I’ve found explanation freeze to be a useful concept, but I haven’t found a definition or explanation of it on the EA Forum. So I thought I’d share a little description of explanation freeze here so that anyone searching the forum can find it, and so that I can easily link to it.
The short version is:
explanation freeze is the tendency to stick with the first explanation we come up with.
The slightly longer explanation is:
Situations that are impossible to conclusively explain can afflict us with explanation freeze, a condition in which we come up with just one possible explanation for an event that may have resulted from any of several different causes. Since we’re only considering one explanation at a time, this condition leads us to make the available evidence fit that explanation, and then overestimate how likely that explanation is. We can consider it as a type of cognitive bias or flaw, because it hinders us in our attempts to form an accurate view of reality.
I think that describing it as a combination of anchoring with confirmation bias seems roughly accurate. Maybe there might be an element of availability bias tossed in as well, since we latch on to the most readily available answer?
I’m not sure, but I think that Julia Galef has spoken about the concept of explanation freeze in interviews or on podcasts, so you might be able to dig up a more detailed and expansive explanation. But with some cursory Google Searching I was only able to find passing references to it, rather than more full explanations.
I’ve found explanation freeze to be a useful concept, but I haven’t found a definition or explanation of it on the EA Forum. So I thought I’d share a little description of explanation freeze here so that anyone searching the forum can find it, and so that I can easily link to it.
The short version is:
The slightly longer explanation is:
Thanks—this is helpful as a term, and closely related to privileging the hypothesis; https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X2AD2LgtKgkRNPj2a/privileging-the-hypothesis The general solution, of course,is expensive but necessary; https://secondenumerations.blogspot.com/2017/03/episode-6-method-of-multiple-working.html
I like the linguistic implication of ‘freezing’ the explanation, as though implying other states (not frozen, warm, malleable, etc).
Baking this implication directly into the term for it carries significant value.
Is this just a combination of anchoring with confirmation bias? Or have I misunderstood.
I think that describing it as a combination of anchoring with confirmation bias seems roughly accurate. Maybe there might be an element of availability bias tossed in as well, since we latch on to the most readily available answer?
I’m not sure, but I think that Julia Galef has spoken about the concept of explanation freeze in interviews or on podcasts, so you might be able to dig up a more detailed and expansive explanation. But with some cursory Google Searching I was only able to find passing references to it, rather than more full explanations.