The Knowledge Illusion

Why We Never Think Alone

By: Steven Sloman, Philip Fernbach

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

We all think we know more than we actually do.

Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don't even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us. We're constantly drawing on information and expertise stored outside our heads: in our bodies, our environment, our possessions, and the community with which we interact - and usually we don't even realize we're doing it.

The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and sequenced our genome. And yet each of us is error prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant. The fundamentally communal nature of intelligence and knowledge explains why we often assume we know more than we really do, why political opinions and false beliefs are so hard to change, and why individually oriented approaches to education and management frequently fail. But our collaborative minds also enable us to do amazing things. This book contends that true genius can be found in the ways we create intelligence using the world around us.

©2017 Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach (P)2017 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“In The Knowledge Illusion, the cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach hammer another nail into the coffin of the rational individual... positing that not just rationality but the very idea of individual thinking is a myth.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“In an increasingly polarized culture where certainty reigns supreme, a book advocating intellectual humility and recognition of the limits of understanding feels both revolutionary and necessary. The fact that it’s a fun and engaging page-turner is a bonus benefit for the reader.” (Publishers Weekly)

“Sloman and Fernbach offer clever demonstrations of how much we take for granted, and how little we actually understand... The book is stimulating, and any explanation of our current malaise that attributes it to cognitive failures - rather than putting it down to the moral wickedness of one group or another - is most welcome. Sloman and Fernbach are working to uproot a very important problem... [The Knowledge Illusion is] written with vigour and humanity.” (Financial Times)

People are more ignorant then they think they are

People are more ignorant then they think they are. 🚽Do you know how exactly toilet works when you flush? You think you do but... 🐝The society is a hive mind to some extent (we have problems to draw a line on which knowledge is in our head and which is not). Our hyper social setting enabled to develop culture, civilization and with the internet (memes are fastest comparing to genes) hive mind is more available then any time in history (similar jump was probably with language and then written word). In our society best skill is to know where and how to search information, how to process it and where to put it then keep it in our head. Our individual deliberate thinking is limited (on our area of expertise and still cant encompass all), but we are using our collective information processing and knowledge storage (the whole is more than its parts). Most of great discoveries and thoughts were actually discovered through collective intelligence, we just usually contribute them to someone who formulated and propagated them most loudly. 📰On history: complex causes of some event in history is usually switched for some mythos/narativ that serves some learning/explanatory purposes, usually for some side. In this way events was usually recorded and told - they were formed for what you want to say, not for actual facts (see Bible for example). ⚖️The fact of collective knowledge also points out that distributed processing (capitalism) is better then central processing (communism), because more knowledge is involved in collective decision making. The knowledge illusion is especially visible in politics... This book shows how we evolved this collective meme mind and its features and flaws. Human hive mind grow in complexity over time in comparison to unchanging hive mind of the bees for example (memes vs genes). 🖲Very interesting idea for me was also that computers, internet and alike technology is now more and more part of our hive mind/knowledge - therefore is actually beyond our control/grasp (but we have a blind spot there more or less) and it can lead to singularity. But for now, we trust to our silicon friends as human extensions, which they are not - they dont understand our intentions, which can lead to disasters on airplanes etc. 📚For more information about human thinking and its fallibility I would recommend How We Know What Isnt So from Thomas Gilovich and classics Thinking Fast and Slow from Daniel Kahneman. Also Yuval Noah Hararis books explain from a bit different view how we construct shared stories/virtual realities. ➡️My conclusion is that we know much less how things work than we think (but there are many people that thinks they are experts on everything), so with some critical thinking and verification (for example by peer review, background), listen to the experts!

some golden nuggets and a lot of fluff

book was ok and has some enlightening points, but it also has a lot of unnecessary information. It also takes some controversial topics and kind takes a side then calls you ignorant because the "facts" say so. e.g big bang, global warming etc

Sobering insights

Really enjoyed this book. The only caveat is, don't take this as gospel, there are several questionable assertions made...But hey, that's what this is all about.

Separating from your belief herd? May not be so easy.

We are our beliefs and those beliefs are embedded in us by our religious, cultural and educational groups. If and when you discover the core, let’s say creationist, beliefs of your faith group are wrong, you’ll lose not only your beliefs, but the body of people to which those beliefs belong. We never think alone. It’s like that commercial “can you hear me now?” Without the same beliefs, you lose communication and identity in the group. You lose not only faith, but community. This book helps explain the critical division in national politics in the US, UK, Germany and Brazil as well as helps us think about divisions around immigration, class, and Islamophobia. It’s a must read for anyone interested in challenging their own assumptions. They in fact are not simply your own.

great insight into our delusional selves.

You will contemplate and study more after reading. You may even tie your tongue when you internalize the meaning of this book.

Challenging and thoughtful

While a bit dry and academic, the ideas presented are interesting and eye opening. The concepts presented challenged me to consider what I REALLY know, giving me pause now before I espouse to be knowledgeable about any given topic.

Welcome insight into what we do and don't know

Informative look at humans and how we process information and perceive knowledge. The authors look at how modern times (and the attendant mass quantities of information and the increasingly specialized nature of expertise) and technology (which makes such information nominally available to anyone with Internet access) combine to make present-day humans simultaneously ignorant while believing themselves to be well-informed. The most interesting parts of the book for me where the sections discussing how individuals mistake the ability to find information for current knowledge, but in fact we often do not know how things work or the nuances of complex processes. Other parts of the book discuss topics that have been handled in book length by other authors, so are less new but nicely integrated into the whole. This includes heuristics, how people react to evidence that cuts against their beliefs, the impact of such processes on politics and opinion, and suggestions for how to become more truly knowledgeable. The authors make persuasive and necessary cases for the fact that no one has the time or mental capacity to truly understand nuance in all the areas necessary for daily life, that we have to rely on experts for certain things, and that a key to being informed is to learn how to evaluate experts. Which is a lesson everyone should learn.

great synthesis of ideas

this book got me thinking really hard. it was wonderful. I started it thinking that illusion was too big an idea but by the end I was convinced.

Feels a little biased

Some interesting concepts like how knowledge is everywhere and we offload the knowledge onto everyday objects. Also we assume people have the same knowledge as us.

Seems a little anti-religion and anti jack of all trades mentality. This can be summarized by focusing on a specific trade and knowing your limitations.

The person reading the information is amazing as usual.

I recommend this book

The authors provide great insight into why we trust or own knowledge too much. They have some practical recommendations on how we can ride above our illusions.