Are they verified or falsified in an exhaustive manner?
Page 53. Are they verified or falsified in an exhaustive manner? Are you absolutely sure, and they are therefore absolutely entitled, to your belief?
— from The Mind in the Cockpit
In the book
So the discipline is to treat your important beliefs the way a scientist treats a hypothesis: verify them, try hard to falsify them, and ask honestly — am I actually sure this is true, and how would I know if it weren't? Your beliefs together form a map, and the only question that finally matters about a map is whether it matches the ground. The humbling fact is that some of yours are certainly wrong — you just don't yet know which, and that is fine, so long as you stay willing to be shown. […] The mindset first: distrust the reading, cross-check everything, and never forget that you are the easiest person you will ever fool. Cross-check your beliefs against evidence. Take an important belief and treat it as a hypothesis: try to falsify it, and ask whether you are truly sure. When you catch yourself wanting something to be true, deliberately flip the question from "can I believe this?" to "must I believe this?" And ask the plainest precaution of all: am I taking real steps to avoid fooling myself? - Choose to think, on purpose. A thousand times a day you choose between thinking and not thinking — you are genuinely free to think, to not bother, or to actively avoid it, so choose the harder option more often. — The Mind in the Cockpit