I Don't Know About That

A number of years ago, I don't remember when, I was looking at a map, and it occurred to me that I didn't know if the map was, in fact, accurate. I hadn't heard of the "paper towns" that mapmakers would place in random spots on the map to catch plagiarists; this was just more the realization that I was assuming that the map was accurate, but didn't really have a way of proving it to myself, outside of using the map to find and visit the locations depicted on it. My belief in the accuracy of the map, I realized, was a matter of faith. The more I thought about this, the less I realized I knew for myself. Most of the things that I take to be true about the world are simply matters of faith, predicated on the idea that the sources of information are both honest and accurate.

Once my beliefs began to fold in on themselves this way, they underwent a rather rapid gravitational collapse, finally condensing down into the singularity of "I think, therefore I am," and leaving everything else as a matter of belief, based on one or more assumptions.

It's an interesting space to find myself in, although it does get me into trouble from time to time. And perhaps the most troublesome aspect of it is not being able to live up to people's expectations of conviction and certainty. A general attitude of agnosticism is sometimes welcomed by people who see a lack of certainty that they're wrong about about something to be an opening, but it wears out that welcome when it doesn't allow itself to be replaced by a certainty that they're correct. It also sometimes rubs people the wrong way when they look for support against another viewpoint. While "I don't know what works, I only know what works for me," strikes me as an honest way to approach the world, it's not one that makes for a deep willingness call other people out as mistaken, and support those who would push past their objections to implement their favored policy positions. And in circumstance where a lack of commitment to the right side is taken as a commitment to the wrong side, it can result in simultaneously being on a remarkable number of mutually-exclusive wrong sides.

But I understand that, in many cases, I don't have to be positive. I need just enough belief to navigate my day-to-day life. If Kyrgyzstan turns out to be a completely different place than it says on the map, that's not ever likely to be a problem in my life. It's a lot like the fact that since I don't rely on the daily news for anything of importance, I don't need any of it to be accurate.

Of course, most of it is likely accurate, or accurate enough, in any event, and I can go through my daily life secure in the knowledge that I know a lot of things that are going to line up with what other people know, since there is so much overlap in our sources. But still, I wonder what I would perceive the world around me to be, if I understood it in a different, and perhaps less intermediated, way than I do now.