{"id":80,"date":"2005-10-17T06:01:06","date_gmt":"2005-10-17T12:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/human-uncertainty-\r\n\r\nprinciple\/"},"modified":"2010-09-12T11:19:40","modified_gmt":"2010-09-12T17:19:40","slug":"human-uncertainty-principle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/human-uncertainty-principle\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Uncertainty Principle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been mulling for some time a statement made by a friend. In an article about accusations <\/p>\n

of bias<\/a> against the media by both the right and the left, John Fleck wrote “they can’t both be right.” Sorry, John, but I disagree <\/p>\n

and I’m surprised by your naivete. In matters of human belief, thought and behavior, it actually is possible for everyone in any <\/p>\n

grouping from one to the entire world, to all be right or wrong at exactly the same time. Two conflicting views can both be right; a <\/p>\n

billion conflicting views can all be wrong. Again: in matters of human belief, thought and behavior. Call it the Human Uncertainty <\/p>\n

Principle. I’m not saying that there is no objective truth or fact. I’m saying that for all that can be measured in matters of human <\/p>\n

belief, thought and behavior, there is a huge black box we don’t see because everyone of us depends on it.<\/p>\n

You surely witness <\/p>\n

this countless times a week. One person describes something one way, another in a completely different way, and yet they’re both right. <\/p>\n

This room is cold (to me); no it’s not, it’s warm (to me). Don’t get out the thermometer — it can’t say what’s cold or warm — or <\/p>\n

who is correct — just what’s colder or warmer than something else.<\/p>\n

Someone who reads my blog surely must think I’m among the <\/p>\n

lowest of communistic socialistic homosexual ecofeminist extremists. (If you don’t, read my “antagagnosticism” entry — that should make <\/p>\n

95% shun me.) I think of myself as rather liberal and progressive. But a friend says most white people are more conservative than they <\/p>\n

realize. Who’s correct? We all are.<\/p>\n

So, you and I read an article. You come away feeling it is biased to the left, I come away <\/p>\n

believing it is biased to the right. I honestly believe that even if the whole thing consists of a single word, we might both be <\/p>\n

correct.<\/p>\n

LCohen say something lovely in its poetry: one of us cannot be wrong. But he was. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been mulling for some time a statement made by a friend. In an article about accusations of bias against the media by both the right and the left, John Fleck wrote “they can’t both be right.” Sorry, John, but I disagree and I’m surprised by your naivete. In matters of human belief, thought and … Continue reading Human Uncertainty Principle<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fleck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}