I’ve been writing down my memories about things I changed my mind about, and I’ve noticed the same thing. It’s not that I slowly slid through a range of intermediate positions, but one day while reading or thinking, I suddenly noticed that I no longer believed as I used to believe. There are some things I am agnostic about, but I seem to be purely agnostic about them, not leaning either way.
One of the few good bits of Schulz’s recent book Being Wrong is where she does a more readable version of Wittgenstein’s observation, “If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely’, it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.” The paragraphs go:
“But before we can plunge into the experience of being wrong, we must pause to make an important if somewhat perverse point: there is no experience of being wrong.
There is an experience of realizing that we are wrong, of course. In fact, there is a stunning diversity of such experiences. As we’ll see in the pages to come, recognizing our mistakes can be shocking, confusing, funny, embarrassing, traumatic, pleasurable, illuminating, and life-altering, sometimes for ill and sometimes for good. But by definition, there can’t be any particular
feeling associated with simply being wrong. Indeed, the whole reason it’s possible to be wrong is that, while it is happening, you are oblivious to it. When you are simply going about your business in a state you will later decide was delusional, you have no idea of it whatsoever. You are like the coyote in the Road Runner cartoons, after he has gone off the cliff but before he has looked down. Literally in his case and figuratively in yours, you are already in trouble when you feel like you’re still on solid ground. So I should revise myself: it does feel like something to be wrong. It feels like being right.”
I’ve been writing down my memories about things I changed my mind about, and I’ve noticed the same thing. It’s not that I slowly slid through a range of intermediate positions, but one day while reading or thinking, I suddenly noticed that I no longer believed as I used to believe. There are some things I am agnostic about, but I seem to be purely agnostic about them, not leaning either way.
One of the few good bits of Schulz’s recent book Being Wrong is where she does a more readable version of Wittgenstein’s observation, “If there were a verb meaning ‘to believe falsely’, it would not have any significant first person, present indicative.” The paragraphs go:
I’ve finished up my mistakes essay (including the above material) and published it at http://www.gwern.net/Notes#things-i-have-changed-my-mind-about