

"How much of your knowledge could you regenerate?" - herdrick
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/truly-part-of-y.html

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fauigerzigerk
That's interesting. But I have some doubts. To some degree our knowledge has
to be based not on a deep understanding of the matter itself but on a deep
understanding about how to determine who (person or process) we can trust in a
particular matter. Or rather how to determine what the right balance of trust
versus insight is, given limited resources and the importance of the issue at
hand. When I go to hospital, do I take a microscope to see if there's some
superbug lurking in a corner, or do I look for a reliable source of
information about which hospitals have lower rates of hospital acquired
infections?

Also, I wonder how we could regenerate something like the information we get
from our bank about a particular loan contract or other financial instrument.
Sometimes facts are created out of thin air and there is no way to derive them
from anything. Sure, I can try to understand what kind of business model lies
behind loans and what would therefore be within the range of plausibility, but
that wouldn't allow me to calculate my repayments for next year.

