Eager to Be Wrong

“You know what Kipling said? Treat those two impostors just the same — success and failure. Of course, there’s going to be some failure in making the correct decisions. Nobody bats a thousand. I think it’s important to review your past stupidities so you are less likely to repeat them, but I’m not gnashing my teeth over it or suffering or enduring it. I regard it as perfectly normal to fail and make bad decisions. I think the tragedy in life is to be so timid that you don’t play hard enough so you have some reverses.”

— Charlie Munger

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When was the last time you said to yourself I hope I’m wrong and really meant it?

Have you ever really meant it?

Here’s the thing: In our search for truth we must realize, thinking along two tracks, that we’re frequently led to wrong solutions by the workings of our natural apparatus. Uncertainty is a very mentally demanding, and in a certain way, physically demanding process. The brain uses a lot of energy when it has to process conflicting information. To show yourself, try reading up on something contentious like the abortion debate, but with a completely open mind to either side (if you can). Pay attention as your brain starts twisting itself into a very uncomfortable state while you explore completely opposing sides of an argument.

This mental pain is called cognitive dissonance and it’s really not that much fun. Charlie Munger calls the process of resolving this dissonance doubt avoidance tendency – the tendency to resolve conflicting information as quickly as possible to return to physical and mental comfort. To get back to your happy zone.

Combine this tendency to resolve doubt with the well-known first conclusion bias (something Francis Bacon knew about long ago), and the logical conclusion is that we land on a lot of wrong answers and stay there because it’s easier.

Let that sink in. We don’t stay there because we’re correct, but because it’s physically easier. It’s a form of laziness.

Don’t believe me? Spend a single day asking yourself this simple question: Do I know this for sure, or have I simply landed on a comfortable spot?

You’ll be surprised how many things you do and believe just because it’s easy. You might not even know how you landed there. Don’t feel bad about it — it’s as natural as breathing. You were wired that way at birth.

But there is a way to attack this problem.

Munger has a dictum that he won’t allow himself to hold an opinion unless he knows the other side of the argument better than that side does. Such an unforgiving approach means that he’s not often wrong. (It sometimes takes many years to show, but posterity has rarely shown him to be way off.) It’s a tough, wise, and correct solution.

It’s still hard though, and doesn’t solve the energy expenditure problem. What can we tell ourselves to encourage ourselves to do that kind of work? The answer would be well-known to Darwin: Train yourself to be eager to be wrong.

Right to be Wrong

The advice isn’t simply to be open to being wrong, which you’ve probably been told to do your whole life. That’s nice, and correct in theory, but frequently turns into empty words on a page. Simply being open to being wrong allows you to keep the window cracked when confronted with disconfirming evidence — to say Well, I was open to it! and keep on with your old conclusion.

Eagerness implies something more. Eager implies that you actively hope there is real, true, disconfirming information proving you wrong. It implies you’d be more than glad to find it. It implies that you might even go looking for it. And most importantly, it implies that when you do find yourself in error, you don’t need to feel bad about it. You feel great about it! Imagine how much of the world this unlocks for you.

Why be so eager to prove yourself wrong? Well, do you want to be comfortable or find the truth? Do you want to say you understand the world or do you want to actually understand it? If you’re a truth seeker, you want reality the way it is, so you can live in harmony with it.

Feynman wanted reality. Darwin wanted reality. Einstein wanted reality. Even when they didn’t like it. The way to stand on the shoulders of giants is to start the day by telling yourself I can’t wait to correct my bad ideas, because then I’ll be one step closer to reality.

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Post-script: Make sure you apply this advice to things that matter. As stated above, resolving uncertainty takes great energy. Don’t waste that energy on deciding whether Nike or Reebok sneakers are better. They’re both fine. Pick the ones that feel comfortable and move on. Save your deep introspection for the stuff that matters.