Sarah Gibbard Cook
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Counterfactuals: What If?

4/25/2022

2 Comments

 
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If only I had gotten that surgery years ago. What if I hadn’t seen the child run into the street? Human minds love to imagine a past or present world much like the real one, with one key element changed. It’s one way we learn from experience. It may also mire us in remorse or self-pity, unable to move forward.

Over a balmy California outdoor dinner, a philosopher and a brain scientist discussed David K. Lewis’s classic example: "If kangaroos had no tails, they would topple over” (Counterfactuals, 1973). What does it mean to make a factual statement about a situation that is contrary to fact? Why do we so often describe the world we know by comparing it to one that doesn’t exist?

​In a recent thought experiment, I’m trying to replace negative statements like “It isn’t cloudy or cold” with affirmatives that mean the same thing: “It’s sunny and warm.” The editor in me tweaks “I can’t get that app to load” into “How to load that app is a mystery to me.” With each switch, my spirits lift. It’s as though the negative wording suggests an imaginary, alternative, cold and cloudy world in which apps load easily every time. In the affirmative, the only world I need is here and now.
2 Comments
Rebecca link
4/25/2022 10:38:38 pm

"Got to ac-cen-tuate the positive..." Great plan! I took that on as a Lenten practice one year and it really lifted me up. When I start feeling down, I hit reprise.

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Sarah Cook link
4/27/2022 11:29:31 am

Love the thought of it as a Lenten practice. Pleased to learn you experienced a similar effect. I'm hoping after enough practice, it may become a habit. For me it's related to replacing "but" with "and," "have to" with "choose to," and (more difficult) "I'm sorry" with "thank you" (as in, "Thanks for putting up with me").

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    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 


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