Back when I was a young physics student, I thought very much like Paisley does: that quantum uncertainty provided the basis for potential free will. I argued with some philosophy professors about it for a while. My physics advisor finally showed me the error of my ways, by showing that quantum uncertainty came from our mathematical model. Our model is statistical in nature, but so are models off other stochastic processes: the flow of liquids, plasma physics, weather, and so on. This doesn't mean the underlying principles contain uncertainty as a fundamental principle; but the only way to model it mathematically (as opposed to computationally) is via statistics.

This was years ago, of course. But once it was explained to me that we don't know yet know the nature of the quantum universe, I realized there was no way to make claims about it, until such time as we have more information.

In my line of work, I'm proven wrong several times per day. I write a bit of code, compile and test, and oops, there's a bug. I thought it would work, but it doesn't.

Writing software will pretty much humble anyone who thinks they are purely logical.

On the big philosophical things, I tend to admit when I don't know something, so it's not often I've picked a position and then been proven wrong. It's more that I don't pick a position until I'm quite sure I'm right. And I tend to stick with what science reveals, so again I'm only wrong when the best theories turn out to be wrong.

One big thing recently that I'll readily admit I was wrong about is the importance of emotions in the well-being of a person. I used to try to eliminate all emotions, as I attributed bad decision-making to 'emotional reasoning'. I still hold that emotions are not a good way to make logical decisions, but I no longer think it's a good idea to try to eliminate your own emotions for that reason. All that does is lead to mental illness, IMO.

That was probably the most difficult thing I've had to face about being wrong. It led to a major change in my life, and was a very painful transition. But definitely worth it.

I was wrong in my fear of homosexuality. Maybe 'wrong' is the wrong word, because it was really ignorance that caused it. When I finally made friends with someone who happened to be homosexual, I learned that they're not different at all, except in one preference, and the fear completely vanished. I guess I used to think there was something 'weird' about them (aside from just the different sexual preference), but I didn't really know what.

I had a similar realization about race. I had considered myself a 'non-racist white person'. Now I realize that 'race' has no actual basis and is just a cultural concept, and so I now only consider myself a human who happens to have white skin (technically not white, just a lesser degree of pigmentation), just like I happen to have brown hair and brown eyes.

For me, it is more the personal things that I've been wrong about, and usually because of some fear that was ingrained in me for years. The bigger things, I've just learned not to pretend to know what I don't know, and to trust reliable ways of knowing such as science. Instead of jumping to conclusions and later being proven wrong, instead I am in a constant state of learning and discovery of what we currently know to the best of our ability.

I once thought there was nothing wrong with religion and that people should let others believe whatever they want without interfering. Then I met theists.

 Early in my career as an electrical design engineer I gave the project team exactly what they had specified only to find out it wasn't what they required. This resulted in a mass field engineering change which caused the company president to remember my name for years. My error was not thinking for the project team as teams have no brains. After this I tried to limit my errors to easier to upgrade fuckups. All engineers take chances when we design and think yeah that won't happen only for it to occur far worse than you ever envisioned.

Oh man. Been there!

 Most recently, I discovered that it's "say your piece," not "say your peace."  For years, I've thought it was another way of saying, "Say what you have to say to be at peace."

If you go into the Way Back File, there are tons of things -- I was an evangelical Christian for twenty years, after all.  I believed evolution was false.  I believed the flood happened.  I never believed the world was six thousand years old, but I thought that the story of Adam and Eve was a metaphor which, if properly read, could reconstruct even billions of years of history.  (I still don't quite understand how I believed that.  Age and knowledge are good.)

In the first election I was old enough to vote in, I voted Republican.  I'm not telling you which Republican.

I used to believe that humans were meant to be monogamous -- even after I learned that evolution was true.

I used to believe in free will.

I used to believe in trickle down economics

Until I was exposed to the drug culture, I believed the Beatles were singing about a State Trooper.  (Kudos to anyone who has a clue what I'm talking about.)

I used to believe that love and sex were inseparable.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I thought that firing an employee for stealing from the company safe would be sufficient to invalidate claims for unemployment.  Then I got hit with a notice that I have to pay her a hundred dollars a week for thirteen weeks to thank her for stealing from me.  It's under appeal, but the legal system is a son of a bitch, and she stole less than a hundred dollars.

I used to believe that eating sushi was particularly risky, but I've learned  that you're much more likely to get food poisoning from cooked chicken than raw fish.

Anyway, that's a short list.  I'm happy to report that the incidence of me being proven wrong has been steadily decreasing since I devoted myself to the study and consistent application of science and logic.

I had been recently wrong with objections to parenting by homosexuals, I thought that upbringing of a child may not be optimal with homosexual couple. I was proven wrong by scientific studies on that. Now it actually makes a greater sense to me, because such a couple would get the child because they really want, not because of a contraception failure. Also, it's much better than leaving the child in care of the state.

Also, I had been very wrong in my understanding of people's psychology, back in the school days. I once had a serious delusion, that being passive means to be harmless and safe. Neither of that was true. In a violent and non-intellectual environment of local schools, I got attacked physically and emotionally, and others were not helped physically and emotionally for that reason as well.  My unawareness destroyed some real, some potential friendships. I was like a half-conscious person, hiding away from the cruel world. I had to battle my unawareness, indifference, and fear, a lot of fear. It's all better now, though still far from perfection. I'm working on it, that's important.

And... I had been proven wrong on many mathemathical tests. I'm rather a philosopher, linguist, writer, graphic, musical listener, and so on.
Of course, there is much more of things I could mention, but I lack both time and memory right now.

Btw, your self-correcting achievements are very nice, congratulations.

As someone who is abysmally bad at math, I once very smarmily told an instructor, a school administrator, a parent and a step-parent that with the advent of calculators there was no point in teaching or learning how to do complex math by hand.

As someone who was (well, still is ) rather lazy, and disinterested in doing homework, I convinced myself that attaining a high school diploma was unimportant, that university was a waste of time and largely just a cash cow for elitists and that having credentials proved absolutely nothing.

As someone naive of history, I was convinced that a utopian society was perfectly attainable so long as we just 'fixed' certain things.

I consider those my biggest three blunders up to this point. Of course, there are countless other errors I make on a daily basis, from typos to

incorrect assumptions / interpretations... but those are more or less to too numerous  to count.

And Big Brother always appreciates your help.

As a demonstration of His appreciation, citizen, He is even going to increase your current weekly treated water ration from 3 Litres to 1 Litre. How gracious of Him!

 A few things...

- I once accepted for a brief period (< 6 months) that 9/11 conspiracy idea (after watching Loose Change). After reading about it further and discussing it online I had no choice but to drop it.

- After watching that Moon hoax show I was drawn into that, but again, after discussing it online I simply couldn't accept it any longer.

- Man made climate change. Although I accepted climate change was a reality, I doubted human involvement.

All of this (at least the first two) was before I considered myself a skeptic and atheist. Years ago before I had any interest in this I was interested in things like UFO, big foot, rods, etc etc. Not being skeptically minded I was gullible to say the least.

I was raised Roman Catholic.  Enough said on that front.

I used to absolutely hate alchohol in any shape or form due to alcohol related issues within my family when I was younger.  I'm still not fond of it and don't drink, but I've managed to get away from a knee-jerk emotional reaction...I think.

Big Brother would like to point out his appreciation for echoing an earlier comment, but is disturbed that due to mechanical difficulties, your post seems to be different from the direct quote.  He would appreciate it if you changed your decrease from 1 to 3 to the proper increase from 3 to 1 to help citizens.

Big Brother would never decrease your water ration from 1 to 3 litres.  Big Brother cares.

...I do not wish to derail a thread, so perhaps we could create another one for this tangent (or take it to PM), but I'm very curious:

Why does every employer have and attempt to enforce the 'no theft' rule, typically discharging employees after a single offense (however minor)? By no means am I a thief, but this seems like a very oddly naive rule: I mean, surely you don't honestly believe that the one girl in question is the only one who has ever stolen from your business?

Of course.

I just see my words as a better way to express the thought - in many situations, the rights and wrongs of the different ideas are not known absolutely, can often not be established definitively, whereas "...must be willing to accept that they're wrong" implies that the issue has been settled.

The idea should apply even when you can't prove that they are wrong, which is much of the time.

I read that book in grade 11 and all I can remember is that the mirrors on the wall or something had cameras in them.

Another thing recently crossed my mind after re-reading Bob's post.

I highly doubt that  everybody "weighs the evidence" on every single little thing they do. The amount of people with no irrational thoughts is 0.

So the "I don't believe until the evidence is overwhelming" is rather unlikely unless you're the Rain man.

I, too, observe that people rarely reach conclusions by carefully 'weighing the evidence', it does take some effort to train oneself into doing this more regularly.

I didn't, and normally don't, use the term 'belief' to describe my current state of understanding of the world. Rather I prefer to think of 'working assumptions' to describe the mental models I hold in my mind of how the world (including other people) appears to behave and what affects what. These assumptions are qualified by the confidence I have that they seem to 'work', ie how well they allow me to make successful predictions about the consequences of various actions, mine and others.

I simply say that these assumptions become closest to belng like a 'belief' when the evidence I have encountered and considered appears to me as 'overwhelming'.

My most common fault with regards getting it wrong is my assumption, upon meeting erudite people who I like, that they are naturally atheistic. I still do it. I'm mostly right, but that just makes those occasions when I'm wrong all the more alarming - and often very funny.