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I think one of the most important life hacks of all is to search out the reasons why you are wrong, not the reasons why you are right. Your brain is primed to t
by jerf 5y ago
I think one of the most important life hacks of all is to search out the reasons why you are wrong, not the reasons why you are right. Your brain is primed to tell you why you are right already. It takes active cognitive effort to find the reasons why you are wrong.
I've characterized this before as the single most important aspect of science [1]. It is obviously very important in engineering. It's important in navigating the noise of propaganda and lies out there in the world. It's important in day to day life, e.g., it's hard to scam someone who is actively trying to figure out why your scam offer is not going to work rather than helpfully talking themselves into going along with it.
I suppose there is an excessive negativity trap. In the end you must decide something. But for many people that would still be an upgrade, vs. letting their natural inclination to self-justify every decision with the full power of the human brain run rampant.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5680397
- kqr 5y agoAbsolutely. This is a distinguishing mark of experts in any field: they are quick to construct situations that disprove their mental models. So instead of looking for corroboration, they actively set up a situation which they think could disprove their hypothesis. This is a very economical way to zero in on truth. It's also why I ask seemingly stupid questions when someone teaches me something. It's not that I don't think I know the answer -- it's precisely because I think the answer is obvious. One out of fifty times the answer is different, and that tells me my mental model is seriously flawed and I should question everything else I thought I just learned.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rileyphone 5y agoFor a book around this, I would recommend Scout Mindset by Julia Galef, which close to a self-help-type book but still highly informative while still being digestible. From the ACX review [1]: > Of the fifty-odd biases discovered by Kahneman, Tversky, and their successors, forty-nine are cute quirks, and one is destroying civilization. This last one is confirmation bias - our tendency to interpret evidence as confirming our pre-existing beliefs instead of changing our minds. I certainly agree with the premise that there is a deep epistemic flaw in the nature of our reasoning that we can counteract with conscious intervention, such as your suggestion. [1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-scout-mindset https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/book-review-the-scout-...