Quotes About Interpretation

Wason called this phenomenon the confirmation bias, the tendency to seek out and interpret new evidence in ways that confirm what you already think. People are quite good at challenging statements made by other people, but if it's your belief, then it's your possession—your child, almost—and you want to protect it, not challenge it and risk losing it.19

people invest their IQ in buttressing their own case rather than in exploring the entire issue more fully and evenhandedly."22

Los estoicos comprendieron que las palabras no causan estrés directamente; sólo pueden provocar estrés y sufrimiento en una persona que interprete esas palabras como una amenaza. Puedes optar por interpretar a un orador invitado como dañino. Puedes elegir tus batallas, dedicar sus esfuerzos a cambiar las políticas que te importan y a hacerte inmune a los troles.

principle of charity, which says that one should interpret other people's statements in their best, most reasonable form, not in the worst or most offensive way possible.

Las palabras que generan estrés o miedo a los miembros de algunos grupos a menudo se consideran ahora como una forma de violencia. Las palabras no son violencia. Tratarlas como tal es una decisión interpretativa, y esa elección aumenta el dolor y el sufrimiento mientras que impide otras respuestas más eficaces, como la respuesta estoica (cultivas la no reactividad) y la respuesta antifrágil.

Life is what we deem it, and our lives are the creations of our minds.

The difference between a mind asking "Must I believe it?" versus "Can I believe it?" is so profound that it even influences visual perception. Subjects who thought that they'd get something good if a computer flashed up a letter rather than a number were more likely to see the ambiguous figure as the letter B, rather than as the number 13.

If people can literally see what they want to see—given a bit of ambiguity—is it any wonder that scientific studies often fail to persuade the general public?

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it. ~ H.G.Wells

Design is a word that's come to mean so much that it's also a word that has come to mean nothing.

Life was like a prism; what you saw depended on how you turned the glass.

Not a word about the tiny bones. I wondered why a married woman would avoid the plural form.

Life is like a prism. What you see depends on how you turn the glass.

The human imagination abhors a vacuum, after all, and seeks to fill in the blanks in a life or a history

Give every data point the attention and scrutiny it deserves, and keep an open mind for alternative explanations that may explain your observations as well as (or better than) your pet theories.

Two errors, wrote Pascal, a thinker Andrew once admired. One: to take everything literally. Two: to take everything spiritually.

I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.

Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.

Ti, kdo si trvají na jasných rozkazech nebo žádající legislativní opat?ení, nepochopili, že nezáleží na rozkazech, nýbrž na v?li nad?ízeného, a že p?íjemce rozkazu tuto v?li musí dešifrovat a dokonce p?edjímat.

Civil servants have an extraordinary genius for wrapping up a simple idea to make it sound extremely complicated.

Though I thought there weren't any words any more, only fucking signifiers. And since texts have no objective univocal meaning, I feel sure that when I call you a bunch of moronic cunts you will be able to decode that sequence of sequential signifiers with the appropriate emancipated subjectivity.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

mean it could be," said Grandpa. "Really?" said Norm. "Might just be the thin end of the wedge, Norman." And what was that supposed to mean? thought Norm. Thin end of what flipping wedge? A wedge of cheese? What was it with flipping cheese today? Everyone

Fiction has no right answers, and reading fiction is not about getting things right.