On changing mind or doubling down
Nov. 20th, 2025 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
posicScott D. Clary writes in Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/scottdclarypage/posts/pfbid0bvXvxK4Sifbgr5ST7nrKCdCEXSwAKWGkrVrfa5PusBcKiHad8uwd5D3KG6jfQUSsl :
Real confidence is changing your mind when you get new information.
Flexibility is intelligence. Stubbornness is ego. Confident people can admit they were wrong. Insecure people double down.
***
Well, I am certainly stubborn and insecure, and tend to double down rather than change my mind. I am doubling down on contramodules and contraherent cosheaves again and again for how long... 17 years? 25 years already? And on semiderived categories, for 23 years?
No, it's not because I am not intelligent. It's because I am a mathematician. Mathematicians prove theorems. I am proving this one: It is possible that one man is right while the whole world is wrong.
From this perspective, much of new information that I get is just not relevant. Rejection letters reveal the preferences of the editors and the reviewers. What do I care about their preferences? "What do you care what other people think?"
Real confidence is changing your mind when you get new information.
Flexibility is intelligence. Stubbornness is ego. Confident people can admit they were wrong. Insecure people double down.
***
Well, I am certainly stubborn and insecure, and tend to double down rather than change my mind. I am doubling down on contramodules and contraherent cosheaves again and again for how long... 17 years? 25 years already? And on semiderived categories, for 23 years?
No, it's not because I am not intelligent. It's because I am a mathematician. Mathematicians prove theorems. I am proving this one: It is possible that one man is right while the whole world is wrong.
From this perspective, much of new information that I get is just not relevant. Rejection letters reveal the preferences of the editors and the reviewers. What do I care about their preferences? "What do you care what other people think?"
