What is the main message of The Knowledge Illusion?

The main message of The Knowledge Illusion is that we often overestimate our own knowledge and underestimate the role of collective intelligence.

How long does it take to read The Knowledge Illusion?

The reading time for The Knowledge Illusion varies, but it typically takes several hours. However, the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Is The Knowledge Illusion a good book? Is it worth reading?

The Knowledge Illusion is a thought-provoking read that challenges our understanding of knowledge. It offers valuable insights into how our minds work and the importance of collaboration.

Who is the author of The Knowledge Illusion?

The authors of The Knowledge Illusion are Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach.

The Knowledge Illusion Summary of Key Ideas and Review | Steven Sloman & Philip Fernbach

Name: The Knowledge Illusion
Rating: 4.6 (111 reviews)
Author: Steven Sloman & Philip Fernbach

Introduction

What’s in it for me? Learn why we never think alone.

The myth of the lone genius is a compelling one. We’re taught in school that ultra-brilliant individuals like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein are responsible for history’s great scientific discoveries. According to this narrative, intellectual progress is driven by paragons of braininess – people who, for whatever reason, were born with especially capacious minds.

But this isn’t at all the case.

Human intelligence is far more communal than it is personal. Indeed, without a community of cognizant fellow citizens, most of us would barely be able to think at all. By laying out arguments for why that is almost certainly the case, these blinks go a long way toward proving that we never think alone.

In these blinks, you’ll also learn

why a Venus flytrap isn’t like a jellyfish;
how we evolved such big brains; and
that pig genes don’t confer pigginess.

Key idea 1 of 11

The illusion of explanatory depth causes us to think we know more than we actually do.

You can probably ride a bicycle. Most people can – after all, it’s a pretty straightforward activity. Once you master the balance part, simply hop on, push the pedals and off you go. So it stands to reason that you could explain how a bicycle works, right?

Well, you might be surprised. Here’s the thing: people have a habit of overestimating how much they know about how things work, even when they don’t know much at all. This gap between assumed understanding and actual knowledge is called the illusion of explanatory depth, or IoED, for short.

To get an idea of how the IoED works, let’s return to the matter of bikes.

At the University of Liverpool, a psychology professor named Rebecca Lawson put her students’ knowledge to the test by handing out copies of a drawing. It depicted an incomplete bicycle, which lacked, among other parts, a chain, pedals and sections of the frame. She then asked her students to complete the drawing.

The resulting drawings varied in accuracy. One had two sets of pedals; another lacked crucial parts of the frame. Few would have fared well on the open road.

This led the students to an uncomfortable realization: they were unable to articulate knowledge that they’d been sure they possessed, and their understanding was in fact quite shallow. That’s the IoED in a nutshell.

How a bicycle works is just one of many things that people, when put to the test, have difficulty explaining. Other tests have revealed that people overestimate their knowledge of all sorts of everyday objects, from zippers to toilets to wristwatches. Indeed, people tend to overestimate their knowledge of everything.

The inevitable conclusion to be drawn from this fact? People don’t know as much as they think they do.

This leads us to a question that bedeviled early cognitive scientists: how much do we know?

Key idea 2 of 11

The human brain didn’t evolve to store information and the world is extremely complex.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the predominant theory among cognitive scientists was that the brain was basically a sort of organic computer. This makes perfect sense, considering that modern computers and the field of cognitive science emerged in tandem.

Computing wasn’t merely an apt metaphor; it was the foundational model for the nascent discipline. In the first half of the twentieth century, the work of mathematical luminaries such as Alan Turing suggested that the mind might function in much the same way as a computer – and many early cognitive scientists bought into this theory.

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Key idea 3 of 11

The human brain evolved for action, and diagnostic reasoning may be what differentiates us from other animals.

What’s the difference between a Venus flytrap and a jellyfish? Sure, one lives on land, traps bugs and is capable of photosynthesis, while the other floats around in the water, has tentacles and looks bizarre – but what makes them fundamentally different?

Well, one of them is capable of action, and the other is not. This difference is profound, because the ability of organisms to act on and interact with their environment is what led to the evolution of the brain.

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Key idea 4 of 11

It’s hard to reason from effect to cause, so we use storytelling to help us make causal sense of the world.

Do you know the Yiddish story about the shopkeeper whose storefront was defaced by vandals? He cleaned off the offensive graffiti, but it reappeared the next day. So he waited around for the culprits to show up. When they did, he paid them $10 to deface his store again. The next day, he paid them $5 for their troubles. After that, he reduced the payment to $1.

Soon, they stopped showing up entirely. Why do so much work for so little money?

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Key idea 5 of 11

We reason in two different ways: intuitively and deliberatively.

Quick! Answer this question! What animal’s name starts with the letter e? Did you instantly think “elephant”? If so, you’re not alone.

For most people, this answer instantaneously comes to mind, with little or no conscious thought. Why is that?

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Key idea 6 of 11

We think with our bodies and the world around us.

You may not be a philosopher (most people aren’t), but you’re probably familiar with René Descartes’s famous words, Cogito, ergo sum: “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes believed that our ability to think, not our physical body, is what determines our identity, and that engaging in thought is distinct from physical activities.

This Cartesian emphasis on the preeminence of thought contributed to a faulty assumption made by early cognitive scientists, namely that thought is carried out in the mind alone.

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Key idea 7 of 11

Our success as a species is the result of collective intelligence and the ability to collaborate.

Have you ever wondered how our brains got so big? Why did we, unlike all other animals, evolve intelligence so sophisticated that it enabled us to outsmart and prey on larger, fiercer creatures, like mammoths and bison?

Well, the most compelling theory is called the social brain hypothesis.

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Key idea 8 of 11

Machines can’t share intentionality and it’s unlikely that a superintelligence will emerge.

You’ve no doubt heard a news story about some feckless individual who, beguiled by his GPS system, went driving into a lake or down some impassable road. Such things happen with unsettling frequency.

But how could someone be so silly?

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Key idea 9 of 11

Fear of new developments can lead to anti-scientific sentiment, which is hard to reverse.

New technologies can be scary. The possibility of a superintelligence is, however remote, deeply unsettling, so it’s reasonable to be a bit wary of the whiz-bang pace of technological change.

But such fears can also go too far, becoming reactionary rather than reasonable. And this can lead to anti-scientific thought.

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Key idea 10 of 11

We can avoid groupthink by thinking causally and politicians simplify matters by appealing to sacred values.

The horrors of the twentieth century have baffled historians and social scientists for decades. How could so many normal citizens support dictators such as Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Adolf Hitler – men whose policies and politics led to the deaths of millions of innocent people?

Well, one reason is groupthink, a term used by the social psychologist Irving Janis. Groupthink is the tendency of communities (or a sufficient majority of their members) to uncritically arrive at a consensus on a particular issue. When everyone around you believes the same thing, it’s difficult to believe something else. This is what happened in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Communist China – and, clearly, its effects can be catastrophic.

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Key idea 11 of 11

We need to redefine smart and reassess education.

You’re no doubt familiar with Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Einstein. As anyone will tell you, these titans of the twentieth century were responsible for two of history’s major paradigm shifts – one social (civil rights) and the other scientific (the theory of relativity).

But here’s what often goes unmentioned: neither man worked alone. Each benefited from a rich network of collaborators. And each stood on the shoulders of the hard-working individuals who’d come before.

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