Strong Evidence and Strong Convictions
Last edited Fri Mar 23, 2012, 03:17 PM - Edit history (5)
When you begin searching for evidence, how strong is your conviction that it exists and can be found? If you had a strong belief that it cannot be found, then you might be motivated to search if your search were so complete as to itself demonstrate, by failing to find anything, that the evidence doesn't exist. However, if the search process could not itself provide evidence of non-existence, and you had a strong conviction that the evidence being sought cannot be found, then you probably wouldn't be motivated to search.
If all others abandon the search because they weighed the evidence accumulated so far, and they calculated the odds that anything was missed, but you persist, then are you making a mistake?
Perhaps you have insight into subtle qualitative features of reality that aren't captured in the columns of any accounting spreadsheet. If you are ultimately vindicated, then what can we conclude? The evidence that you eventually found is strong evidence, but how can you explain what motivated you to keep looking when everybody else abandoned the search? Obviously you didn't have strong evidence before you had strong evidence!
You had some kind of strong hunch, strong insight, or strong intuition. However, the strength of it isn't something that others can measure. Also, no matter how strong it is, it could be a mistake.
The strength of your convictions isn't something that you can consciously control. If you could control it, then you would be at great risk of self-deception, and isn't that the hazard that you are trying to protect yourself from? Don't you imagine a scenario of believing what is false, and try to prevent that scenario from arising? Isn't that what your focus on evidence is all about?
If your goal is to avoid deceiving yourself, then I encourage you to continue to pursue that goal. There is no substitute for that goal. So, don't accept any substitute! In particular, don't put too much trust in your "strength of conviction should be based on the strength of the evidence" slogan. That slogan cannot in practice be applied because you cannot consciously control the strength of your convictions. The slogan sounds very persuasive, but it cannot replace your dedication to pursuing the truth. How could it?
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