I've been thinking on and off for a while about how and why I accept certain things as true, or not...or just leave in what I call "epistemological abeyance." From my military training, I've learned to accept "epistemological abeyance" without stress. But it appears that ability is rare.
It seems like most people have to make a hard determination--true or untrue, believe or disbelieve--about everything, even things that are irrelevant in any way.
We had some rules of thumb in military intelligence analysis. One, which is known in other places, was "Never fall in love with your own hypothesis." The problem with being in love with a particular hypothesis is that love blinds you to the hypothesis that the data really points to. That's why we had another rule of thumb: "Prove all hypotheses." Put the data you have against every hypothesis you have and go with the one that the data best fits. But don't fall in love with it, because additional data may point elsewhere.
I had one commander who instructed me, "Tell me what you know. Then tell me what you think. Make sure you tell me the difference." That meant I had to make a conscious distinction between what I really knew and what I only thought. That meant I had to ponder: What do I really know...and how do I know it's a fact?
This wasn't just armchair theory in the military intelligence business. War plans and tactical operations, men going into real danger, killing people and breaking things, based on what I assured them was true. Men might not come back home, or they might kill the wrong people and break the wrong things if I was wrong. I'm a conscientious guy...that responsibility weighed on me. One of my jobs was to tell the Air Force where to place bomb craters, and I'd seen too many craters on apartment buildings and villages in my time.
All of my assertions had "reliability" statements attached: Confirmed, Probable, or Possible. I had to think about that: Do I really know this is true? I'm betting people's lives on this. To a certain extent, there was no room in my job for "epistemological abeyance." I couldn't just grin sheepishly at the operators during a pre-mission briefing and just say, "Sheesh, beats me, guys!" Sometimes, though, I had to say, "I don't know, but this is what I think." I had to point out what was only probable or even what was only possible. Operators didn't like that, though. They didn't like that at all.
But being in situations in which "epistemological abeyance" was impossible also made me realize the situations in which "epistemological abeyance" was not only possible but actually reflected the truth. Some things are truly not for certain. Some things are not knowable. (For example, exactly where will Vladimir Putin be at 0200hrs Zulu on July 16, 2027? That's not knowable. Not even Putin knows. Arguing about it today is absurd.)
And rather than feeling bad about things I didn't know that I could determine I didn't need to know...It was kind of like a mental vacation to have things I didn't know for certain and didn't need to know for certain.
It became a relief to identify whole areas of things I didn't need to know. Whew. That didn't mean I didn't have any curiosity about them...only that it wasn't an imperative that I take a stand on that hill and die for it. I could identify whole areas of life...most areas of life, in fact....that fell unto the category of "Not a hill I'd die on."
And even when it involves something that I arguably do need to know, unless I have to brief men going into that mission...I don't need to make any hard and fast determinations right now about what is true and what is untrue. I can enjoy "epistemological abeyance" until enough information actually comes in.
It seems like most people have to make a hard determination--true or untrue, believe or disbelieve--about everything, even things that are irrelevant in any way.
We had some rules of thumb in military intelligence analysis. One, which is known in other places, was "Never fall in love with your own hypothesis." The problem with being in love with a particular hypothesis is that love blinds you to the hypothesis that the data really points to. That's why we had another rule of thumb: "Prove all hypotheses." Put the data you have against every hypothesis you have and go with the one that the data best fits. But don't fall in love with it, because additional data may point elsewhere.
I had one commander who instructed me, "Tell me what you know. Then tell me what you think. Make sure you tell me the difference." That meant I had to make a conscious distinction between what I really knew and what I only thought. That meant I had to ponder: What do I really know...and how do I know it's a fact?
This wasn't just armchair theory in the military intelligence business. War plans and tactical operations, men going into real danger, killing people and breaking things, based on what I assured them was true. Men might not come back home, or they might kill the wrong people and break the wrong things if I was wrong. I'm a conscientious guy...that responsibility weighed on me. One of my jobs was to tell the Air Force where to place bomb craters, and I'd seen too many craters on apartment buildings and villages in my time.
All of my assertions had "reliability" statements attached: Confirmed, Probable, or Possible. I had to think about that: Do I really know this is true? I'm betting people's lives on this. To a certain extent, there was no room in my job for "epistemological abeyance." I couldn't just grin sheepishly at the operators during a pre-mission briefing and just say, "Sheesh, beats me, guys!" Sometimes, though, I had to say, "I don't know, but this is what I think." I had to point out what was only probable or even what was only possible. Operators didn't like that, though. They didn't like that at all.
But being in situations in which "epistemological abeyance" was impossible also made me realize the situations in which "epistemological abeyance" was not only possible but actually reflected the truth. Some things are truly not for certain. Some things are not knowable. (For example, exactly where will Vladimir Putin be at 0200hrs Zulu on July 16, 2027? That's not knowable. Not even Putin knows. Arguing about it today is absurd.)
And rather than feeling bad about things I didn't know that I could determine I didn't need to know...It was kind of like a mental vacation to have things I didn't know for certain and didn't need to know for certain.
It became a relief to identify whole areas of things I didn't need to know. Whew. That didn't mean I didn't have any curiosity about them...only that it wasn't an imperative that I take a stand on that hill and die for it. I could identify whole areas of life...most areas of life, in fact....that fell unto the category of "Not a hill I'd die on."
And even when it involves something that I arguably do need to know, unless I have to brief men going into that mission...I don't need to make any hard and fast determinations right now about what is true and what is untrue. I can enjoy "epistemological abeyance" until enough information actually comes in.