Postmortems Help Address Causes of Errors

[Elliot]

After you make an error, you should investigate what caused the error, and what changes you should make to prevent other errors due to the same underlying cause. This is called a postmortem (the root words mean “after death”).

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://criticalfallibilism.com/postmortems-help-address-causes-of-errors

[Dface]

@Elliot

After you make an error, you should investigate what caused the error, and what changes you should make to prevent other errors due to the same underlying cause.

I think I do some investigation cuz I ask myself 'why?" when an error happens. I think an example is when I type and mess up a letter on a word. instead of word I say “owrd.” I ask myself why didn’t I type the w first? I would say because I don’t got the timing down for words sometimes. I can type words fine at times and other times no. Then I would ask “why?” I would say I don’t know why it’s inconsistent like that. I think my fingers are maybe at different positions at times like not exactly on the key board or maybe I type a letter really slow sometimes. Maybe it would be good learn why it gets inconsistent like that.

I don’t think I tried to investigate to find the cause of an error, like I don’t ask myself what caused the error?

I almost misread the last clause cuz what I got first from it is that I should prevent the errors at any costs. Like I should completely stop doing the activity. That prevents the error from happening at all. That didn’t sound right tho cuz your goal would be to do the activity or really to get something done a certain way. If you stop then you won’t get it done. That’s an error.

@Elliot

Sometimes postmortems are quick and easy. That’s fine. They don’t have to be a big deal. Other times, the cause of an error is hard to understand or fix.

Yeah to the last sentence like sometimes I see that it’s hard to understand or fix an error. I think the bottlekneck to fix those is different

@Elliot

If you just make a straightforward correction – correct the error you made in this one case, but not in any broader category or pattern of cases – then you’re missing out on a potential opportunity for significant improvement.

I care about errors in a broader category or pattern of cases. I think I wanna see what “broader category” means or “pattern of cases” so I can see tht Im fixing those kinds of errors.

@Elliot

Investigating the causes of errors is one of the main ways to become a better thinker.

If you’re saying investigating the causes of errors is one of the main ways to become a better thinker then that’s something important to consider pursuing. Like, it will help you a lot as a thinker not a little.

@Elliot

Many errors come from some kind of thinking process, method, policy, habit or pattern which you reuse repeatedly.

Many errors coming from those kinds of things sounds good cuz if you can think about those processes, methods, policies etc. then you have something explicit to work with. Makes finding errors easier to think about.

The following are the potential things I wanted to talk about instead of the last paragraph:

• I wanted to talk about how those thinking processes could be the errors?
• Talk about what “come from” means so I can know where the errors are really at.
• Talk about how the processes, methods, errors, etc. could actually be useful but there’s just some parts of them that have errors.
• Talk about how many of the errors are part of the processes, policies, methods etc.

@Elliot

We get a limited amount of data – in the form of known errors where we actually learn we were wrong – to help us figure out underlying errors in how we think which cause many mistakes.

If you know what an underlying error in thinking looks like then when you do post mortems you can end up finding some. If you fix those underlying errors then you will fix so many mistakes you make often. That sounds fun to find. I think fixing those underlying errors will make learning something new much easier.

[Dface]

@Elliot

The bias can cause an unlimited number of mistakes. People also have other underlying problems, besides biases, such as conceptual misconceptions, that can cause many mistakes over time.

I’m not sure if I found underlying biases yet or conceptual misconceptions while doing postmortems. Like, it’s hard to think of examples of me finding those. So I think that’s a sign maybe to work on finding them. They sound important

@Elliot

A more specific example would be having a political bias, then reading news stories from your side and believing them even when they’re incorrect. Both main US political sides have information sources that put out many incorrect pieces of information.

I got an example where I would be scrolling twitter a lot and I would believe almost anything as a news source. I would believe stuff that appeared unfortunate like a death or someone coming down with a disease. I think an example is of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. I thought he was dead for the longest time a few months ago cuz of a few posts i read. My conclusion rn tho is i have no idea what is happening with him. I think i was making an error while reading twitter. I wish I could label what kind but I think im more wary of reading stories and automatically accepting them. I think the problem could still happen since I don’t think I found the kind of error i made and really the effective change to prevent it. Now I think if I got info from twitter, then I should be wary of its credibility.

@Elliot

Are you correcting your errors since, when someone links you to a persuasive fact check, you change your mind about that specific case? Or is it important to look into the underlying issue?

It’s hard to think of individual errors vs. underlying ones. Like, it’s hard to be confident that something is an underlying error or an individual error. I think that’s a problem and something to postmortem about.

@Elliot

Most important error patterns are much more subtle than this, so data points about them have higher value. When you can’t quickly guess what kind of underlying cause is behind an error, it has a better potential to be caused by something important that isn’t so well known.

I have found that I can’t quickly guess sometimes the underlying causes of some errors. I have “tourette syndrome”(I honestly think of it it like an addiction), and it’s hard to know why I do it. I think it’s a conflict resolution thing but I still I want to know why it happens. Like, why I want to do certain kind of movements/twitches for it. I don’t know if that stuff is related to postmortems. Sounds like it is. I think not knowing why I want to do something can be an error. Maybe the error is not categorizing automatizations like by what goals they accomplish. Idk about all this btw

@Elliot

It’s also important to have high standards. People often do a superficial postmortem investigation and then come up with some kind of explanation of the error, and then want to move on. Their explanation is usually either a well known idea or else a denial that there’s anything important going on – a claim that they made a random error that isn’t due to some meaningful pattern.

What I first thought is that when I try to do post mortems, I don’t think I come up with anything that’s really conclusive. Like, I don’t think oh ok this is the kind of underlying error im making and that im confident about it. I think I lose track of the kinds of errors I make because of all this.

I want to keep an eye out more on underlying erros cuz they sound important.

@Elliot

Not fixing your errors in a serious way means you keep making them, which takes up a lot of time and energy, in addition to causing failures at goals you have.

Yes, I feel this. There’s so many errors I think I make while learning something it’s draining to do.

@Elliot

If you deal with criticism by wanting to close the issue and move on fast – if you aren’t comfortable knowing about a mistake you made and not yet considering it fixed – then you have some hostility to criticism which is getting in the way of making progress.

I think I do sense some hostility from me when looking for mistakes and fixing them. Like I think my main thing is how long it takes and how much effort it is to address errors let alone underlying ones. It seems like a lot of work to do and that I might not get anywhere anyways. I think there’s some problems/errors/conflicts going on there.