Dear Sam,
I've been on 73 OkCupid dates and I've gotten my hopes up for each and every one.
They've ALL bombed.
Each girl seems to find a new and creative way to say 'it's not me, it's you'
Many leave during the appetizer.
Other times I commit a huge unforced error like when I laughed out loud at her alma mater.
I just can't seem to get it right, I've been thinking of giving up altogether.
Is there any conceivable reason to go on another date?
Or am I a lost cause? Yours, Anthony
Ouch... ouch, ouch..
I think for this I've got to introduce you to a Scottish friend of mine.
He's a philosopher and his name is David Hume.
Now technically the guy's been dead for like 240 years but I think you'll find
he's a lot more helpful than most people alive, that's for sure.
I think what you're dealing with Anthony is a problem of induction, and it goes something like this
Experience grounds our beliefs about things that haven't happened yet
The past informs our view of the future.
It is totally normal for us to think that all members of a certain class that have so far been similar,
will continue to be so
This is just how we make normal standard day-to-day predictions.
For instance, I've met a lot of creationists in my life and every time I meet a creationist
I feel like I've got to talk a little slower, just a little simpler, you know?
And so it's fair for me to assume that every creationist I will meet
and have yet to meet, I will also have to speak just a little bit clearer
just to really make it simple-- that's just standard induction.
But what reason do we have to that future, unobserved events will be like past experiences?
I mean how can we justify induction? Well, rather awkwardly...
we're not really able to do so without further reference to past induction
For instance, say I put my hand into a big pot of boiling water,
How do I know that's going to hurt ?
Because I've done it before! I've done it like 50 times before
and it hurts every goddamn time I put my hand and a lot of boiling water
It's terribly, terribly painful
But the reasoning is circular, you see?
How do I justify inductive reasoning? By reference to past experiences of inductive reasoning.
That's circular, that doesn't give you anything, there's no foundation there.
And this is basically the problem of induction and we can never say with certainty
that future unobserved events will continue to resemble the past
But we do, we think like that, normally, because of habit.
That's what David Hume said, just because of plain old habit.
And now Hume was pretty unnerved by this idea,
I mean it's pretty strange. He wanted to find a reason to think that
induction worked, that it was reliable, that the future will resemble the past.
But he couldn't and so he offered a really nice solution to this one which,
I happily will take up.
Go outside, relax, maybe pour a glass of something that does give a bit of certainty.
But to me the problem of induction isn't really
problematic in that sense I mean it's not scary or nerving it's... it's enthralling!
Because it's a reminder of the uncertainty that life holds.
And... Anthony, this should be especially enthralling for you,
because it means that your unblemished record of abject failure may
MAY be coming to an end. Because 73 dates is a large, but limited, sample size
and you don't know what the 74th date will hold, it could be-- it could be goddamn terrible!
It could be the worst of your many, many dates.
Or not! You don't know...
That's the point. so you've got to keep going, you've got to keep trying and if
the problem of induction suggests that we can't know with absolute certainty if
the sun will rise tomorrow, then there's absolutely no way, Anthony, that you know
when you're gonna meet the right girl
But uh... just to increase the odds a little bit--
Personal hygiene, some listening skills,
and occasionally picking up the check from time to time
Why not?
Thanks, and I hope this helps.