The What-Ifs of history - vs personal theories and speculations

[Stephen Tashi]

What distinguishes discussions of the what-ifs of history from forum-prohibited discussions of personal theories and speculations?

My thoughts:

1. Academic historians do discuss the what-ifs of history.

2. Speculations about things that might have happened can clarify the significance of things that did happen.

For example, applying criterion 2, a discussion about what would have happened if aliens had arrived on Earth and intervened on behalf of the South in the Civil War would be a prohibited topic because it does not illuminate anything that did happen in the Civil War.

 

[QuantumQuest]

If I understand it correctly, the claim is that unless something completely untrue - at least based on our current knowledge and experience, is stated, the discussion about the what-ifs of history must be distinguished from personal theories / speculations.

In my opinion, it is not that clear. For one, even in a good historian's opinion, there are inevitably elements of speculation here and there, whether he / she is a historian of the times he / she writes about or not. There is a multitude of things that are responsible for this, like the never absolutely complete knowledge of real facts and their context, some bias that may be present and as, in many cases, historical facts / events have been examined after they had happened, there is some inherent influence of seeing things in hindsight - even a little one. That is not to say that I don't trust good historians at all but that, in my opinion, we should take things with a grain of salt. After all, it is not always the historian's fault but rather that history is not described by some rigorous language and so, it can, on top of the above mentioned, produce ambiguous points and, equally importantly, no one can go back and see what exactly happened.

Now, expanding on this, a good historian what-ifs cannot also decline from the above. We can add to this that, as these what-ifs describe things that finally didn't happen, they can very likely give variables, along the way, values that are not at all sure that they would take not to mention the imponderable ones. So, after all, although a good historian can, no doubt, give some very educated and informed line(s) of thought, in my opinion, they still include speculations direct or implied, no matter of how low or high scale. While I don't discount them as approximations of correctness and accuracy of some degree, I don't think that they can give an ultimate "what would happen".

In the context of some such thread here at PF, I think that while it would be useful to discuss along the lines of pure historical events - given the constraints in my second paragraph at least in my opinion, the what-ifs, whether informed or far worse, not such, always, inevitably, lead to some sort of personal speculations and maybe, personal theories that after all, cannot be tested for their correctness given the irreversibility of time. So, although I wouldn't consider such a discussion the same as a personal theory in Physics or Math, which usually stems from misreading, oversimplification (see Pop Sci), misinterpretation or complete luck of knowledge of a topic / field of science, still, the personal speculation / theory element is present.

 

[DrClaude]

What distinguishes discussions of the what-ifs of history from forum-prohibited discussions of personal theories and speculations?

Even without going into the realm of personal theories, the vast majority of physics what-if questions we get can be boiled down to

If the laws of physics didn't apply, what would the laws of physics say about x?

There is a fundamental contradiction in the question that makes any discussion futile. This is not the case for historical what-ifs, where the "laws of Nature" (as they can apply to history) are not modified, only events. As you point out yourself, this can lead to interesting insights into historical events, but it can also lead to unfruitful speculation. The latter threads will most probably be short-lived on PF.

 

[Stephen Tashi]

This is not the case for historical what-ifs, where the "laws of Nature" (as they can apply to history) are not modified, only events.

Some what-if discussions do modify the realities of sociology. They postulate a long series of what-if decisions (e.g. how the South could have won the Civil War) as if a single rational being was in control instead of dealing with the reality that decisons are influenced by groups of people with varying motivations.

I suppose focusing on individual what-ifs in a big collection of what-ifs can be useful. However, the effect of an individual what-if in such a collection isn't as dramatic as the effect of the totality. The supposed effect of the totality stirs up controversy and invites people to comment on particulars. This same phenomenon happens in science. For example, a discussion of a particular aspect of the atmosphere may not arouse much interest, but a collection of effects presented under the heading of Global Warming motivates discussions of the particulars.

 

[MTresham]

The answer sould be "data". "What-if"s on history is a genre inside called "Counterfactual history", and usually it focus on a very specific point, and change it in order to not only see the changes, but also point out its importance in our current reality. A very good example is "what if railroad were more dense during Civil War" or, "what if during Irish Potato Famine, English Parliament decided sending help". It requieres a throrough, deep research to take all, or almost, the keys that merely single factor changes.

But, well, nowadays Counterfactual history is not very well "perceived" between historians for the intrusions of non-scholars. Also, counterfactual history used as an excuse to defend something data doesn't agree with.