Episode 114 - The difference between fallibility and failing

You have failed versus you are fallible

• You have failed = subjective judgment, because the standard against which you have failed can be anything to anybody
  • The same objective series of events can still be labeled as failures or success depending on the subjective standard you want to measure them against
• You are fallible: objective, there is objective truth and you can be objectively wrong about it

Why is fallibility important, regardless of failure of success?

• It is the only way to allow to detect where you are wrong and try to correct it (improve it)
• It has 2 opposites
  • Relativism: I am already correct as what is true is what I consider to be true, other people may consider other things to be true. I cannot improve upon my claims because I assigned them already as true for me
  • Dogmatism: I know I am right because I have infallible knowledge that cannot be improved. I have absolutely true knowledge in my hand already

Fallibility and failure are independent of each other, have nothing to do with each other

• You can have failed and still learnt something about your plan/ goal
• You can have failed and also NOT learn something about your plan/ goal
• You can have succeed and have learnt something new
• You can have succeed and not have learnt something new (your plan was sufficient for the problem at hand, or you have been lucky, or the subjective standard for success was so general …)

All 4 combinations of fallibility and failure are therefore perfectly possible

One danger is to equate fallibility to failing: admitting that you are objectively wrong is often equated to failing. And that is wrong, it is admitting that you are looking for improvement of your ideas and that you are not falling in the trap of relativism or dogmatism. So fallibility is something that should be encouraged in organisations ! Failure of course should not be encouraged, but it will not when you encourage fallibility. One because they are completely different things and Two because fallibility is the key condition of knowledge growth, and when problem become more complex, knowledge growth IS the key thing you need in order not to fail !