doubt
I have largely been a sceptic. Education, or perhaps my short-lived experience, had conditioned me for some time now to doubt; such that it has become a sort of second nature. somehow faith is something difficult to engender, harder still to hold on to. So much so that other people's faith sometimes sits uneasily with me. (or perhaps i'm intolerant and bigoted. Who knows?)
So much so that what I suspect are sometimes deeply held intuitive I-just-know impulses are simply dressed up by myself, subconsciously, in order to make it palatable to my conscious mind. (Unsettling thought? Something once suggested by kai, food for thought till now) I just have to find that heap of substantiation to justify thoughts and decisions.
And yes, there is fairly strong evidence that points towards the truly creative leaps of the human mind, the real historical decisions made by people who matter, and other people who don't matter until in aggregate; are in fact made intuitively, in a vacuum, an instinctive empathy with what is "right" (tricky word here: chockful of normative significance) with no facts or insufficient knowledge of facts. the statistics, the logical process, etc etc, are not the means to the end. they are there merely to justify what had already been grasped, there to appease that monster of the Enlightenment - Doubt - in our post-industrial society, indoctrinated to believe in the absolute Gospel of the Scientific Method.
Perhaps, just sometimes, I feel the little twinge of envy of the people who do not doubt. Somehow, they just know. And it is very disturbing, I can assure you, for a doubter and a convinced sceptic who needs Proof, with a capital 'P', for most things, to run up against the brick wall of people who know Truth with a capital 'T'. Sometimes, if one thinks about it, the experience leaves one more than a little shaken. It is not something that I can simply discard as other people being dogmatic, especially since I have admitted once to someone else that the need for Proof may be a dogma in itself.
And so while some people go charging straight into what appears to them the clear light of day (of Truth) I equivocate, seeing only shades and greys and dilemmas abounding. Precious little is certain, most things do not matter, and that is sometimes discomfiting when people seem to be so assured and confident in the face of the world.
And yet there was a time when I could accept most things unquestioningly. It was also a time I can still remember; and when Doubt was first planted in my mind I could feel its delicious impact, the startling realization that what was previously established could be wrong, that with enough effort more could be uncovered and rectified. It was like a drug which intoxicated.
Since then the effect has become a lot more muted as I realized how much is actually around and established and convincing. I started thinking if doubt merely makes very small little dents on the great sea of ignorance or it simply leads to ignorance of a different sort. In other words, Doubt turns on itself and I doubt Doubt, how effective and important it actually is, whether it is simply another dogma to fool us all.
But on better days Doubt remains thrilling as ever. Disputation comes like a shot in the arm, the sudden shock of realization, of enlightenment from a temporary resolution seems to last forever in a moment. Maybe the beginning of doubt is the beginning of knowledge. Perhaps the real Truth will never come with more Doubt, but at least we improve on our existing version of truth. Perhaps we will never reach Truth; much like the speed of light, we can only approach it, progressively yet asymptomatically.
Somehow this continuous striving seems to me something which is actually dynamic, something moving and alive and active. Far more than the assertion that the Truth is already here and we don't need to find out more - we can just sit around till the end of days. This is an immensely static vision, medieval in its simplicity and complacency. I believe that this is not the attitude that befits our modern day and age. And this, I think, keeps my faith in Doubt.
***
And so even though we do things intuitively quite often, it doesn't hurt to doubt to make sure. After all, I'm quite sure that quite a large number of Germans never really doubted Hitler, but accepted what he said unquestioningly.
And like now, it's perhaps even fun to doubt Doubt, every now and then. =)
So much so that what I suspect are sometimes deeply held intuitive I-just-know impulses are simply dressed up by myself, subconsciously, in order to make it palatable to my conscious mind. (Unsettling thought? Something once suggested by kai, food for thought till now) I just have to find that heap of substantiation to justify thoughts and decisions.
And yes, there is fairly strong evidence that points towards the truly creative leaps of the human mind, the real historical decisions made by people who matter, and other people who don't matter until in aggregate; are in fact made intuitively, in a vacuum, an instinctive empathy with what is "right" (tricky word here: chockful of normative significance) with no facts or insufficient knowledge of facts. the statistics, the logical process, etc etc, are not the means to the end. they are there merely to justify what had already been grasped, there to appease that monster of the Enlightenment - Doubt - in our post-industrial society, indoctrinated to believe in the absolute Gospel of the Scientific Method.
Perhaps, just sometimes, I feel the little twinge of envy of the people who do not doubt. Somehow, they just know. And it is very disturbing, I can assure you, for a doubter and a convinced sceptic who needs Proof, with a capital 'P', for most things, to run up against the brick wall of people who know Truth with a capital 'T'. Sometimes, if one thinks about it, the experience leaves one more than a little shaken. It is not something that I can simply discard as other people being dogmatic, especially since I have admitted once to someone else that the need for Proof may be a dogma in itself.
And so while some people go charging straight into what appears to them the clear light of day (of Truth) I equivocate, seeing only shades and greys and dilemmas abounding. Precious little is certain, most things do not matter, and that is sometimes discomfiting when people seem to be so assured and confident in the face of the world.
And yet there was a time when I could accept most things unquestioningly. It was also a time I can still remember; and when Doubt was first planted in my mind I could feel its delicious impact, the startling realization that what was previously established could be wrong, that with enough effort more could be uncovered and rectified. It was like a drug which intoxicated.
Since then the effect has become a lot more muted as I realized how much is actually around and established and convincing. I started thinking if doubt merely makes very small little dents on the great sea of ignorance or it simply leads to ignorance of a different sort. In other words, Doubt turns on itself and I doubt Doubt, how effective and important it actually is, whether it is simply another dogma to fool us all.
But on better days Doubt remains thrilling as ever. Disputation comes like a shot in the arm, the sudden shock of realization, of enlightenment from a temporary resolution seems to last forever in a moment. Maybe the beginning of doubt is the beginning of knowledge. Perhaps the real Truth will never come with more Doubt, but at least we improve on our existing version of truth. Perhaps we will never reach Truth; much like the speed of light, we can only approach it, progressively yet asymptomatically.
Somehow this continuous striving seems to me something which is actually dynamic, something moving and alive and active. Far more than the assertion that the Truth is already here and we don't need to find out more - we can just sit around till the end of days. This is an immensely static vision, medieval in its simplicity and complacency. I believe that this is not the attitude that befits our modern day and age. And this, I think, keeps my faith in Doubt.
***
And so even though we do things intuitively quite often, it doesn't hurt to doubt to make sure. After all, I'm quite sure that quite a large number of Germans never really doubted Hitler, but accepted what he said unquestioningly.
And like now, it's perhaps even fun to doubt Doubt, every now and then. =)
posted by zhongkai at 12:02 AM
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