On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not

by Robert A. Burton

Book Overview

You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001--you know these things, well, because you just do.

In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton shows that feeling certain--feeling that we know something--- is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. An increasing body of evidence suggests...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031254152X
• ISBN13: 9780312541521
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

You can't agree with my review unless you already agree with my review

There are many books on topics that seem similar to this one - Blink being the best-known. The difference with Burton is that he's a medical doctor and he approaches things like a medical doctor would. He provides clinical reviews and not just anecdotes. The bigger point he's making, that there is probably a biological underpinning to the feeling that you know something to be true that runs parallel to the part of the brain that underlies the actual knowledge of the fact, would explain a lot of the behavior patterns we see in people. To Burton you can try to convince people they are wrong but that doesn't make them change their minds because you haven't caused them to change the part of the brain that's wired to think the other beliefs are true, and that part of the brain is difficult to change. Burton doesn't use this example but I will: think of Saul on the road to Damascus. Why did he change his position as to the truth of the gospels? Not because he learned new facts, but because he found he no longer believed the old conclusions from the old facts to be true, and he drew new conclusions from the old facts. Most people don't change their minds just by learning new facts, they change their minds by realizing that the facts they know (whether combined with new ones or not) no longer feel true. Burton provides a compelling explanation for this phenomenon So I guess what I'm saying is "I like this book because what it says feels like it's true." But saying that demonstrates the whole point of the book...

Good writing, interesting content

When I judge a non-fiction book, I look for three things: Is it well-written? Yes, this is a very fluently written book. Is the content interesting and well-supported? Yes, there are interesting ideas and (perhaps more importantly) the bringing together of ideas I'd read about elsewhere and examining the light and shadows they shed on one another. And finally, does the book change the way I view the world in some substantial way? In this case, I'll have to say, yes, sort of. In other words, the author has put into more concise terms ideas and notions I'd picked up other places (Steven Pinker, among others), and drawn a couple conclusions I hadn't reached, but with which I basically agree. Based on the answers to these three questions, I'd like to give this book 4 1/2 stars because the change to my world view was more a matter of bringing some stuff into focus than a matter of opening a new window. However, it's closer to 5 stars than 4, so I'm going with 5. I found it was very important to read the early part of the book carefully, even though it was largely setting up the arguments of the second half. In that part of the book, we meet people who experience a disconnect between what they "know to be true" and what logic and empirical observation tells them. For instance, the woman who can see that her heart is beating yet believes she is dead. And the man who knows and understands and accepts all the evidence of evolution, but chooses to be a creationist because he believes that to be true. And the man who agrees that the evidence is that the furniture in his room is the same as it ever was, but lacks the ability to know it is the same, and so believes it must be different. Some of these examples go by very quickly, and then are referred to later. The second half of the book is a solid analysis of the factual content laid out in the first half, and provides some startling insights into what it means to be certain of something (and also, what it does not mean). I suspect that this book will gradually change how I experience certainty in my own life, but I also suspect that will take some time. It's entirely possible that I will think this is a fully 5-star book a year from now, or that I will wish I had given it only 4 stars. All I know is that I am not certain how that will play out. In the meantime, it's a good book with lots of food for thought in it. Recommended as a fairly light non-fiction read.

Engaging and Challenging Exploration of Belief

As an avid reader of books in this category, I was pleased to find something new in Robert Burton's book: a head-on engagement with the infrastructure of belief. The question Burton asks is on the face of it a simple one, but in its implications extremely complex: how do we know what we know? As a matter of practical observation, Burton asks why are some people so utterly convinced that their positions are correct while others consistently entertain doubt? From this starting point, Burton takes us through an entertaining and challenging tour -- part neuroscience, part psychology, and part philosophy. The interconnections between these disciplines are elegant and form the tapestry of a convincing argument. In my library I have a selection of books that have influenced my thinking, and among those are a select few that I revisit for insights over and over again. "On Being Certain" is among that select few, and I give it my highest recommendation.

I can't be certain you'll love this book, but I sure did.

As an avid reader of authors such as Stephen Pinker (How the Mind Works), Malcolm Gladwell (Blink), Richard Restak (The Brain Has a Mind of Its Own) and Timothy Wilson (Strangers to Ourselves), I found Burton's book On Being Certain a riveting read. Trying to understand how the mind works feels to me as if we are putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle, knowing that we only have 20 or 30% of the pieces. On Being Certain provides a key piece that for me shifted all the others into a more meaningful pattern. Burton argues eloquently for the power that the feeling of certainty that we are right has over us. I agree; and also find that this book triggered the reverse in me: a sense of uncertainty,the feeling that I'm not sure what I believe about some of the issues Burton raises. And that can be an exhilarating experience as well. As one wit said, "Being certain is nice, but it's doubt that gets you an education." Burton uses very creative analogies, practical examples, and reader-friendly illustrations to convey the intricacies of what he is describing, and he links what might otherwise seem to be esoteric issues to questions about self and the meaning of life that have haunted humantity for eons. I thought this was a super book.

Well thought out

Like another reviewer, I am often amazed how people can be "certain" of a massive outcome when there is no humanly possible way they could know everything they need to know to be certain. This proves true for both those of a theistic mindset and those of an atheistic mindset. I can understand the agnostic's honesty that he simply doesn't know, but I cannot fathom the theist who says his idea of God is perfect and there's no way it is flawed or the atheist who says there is definitely no God and there's no way he's wrong. Can either side really be certain of this or are they simply trusting other people who share their primary model of thinking or that they "feel" a rapport with? This is why, though I am a theist, my guiding principle in life is, "when I'm wrong I don't know it". This is the nature of deceit and that's what this book is all about. How do we become convinced that something is right or wrong? Is if by facts? Is it internal or external? The reality is that this books shows that mental stability can be reached in an instant, which shows that it is not particularly related to the whole of information, but maybe to a way that the information can be seen to cooperate with our worldview or the view we hope to hold. The author helps you understand why you are certain about some things and not about others and even helps you feel certain that you can trust the information in the book, which is particularly important since the whole book is about certainty not always being accurate. His discussions on rational thinking and objectivity have placed in words what I've been feeling for years. This very experience, which I encountered while reading the book, is itself an expression of "knowing". The modern research, the author informs us, shows that it is impossible to disengage irrelevant parts of the brain in a decision process and, therefore, decisions are always made based on both factual information and other factors (biases, emotions, etc.) that we cannot control. He then suggests the possibility of partial objectivity, which he also suggests is not itself very logical. All-in-all, you'll like this book if you are OK with walking away and being real with yourself, because you'll have to admit you can't be arrogant in your ideas. Me, I've had teenagers to help me do that, so I had a bit of a leading advantage.