On the existence of high winds

From time to time when I’ve driven the great stretches of lonely highway in America’s Southwest, I have been confronted by an official road sign advising me that, “High Winds May Exist.”

I am sure the sign is intended to warn me that, without warning, a gust of wind might blow my car where I do not want it to go, or even overturn it altogether. Semis and recreational vehicles are particularly vulnerable to such winds, but regular automobiles are, too, if the wind is really high.

I am never sure what I am supposed to do with the sign’s statement while managing my car at a 75 m.p.h. clip. Instead of making me more alert to what’s going on around me, the notice that “High Winds May Exist” sends me into a philosophical rabbit warren.

For one thing, high winds do exist. Yes, the philosopher will demand definitions of “high” and “wind” and “exist” in order to fully trust the truth claim of the assertion. But common language usage leaves no doubt that high winds certainly do exist. Just ask anyone who’s been through a hurricane.

But the statement painted in plain letters on that isolated sign tends to sow a tiny seed of doubt: if high winds may exist, one must consider the possibility that they may not exist. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and using the right tricks of the philosopher’s trade, it is possible to argue that high winds do not exit.

After all, who has ever seen the wind, any wind, low or high? You can see evidence of what seems to be a high wind’s existence, but that doesn’t prove that high winds exist, however you define existence. You might conclude there’s no such thing as a high wind at all.

Of course, my existential concern when I see that sign is supposed to be whether a high wind exists or is about to exist right where my car is. It’s not the theoretical existence of high winds that should concern me, but the actual presence of high winds on this road at this moment. I am, I believe, being advised to be very alert. But it’s hard to think about the here and now when my mind is adrift in a metaphysical whirlwind.

Thus, something we all agree to be true is challenged by a carefully contrived statement that sows doubt without directly confronting the agreed-upon truth. It’s easy to distract people from the realities around or near them just by asking a question or suggesting an alternative to something they, for good reason, take for granted. Politicians do it all the time, and the nation slides into a metaphysical warren from which there is no escape for anyone but a rabbit.