The Plague of Misidentification

Biases, Fallacies, & Heuristics Part 9

Today, we are reviewing and furthering our knowledge base concerning the thinking tools and how to apply them to all of this wondrous material. 

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted an incomplete study on himself from 1880 to 1885 regarding memory and its rate of decline after exposure to nonsense syllables. His findings were highly significant and have held true over the test of time. In 2015, a study was conducted using Ebbinghaus's original data, and it was found that his data is indeed accurate. The 2015 study concluded with nearly the same data points with some variation. 

Here is Ebbinghaus's original study:

https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Ebbinghaus/index.htm

and here is the 2015 study conducted by Murre & Dros:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4492928/

Ebbinghaus's original study contained the following equation, which will approximate his forgetting curve: 

In the above, b represents "Savings" expressed as a percentage, and t represents time in minutes. Savings is defined as the relative amount of time saved on the second learning trial as a result of having had the first trial. A 100% savings would represent no loss of the memorized items. A 75% savings would represent a 25% loss of the memorized items.

The following charts will help to illustrate the rate of memory retention over time. 

We can see from the above chart that the results are somewhat shocking; once you are taught the information, you are considered to be at 100%. We can clearly see that within 20 minutes of the data being received in our memory, we have 58.2% remaining. Within an hour, we have 44.2% remaining, and after six days, we have 25.4% remaining. This means that the loss of data after 20 minutes is 41.8%! Poof, gone like the wind. After two days, the loss of the original data is 72.2%! Yikes! I don't know about you, but I don't think this is any way to live.

Let’s take a look at another chart.

Well, this is a little better. We can see that the retention rate increases significantly if we train on the information by practicing spaced repetition. The curve flattens in favor of our memory with every new repetition, which is excellent news for us on many levels. 

One of the best things about the forgetting curve is that it contains an answer for how to remember information with a high degree of accuracy. This will likely not come as a shock to many, but spaced repetition is highly effective at encoding data into your long-term memory, where it is of the most use to us since we cannot draw upon what we do not possess. Once a person starts to review the information using spaced repetition, we see that there are meaningful and immediate results. If you have ever forgotten something and were frustrated with yourself that you thought you had it but now can't even find what it was that you thought you had, this little study and chart are fantastic news for you. In short, this all adds up to be a way for you to make sure that no vital data slips out of your hands again. All that is required is that you encode and rehearse the data with focus and discipline. 

Now, all that is pretty nice for us humans. We have some severe deficits regarding memory, but only if we don't apply a few simple tools to help it out over time. Yay! I guess we are all fixed, and it is a perfect memory for everyone all around, right? Well, there is that minor component about practicing the information or reviewing it regularly. I have taught the Ebbinghaus learning curve to my students for many years. I can tell you that there is a direct correlation between my students who apply this data and those who excel in their studies. The group that excels is the group that applies the material consistently, allowing for continual growth over time. The group that chooses to utilize the data either not at all or in a much less disciplined way moves around rising and falling at the rate of the current application of their individual levels of discipline.

Over my thirty-plus years of teaching, I have worked very intensely with my students. I estimate their average critical data loss at somewhere around 80% to 85% of the materials I have taught them. Of course, there is the rare student who listens to this data and applies it with discipline in their life. Those students retain astronomically higher amounts of critical data and excel regardless of all but the most extreme circumstances.

You Can't Afford It Whether You Know It or Not

One of the greatest thieves you will ever encounter in your life is yourself. Take a moment and ponder the following question: how many times have you stolen your development away from yourself through your decisions to ignore imperative data that was taught to you because you thought you "had it" and were "good to go" with whatever it was that you were learning? Whatever your answer to this question, I don't think we should argue for our limitations, do you? What I am driving at here is the fact that people stand in their own way constantly. They often refuse to do what is needed to help themselves grow and learn what it is that they say they desire to learn more than anything in the world. The causative agents behind this type of behavior are many, and we will be taking a deep dive into the main ones in upcoming essays. 

For now, I want you to consider that every single thing I have written thus far can be used to aid you in seeing reality more clearly, developing your potential, and generating many incredible things for yourself, your loved ones, your community, or what have you. All that is required from each of us to grow further is a dedication to the appropriate materials with the prerequisite level of discipline. You can grow continually throughout your lifespan if you choose wisely and continue practicing. The choice is yours, and the ability to succeed is now more assured than at any time before in history, primarily due to the availability of exceedingly high-level information at the touch of a button. This information regards every aspect of what is needed to reach your goals from beginning to end; from process to actualization, you can find anything you want if you are willing to spend a little time looking.

If all of this is true, and it is, then why are so many not reaching their goals? The following is a short and incomplete list of answers:

• All of the inhibitors listed in this series and many more are applied or enforced upon the individual, resulting in failed goal acquisition. The source in this statement is irrelevant. 

• The individual does not believe that they can grow and change.

• The result of significant traumas experienced over a lifetime can generate core issues that render one incapable for a short to long time period of effecting change. 

• The presence of personality disorders and other forms of mental illness that can block the individual from stepping out of inhibiting behaviors that result in cyclic patterns of suffering and loss.

• Laziness.

• Arrogance.

• Extreme feelings of inferiority.

• Negative and limiting self-beliefs of all types.

• Addictions of all types. 

• Though rarer in this era, unawareness of data and opportunities.

• Current geolocational issues make access to pertinent data difficult to impossible.

• Specific types of physical injuries make the goal acquisition non-tenable. E.g., severe brain damage that alters needed brain regions necessary to reach their particular goals. 

• Financial factors that strip time away from the individual even if access is available. E.g., a young person who has to provide for their entire family due to extreme hardship conditions.

• Co-dependency issues result in avoidance of life goals. E.g., starting a rattlesnake circus because it was your dad's dream instead of going to school for aerospace engineering, which was yours, even though that trapeze act was astonishing!

These are just a few of the reasons individuals end up not reaching their life goals, potential, or even short-term, easily obtainable goals. In my personal experience, I have witnessed more laziness and arrogance than any other, with extreme inferiority coming in around third and co-dependency issues in the fourth position. There is nothing overtly scientific about that statement. It is purely observational and, therefore, anecdotal, along with being a tiny sample size compared to what would be needed to properly conduct a study. That said, I am accurate in my observation of my lived experience. You can and should take it with a grain of salt, but please take it and use it to your advantage. 

The Specifics

Now that we have dealt with all of that information, let's take a look at what the process of putting things into our memory looks like in the real world. 

• First, we state the subject and what it is about. The subject details a process for storing and retrieving information in one's long-term memory. 

• What do I want to put into my long-term memory? I want to put what a heuristic is into my long-term memory.

• What is a heuristic? It is a rule of thumb, best-fit thinking process that relies on speed rather than the deep structure logical processes concerning the question. A heuristic is like an algorithmic shortcut for problem-solving. 

• I now have my definition. Next, I need to imbue this subject with meaning. I will pick a type of heuristic that matters to me. I choose the affect heuristic. 

• Now, I need to flesh out what the affect heuristic is to add more meaning. The affect heuristic deals with a situation where one makes decisions based upon their affect (emotional state, mental state, or mood). This causes issues as the logical process of reasoning through the problem is improperly weighted vs. the emotional feeling state, which is given a state of authority.  

• Why does this heuristic matter to me? Because I see it daily, and it generates a lot of pain and suffering for those who apply it regularly. 

• Next, I want to test myself and see if I can explain a heuristic to myself, someone, or even the neighbor's dog—but under no circumstances their cat because that cat simply will not listen to reason. If I succeed, I will explain the affect heuristic, and if not, I will go back and relearn what a heuristic is and then proceed. 

• Next, what is the affect heuristic in my own words? Let's say I nailed that one too. 

• Next, we practice heuristics by applying the process of interleaving. So, we will study examples of heuristics mixed with examples of other types of thinking errors or the like and see if we can correctly identify the heuristics. If we can, then we move forward, and if not, then we go back to study what a heuristic is until we can better identify them when they show up.

• Next, we follow the process of reflecting, retrieving, and re-analyzing until we understand what a heuristic is, how it functions, and how to use it well. Then, we start to program various critical heuristics in the same manner.  

• We use spaced repetition to defeat the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve and ensure that all of this new data we have learned, rehearsed, and memorized in part becomes memorized in full.

The above process will work for anything. Please take a look at how it is laid out and observe the critical components. when you have important data to memorize quickly and accurately, you will want to start with this model and then change only what you see is required. While the main components of a good model are present (and to be sure, you could use it by rote), I think once you get the why behind each stage, you will be able to improvise with the structure freely. That said, I use this exact process very regularly. 

The Cost of Not Building Consistently 

There is a terrifying cost of not building and using mental models and effective systems over time. The cost is that lost time increases feelings of inability to achieve via the self-fulfilling prophecy generated by not doing. This, as mentioned above, can have many causes, but the fact remains that if one is not moving proactively, they are moving reactively. You can think of these as locked and circular or unlocked and linear. When one is not utilizing the types of data presented within this series, they are in a reactive, thus locked circular model. This model is rigid and accepts nothing outside of it, and therefore, nothing can help one in this state unless one changes their mind and allows an outside influence, data set, or the like to influence the system.

On the other hand, the unlocked, linear, flowing model is highly proactive and continuously checks itself for optimization possibilities. This model is not circular and flows with the arrow of time, continually integrating what the individual learns into the model, therefore increasing the individual's ability to be adaptive, grow in intelligence, and obtain higher levels of success. This model is by far the most intelligent choice by which a person could live their life. For one to live out this choice effectively, they would have to take complete ownership of their entire life and choices. This model has to have truthfulness at its core. Otherwise, one will be in discord with reality in delusional ways that will effectively yield the results of the reactive model. In actuality, one would be placing themselves back into the reactive model no matter what they thought about their current state. Reality is as it is, in time, and at all times, throughout all of time. No opinion can change the fact of reality in any given Planck scale snapshot or slice of time. The opinion is itself a part of the snapshot, but the truthfulness of the opinion is as it is regardless or irrespective of what the holder of the opinion thinks.  

We either agree or disagree with the real at any given infinitesimal moment, and there is nothing functional we can do but change to a better position in the next given moment of time. The linear unlocked model flows with the arrow of time, and one who pursues this well will seek truth and accord with the real and thereby will live as best as possible given all factors contained within the state of things, reality, or the real de facto.

Memory & Results Over Time

The above problems are compounded by the fact that one acting from the reactive state of mind will not comprehend that their decisions of today are via outcropping series or second, third, fourth, and fifth-order consequences resulting in what will happen to them over two, three, four, five or ten years into the future. Worse yet, if one has lived in this state for a while, they will likely not be aware of all of the decisions that have led to their current state of discord with the real, their growth, confidence, self-image, financial status if applicable, etc. When a person is disassociated from this data stream, they are bound by what they have chosen but cannot even remember the choice, its outcroppings, or any order of the chain of consequences. 

I have had many students who came to me in this very shape, and I have had many who left without this problem controlling their lives any longer. Remember when I said that the majority of my students had retained an estimated 20% of what I have taught them over time? Well, if you know this is the likelihood and you wish to be worth your salt as a teacher, then you have to drive the most critical data the hardest for the longest to get it to sit within the student the deepest. 

Victimhood

A note regarding victimhood: when a person is in the negative state described above, they often feel their life is out of control and that it is not their fault, but horrible things keep happening to them continually. It is a fact of reality that horrible things happen to people; these people have done nothing to bring on that particular horrible event from the standpoint of poor behavior, ignorance, or things that would require ownership. These people are not at any form of fault of the generation of the impactful event. The hard fact is that sometimes you go to get a candy bar at the local corner store, and you don't come back by no fault of your own. What I am about to write does not regard such scenarios in any way at all. 

There is another group of scenarios that are generated as the direct result of poor decisions made by the individual when they know better and still choose to enact the dysfunctional choice. These people are who I am speaking of, and they are the group that shows up with a million reasons why they can't do something and always with a line of victimhood a mile long, complete with detailed stories packed with the reasons for their failures. This group of individuals, of which we are all a part at any given time, is the group that could change those circumstances. They could choose to enact the data that they ignore from their fear, arrogance, co-dependency, rage, laziness, and feelings of inferiority, among others, and step into healing. 

This group of people is cognitively blind to the causal functions generating their problem sets, and it ruins their lives. They are capable of change. They are intelligent. They have strong abilities and aptitudes, but they choose to ignore wise counsel, essential data, and methodologies that work. They act as if they know the answers to their problems even when they do not. They refuse solid, truthful, logical arguments without regard. They constantly complain of being misunderstood, all while pleading special case scenarios continually. When given the space to make their case and finally be understood, they go blank and say that you would not understand. They hold profound anger and disdain for others, secretly feeling superior to all in their environments, including those helping them who actually live out the principles and who have actualized the knowledge base they use to help heal this eternal victim. We see these eternal victims engaging with their caregivers, sponsors, therapists, psychiatrists, healthcare workers, teachers, and any others fitting that role with all of the above rancor. Shockingly, all of this behavior is usually masked behind a smile and a few compliments and, of course, the refusal to listen and grow. 

This group of reactive individuals is not present in the real, and it is killing them all while they fight the wrong enemy continually. These people attack their helpers, crucify their advocates, and estrange and ostracize those who love them all to protect the very thing that is robbing and killing them in real-time day by day: the enemy and thief that is themselves. Their choice to not actualize upon what would heal them generates continual harm to them and others. Please remember these are descriptions and not words of hate. It is my fervent hope to help as many as possible by whatever means is just, good, and healthy. 

Humility is essential if they are going to step out of this reactive madness and plant their feet firmly in the real and get to becoming what their potential is calling them to become. This situation has a solution, and it is simple. However, it requires enacting difficult to maintain traits such as humility, discipline, love of truth, and a desire to do good for not only oneself but family, friends, community, and country. What each of you who read this must see is the fact that there is a way to get better. Many seemingly complex and unsolvable problems have long-understood answers, and all we must do to get better is listen and act from the solution space rather than the problem space. Much of this process, foundationally speaking, is already laid out in the current essays, but happily, there is far more yet to come.

The following graph illustrates what happens if one continually enacts these methods of dealing with reality. The proactive choices build over time, and the outcropping series starts to yield its good fruit.

Notice that over time the graph shows that while one's memory of the events that cause the reactions line dissipates, the good choices start the proper reactions. We can see that the efficacy of those choices over time is continually playing into constant growth and various types of prosperity. This graph is something to be deeply considered and heeded. If you follow the proactive states we have discussed and continually build what you wish to become and create, we can clearly see that it is the best of the option states to live within, even with tragedy, difficulty, and the types of hardship that is common to life on this fascinating planet.

We will continue.

B.S.R.