The Sky is blue* [My take on Certainty]

If I were to ask you whether the sky is blue, your answer would be yes.

If I asked you the same question at twilight, your answer might shift, but it would remain the same at it’s core. Perhaps your answer would change from “yes” to “not right now. [however usually, it is.]”

The answer being "no" can be true. If it is a stormy day, you could interpret something covering the sky as grey or white, and if it is night time, you could describe it as black, even if an eyedropper would point to it instead being very dark blue. But, the overarching answer of yes, is the correct one, with exceptions that most people could appreciate.

If you were to ask the same question to a blind man, their answer would still be yes. Not based on the evidence of their own eyes -I don't need to explain why- but simply on the words of others, or, as the case may be, the trust of their past sight. Does this make them less certain of that answer? It would depend on their character to an extent, but probably not. And we could extend this same principle to those who don't see blue the same way as you or I do, their perception of blue doesn't change their certainty of this natural truth.

I start with this example because it is one that cannot be debated in any sense of the word, we can ask ourselves to question it, and be awarded with an answer through looking up. But questioning whether this truth is indeed the truth, is not the same as lacking certainty in the conclusion. We know the sky is blue. We can learn more in depth factors about how, or why the sky is blue but we cannot convince ourselves to the contrary. We will remain certain that it will be blue, regardless of how many times we think to check.

This can extend elsewhere, to the natural sciences, and to things you can directly touch, but the discussion is made a lot more interesting if we extend it to indirect facts. Things you hear through secondary sources and cannot be directly tested by yourself. Can you ever be truly certain of these things?

The short answer is; yes. You can have misplaced certainty of course, a subject I will now offer far too much time to.

Echo chambers, suggested by Mr Smith to support Uncertainty, are great demonstrations to this point of misplaced certainty. Most people, including the most conspiratorial, will ask questions about their chambers subject, whilst remaining certain of their conclusions regardless. Now we can condemn the prospect of Asking these questions within said chambers, but that does not change the certainty underlying those questions.

Furthermore, someone who cannot verify the evidence they are looking at confidently, or is willing to disregard it in either case, will be less willing to regard it as strong evidence one way or the other. And someone who already agrees with the conclusion the indirect evidence directs them to, will be more willing to stretch out its meaning. Not because they are necessarily irrational, but simply because they are that certain of a conclusion they have independently reasoned towards.

conspiracy theories are great examples of this. The QAnon conspiracy, for as bizarre as it was, did invoke Certainty among those who believed in it, otherwise why would they risk their lives acting on those principles? And that certainty did not need to be 100% correct for it to be acted upon.

As for the wider scale however, of Certainty in the sense of an absolute truth, rather than as an inherently subjective feeling, we can reach it. and the fact we both know that the sky is blue, demonstrates that, well enough.