This makes me think of the concept of cognitive closure in philosophy. In essence, humans can understand things only up to a limit in the chain of evolution - just like an animal, for example, an ant can "understand" things only up to its limit. This provides a better context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_closure_(philosophy).
Is this something similar to what you mean?
Mental models humans create for different things like space and time, are heavily influenced by the structure of our brain neural network and previous experience. I would say that structure however plays much greater role in creating mental models in compare to experience. Not sure if a research exists on this subject? Probably yes? Findings would definitely be interesting to make further conclusions on cognitive closures regarding humans.
I think the main weapon for shaping and playing with our mental models is abstraction and reduction. With these we might be able to extend the limits of our understanding of things beyond what we inherited from out evolutionary history.
That way we developed tools like mathematics which further enables us to prove theories completely opposing "common sense" and intuition.
I think we have preconditions to extend our limits of understanding significantly. What do you think?
I do wonder about the "unknown unknowns" of tools that are accessible to humans. You mention one tool: "mathematics which further enables us to prove theories completely opposing "common sense" and intuition."
I'm curious if humans are closed off to advanced tools. For instance, an ant is closed off to the tools accessible to us (i.e., math and science). Does evolution need to move forward, for instance, via emergence (i.e., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence), and construct new species? And will these new species be able to tap into more advanced tools?
You also write, "I think we have preconditions to extend our limits of understanding significantly." It could be. For instance, are humans at a level now where they're able to advance brain parts, structures, or wirings and manually be able to "extend our limits of understanding"? It's possible. I think this is where we get back into the "unknown unknowns" territory and how evolved we are in tapping into and changing the limits of cognitive closure.
I do wonder where we are in terms of evolution. Is it possible that there are gaps in our knowledge of evolution? There are theories like "panspermia", which opens up evolution to a unique scale and I wonder how this might play a role in our understanding of cognitive closure.
Any thoughts on empirical literature that talks more about the role of evolution and how different species are cognitively closed off to certain tools?