Can Zettelkasten reduce confirmation bias?

iylock

Hello. This is my first writing. *Written using a translator.

It has been two years since I started Zettelkasten. Thanks @Sascha and @ctietze
Currently, there are about 1,000 Zettels.

But I ran into one problem.
I learned that sources (books, videos, etc.) are selected based on confirmation bias and proximity bias.

GIGO; I think that if you do Zettelkasten with bias, your wrong beliefs will become stronger.
Moreover, I thought that the more incorrect information I was exposed to, the more I came to view correct knowledge and information as outliers.

How can I solve this?
Is there a way to prevent bias in the process?

thank you

zettelsan

In his book How to Take Smart Notes, Sönke Ahrens suggests that you develop ideas bottom-up instead of top-down. With the latter, you tend to have a hypothesis that you stick to and pushes you to look for supporting information but not dis-confirming information. With a bottom-up approach, you separately work on each building block to understand it independent of your preconceived notion. Once something develops, then you can prime yourself to seek out disconfirming information. But when you start out having a hypothesis already, then your confirmation bias will cascade down .

andang76

It's an interesting topic.

In some of my latest experiences zettelkasting, I've noticed that when I find a bad source, I tend not to use this as a "source of truth", but the source of other thoughts developed criticizing and contesting its content. These thoughts are nevertheless useful.
So, I don't think that it's always Garbage In Garbage Out.
Zettelkasten allow me to obtain value even from bad sources.

The big issue is recognizing "bad sources" from "good sources" when you start processing them. I think this is the most relevant point.

This task should be easy when you have enough experience on a topic, you are better able to recognize if one source is "different" from the others. The problem is when you start a new field (or worse, when you already have a bias from an already bad source processed).

I had in mind to develop a series of criteria that could help me develop a process of correct evaluation of sources, but I never really developed it.

Some extemporaneous thoughts about, according to my recent experiences.
When I have to develop my knowledge and opinions in a new field:

• don't start the field using strange, exotic, unconventional sources. Search and use well recognized foundational sources
• consider as a yellow light a source in which you recognize a problematic form. Too absolutist, too extreme, similar to fundamentalism. Sources that are full of "always", "never", "this is the truth for everyone". Sources that doesn't show a sound argumentative process, arguments, evidence, real examples of the truth they present, based more on faith and trust than on logic. Sources that doesn't give a context for the model it propose.
• with my experience with zettelkasten I've learned to recognize easier when a thing is a pure opinion passed off as truth rather than a real truth. Consider this as another yellow light
• evaluate always the truth of what your read, and even write into your zettelkasten your content considering the truth dimension (inspired by the "flower idea model" you find in this forum). If after processing the source the derived zettels don't represent a solid model of truth, I have processed the source in the wrong way or the source is inadequate. For avoiding the first case, I have as a reference model the ideas found in this forum about the argumentation systems. I don't use a strict formal approach but higher-level principles. One of these is theories not argumented and without evidences are opinions. So, the final takeaway is, if an application of "focused on truth" zettelkasten to a source (a thing that I can learn to do well) can't produce arguments and evidences and so on, the source has a yellow light. A good weapon to have, fot resolving the issue of truth, is developing a very truth-focused zettelkasten method. Having this process, if you don't know at start if the source is good, you can see if the source "survives" when you apply the process :-)

There are only very raw thoughts, I've not fully developed yet. Your topic gives me the opportunity to begin examining them by writing them down

Andy

I think the previous answers are good, such as developing ideas bottom-up instead of top-down, and using principles of information literacy/media literacy when working with information sources.

In the field of media literacy, there are various acronyms and shortcuts that can help you remember relevant principles. There is an English-language list of them in Molly Stellino's article "Shortcut roundup: quick guides to become media literate" (2018), for example. Perhaps you can find something similar in your own language.

You can also look for articles on debiasing to find techniques that you can use. For example, a couple of articles that I read years ago and found helpful from the field of medicine are "Cognitive debiasing 1: origins of bias and theory of debiasing" and "Cognitive debiasing 2: impediments to and strategies for change" (Pat Croskerry et al. 2013). In the latter article, see especially Table 1: Educational and workplace strategies for cognitive debiasing and Table 2: Forcing functions. I guess most of the media literacy shortcuts in Stellino's article linked above are checklists, a technique that is listed in Table 2.

You can also think of learning to reason and argue without bias as a process of developing intellectual virtues. Olivier Morin, in his article "The virtues of ingenuity: reasoning and arguing without bias" (2014), discusses the virtues of detachment, lucidity, and thoroughness.

You can also consider how you could structure your Zettelkasten to emphasize competing arguments and evidence for various claims/positions, like in structured argumentation/discourse schemas like IBIS, so that it is easier to notice when questions are lacking alternative answers or when claims/positions are lacking counterarguments.

In summary, you can learn more about information/media literacy, debiasing strategies, and ways of structuring a note system to better ensure a sufficient plurality of questions, positions, and arguments.

iylock

@zettelsan @andang76 @Andy Thank you all. I'll have to practice some more based on your answers.