The solution here might be that it does mainly tell you they have constructed a coherent story in their mind, but that having constructed a coherent story in their mind is still usefull evidence for being true depending on what else you know abaut the person, and thus worth telling. If the tone of the book was differnt, it might say:
“I have constructed a coherent story in my mind that it is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.”
I think it’s probably false if you treat it as the claim that every person who’s highly confident that an event happens has constructed a coherent story in his mind.
On the other hand that reading doesn’t seem to be the intended message.
I love this quote. But this...
...strikes me as a highly confident declaration for which the quoted is simultaneously urging me to be skeptical.
I’d imagine the book lays out his case as to why I ought listen to his counsel. I’d be interested to dig into this.
The solution here might be that it does mainly tell you they have constructed a coherent story in their mind, but that having constructed a coherent story in their mind is still usefull evidence for being true depending on what else you know abaut the person, and thus worth telling. If the tone of the book was differnt, it might say:
I think it’s probably false if you treat it as the claim that every person who’s highly confident that an event happens has constructed a coherent story in his mind.
On the other hand that reading doesn’t seem to be the intended message.
It says “mainly”. That’s vague-ish. I assumed greater than 50%; probably something like 75% of the time or more.