If life teaches us anything it is that we have to learn how to accept contradiction. Well, we don’t have to, but it makes things a good bit easier. The term, pitiful existence, comes out of religious and philosophical thought. It evolves from our capacity to dread. The deer flees, but does not contemplate its end when alone (so far as we know), and, consequently, no need for religion or philosophy.

A quick departure from this immediate sadness now becomes necessary, bearing somewhat on the subject composition but included because it came from Albert Einstein, and causes me to laugh. This is taken from a letter Einstein wrote to his cousin describing his experience in the company of Marie Curie. Einstein was unequivocal in his praise of her science and her person when it counted in public. This is merely a private, personal aside.

“Madame Curie is very intelligent, but has the soul of a herring, meaning that she is lacking in all feelings of joy and sorrow.”

Our great brain brings us the gift of joy and the pain of sorrow. They are not contradictory, but occur together, side by side. The contradiction in our nature is that between rationality and irrationality. It’s possible to conclude — but I think wrongly — that our rational side wins out over our irrational side, and not the reverse. Another way of looking at it is that our nature, our temperament, our personality determines what we think and the way in which we think it.

In a seminal compilation work, “Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases,” the psychologists Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic, and Amos Tversky examine the substantial difficulties we encounter when forming opinions and making decisions. Our strategies and intuition are error prone from persistent judgmental biases, made evident and corrected in controlled studies using the laws of probability.

We are not as rational as we might like to think. And it follows that it can make us think we are right when we’re wrong. This is not to infer that mistakes involving the laws of probability owe more to our irrationality than other elements of our irrational side. It’s mentioned here because in some cases the laws of probability happen to offer a direct proof of our mistaken judgments.

We can be wrong about an infinite number of things, and right only where certain circumstances are met. How we feel about things — how our worldview is shaped — is a product of our nature that determines what we think, and the way in which we think it.

A personal case in point comes from a submitted newspaper op-ed containing this wording:

“When it comes to evaluating something, it can be useful to look at things in an opposite way. Because we are most always wrong — if all the truth was known — would you rather be wrong on the side of the strong, or wrong on the side of the weak?”

It was published as: “Because we are so often wrong…”.

Slight change, technically, but telling for what it says about competing worldviews. The editor was going by the adage, what you don’t know would fill a book. How about a universe of books? Changing “most always” into “so often” is a sign of two things. First, feeling an obligation to be right, and, second, having asked too few questions.

Coming to grips with the realization that our understanding of anything and everything is conditional is not cause for despair. (I am assuming the existence of an objective, external world, the only evidence of which is recorded through our sensory perception). It’s fascinating that we have figured out anything at all.

As thinking people, we must be able to hold conflicting ideas in our heads. It can be a long time before coming down on one side or another. Maybe never in a lifetime. Split minds can be very productive. It’s not insane to argue with oneself. It’s insane to shield your beliefs from inspection. The genius mind argues with itself.

As societal controversies arise, the usual response is a call for public debate and compromise. Debate is a formal game where only one side can win. You have your say, I have my say, but neither of us can change our mind. Neither of us can argue with ourselves.

This is what is passing for reasonable argument today. One hardened side arguing with another hardened side, with nothing discoverable in the balance.

What goes missing is a dialectical approach in which both sides, through logical discussion of competing and contradictory beliefs, aim for a spontaneous and satisfactory result for all. That is the win. Compromise is not the win. Discovery is the win.

The balanced mind is that which realizes its own limitations but still reaches out in all directions. We can struggle with our human condition and still take delight from it. We can be both sad and amused.

James Rothenberg is a subscriber residing in North Chatham.