The Fish and the Other Acquarium: On pointing out inaccuracies in truth claims
Truth over facts!
Let me present to you an allegory on misguided claims, and how we should deal with them.
Fish out of water?
Imagine a fish store. Let there be two aquaria in the store, both holding a variety of fish.
Although fish see the world in fisheye perspective, they are aware of the existence of the fish outside of their acquarium, and that there exists more than one acquarium. (Perhaps the acquaria were installed side-by-side sharing one of their faces.) Additionally, the store owner has furnished the two acquaria differently (with various forms of rocks and plants), but since they are so big, there is plenty of variation within each acquarium, as it takes a while for one fish to swim along the entire length of its acquarium.
Because fish in one acquarium are aware of the fish in the other acquarium, nothing (except perhaps the lack of vocal cords) withholds them from discussing current affairs and persistent issues faced by that other half of the fish population. Indeed, being in another acquarium does not take away the ability of the fish to reason about anything.
Here comes a fish, however, whose thoughts have moved from the reasonable to the fictional: it has convinced itself that is has swum so far that it is now swimming in the other acquarium. The decorations out near the edges indeed do look unfamiliar to most fish, who tend to dwell close to each other. This one fish, then, sees these unfamiliar decorations and concludes that it is no longer in its old acquarium.
Even a child could recognise that this fish has made a severe lapse in reasoning. At best, it can philosophise about the decorations in its acquarium or the other, but it is a contradiction in terms to conclude, by observing in its surroundings the decorations of its own acquarium, that it is in the other acquarium. It can perhaps guess or imagine what swimming in the other acquarium would be like, but it can never identify that it actually is doing so because it never has swum in that acquarium and it never will.
No matter the decorations it encounters, even if they are atypical for that acquarium, the fish does not have the discernment power to conclude “I am seeing decorations in the other acquarium” when all it could ever conclude is “I am seeing decorations in my own acquarium that are atypical for it”.
It is also clearly nonsensical were this fish to return to the others and have them pretend that it has jumped waters, because it is still just swimming right next to them. Rather, the compassionate thing to do would be to help our special fish realise which predicates in its reasoning don’t correspond with the truth of the world, so that it has a better-calibrated set of predicates to come to a better-calibrated solution.
Arguably, it would be quite disingenuous and back-handed anyway for the other fish to “go along” with our special fish, knowing perfectly well that they are being deceptive since they themselves possess a better-calibrated model of reality. If there was a piece of broccoli stuck between your teeth and everyone pretended like there wasn’t, you wouldn’t be grateful for everyone’s compassion the moment you noticed it yourself in the mirror. You would rightfully conclude that everyone silently mocked you in the back of their mind since they had a better-calibrated model of the world and didn’t tell you about it.
Truth-seeking versus defensiveness
I am by nature interested in truth. Hence, when somebody lays out a chain of thought that brought them to a conclusion but one of the steps does not cohere with what is true, I reflexively point this out. People who are of the same disposition – interpreting everything through the lens of truth-seeking – are grateful for this type of help: by pointing out a flaw in the foundation they thought they had, they are guaranteed to get closer to what is actually true, be it by adjusting the conclusion, or be it by concluding that that chain of thought is flawed and that there are useful exceptions to explore. I have collaborated with such people in the past, and it is a joy to work with them. It is true teamwork: you and them both building on the strongest possible solution to a problem both want to solve. It is arguably also one of the most important character traits you want in a marital spouse: not interpreting disagreement with a point as an attack on their person.1
More often than not, however, I have been met with scorn for pointing out errors in thought. This applies to group projects just as much as relationships: people who cannot admit that they have made a mistake and hence will fight tooth and nail to prevent this fact from being established. They tie their entire self-worth to the correctness of their reasoning, meaning that when their ideas die, they die too. (Of course, this defeats the whole purpose of thinking.) Rather than being grateful for getting closer to the truth, they get defensive and will often project their need to be right onto the person who has technically given them a more refined set of predicates to draw a conclusion: they accuse that person of “always wanting to be right”, of being a “contrarian” for the sake of being one (not for the sake of truth-seeking, i.e. they would point out errors even if there were none), and more generally, take a blow against a claim as a blow against themselves.
They assume that the only reason someone would point out an error in thought would be to embarrass them, insult them as stupid, feed a superiority complex, and make a power play. The reality is of course that it is the defensive person who is contrarian: every time an error is pointed out, they refuse to accept it, regardless of the truth value of the pointing out. The superiority complex is also with them instead, given the lack of humility2 – indeed, only God is never wrong, and you are not God. In a sense, the truth-seeker is justified in taking this as an insult (although it isn’t their nature to do so because it is a waste of time that detracts from the actual topic), as the defensive person’s message is that there is no way somebody could see something they didn’t see themselves.
And of course, the person who points out a flaw “wants to be right”. What is the alternative? Should one strive to instead say things they know to be false? No, the clear difference between the defensive person and the truth-seeker is that the former has a need to be right whilst the latter has a need to find what is right (and hence also what is wrong). Both can accuse the other of “always wanting to be right” if enough disagreements take place; assuming the truth-seeker only speaks up when he is highly convinced that truth is being twisted (which is a fair assumption since otherwise not much truth is being sought), the accusation of “always wanting to be right” (where “always” is an exaggeration of “annoyingly often”) really just means the defensive person is wrong annoyingly often. Berating someone for noticing frequent errors is clearly a misattribution of blame; if somebody can keep finding significant errors in your reasoning, that’s not on them. You should be annoyed at yourself in the first place for having re-occurring blind spots, not annoyed at them for providing you with valuable information you did not have.
But what if you’re wrong?
The assumption that the truth-seeker is right can be relaxed: all that matters is a history of intellectual honesty and good faith in arguments. In other words, a truth-seeker gets his credibility (the reputation of arguing for the truth rather than for his reputation) from holding himself accountable, by openly admitting when he has been proved wrong.
Such a track record is essential for others to distinguish truth-seekers from defensive clingers: if a person with a history of intellectual honesty really sticks to his guns, then it’s fair to assume he is actually unconvinced by what has been presented to the contrary, rather than desperately asserting that he is right despite his conscience torturing him for knowing he is wrong.
Surround yourself with such friends, if you can keep them.
Those who have experience with the contrary will agree that it feels like every attempt to taking a step forward results in taking two steps back because now you have two disagreements to solve where there was one to start with. ↩︎
It’s also true however that a superiority complex is, in some cases, a protection mechanism against the feeling of not being enough, and a mortal fear for being discovered to be imperfect. You’ll find that defensive people who argue from insecurity are also anxiously attached in their romantic relationships, i.e. they attach their self-worth to the other person staying with them, and although they make that person’s life hell, they will refuse to leave the relationship because that would be the ultimate betrayal of their self-worth and count as death in their mind. ↩︎
