Contemporary Love

Have spent a few posts talking about the idea of "happiness" and how it seems to be so elusive, its attainment similar to catching a shadow. The issue got me to thinking about a companion word -- certainty, and how certainty shares that same elusive quality. And there seems to be a connection between certainty and our happiness. Isn't "happiness" difficult to maintain without certainty? How in the world can we be sincerely happy without some assurance (certainty) that the things that contribute to our happiness are ours and will remain ours?

It's a problem. Every time we find a good idea, the truth of which seems worthy of certainty, a new, better idea comes along that shows us the original idea wasn't so worthy of certainty after all. It's the paradox of learning. And what a paradoxical thing learning is. We learn in order to "know". We want to know how things really are and how they really aren't. But as soon as the process of learning persuades us that things are a certain way, we learn something new and realize they aren't exactly as we thought. It would be more accurate to say that we learn in order to change our minds. The gap between knowledge and belief isn't as big as we'd like to believe.

Consider the things you know with such certainty to be true that they could be written in stone. Then, realize that they probably replaced the things written in stone you were thinking at the time you learned them. If even once, a thing we thought was certain turned out to be replaceable by a "better" idea, the certainty of all of our ideas becomes suspect. Not a very sexy prospect, but don't we want to know how things really are?

If uncertainty is the only certainty, what's left?

Doubt.

Doubt is not a sexy word. It's something we'd like to avoid. It makes us uncomfortable at best. It paralyzes us at worst. Unfortunately though, it's inescapable -- anything we think is true can be doubted. We can doubt our senses, we can doubt our thoughts, we can even doubt our doubting. Nothing's safe from doubt unless it's guarded by belief.

Belief? Seems like a weak foundation upon which to build a world view. If everything we think is true is based on mere belief, aren't we left with a world where anything goes? After all, who's to say one belief holds more water than another? Universal subjectivity had its shot in the 60's, and even today we hear people say, "It's all good." But, since the sun continues to rise every morning despite our ability to doubt even fundamental reality, another word comes to our rescue.

Probability.

Doubt is a powerful thing. Talk to any first year philosophy student fresh from reading Plato and you'll witness the power of doubt and probing questions. It's the power of doubt that makes the philosophy books at B. Dalton's so thick and hard to read. The only good thing that can be said about doubt is that it's an easy thing to do, though I doubt that ease alone makes anything good.

We yearn for certainty but we live by probability. Probability means likelihood, how likely something is to happen, not happen, be or not be. I can doubt the certainty of external reality all I want, but odds are, the sun will rise tomorrow and I live as though that probability is certain. Thinking that our only two choices are certainty and doubt is a recipe for disaster. We have to live in the world. We have to act. We have to make choices. We need operating principles upon which to base our choices. Doubt can easily destroy our trust in custom, habit, tradition, and Oprah Winfrey, but then we're left with what?

We have a bad relationship experience. Our man, or woman, whom we trusted does us wrong without warning. Doubt sets in. If this seemingly fine human being could disappoint, how can we ever trust again?

Why did we ever trust with certainty in the first place? Because we confused probability with certainty. Someone who appears to be honest, loyal, and sincere, is more likely to uphold our trust than someone who does not, but there is never anything certain about it. If that honest, loyal, and sincere person does something to betray our trust, there's a good chance he or she is as surprised about it as we are. The paradox of learning seems to make us subject to change without notice.

But probability comes to the rescue. While after a betrayal we'll take a closer look at the difference between what seemingly honest people say and what they do, the odds are still in favor of an honest behaving person continuing to be honest. Yes, we'll be more suspicious and our radar more sensitive, but maybe that's how we should have been with the person that disappointed us. And should we be any easier on ourselves? Is it likely that we're the only decent human being in the world? And how decent are we, really? We'd like to think there are things we'd never do under any circumstance, but the reality is that we haven't yet experienced every circumstance and until we do our opinion about ourselves is also nothing more than probability.

Don't demand certainty -- it's an illusion. Make peace with probability. When the first year philosophy student gives you fine arguments proving the world is nothing more than our imagination, give him 50 to 1 odds that the sun will rise tomorrow.