looking. In the quest for what’s true, I think we can all accept that the first guess is most likely not it. So you keep looking. At some point you decide you’ve got enough evidence to form an opinion, and after further search the opinion hardens into a belief. I think we can all agree that the actual truth itself is probably unreachable, all we can do is get close to it. We can get close enough that we can apply the belief successfully. More or less.

But the person who remains uncertain will continue to look. And that process of extended search will reduce the separation between the belief and the actual truth, so that the less certain person will in most cases be closer to the truth than the person who, out of dead certainty, quit looking.

So if the last time you changed your mind about an issue or belief vital to you was so long ago you can’t remember, look out, and start looking. You’re further away from the truth than you think.