70 A Programmer’s Guide to the Mind
In order to understand confidence more clearly, it might help if we used
the word knowing instead of confidence. The Perceiver person deals with
facts. He can know that a certain piece of information is true—positive
confidence, and he can also know that a fact is false—this is negative
confidence. In between these two extremes lies a gray area in which
Perceiver strategy may think that something seems true or false, but not be
completely certain. In mathematics, something that is not right is
automatically wrong. In real life, though,
things are often not that black and white.
I might add that some Perceiver
persons specialize in knowing what is
wrong. They have great confidence in
labeling error. However, an individual
who is adept at pointing out falsehood is
often less proficient at recognizing the
truth that passes his way.A
Let me illustrate confidence with a few
examples. Think of the following facts: The
President of the United States was abducted by
Martians; 2 x 2 = 214; the moon is made out of
green cheese. In all cases we can know that these
facts are false. Why? Because we are sure that
these bits of information cannot belong together:
Martians live in fantasy books, and presidents
belong in newspapers; only at grocery checkout
stands do these two converge. Similarly, the
number 214 is much bigger than the number 2.
Therefore, the two do not belong together. Likewise, we all know that the
only green cheese on the moon is that which was left there by the Apollo
astronauts.
Now let me try another set of facts: The President of the United States
visited Ecuador; 14 x 16 = 214; the moon is made largely out of silicon.
These pieces of information may or may not be right. Most of us would
probably have to check them out in order to know whether they were
correct or not. With these facts, our level of confidence is low—maybe
positive or maybe negative. The problem is that we do not know whether
these ideas belong together or not. The President could have visited
Ecuador. Multiply fourteen by sixteen and you get a number pretty close to
A Similarly, we will see that Server confidence in skills can be either
positive or negative. I can know that I can do something, and I can also
know that it is impossible for me to carry out a certain action. Some people
know what they can do while others are much more certain about what
they cannot do.