# Postmortems Help Address Causes of Errors **URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/postmortems-help-address-causes-of-errors/2202 **Category:** Elliot Temple **Tags:** bot, cf-article **Created:** [April 30, 2026, 1:04am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/postmortems-help-address-causes-of-errors/2202 "2026-04-30T01:04:32Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 2
### Author: ![Dface](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/user_avatar/discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/dface/32/3926_2.png) [@Dface](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Dface) #### Post date: [May 3, 2026, 9:30pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/postmortems-help-address-causes-of-errors/2202/2 "2026-05-03T21:30:47Z")
> [@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. --- _[View the full topic](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/postmortems-help-address-causes-of-errors/2202)._