We often make assumptions - and exactly as it sounds, sometimes we are indeed "making up" what seem to be facts but are actually the results of errors in logic.
Judah S. Harris writes about assumptions and offers a way to be aware of them and then get back on track.
By Judah S. Harris
There are a lot of reasons why we make mistakes in our thinking. One of them is that we are thinking along certain lines. Something seems very clear to us, it can’t be any other way, but we’re working with wrong assumptions.
This is something that happened to me one Thursday evening, a decade ago already, and I’ll bring it as an example of assumptions that are incorrect, and how they misguide us. I do genealogical consulting and was helping a woman with a tiny bit of genealogical research. Her husband’s grandfather, Lieber Marvit, was a New York City rabbi, and we were trying to figure out some things about what pulpits he had over the years (early to mid-1900s). I located some facts of interest from a search online of older book entries (use Book search in Google for results that are derived from books, or printed matter like journals, that have been scanned). I read that he was a rabbi at a synagogue on Commercial Street. I found a street by that name in Brooklyn and told her. However, she didn’t recall Brooklyn being part of his chronology, and it turns out she was right.
This European-born man was a rabbi in the very early 1920s in Lynn, Massachusetts (a 1930 US Census states his immigration year as 1922). That is where Commercial Street is located — at least the one we should be looking for (the family thinks he was rabbi on Common Street — which is just a block away, and the synagogue, as I confirmed, was at the intersection of both).
The book in which I had found an entry with a “Commercial Street” mention was a 1952 ad journal from the Lynn synagogue that was recounting some of the synagogue’s history and earlier leadership. I didn’t pay enough attention to the source and had just found New York City entries for the rabbi in another book, so of course Commercial Street must be in the NYC area. Of course...
This is not about genealogy, rather the “assumptions” we make. And we make them all the time. I was in NYC mode, since I, well… was living there for so many years, thinking there, and the rabbi of note had pulpits there. I didn’t pay enough attention to the Massachusetts synagogue (which proceeded the rabbi’s NY experiences). I was trying to find a Commercial Street in New York, and only Brooklyn had one to offer. I was spending 20 minutes on this, doing it as a favor and out of curiosity (and to show my resourcefulness!).
If we’re to be thorough, we need to not just check facts but check the earlier stages — we have to check our assumptions. If we have incorrect or imprecise ones, then the facts we’re real sure about — maybe certain about — could be errant. This logic applies to everything we work to gain an understanding about. We make decisions based on what we know. We can always not know enough — but what we do know and what we believe needs to be factual, if our conclusions are to be factual.
Try to think of one or two examples where this might have happened to you. You found out you were wrong, but now go back and think about what tripped you up. Assumptions — mistaken ones — might very well be the cause.
How to avoid wrong assumptions? The first thing is probably to slow down, read carefully and listen carefully. Next is to start with a blank slate. Your experience and affinities might be different than the other person’s that you are now “researching” (this doesn’t apply solely to researching people — it can be about places, events, beliefs, etc.). Get rid of that as sole determinant. You can use it — your perspective — but not as a substitute for an unbiased assessment. Once you’re on the route and maybe getting stuck, look back and see if you took a wrong turn somewhere. Ever drive on a road — it could be at night, or during the day — and you go and go and can’t find the turnoff? You can’t find it because you are not on the right road. Backtrack and try the correct route. Then you’ll soon find your exit, or your elusive street.
The same thing applies to our thinking. Everything might seem fine, but there might have been even one assumption we’ve made back “a few miles ago” or a few months ago that is wrong. We’re not on the track we need to be. It’s a road and looks like a right road, but it’s not the right road for us at this moment.
Even if it all makes sense and we don’t feel at all stuck or lost, it’s still good to go back and look quickly at some of the key assumptions we’re working with, assuming the decisions are especially important ones and the ramifications quite significant (e.g., marriage, home purchase, employment, detective work — and international peace negotiations!). Our gut instincts can kick in at any stage, and they are fundamental tools, but that and our intuition functions best when it can call on factual-based or rational thinking.
I didn’t even use the word “extrapolation” yet. That’s a topic I’ll leave for now to the scientists and other experts out there. We extrapolate all the time. We infer, we’re guessing. We have to. But how we go about gathering and checking our facts will make all the difference in the conclusions we arrive at, the educated guesses we feel confident in.
The idea of looking back and examining our assumptions is something I even use, in a somewhat related way, as a photographer. I’m out and about looking not for factual information, but for images. Something that I’d like to take a photograph of.
Let’s say I’m walking on a busy urban street, though it could easily be a scenic dirt path in some natural surrounding. I’m holding my camera and I’m involved in the art of seeing. There could be a lot happening or a lot that inspires me (or not much happening and not much that inspires). I’ll look ahead, to my side, left and right… up, maybe down… But I also every once in a while turn back, almost 180 degrees, and look at where I’ve been. I was there before I got here, but now I’m seeing it from the other direction. It’s certainly a different angle, but it could also be a very different perspective. All the same information or visual sites that I saw en route are there (unless they were actually hidden), but now they’re being seen in a way they couldn’t have before while I was headed onward. So I turn back to look at the route I’ve been on. I check my visual assumptions and might only now, for the first time, notice things that are in fact relevant, personally meaningful, and that need to be taken into account by this photographer and framed with care for others to share in.
------------
Follow Judah S. Harris on Medium for essays on various topics, such as Jewish Life, human interest, creativity, and relationships
https://medium.com/@judahsharris
