Question

Discuss the challenges of interpreting the past and how these are overcome.

Answer 1

The past is something that has taken place back in time, and owing to our memory and the way our mind functions, many instances in the past are misinterpreted by us due to our biases.

Many a times, we refuse to lament over incidents owing to the fact that we already knew it and hence we will always know it, which is popularly called Hindsight bias. Hindsight bias is looking over a past incident or a fact and thinking we already were aware about it.

Self serving bias often infiltrates the interpretation of past instances as well.

Such things are to be avoided in order to have a critical approach towards interpretation.