How Doubt Leads to Better Decisions
“Uncertainty Is an Uncomfortable Position. But Certainty Is an Absurd One.” — Voltaire
Certainty is a funny thing.
You can ask someone whether anything in life can be known without any doubt — are we living in a simulation? Are other people conscious? Were all your memories just deleted and replaced with new ones? — and that person is likely to get all philosophical and say no, you can’t be sure of these things.
Yet that same person will then tell you that they have no doubt who will win the Superbowl. If it’s not who will win, then after the fact, they’ll tell you exactly why the winner won.
The mind tends to think in absolutes and assign undue confidence to predictions and interpretations. Once we’ve made our mind up, we can be rather stubborn and dogmatic.
This can get in the way of learning and refining our decision-making skills. It’s important to foster a certain respect for the uncertainty of life, the role of luck, and a recognition of our own self-deception.
Life is Uncertain
Most of your decisions are made under uncertainty. The world is a messy, complex playground, where data abounds and lives interact in unforeseeable ways.
