There Is a "Well, Actually" for Everything

Before I begin, let me welcome you to my Dailies series. I found myself paralysed when trying to write longer articles at intermittent times. But now I am forcing myself to write almost daily. In fact, I found a way for my laptop to force me.

When I boot up my MacBook, a script will check a folder called dailies . If it doesn’t detect a new entry, the script opens up my text editor. Whatever I write will get published as soon as I close the text editor. The idea is mad. But it’s the only way for me to get my thoughts to you.

My latest thought is about well, actually. You’ll have heard this phrase before. Usually when your slightly churlish friend corrects misinformation. Well actually, daddy longlegs aren’t venemous at all - the idea about their fangs being too small is a myth. That kind of thing. If you haven’t met a well, actually guy, of course, then you are the well, actually guy.

Or girl. But I imagine more men are prone to well, actually.

The type of person to well, actually is the type to read the latest pop science book and take its contents as given fact. I remember reading Sapiens, and being enthralled by Noah Yuval Harari’s account of humankind. But I didn’t read much criticism after I finished. The work isn’t false. I just wish I hadn’t gone around to all my friends and family giving my half-spin takes on the history of humanity, from just one book.

As of late, I have become somewhat of a sceptic. To everything I can. I have long known that everything that passes through my senses is an imperfect representation of the world. And if my beliefs are founded on imperfect perceptions, are they well founded? But saying you’re a sceptic is one thing. Realising just how much there is to be sceptical of - that took me years.

In less philsophoical terms, everything you know is wrong. Not majorly wrong, in most cases. But if you were to pick apart something you know - really exhume and examine it for truth - you’d find it lies on flawed grounding. And if you couldn’t examine some belief for youself, you pass the job on to an expert. They tell you everything they know. You realise the topic at hand has a lot more nuance than you expected, and perhaps some surprising doubts, and in-fighting between different schools of thought.

Not even the simplest premises are safe from well, actually. 1 + 1 = 2, but why? I know - it’s a dumb question about something obvious, meant to prove a point about how you take your beliefs for granted. You’d probably have a good answer too. But how can we definitely say the expression 1 + 1 = 2, without the slightest trace of a doubt?

In their monumental work, Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead took dozens of pages of complicated mathematical proofs to prove 1 + 1 = 2 [citation needed]. If it took legendary mathematicians that long to prove this simple fact, why should I believe your explanation about 1 + 1? That said, if I knew enough maths to understand Russell and Whitehead’s proof, I am sure I could find some other problem with it.

Maybe the maths example is silly. I wonder if this is a better one - have you ever read a news article about something you know a lot about? Often, you’ll spot all kinds of mistakes. Or at least, notice the journalist hasn’t quite conveyed the facts properly. Even if they acted in god faith. You read the contents and exclaim things like:

Well, actually, locals use a different road when driving through that area.

Well, actually, research only suggests that the medication targets some cancers

Well, actually, those homes were built under and existing policy, not the government’s new one.

And so on. You don’t have to be an expert in a technical field. The moment you read about something you are familiar with, the flaws appear.

Then you read an article about something you don’t know well. And you forget all the flaws from the last one. You’re happy to go along with the article if the content seems right and the source is good enough.

Michael Crichton termed the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. Supposedly. I write supposedly as I need to be sceptical now. Writing about truth has made me more self-conscious about lying to you. You’ll be scanning my writing more closely now. And I don’t want us lying to each other.

So, just think of how many things you have read, heard, seen - and believed - but not questioned much because the source seems reliable enough. You don’t have time to become an expert in public policy, artificial intelligence, Danish foreign policy, or the history of treaty claim settlements in New Zealand. If you were, how often would you say well, actually when reading the news, or talking with family and friends?

You would be insufferable, for sure. But my God, you would have some nuanced takes. On everything.

But no one gets to be the person that knows everything, try as I might. Every so often, I remind myself: stay sceptical. And I know you will too. It doesn’t mean rejecting everything outright. It means treating information as you found it. Acknowledging the source. And moreover, accepting that one day, two simple words could banish a belief to the land of lies and dust:

well, actually