Subtraction is better than addition
Originally this idea comes from Nassim Taleb, it is possible to improve it using ideas of Karl Popper.
As far as I can remember, from the talks I had with various authors and scientists, the majority of them, especially scientists, have been cautious with their predictions about the outcomes of experiments, social, and government changes. Now I do the same. Very rarely can anyone hear any form of prediction, mostly because they donβt come to fruition as soon as they are vocalized. Why is that?
The thing is, we rarely understand the limits of what we know, and we completely lack knowledge of unknown unknowns. We canβt take into account what we have missed. Close your eyes and try to recount what you havenβt done. We miss the notion of inaction, which stays out of reach of our consciousness. And this is exactly what makes progress possible. The randomness of events is a true miracle worker in evolution. Embrace it. But how can we plan and make correct predictions? There is a solution.
Every professional uses in their decision-making framework mostly negative thinking, what mustnβt happen in order to get what I want. Which moves to make on the chessboard and which ones to avoid to prevent losing the leadership in the game or the game itself. What decisions wonβt bust my business? Should I look into this bush that is shaking strangely, or can I live without the knowledge that a saber tiger is lurking there? In short, a pessimistic mindset wins ten out of ten against an optimistic one. The greatest contribution to knowledge lies in the field of subtraction.
Imagine that I asked you to describe the phone of the future, say from the year 2100. What would it look like? I bet you have something like this in mind: We might assume that they will look extremely different from what we have now. Foremost, the form factor will change, maybe we will manage it with the power of thought, or it will be integrated and used as a piece of wetware equipment, the dream of any transhumanist. It could be charged wirelessly over the air, and all other traits brought together from science-fiction novels.
I, on the other hand, see a phone from 2100 a little differently. The phone of the future will still have the possibility to make calls, send messages and emails, take photos, make videos, and audio recordings.
Imagine that we made a bet, who would win? I think the second prediction has a greater chance of playing out. Thus, the greatest contribution to any knowledge we can make is not adding anything, but taking away. Peeling layers of information and misconception, digging to the core of things. Itβs what we think is wrong that must be removed, not what we think is right added. It is called subtractive epistemology.
As human beings, we have evolved with a better understanding of what is wrong, not what is right. What doesnβt work stands out more. A broken car on the side of the road draws attention better than the same car in motion. Typos in a book catch the eye faster than immaculate text. When the text is slightly blurred, reading it becomes an effortful process, and understanding becomes deeper. In an argument, one small and apparently unimportant counterargument can invalidate the soundest idea. What I want to say is that disconfirmation is more rigorous than confirmation. I refer to our tendency to overestimate the possibility of positive (good) things happening in life. In any book or scientific publication, itβs preferable to print research that has a positive (eventful) outcome than an uneventful or negative one. This raises another issue that is not the topic of this piece, the replication problem1.
In conclusion, I want to restate the not so obvious fact that negative knowledge is more robust.
BIO
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