What makes us at times take chances when most of the time we seek to preserve certainty? I suppose the philosophers might answer that question with some complex Bayesian (Thomas Bayes, 18th cent) reasoning about how we are ultimately subjective thinkers. They might be right. After all, taking a chance is by definition a largely subjective, on-the-spot matter.
Think of it this way. If one sits at a slot machine with a certain amount of money, whether or not to pull away from or stay at the machine is totally subjective. “I’m winning. I’m on a roll. I should see this through.” If on the way to winning, one gets some losses, the winning is the remembered experience that conditions a person to preserve an apparent certainty. “Some losses are to be expected, but the overall gain outweighs the losses.” That is, they do until they don’t. No amount of experience can preserve certainty in a game of chance.
And that’s what life in general is, a game of chance. The certainty is both imposed and temporary. How certain were you before a pandemic changed your world? And now, given the conditioning both self-imposed and externally imposed by government restrictions, how different are you views from those you held in pre-pandemic times? What is the new certainty you wish to preserve? A certainty about health? Work? General safety? A certainty that no one will bring into your presence a life-disturbing, externally imposed change?
Are you sitting at a slot machine now expecting more losses than wins? If so, have you determined that expectation on the basis of your personal experiences, or have you determined it on the basis of external forces, such as government announcements and media coverage of the pandemic?
Are the people around you “pooling” information not gleaned from personal experience but rather from what “people in authority” are saying? Recall the ancient adage that if one hears something repeatedly, it becomes “truth.”
How do you define “taking a chance” at this time as opposed to your pre-pandemic definition? Was pre-pandemic “taking a chance” something like walking a tightrope across the Grand Canyon? Has it now become removing a face mask in public or not washing hands?
Yes, we definitely are subjectivists. Now we even question “objective” evidence—if we think we have it—from so-called authorities who say: “Blood plasma antibodies are the answer”; “T-cells formerly exposed to some cold or flu are the answer”; “Only a traditional dead virus vaccine is the answer.”
So, now you puzzle over a new “reality” imposed more by others than by your personal experience. Why? Because you see the only avenue to personal experience is an Either/Or (that is, contracting or not contracting COVID-19). In fact, your personal experience has become conditioned by the language of others and not by actual experience. Want to go to the store? To a gathering? What is your sense of risk, your sense that if you do go out, you won’t be able to preserve the certainty of your life?
And what are you to do with the various “pools” of information, such as “masks work” and “masks don’t work”? What are you to do with numbers of deaths that frighten because in absolute terms they seem so dire while in relative terms they don’t seem much out of the ordinary? Take this headline from late May, 2020, for example: “The Most Important Coronavirus Statistic: 42% of U.S. Deaths Are from 0.6% of the Population.” * A month after that headline, this one with a lengthy subtitle occurred: “Coronavirus: COVID Deaths in U. S. by Age, Race: While coronavirus is obviously concerning and a very real threat to some people (namely, the elderly and immunocompromised), these data also show that the risk for the rest of the population is quite low.”** Or, what do you do in light of CDC data that shows how per 100,000 people, the rate of infection (not rate of death) has been 8.1 for people from age 5 through age 17; 152.9 for people 40-49; 308.6 for people aged 65-74? And how can you trust what others are saying when anecdotal evidence seems to point to contrary reality, anecdotes such as, “I went to get tested, filled out the paper, but the lines were too long so I left; yet, I got a positive result in the mail.” Anecdotes, such as, “They told me that if I okayed COVID as the cause of death on my mother’s death certificate, I would get money.” Anecdotes, such as, “I sent in a dry, unused swab, and I got a positive result.” Right, these are anecdotes I have heard and you haven’t, so they are easy to discount. BUT, what if people are manipulating the data for some reason (destruction of the economy for political reasons; lack of wisdom on what to do; personal fear; acquiring stocks in Big Pharma)?
In the USA, 10.3/100,000 died in auto accidents in 2013. Or, take these stats on causes of death from the CDC: Heart disease 647,457; Cancer 599,108; Accidents 169,936; Chronic lower respiratory diseases 160,201; Stroke 146,383; Alzheimer’s 121,404; Diabetes 83,564, Nephritis, etc. 50,633; and suicide 47,173.*** What if—just WHAT IF—you had daily coverage of any of these causes? What if—just WHAT IF—the 24/7 news talked of little else and focused instead on any of these causes of death? How would you then deal with your sense of certainty? How would you then deal with preserving that certainty? How now do you perceive the nature of risk?
Consider that as of this writing, there are 1,769 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 Americans with 178,998 deaths (August 27, 2020 stats).**** Some 5.8 million Americans have contracted the disease (if data are correct). That is a big number, but then, there are over 325 million people in the country. What if you considered the number of people who DON’T HAVE COVID? That's 319.2 million people!
Yes, as a subjectivist, you have a problem. The old certainty that you sought to preserve—even if you took moderate chances—has changed. You have a new certainty, and you don’t know whether or not it is worth preserving. And strangely, your new certainty is oxymoronically an uncertain certainty.
*Roy, Avik. Forbes Staff. The Apothecary Contributor Group. Online at https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#2a80aeb974cd Accessed August 28, 2020.
**Berezow, Alex. 23 Jun 2020. American Council on Science and Health. Online at https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/06/23/coronavirus-covid-deaths-us-age-race-14863 Accessed August 28, 2020.
***https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm#:~:text=Number%20of%20deaths%20for%20leading%20causes%20of%20death.,%28cerebrovascular%20diseases%29%3A%20142%2C142.%20Alzheimer%E2%80%99s%20disease%3A%20116%2C103.%20Diabetes%3A%2080%2C058.
Accessed August 28, 2020
**** https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases
Accessed August 28, 2020
Think of it this way. If one sits at a slot machine with a certain amount of money, whether or not to pull away from or stay at the machine is totally subjective. “I’m winning. I’m on a roll. I should see this through.” If on the way to winning, one gets some losses, the winning is the remembered experience that conditions a person to preserve an apparent certainty. “Some losses are to be expected, but the overall gain outweighs the losses.” That is, they do until they don’t. No amount of experience can preserve certainty in a game of chance.
And that’s what life in general is, a game of chance. The certainty is both imposed and temporary. How certain were you before a pandemic changed your world? And now, given the conditioning both self-imposed and externally imposed by government restrictions, how different are you views from those you held in pre-pandemic times? What is the new certainty you wish to preserve? A certainty about health? Work? General safety? A certainty that no one will bring into your presence a life-disturbing, externally imposed change?
Are you sitting at a slot machine now expecting more losses than wins? If so, have you determined that expectation on the basis of your personal experiences, or have you determined it on the basis of external forces, such as government announcements and media coverage of the pandemic?
Are the people around you “pooling” information not gleaned from personal experience but rather from what “people in authority” are saying? Recall the ancient adage that if one hears something repeatedly, it becomes “truth.”
How do you define “taking a chance” at this time as opposed to your pre-pandemic definition? Was pre-pandemic “taking a chance” something like walking a tightrope across the Grand Canyon? Has it now become removing a face mask in public or not washing hands?
Yes, we definitely are subjectivists. Now we even question “objective” evidence—if we think we have it—from so-called authorities who say: “Blood plasma antibodies are the answer”; “T-cells formerly exposed to some cold or flu are the answer”; “Only a traditional dead virus vaccine is the answer.”
So, now you puzzle over a new “reality” imposed more by others than by your personal experience. Why? Because you see the only avenue to personal experience is an Either/Or (that is, contracting or not contracting COVID-19). In fact, your personal experience has become conditioned by the language of others and not by actual experience. Want to go to the store? To a gathering? What is your sense of risk, your sense that if you do go out, you won’t be able to preserve the certainty of your life?
And what are you to do with the various “pools” of information, such as “masks work” and “masks don’t work”? What are you to do with numbers of deaths that frighten because in absolute terms they seem so dire while in relative terms they don’t seem much out of the ordinary? Take this headline from late May, 2020, for example: “The Most Important Coronavirus Statistic: 42% of U.S. Deaths Are from 0.6% of the Population.” * A month after that headline, this one with a lengthy subtitle occurred: “Coronavirus: COVID Deaths in U. S. by Age, Race: While coronavirus is obviously concerning and a very real threat to some people (namely, the elderly and immunocompromised), these data also show that the risk for the rest of the population is quite low.”** Or, what do you do in light of CDC data that shows how per 100,000 people, the rate of infection (not rate of death) has been 8.1 for people from age 5 through age 17; 152.9 for people 40-49; 308.6 for people aged 65-74? And how can you trust what others are saying when anecdotal evidence seems to point to contrary reality, anecdotes such as, “I went to get tested, filled out the paper, but the lines were too long so I left; yet, I got a positive result in the mail.” Anecdotes, such as, “They told me that if I okayed COVID as the cause of death on my mother’s death certificate, I would get money.” Anecdotes, such as, “I sent in a dry, unused swab, and I got a positive result.” Right, these are anecdotes I have heard and you haven’t, so they are easy to discount. BUT, what if people are manipulating the data for some reason (destruction of the economy for political reasons; lack of wisdom on what to do; personal fear; acquiring stocks in Big Pharma)?
In the USA, 10.3/100,000 died in auto accidents in 2013. Or, take these stats on causes of death from the CDC: Heart disease 647,457; Cancer 599,108; Accidents 169,936; Chronic lower respiratory diseases 160,201; Stroke 146,383; Alzheimer’s 121,404; Diabetes 83,564, Nephritis, etc. 50,633; and suicide 47,173.*** What if—just WHAT IF—you had daily coverage of any of these causes? What if—just WHAT IF—the 24/7 news talked of little else and focused instead on any of these causes of death? How would you then deal with your sense of certainty? How would you then deal with preserving that certainty? How now do you perceive the nature of risk?
Consider that as of this writing, there are 1,769 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 Americans with 178,998 deaths (August 27, 2020 stats).**** Some 5.8 million Americans have contracted the disease (if data are correct). That is a big number, but then, there are over 325 million people in the country. What if you considered the number of people who DON’T HAVE COVID? That's 319.2 million people!
Yes, as a subjectivist, you have a problem. The old certainty that you sought to preserve—even if you took moderate chances—has changed. You have a new certainty, and you don’t know whether or not it is worth preserving. And strangely, your new certainty is oxymoronically an uncertain certainty.
*Roy, Avik. Forbes Staff. The Apothecary Contributor Group. Online at https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2020/05/26/nursing-homes-assisted-living-facilities-0-6-of-the-u-s-population-43-of-u-s-covid-19-deaths/#2a80aeb974cd Accessed August 28, 2020.
**Berezow, Alex. 23 Jun 2020. American Council on Science and Health. Online at https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/06/23/coronavirus-covid-deaths-us-age-race-14863 Accessed August 28, 2020.
***https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm#:~:text=Number%20of%20deaths%20for%20leading%20causes%20of%20death.,%28cerebrovascular%20diseases%29%3A%20142%2C142.%20Alzheimer%E2%80%99s%20disease%3A%20116%2C103.%20Diabetes%3A%2080%2C058.
Accessed August 28, 2020
**** https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases
Accessed August 28, 2020
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