The Knowledge Illusion

Steven Sloman

Philip Fernbach

06 April 2017
9781509811052
320 pages

Synopsis

The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire and have stood on the moon, and yet every one of us is fundamentally ignorant, irrational and prone to making simple mistakes every day. Why?

'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.' – Yuval Harari, bestselling author of Sapiens and Homo Deus

In this groundbreaking book, cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach show how our success as a species is down to us living in a rich community of knowledge where we are drawing on information and expertise outside our heads. And we have no idea that we are even doing it.

Utilizing cutting-edge research, The Knowledge Illusion explains why we think we know more than we do, why beliefs are so hard to change and why we are so prone to making mistakes. Providing a blueprint for successful ways to work in collaboration to do amazing things, it reveals why the key to human intelligence lies in the way we think and work together.

Dispel the myth of individual cognition, explore the real origin of our intelligence, and uncover the power of the collective mind with The Knowledge Illusion.

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.
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.
We all know less than we think we do, including how much we know about how much we know. There's no cure for this condition, but there is a treatment: this fascinating book. The Knowledge Illusion is filled with insights on how we should deal with our individual ignorance and collective wisdom.

Books by Steven Sloman