Wrong conclusions can be funny - or disastrous!

Sometimes I really believe I know what I’m talking about. So sure am I that what I am saying is the truth that I will insist that my audience believe it, too. I’ll go on a crusade. That’s when the real comedy begins.

”The people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the people who are most certain of them.” — [Bill] Maher’s Certainty Principle

I especially get a giggle out of my conclusions – you know, those times when I think I can boil down all the evidence into a single reasonable interpretation. And, of course, once a final interpretation is arrived at, appropriate action must follow. What happens when my interpretation of the evidence is incorrect? It’s a pretty good bet my “appropriate” action will be askew, too. Wrong conclusions can be the cause of comedy or disaster.

The immensity of the universe and the eons of time are so far outside my limited comprehension that I can’t possibly say with any certainty, for example, that other life exists or doesn’t “out there”.  But for years I stated as a matter of fact that there is a God. How can I possibly know the unknowable? Thinking errors, that’s how!

This is the very self same thinking error that convinces me that I know for certain the outcome of any of my actions. At best I can only know some probable outcomes – to say I know for sure the specific outcome of a specific action is to claim omniscience – that I know ALL possible outcomes and how to eliminate all but one of them from the myriad probabilities… I admit I come up short on omniscience. Because I don’t know everything there is to know, I can’t possibly know which of all possible outcomes for an action will be the ONE outcome. The best I can hope for is to predict (guess) the most probable outcome.

When it comes to probabilities, I tend to be a poor predictor. Why is that? Because I tend to introduce thinking errors – like the one where I believe I can know what can’t be known.

In the end, I feel compelled to admit defeat. Even probabilities are iffy commodities when humans are making the conclusions.

At least that’s the conclusion to which I arrive. Believe me – I know what I’m talking about!