And when he made a considerable advance in philosophy he went to Alexandria, to the court of Ptolemy Philopater. And once, when there was a discussion concerning the question whether a wise man would allow himself to be guided by opinion, and when Sphærus affirmed that he would not, the king, wishing to refute him, ordered some pomegranates of wax to be set before him; and when Sphærus was deceived by them, the king shouted that he had given his assent to a false perception. But Sphærus answered very neatly, that he had not given his assent to the fact that they were pomegranates, but to the fact that it was probable that they might be pomegranates. And that a perception which could be comprehended differed from one that was only probable. — Diogenes Laertius, *Lives*, VII.Sphaerus.2 (tr. C. D. Yonge, 1853) **Surface Gloss:** When King Ptolemy tricks the Stoic Sphaerus into reaching for wax pomegranates to prove that even a sage assents to false impressions, Sphaerus replies that he assented only to the *probability* that they were pomegranates, not to the fact itself. Decouple **operational action** from **epistemic belief**. When forced to act under incomplete information, never assent to the proposition *"X is true"*; assent strictly to the proposition *"Given current evidence, X is the highest-probability bet, so I will reach for it."* If the pomegranate turns out to be wax, your action fails, but your judgment remains undefeated—because it actually *was* probable before you touched it.
— In our words · Source: Lives of Eminent Philosophers (Diogenes Laertius)