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Interesting post. But leave us wanting more. Because it doesn't answer or even attempt to answer the main question raised: So how do you unlearn?

• jerf 17y ago
  The hardest part is figuring out what to unlearn. Really, it's just the old "you want an open mind, but not so open it falls out" adage from a different point of view. You can't throw out everything... well, unless you really, truly are wrong about everything, but that's pretty much as hard as being right about everything. As for how to figure out what to unlearn, well, the metric I've been running on lately is to look at who is making predictions, and then see who is wrong in the end. Some people are right through sheer luck, of course, and some people who end up wrong are "essentially right" and ended up being wrong for no other reason than sheer bad luck, but in general it's the most useful metric I've found. Applying it to a specific case is hard, but it's worth a try. Oh, and this is slow, but then, a fast metric for this sort of thing would be suspect anyhow (prone to instability). It turns out that once you start looking around, a lot of people are wrong about a lot of things, even some things that are conventional wisdom. It's really astonishing how few people hold themselves or others accountable for their predictions. (Also, I'm not saying this is the only useful metric... it's just the only one I can come close to even just summarizing in a quick post, though.)
• Herring 17y ago
  Test your beliefs constantly. Believe them only to the extent that they anticipate experiences. [1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/07/making-beliefs.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/07/making-beliefs.html