Physical activity aides creativity—some prominent philosophers and thinkers have singled out long walks as their modus operandi to think deeply. First, this might seem counterintuitive, and I was skeptical too. Intuitively, if you are not engaged in your endeavor (e.g., not coding or writing), that might seem like wasted effort. Thus, I did not believe it.
Then my conviction changed—originating from scientific and n=1 evidence—, to drive you mad with examples from exercise science. However, that is not my goal per se; the point I am to make today is about the concept (which I have heard in the Drive from Peter Attia):
Strong convictions, loosely held.
Alas, I am not to convince you to have an opinion about everything; that would be unwise and would only help us towards partisan hell. You know the backdrop; I am not needed to help that situation.
However, I advocate that when your current evidence points towards A, then own that. It's not kind of A, maybe B, but it is A and only A. In a scientific paper you might possibly suggest that it kind of points toward that direction, but leave hedging for the journals—and even use it there sparingly. Besides killing the joy of conversation, we slip away from the scientific method.
Strong convictions loosely held is a useful mental model because it embodies the scientific method: we make hypotheses that fit the available evidence, then put them to the test. As the philosopher of science Karl Popper formulated in his seminal theory of falsificationism, the problem with hypotheses is that they cannot be verified; they can only be falsified. That is, the scientific method only advances our knowledge by ruling out a wrong hypothesis (for the statistically minded, hypothesis tests are doing the same, though you can hack your way to significance). Thus, to get closer to the truth
Treat your convictions as hypotheses and let them fall when they need to.
Why strong convictions, though? For a hypothesis to be useful, it needs to be falsifiable. By hedging with could's, possibly's, and suggest's, we tone down our claims and make them difficult, or even impossible, to falsify.
The statement "There are no black swans" can be falsified by pointing out one (Nassim Nicholas Taleb's eponymous book; despite being suggested by yours truly to everyone, is not a good choice here); but the hedged version "There might not be black swans" is problematic. Popper's falsificationism does not organically hold for probabilistic statements (they need to be converted to true/false statements). So if I see a black swan, I cannot unambiguously decide whether the hedged version is true or false.
Thus, we can only extend our knowledge if we take a risk by making a non-trivial hypothesis. If the conviction is about a controversy, i.e., you are playing the contrarian, the first check should be whether the evidence agrees with your conviction.
Don’t over engage in any controversy unless you are willing to stake your entire reputation on it. Rather, keep focused on discovering new things & creating, or else you become known for the controversy & nothing else; there is no going back—Andrew Huberman
To recapitulate, this is not about equating your personality with the statement but stripping all the hedging as it needs to turn out whether the king's clothes are invisible. If your conversation partner does the same, the scene is set up for an honest debate. Ultimately, you might change your mind, but that needs evidence and should not matter since we, scientists, are after the truth.
Most importantly, strong convictions loosely held does not mean that you are always right. As John Acuff puts it:
One of the greatest mistakes you can make in life is to assume that all your thoughts are true,
seconding the way-too-often-used Epictetus quote about believing and knowing. Or, with Winston Churchill's words:
Never give in, never, never, never, never‚ except to convictions of honor and good sense.