Notes from Maine - 2021/09/05
I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that I’m having trouble rejoining the world. I was never terribly outgoing before the pandemic. A group of close friends visits me regularly. Aside from that interaction, I satisfy my social needs by overhearing the conversations that happen in my head.
My favorite books have characters who surprise me while I’m writing them. Their logic doesn’t match mine and I want to reject their positions until they explain themselves. Sometimes the logic is flawed, but it’s usually possible to at least understand how they drew their conclusions.
It’s more difficult in real life. People (myself included) entrench themselves when a belief is challenged. They would rather argue than reevaluate. In a lot of ways, I don’t consider this characteristic to be a flaw. Holding onto a belief in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is seen as strength when someone overcomes adversity to achieve the impossible. A person paralyzed by an accident might fight against all odds to regain the use of their legs. Along the way, they are told countless times that the fight is futile, but they continue anyway. We celebrate stories like that, so it’s no surprise when people copy and paste that attitude onto other beliefs that they have.
I read something interesting the other day. A person wrote, “If you find yourself in a debate where neither side will yield, ask the other person what evidence it would take to change their minds. If they don’t have an answer, it’s not worth the time debating.”
What would it take to convince me that Earth is flat, for example? I’ve known a lot of pilots and I’ve worked in cartography, so I have a lot of evidence to overcome. In fact, I lived with a rocket scientist for ten years and he’s currently launching vehicles into space for one of the billionaires. If there was a global conspiracy to keep the geometry of our planet covered up, my friends would have to be a part of it. So, I suppose the only way I could be convinced otherwise would be if I worked closely on a satellite, saw it launched, and then inspected the imagery returned. If those pictures showed the ice wall and a flat, circular disk of a world, then I could be convinced it was flat. Otherwise, I’m sticking with the rest of the data.
So, I have an answer of what it would take to change my mind. In my example, I don’t need to have the debate. There’s nothing that the flat-earther could say to change my mind (unless they had a satellite ready to launch), so what’s the point? I could simply ask what evidence it would take to change their mind, and the conversation would soon end, I’m sure.
With all that in mind, why am I having trouble rejoining the world? What evidence would it take to convince me to sign up for the Spanish class that begins in a couple of weeks, or the pinball league that starts next Friday? I’m fairly certain it’s safe. I’m just not convinced that either of those things are worth the stress. By that logic, I’ll never leave the house again. That sounds really appealing.
I suppose I’ll sign up for Spanish right now, before I change my mind.
