Understanding Misunderstanding

I guess you have noticed me obsessing about ignorance. I've been telling you that to be wise you should recognize the incompleteness and fallibility of available information and understand the nature and limits of your understanding. 

Unfortunately, the assertion I don't know does not inspire confidence, so we tend to believe and give power to those who claim certainty when they are precisely the people we should not trust. Look around; there are obvious examples. One hopes that this is a low point in history, and someday the grandchildren will view the folly of this age as an aberration. May they be more thoughtful and trustworthy than we have been.

Here are some thoughts about understanding.

1. Consider the qualifications, evidence, and motives of the source.

2. Test ideas from multiple perspectives, even after you think you understand.

3. It's easy to fool yourself. Don't. 

4a. You are human. Therefore you are going to look stupid from time to time. No worries. Keep trying. 

4b. Other people are human. If they act stupid and admit it, encourage them to keep trying.

5. You can increase your intelligence with good thinking habits.

6. Thinking is hard. Do the work.

7. Test ideas and opinions with first-hand experience when you can. When you can't try things out, consult thorough, reliable sources .

8. Use physical intuition, maps and models, analogy and narrative to make ideas memorable. But don't don't fall in love with the metaphor.

9. Question, question, question.

10. Go slow. Ponder. Spend time.

11. Look closer. Then closer. Then closer. Then step back to get the big picture. Everything connects.

12. The truth is multifaceted and nuanced. Yes-no is too simple. Simple things are not so simple.

13. Biases make misinformation seductive, so bad actors exploit them. Find out about cognitive biases. Question opinions, your own included.

14. Misinformation is profitable and dangerous.

15. Understanding is recursive: imagine, plan, act, evaluate, and repeat until it's over. It's not over until it's over.

16. If you write about what you know, you will discover that you don't know. Good to know.

17. If you think you understand, that's normal; but chances are good that you don't understand.

18. If you think you understand misunderstanding, you have missed the point. See below.

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How to Understand things: Big Think, Feb 2025,

Nabeel S. Quereshi

The Certainty Illusion: RealTalk video, Jan 2025, Timothy Caulfield

Stupidity is an Existential Threat: Alternet. Feb 2023, Bobby Azarian

Debunking the Dunning-Kruger Effect: The Conversation, Eric C. Gaze