Cognitive Error Quotes

Mind is a machine for jumping to conclusions

The forming of general maxims from particular observation is a very nice operation; and nothing is more usual, from haste or a narrowness of mind, which sees not on all sides, than to commit mistakes in this particular.

Imagination … which is ever wandering beyond the bounds of truth, joined to self-love and that self-confidence we are so apt to indulge, prompt us to draw conclusions that are not immediately derived from facts ...

Giving importance to what we think because we thought it, taking our own selves not only (to quote the Greek philosopher) as the measure of all things but as their norm or standard, we create in ourselves, if not an interpretation, at least a criticism of the universe, which we don't even know and therefore cannot criticize. The giddiest, most weak-minded of us then promote that criticism to an interpretation that's superimposed, like a hallucination; induced rather than deduced. It's a hallucination in the strict sense, being an illusion based on something only dimly seen.

If it is a mistake of the head and not the heart don't worry about it, that's the way we learn.

Take away the ability of an intelligent, principled, hard-working mind to get it wrong, and you take away the whole thing.

For knowing is spoken of in three ways: it may be either universal knowledge or knowledge proper to the matter in hand or actualising such knowledge; consequently three kinds of error also are possible.

It is a false principle that because we are entirely occupied with ourselves, we must equally occupy the thoughts of others. The contrary inference is the fair one.

The recent medical controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism reveals a habit of human cognition—thinking anecdotally comes naturally, whereas thinking scientifically does not.

When we are in the grasp of illusion - or, for that matter, whenever we have a new idea - instead of searching for ways to prove our ideas wrong, we usually attempt to prove them correct. Psychologists call this the confirmation bias, and it presents a major impediment of our ability to break free from the misinterpretation of randomness.

Aristotle says that metaphor causes the mind to experience itself in the act of making a mistake.

I confused things with their names: that is belief.

Every fool stands convinced; and everyone convinced is a fool. The faultier a person's judgement the firmer their convictions.

Some changes of language are to be regretted, as they lead to false inferences, and society is always a loser by mistaking names for things.

You know how it is when you’re walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there’s one more step? I’m like that all the time.

It's hard to avoid 'unconscious overclaiming.' In unconscious overclaiming, we unconsciously overestimate our contributions relative to others. This makes sense, because we're far more aware of what we do than what other people do. Also, we tend to do the work that we value.

This is how the human mind works. We see exceptions and spin them into rules. We take slices of information and make sweeping conclusions, as another pair of psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, found in their pioneering work on judgment and decision-making.

It is more parsimonious to assume that the sun goes around the Earth, that atoms at the smallest scale operate in accordance with the same rules that objects at larger scales follow, and that we perceive what is really out there. All of these positions were long defended by argument from parsimony, and they were all wrong.

Hindsight bias makes surprises vanish.

Whenever, therefore, people are deceived and form opinions wide of the truth, it is clear that the error has slid into their minds through the medium of certain resemblances to that truth.

Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts.

Between hindsight bias, fake causality, positive bias, anchoring/priming, et cetera et cetera, and above all the dreaded confirmation bias, once an idea gets into your head, it's probably going to stay there.

Most of us think that we are 'better than average' in most things. We are also 'miscalibrated,' meaning that our sense of the probability of events doesn't line up with reality. When we say we are sure about a certain fact, for example, we may well be right only half the time.

Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?

The human mind is a delusion generator, not a window to trurh.