It has become apparent to me in the last few years that there is a significant life lesson I never learned. It was never indicated to me that there even was a lesson to learn. I was never taught how to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. Perhaps it was hinted at as part of other studies, but there was never an explicit focus on questions like "What if you're wrong?" When it comes to teaching "life lessons," we too often assume perfect information. In daily interactions with other people, there is so much ambiguity. So much is unsaid or unclearly said. And yet we generally act based on this superficial knowledge we've gathered; we take people's statements at face value rather than looking beyond them. And even when we make inferences based on them, they are either very tentative and tenuous in our own minds, or have the power of fact, with no middle ground. Furthermore, we are a very trustworthy society. This may sound counter-intuitive at first, but consider the information you gain daily. Newspapers, websites, personal conversations.... How often do you question what you read? Some sources (*cough* Slashdot comments) are usually taken with many grains of salt, but in general, you trust what you hear and see. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that, but there is a tendency to think that only what is stated explicitly is all that is there. Furthermore, these sources will be wrong from time to time. In statistics, there is the ready acknowledgement that gathered data might not reflect reality. Somehow that lesson hasn't escaped into the real world. There needs to be an structured way of teaching people how to accept and deal with ambiguity.

With apologies to Hiyakawa.

¶ 58 Posted at 04.31 PM ⇒ No Comments ( ideas | deep thoughts )