I’ve been reading OB for a comparatively short time, so I haven’t yet been through the vast majority of your posts. But “The Sheer Folly of Callow Youth” really puts in perspective the importance of truth-seeking and why its necessary.
Quote:
“Of this I learn the lesson: You cannot manipulate confusion. You cannot make clever plans to work around the holes in your understanding. You can’t even make “best guesses” about things which fundamentally confuse you, and relate them to other confusing things. Well, you can, but you won’t get it right, until your confusion dissolves. Confusion exists in the mind, not in the reality, and trying to treat it like something you can pick up and move around, will only result in unintentional comedy.
Similarly, you cannot come up with clever reasons why the gaps in your model don’t matter. You cannot draw a border around the mystery, put on neat handles that let you use the Mysterious Thing without really understanding it—like my attempt to make the possibility that life is meaningless cancel out of an expected utility formula. You can’t pick up the gap and manipulate it.”
I’ve been reading OB for a comparatively short time, so I haven’t yet been through the vast majority of your posts. But “The Sheer Folly of Callow Youth” really puts in perspective the importance of truth-seeking and why its necessary.
Quote: “Of this I learn the lesson: You cannot manipulate confusion. You cannot make clever plans to work around the holes in your understanding. You can’t even make “best guesses” about things which fundamentally confuse you, and relate them to other confusing things. Well, you can, but you won’t get it right, until your confusion dissolves. Confusion exists in the mind, not in the reality, and trying to treat it like something you can pick up and move around, will only result in unintentional comedy. Similarly, you cannot come up with clever reasons why the gaps in your model don’t matter. You cannot draw a border around the mystery, put on neat handles that let you use the Mysterious Thing without really understanding it—like my attempt to make the possibility that life is meaningless cancel out of an expected utility formula. You can’t pick up the gap and manipulate it.”
Link: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/youth-folly.html