The Joy of disconfirmation

“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”

– Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

We tend to interpret new information in such a way that it confirms our world view → Confirmation Bias. Darwin's Golden Rule is a way to avoid this trap. It works like a kind of inoculation for ideas and arguments.

That's why the Zettelkasten is about looking for information that contradicts a hypothesis. Because this is more exciting than just collecting confirming information, it can even trigger positive feelings. Ahrens writes:

It becomes easier to seek dis-confirming data with practice and can become quite addictive. The experience of how one piece of information can change the whole perspective on a certain problem is exciting.

Julia Galef says in her Ted-Talk about the Scout Mindset and Soldier Mindset:

We don't need more thinking tools, what we most need to use these principles well is the Scout Mindset. Feel proud instead of ashamed when we find out we're wrong about something. Intrigued instead of defensive when we find information that contradicts our belief.

How can we encourage this? Annie Duke has a possible solution: In the book Thinking in Bets. she proposes as a rule for truth-seeking groups: Accuracy in debates should be rewarded with social recognition, not harmony.

One personality trait that seems to be conducive to this is openness. In my opinion, openness is often used incorrectly, e.g. openness = progressive, narrow-mindedness = conservative. In truth, it's probably more about how open you are to new information and perspectives. Also in progressive circles, this characteristic isn't always found.

Reference

Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes. P. 80