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Let's say some guy catches his wife in bed with another man, and he's like, "Okay, this isn't what it looks like."
Basically it's what we would consider an unreasonable interpretation of sensorily perceived facts. That's essentially what a delusion is.
Why would this happen? It could be, he's really attached to his wife, and this would be really devastating if she were really cheating, so the stakes are just so high that he doesn't want to risk blowing up the marriage unless he's totally certain about what's going on. He may perceive a Type I error (false accusation) to be less risky than a Type II error (false acquittal). This is kind of like how courts will say that it's better to err on the side of giving the criminal defendant the benefit of the doubt, when it comes to whether the facts prove he's guilty of a crime.
If the guy were to say, "I think, based on the evidence, there's a greater than 50% probability that this is some misunderstanding and my wife is innocent" then we might say, "That's an unreasonable interpretation." But if he says, "I believe in giving her the benefit of the doubt even if there's a 99% probability she's guilty" then the question is, whether he's being reasonable in the standard of proof he's setting, which is a separate issue, that relates to his situation, his philosophy about women and about marriage, and who knows what else.
How do we decide what's a reasonable interpretation of facts, by the way? Probably a lot of times by some kind of induction. E.g., we haven't heard a lot of stories about guys catching their wife in bed with another man, where she turned out to be innocent, so that means this situation is probably the same way. But, the guy could be like, "Yeah, but there's stuff under the crust of the cauldron that you don't know about; there are some women, like this women, who are different, and the normal rules don't apply to her," etc.
What obscures the situation is that there's a lot of manipulation going on where people have some sort of agenda, and not everyone is really after the truth, or wants the wide dissemination of a reasonable interpretation. Sometimes people will take a stance that seems to be delusional, just as a way of saying, "The subject is closed." E.g. some guy says, "I'm 100% positive that there's a god" or Christine Blasey Ford says, "I'm 100% positive that Brett Kavanaugh was my assailant." She doesn't want to say 99% because then that 1% is going to become a major topic of conversation and get in the way of her agenda, even though arguably, 99% certainty might still be enough to say he's been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, except that when we also take into account the possibility she just made the whole thing up or that it's a false memory, and all the other possibilities, eventually it might start to add up to reasonable doubt.
If someone says, "I'm 100% sure," then it's like, okay, if you challenge them, then what? You're basically saying they're lying or don't know how to make a good judgment about what they should be 100% sure about.
When they say, "I'm 100% sure," they're saying they've ruled out every possibility that their knowledge and experience could tell them would be a way by which they could have erred, including the possibility that there are possibilities they haven't thought of yet; and they've concluded, "Nope, there's no possibility that I erred." It's a pretty strong statement.
Looking at the other side of the situation, Brett Kavanaugh is 100% sure that what she says happened didn't happen. So somebody done goofed somewhere along the line. This was why the senators were trying to figure out, "Maybe there's an explanation for this discrepancy; maybe she had more beers than she's remembering, and she hallucinated, or got assaulted by someone else and her memory shorted out; the wires crossed and she confused that guy for Kavanaugh." Plenty of people get fixated on celebrities or other famous people, and it only takes one out of 300 million to have some false memory like that, and pretty soon we're having hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee about it.
Basically it's what we would consider an unreasonable interpretation of sensorily perceived facts. That's essentially what a delusion is.
Why would this happen? It could be, he's really attached to his wife, and this would be really devastating if she were really cheating, so the stakes are just so high that he doesn't want to risk blowing up the marriage unless he's totally certain about what's going on. He may perceive a Type I error (false accusation) to be less risky than a Type II error (false acquittal). This is kind of like how courts will say that it's better to err on the side of giving the criminal defendant the benefit of the doubt, when it comes to whether the facts prove he's guilty of a crime.
If the guy were to say, "I think, based on the evidence, there's a greater than 50% probability that this is some misunderstanding and my wife is innocent" then we might say, "That's an unreasonable interpretation." But if he says, "I believe in giving her the benefit of the doubt even if there's a 99% probability she's guilty" then the question is, whether he's being reasonable in the standard of proof he's setting, which is a separate issue, that relates to his situation, his philosophy about women and about marriage, and who knows what else.
How do we decide what's a reasonable interpretation of facts, by the way? Probably a lot of times by some kind of induction. E.g., we haven't heard a lot of stories about guys catching their wife in bed with another man, where she turned out to be innocent, so that means this situation is probably the same way. But, the guy could be like, "Yeah, but there's stuff under the crust of the cauldron that you don't know about; there are some women, like this women, who are different, and the normal rules don't apply to her," etc.
What obscures the situation is that there's a lot of manipulation going on where people have some sort of agenda, and not everyone is really after the truth, or wants the wide dissemination of a reasonable interpretation. Sometimes people will take a stance that seems to be delusional, just as a way of saying, "The subject is closed." E.g. some guy says, "I'm 100% positive that there's a god" or Christine Blasey Ford says, "I'm 100% positive that Brett Kavanaugh was my assailant." She doesn't want to say 99% because then that 1% is going to become a major topic of conversation and get in the way of her agenda, even though arguably, 99% certainty might still be enough to say he's been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, except that when we also take into account the possibility she just made the whole thing up or that it's a false memory, and all the other possibilities, eventually it might start to add up to reasonable doubt.
If someone says, "I'm 100% sure," then it's like, okay, if you challenge them, then what? You're basically saying they're lying or don't know how to make a good judgment about what they should be 100% sure about.
When they say, "I'm 100% sure," they're saying they've ruled out every possibility that their knowledge and experience could tell them would be a way by which they could have erred, including the possibility that there are possibilities they haven't thought of yet; and they've concluded, "Nope, there's no possibility that I erred." It's a pretty strong statement.
Looking at the other side of the situation, Brett Kavanaugh is 100% sure that what she says happened didn't happen. So somebody done goofed somewhere along the line. This was why the senators were trying to figure out, "Maybe there's an explanation for this discrepancy; maybe she had more beers than she's remembering, and she hallucinated, or got assaulted by someone else and her memory shorted out; the wires crossed and she confused that guy for Kavanaugh." Plenty of people get fixated on celebrities or other famous people, and it only takes one out of 300 million to have some false memory like that, and pretty soon we're having hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee about it.
