The Certainty Trap

Where we demand certainty, or falsifiable theory, before we act, we are essentially asking for an elimination of risk and failure. It’s a bit like asking for a guarantee of a great insight, a great discovery, or a great piece of art.

You can’t know that things will turn out all right. The struggle for certainty is an intrinsically hopeless one—which means you have permission to stop engaging in it.

The more terrifying uncertainty is wanting something but not knowing how to get it. It is working toward something even though there is no sure thing.

One of the most perilous gene-meme double whammies that humans possess is the notion of certainty. Our natures and our learned biases lead us to believe that we are right whether or not we really are. This

Neuroscience research is revealing that the state of not being certain is an extremely uncomfortable place for our brains to live: The greater the uncertainty, the worse the discomfort.

Confidence increases faster than accuracy. “The trouble with too much information,” Robinson told me, “is you can’t reason with it.” It only feeds confirmation bias. We ignore additional information that doesn’t agree with our assessment, and gain confidence from additional information that does.