What is certainty?

[merjet]

I have been reading Reality and the Mind by Celestine Bittle, published in 1936.

"Certitude is the state of mind in which it gives a firm assent to a judgment without fear of the possibility of error, due to recognized valid reasons. This does not mean the mind is really infallible in theses convictions and error is impossible. What it means is the mind is subjectively certain of its grounds and does not fear the possibility of error" (page 22).

He proceeds to say there are degrees of certainty and classes of increasing degree, such as follow. There are moral certitude, physical certitude, and metaphysical certitude. The first is certainty about a general truth but not true in every instance, such as 'Parents love their children." Physical certitude is based on a physical law of nature, with the law considered to be uniform, necessary and universal. Metaphysical certitude is based on metaphysical law, an exception to which is intrinsically impossible, because it would involve a contradiction. We are convinced no power can change truths like 2+2=4, the part is smaller than the whole, and a circle is no square.

Bittle uses different words that (arguably) have a very similar meaning as Peikoff:
"The concept of "certainty" designates knowledge from a particular perspective: it designates some complex items of knowledge considered in contrast to the transitional evidential states that precede them. (By extension, the term may be applied to all knowledge, perceptual and conceptual, to indicate that it is free of doubt.) A conclusion is "certain" when the evidence in its favor is conclusive; i.e., when it has been logically validated. At this stage, one has gone beyond "substantial" evidence. Rather, the total of the available evidence points in a single direction, and this evidence fulfills the standard of proof. In such a context, there is nothing to suggest even the possibility of another interpretation. There are, therefore, no longer any grounds for doubt" (OPAR 178-9).

[BaalChatzaf]

Aside from the Law of Non-Contradiction and its logical equivalents what general thing do you hold to be certain.

There are particular things, such as one's own existence. But things that are both general and certain are hard to come by.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

People talk all around it, but the truth is certainty is an emotion first and foremost--and a state of knowledge second (and a long second at that).

Is there anyone more "certain" of his cause than a terrorist?

Michael

[merjet]

What kind of emotion do you have about 2 + 2 = 4 and the fact that I have slept in the last 24 hours?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Merlin,

There actually is an emotion there. It comes from the fight-flight system and it tells my mind on a very deep level I do not have to seek further information or activate the fear circuit. The emotion is called certainty, but is is similar to serenity or passive contentment when I observe something for a knowledge check.

Even an Islamist terrorist feels this when he contemplates the moral correctness of his mission. The fact that it is based on flawed morality is not relevant to his certainty unless and until he begins to see the flaw.

The fact is, the standard used for knowing varies for different people, but the feeling of certainty does not. This is is why some people can be absolutely certain of the existence of God and others are absolutely certain God does not exist, and they both feel the same thing about what they "know."

This does not make the standards of knowledge arbitrary. It only refers to how we feel about what we know--including why and how.

The human mind has an innate need for certainty. A person who lives in chronic doubt is generally a sickly person. His brain does not operate well on many levels because the doubt contaminates it. (This is called neuroplasticity.) I guess the best is a good balance between certainty and doubt.

Dislodging someone's certainty is very, very hard. People kill each other over their different certainties.

Reason alone doesn't work to convince people to give up a certainty. Just look around. They need accompanying emotions, stories, a glimpse at underlying meaning, social proof (which means observing the views of others they can relate to), new habits, things they can do themselves that provide a different result than what they were used to, and so on.

De-myelinating a strongly sheathed neural pathway is no joke. And it needs to be replaced by another one that is richly myelinated. That doesn't happen overnight.

I only see overwhelming emotions make a person dislodge certainty quickly. Overwhelming fear or rage. Overwhelming catharsis like a religious conversion. Overwhelming catharsis like first reading Atlas Shrugged (if it resonates with you). Overwhelming blast of pleasure like the first hit of crack cocaine. Things like that.

I don't mean to say overwhelming emotions will always dislodge certainty, nor that they are the only path. (Gas-lighting comes to mind as an effective alternative.) But I have only seen certainly dislodged quickly when they are present.

Michael

[Xray]

People talk all around it, but the truth is certainty is an emotion first and foremost--and a state of knowledge second (and a long second at that).

Is there anyone more "certain" of his cause than a terrorist?

Michael

It is true that to say "I'm certain" has a different touch to it than the more definite "I know", but the factor 'emotion' is not always required in phrases which refer to the state of being certain about something.

In criminal cases for example, an investigator (drawing inferences from the circumstantial evidence) could say: "I'm certain that the suspect staged a scene to misdirect the police".

[Xray]

What kind of emotion do you have about 2 + 2 = 4

But one would not use the phrase "I'm certain that 2+2 = 4. One would simply state it as a fact.

[Guyau]

Merlin, thanks for the parallel in #1. I noticed that the author Bittle had Catholic order after his name. Here is what Catholic Encyclopedia says about http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03539b.htm'>certitude. The metaphysical-physical-moral distinction appears there also.

Michael, during my early years at college, I came to the conclusion that certainty is a feeling. I guess that applies only to certainty of the type philosophers have called subjective, but that is a vast and important territory.

I agree with your idea that reason, in some narrow enough sense of it, is not always effective against irrational certainty. I mean some certainty is not amenable by way of reason to greater concord with reality and earthly-life values. The certainty you mention of the religiously motivated terrorist would seem to be a subtype of certainty in which the religious fanatic has enormous unadmitted doubt that his supernaturalistic view of the world is true. It would seem like the usual old situation of bands of religionists trying to act out their schizophrenia and bolster the social sanction of their fantasy by forcing acknowledgement from larger society. Those cases are hardened against reason and the evidence of the senses.

Where people’s certainty is genuine, not a puffed-up bolster, I would think their feeling of certainty is open to reason and objective evidence. I expect this fits with your picture so far too. (AS provides inspiration integral with the reasons it offers; its sharpening of one’s previously inarticulate love of reason and life is essential to its effective resonance; still, its reasons are essential to the liberation.)

It was not the connection of religious enthusiasts with certainty that led me to the idea that certainty is a feeling. It was just introspection. The idea that certainty is a feeling needs exploration in its wider, more common, and more wholesome occasion. I wonder if this elementary connection of certainty to feeling has some basic link to another early idea I had, which was that in order to think any thought we have to have some mental interest in it. I’ll have to think about that.

By the way, the way of interesting tidbit, Rand also held a version of the latter idea, though apparently she never wrote of it. In his Understanding Objectivism lectures, Peikoff mentioned “Miss Rand used to be a strong advocate of what she called ‘the pleasure-purpose principle’. She meant the idea that on any level, whether we’re talking about thought or action, you cannot function without a purpose that brings you pleasure, something you want to achieve, that you enjoy achieving” (1983, 325). I asked him recently if he recalled how far back she was mentioning that idea, and he replied “maybe the mid-’50’s.”

[Brant Gaede]

I am certain there are various types of certainty, both of nature and degree. Qua rationality it can be a shorthand way of thinking without constantly rethinking complexities to the same conclusion so one may start with the conclusion for further thinking. This doesn't mean that some of your certainty bricks aren't made of mud, to be dissolved in the next rainfall, only there might be a felt need to save time and effort. It also doesn't mean not rethinking, at times for whatever reasons, what one is certain of.

That was the certainty of rationality. Then there's the certainty of dogma. The former can lead to doubt, which might be depressive, the latter to destructive positiveness. Put the two together and certainty goes bi-polar. Is isn't what certainty is so much as how it is used.

--Brant

[merjet]

Feeling and emotion can mean different things to different people. I think feeling is a better word than emotion in regard to certainty, which is why I reacted as I did. Perhaps state of mind, used in the Catholic Encyclopedia, is better yet.

Regarding Bittle's title.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Stephen,

Here is a visual referent for the concept of certainty--and what it feels like to have it challenged in a manner we cannot deny:

http://youtu.be/QbKw0_v2clo

This is physical--the result of a highly myelinated neural pathway. Notice that schizophrenics have no problem with seeing the correct image.

You can get really uncomfortable with your mind with this thing...

But it is important to understanding certainty (in the manner I understand it).

I speculate that Islamist terrorists get to this point of certainty--using their distorted "facts"--through isolation, praying hypnotic incantations to the glories of Allah five times a day, memorizing the Qu'ran (which is in present tense--and that means it is easier for the subconscious to accept without question during hypnotic reinforcement) and other such activities. It's a myelinating thing.

In a less brainwashing manner, but one equally certainty-forming, we all hold a lot of cultural certainties fed by our surroundings over years and years of reinforcement. But they just don't hold up to be universal and/or correct under rational scrutiny and testing. The examples are numerous. Just look at the mainstream news and see all the conflicting certainty going on.

I also believe the core stories of the groups we adhere to give us certainty, but that is for another post.

Any cult-leader worth his salt, though, will tell you humans crave certainty. Even when he knows he is a con, he has to project a charisma of knowing--especially knowing unknowable stuff--without any deep doubts. This is what attracts his followers, like a flower attracts bees, or shit attracts flies (depending on your metaphor preference ).

Mary Ann Sures said something that gave me chills of warning up my spine when I first read it (from Facets of Ayn Rand).

Mary Ann: But there was something else about Ayn Rand that was different from anyone I had ever met before. I felt myself responding to this “something,” but I didn't know what it was. It wasn't until after a few more meetings with her that I could name it.

ARI: What was that?

Mary Ann: She had certainty. This is what really attracted me emotionally to her that night. She was the first person I had ever met who projected it—she projected that what she knew was true, and that she was sure of it.

I think I felt the chills because it was this certainty that I had first responded to in Rand's writing. I had come to some general conclusions about how the world worked, but people often acted in a manner I could not understand, and they constantly tried to say I was wrong when I tried to discuss them. They also flooded me with a lot of that disagreement in a hostile and insulting tone. Then along came Rand and voiced my views (along with many others that sounded reasonable) in absolutely certain terms. The LAW OF NATURE, by God. Reason. With hostile right back atcha' to the pond scum as gravy. It was quite a rush.

But it was this certainty that seduced me into not questioning a lot of things I later needed to question. Stuff that hurt me badly over time. It was a hell of a long climb from that dark cave out into the sunlight of using my own mind to question Rand's conclusions--to honestly question them on an identification level and come to my own conclusions, not simply try to disprove them because of emotional blowback like I see so many people do.

Notice that Sures talks about being attracted emotionally to Rand's posture of certainty. She will go on to develop her reasoning on fundamental issues bathed in the waters of that certainty. And, to be blunt about it, that is not rational. It wasn't when I did it (at a distance). It wasn't when she did it. it wasn't when anyone around Rand did it.

Getting emotionally seduced by certainty is a hit-or-miss game based more on temperament and blind luck than actually using your rational faculty. I'm talking about fundamentals, not the way we rationally derive our conclusions from premises. People around Rand did that part well. It's the not questioning Rand's premises part I'm talking about.

Rand had the "certainty attraction" all cults tap into. And that is not reason. It's emotion.

It's like what they teach about selling--people buy on emotion and justify their decision with logic.

I'm not against someone projecting certainty. But nowadays, I want it to be correctly identified. It can be a great emotional experience to be around someone like that. But it is a trap, too. I believe if you recognize the trap at the moment you are enjoying the emotional kick, you get the best of both worlds and become all the richer for it.

The rub is in how to implement that without getting burned.

btw - I hold Rand's "certainty attraction," and the way this stunts critical thinking in some of her vocal followers, is one of the reasons Objectivism keeps getting called a cult, even though that designation is not accurate in many respects.

Michael

[Xray]

Paradoxically, to say "I'm certain" contains a seed of doubt, however small. For if one is not in any doubt about a fact, one does not use "I'm certain". That's why we would e. g. not say, given the state of contemporary knowledge, that we are "certain" that the earth revolves around the sun.

[Guyau]

Michael, I can't get the quote function to work even within the same thread now.

You remarked "it can be a great emotional experience to be around someone like that." Maybe for some people it can be great, but not for me. It would always be an immediate turnoff for me, I wouldn't believe it, I wouldn't take them seriously, I would assume I were talking to a salesperson---at least since I bolted out of religion as a young man with the idea that to reason was good and to reason was to question. I did not know Rand personally. The affection I've had for her has had nothing to do with certainty she projected in her writing. It was by her questions that she got me thinking more her way initially, then by however far I saw her positive theories as correct. That was the way it was for the man who introduced me to her philosophy and for the men and women I introduced to her philosophy.

With enough study, I do come to have personal feelings about some philosophers through the centuries. It is by their minds recorded in their writings I imagine. Leibniz, affection. Hume, yuk. Nozick, adore. . . . I began Rand with fiction, and that is partly different, I'd say, as far as personal feelings one might come to have towards the author. Steinbeck, very warm . . . . I cried about a week when Rand died; but she had saved my life; no affection over projection of certainty.

In your btw, I'm glad you said "one of the reasons." I'm not sure we have identified all the reasons people so often think (by their own thinking, in the cases I've known, not just repeating others) that people who are favorable toward Rand or are "into Rand" are something of a cult. I wonder if it is a feeling towards Rand they sense in many of us (including me).

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Stephen,

I'll study the quote feature and put together some simple instructions. It's the price of keeping the forum secure...

On to the substance.

I have your aversion to people with overly-certain postures--now that is. But I didn't always. I think our different experiences highlights different temperaments, which I alluded to earlier.

Here's what I mean. When I was little, my entire childhood was characterized by gullibility. I was very easy to trip up because I would believe anything. My parents, in particular, were always teasing me by feeding me false information and watching me make a fool of myself trying to use it.

Sometimes it backfired. Once, when I was trying to tease my father back about his name, Henry, which he hated, both Mom and Dad said I shouldn't laugh too much because my middle name was actually Henry and not Stuart. After arguing it for a bit, I went ahead and accepted that they were right. (Like I said, I was gullible.)

So I did what I generally do when something in my life is terribly wrong. I fixed it. I immediately started signing my name "Michael Henry Kelly" on all my school assignments. I went to the school office and requested they change my records to my "correct" name so my report card would no longer be wrong. I formally informed all my teachers of the error. I announced it in front of my classes. Shortly thereafter, the truant officers showed up at our door...

You can imagine the what my folks went through to explain that one.

Anyway, the long and short of it is I am a gullible person by nature. It's innate. I no longer reflect that because of a hell of a lot of hard knocks and betrayals over life have taught me the ways of the world and made me a bit jaded, but I am aware of this tendency in my soul. I believe you have a different innate temperament.

After being on O-Land forums for several years and interacting with a lot of different people, I have concluded that this a fundamental aspect of being attracted to her ideas in the way I was attracted. There are several ways, though, but a critical input is temperament. I know I was ripe for Rand's certainty tone when I came across her (in my late teens)--and of the correct mind to receive it. I know many are like me, too, because I recognize the signs when I interact with them online.

Now, however, I do not believe the only opposite of certainty is doubt, or chronic doubt. There is a healthy alternative called acceptance of vulnerability. Brené Brown does a great job of explaining it in the video below.

http://youtu.be/_UoMXF73j0c

There was a time when I would have denounced her work as a sell-out and even evil. Worse than altruism. I would not have accepted that you could be secure, heroic, productive, rational and, at the same time, be passively accepting of your own vulnerability when circumstances placed you in that state. I used to think you had to fight against it at all costs, make a heroic struggle, and when you lost, it was because you were overwhelmed by reality in a grueling battle of will.

Now I see the wisdom of taking some time off when I feel too vulnerable to keep going, even to the point of temporarily suspending moral judgments. If I'm really bad off, I go ahead and ask for help (although this still makes me feel rotten). I do this to recover and get stronger. And I always come back. I believe I always will for the rest of my life, too.

Another thing. I have consciously chosen normal family life with Kat for a big change from my former looser dynamic lifestyle. By this, I mean my corner of the universe where I can relax and be vulnerable. Ditto for her.

(We even do baby-talk to each other sometimes. Well... maybe all the time... Tina always rolls her eyes and Sean (who is partially autistic) tries to imitate it, but then asks why he is acting like a child.

Talk about vulnerability! Why do we do that and why it is so right for us? I did some thinking and came up with this. Both Kat and I were beaten a lot as children. We never had a chance to mature along the standard emotional timeline. We lost those years. At a very young age we had to learn how to handle (and avoid) pain from an enraged person and that makes you grow up fast. So we are simply catching up on what we missed. I know It feels great, but even more. It feels like the way things should be. I'll never apologize for that, but I may join in the laughter if we get busted...

In family, there is no pressure to fight great battles and so on. I do that with my work. We worry about the little things and celebrate them--and even feel gratitude for them as Brown suggests.

Speaking of gratitude for little things, I know for certain this is a powerful way out of drug addiction. Ever since I started practicing it years ago, periodically sending emotional "blasts" of gratitude to the Great Out There for just being alive, I have not had any danger of relapses come near me.

I used to feel shame when I displayed weakness. Now I'm comfortable knowing I'm covered when I'm vulnerable. I've thought it through, made my peace with it, and now I have a corner of the universe where I don't have to pretend to be anything I am not.

I'm also not a con about it. When it's time to fight the good fight, by God, it's time to get moving and I give it my all. I've learned that a well-lived life goes in waves and cycles, not in a straight line.

As a creative person, I can tell you the doubts come. But by accepting them as what they are rather than rejecting them, I find I can push through them a lot easier. I don't need to be certain all the time to be damn good at what I do. It's absolute folly to treat my own soul as an enemy. I did that for years and all that ever resulted was it paralyzed my creativity.

In my current way of using the Objectivist philosophy, there is space for the matters Brené Brown studies and talks about (and other ideas). I don't know much about her other than her TED Talks, but i can say my living experience corroborates her conclusions. And, if you take them within specific contexts, there is no conflict with a heroic vision of life.

The way I do it, I don't feel like I'm giving up Rand, or even compromising, by making room for the weakness stuff. Instead, I feel like I'm adding a different kind of wealth to the treasure I got from her. Maybe that doesn't work for everybody, but it works well for me.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Each and every one of us weaves a path between destruction and absurdity.

That is life. We are are living to some degree on borrowed time. That is the way it is.

Error is our constant companion... So be it.

There is absolutely no reason to get tied up into a knot about it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

The way I do it, I don't feel like I'm giving up Rand, or even compromising, by making room for the weakness stuff. Instead, I feel like I'm adding a different kind of wealth to the treasure I got from her. Maybe that doesn't work for everybody, but it works well for me.

Michael

Go forth! Whatever it is you are in that too shall pass.

Here is something from Frank Herbert ("Dune") ....

• "I must not fear.
• Fear is the mind-killer.
• Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
• I will face my fear.
• I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
• And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
• Where the fear has gone there will be nothing......Only I will remain."

Amen

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

"When the fear has gone..."?!!

Heh.

Now tell that to your reptilian brain when something new--totally unknown--crops up.

You'll never get it to turn off fear. That's what it does (one of the things). It would be like trying to get the heart to stop beating while you keep on living. That will never work.

But thank goodness we have other parts of our brain, too. Our inner Gila monster is not the inner sage that leads us to flourishing. But I don't hold it in contempt. It is the gatekeeper who makes sure we stay alive long enough to get around to flourishing.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Apropos of vulnerability, I just got a book by Ann Hood called Creating Character Emotions.

As I was flipping through it, I was delighted to come across the following quote at the end of Part 1.

Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged: "He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points."

I looked it up and Rand was talking about James Taggart.

And this shows to go ya' that you can't expose your vulnerabilities to just anyone. But they will come through. And Rand knew that.

(Incidentally, in the scene, James Taggart was baffled by how someone could feel an emotion about a metal alloy. )

Michael