Why do we think we understand the world more than we actually do?

Everyone should be required to sign up for a year of being followed around by an inquisitive child who will pockmark the landscape of their knowledge with exploratory boreholes.

I have multiple environment and science degrees and feel generally knowledgeable and my oldest will put on his best Feynman face and be entirely unsatisfied when I offer and explain “Rayleigh scattering.”

I love it. I love it so much. I love how curious he is. I love how there is so much to not know. I would hate to know it all because I love exploring it with him.

Here's an example making the rounds, originally from 2022: there is systemic bias in Americans' understanding of US national statistics about all kinds of subgroups:

https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/41556-americans-misestimat...

(Although, apparently the poll didn't ask how uncertain they were. The question was, "If you had to guess, what percentage of American adults...")

I'm only here to first say I'm not like everyone else I do know things and can explain how things work. And computers work by making rocks think by putting magic smoke in them.

I suspect mainly because you don't and can't understand the world; you understand whatever simplified model of the world is inside your head and by default it's real unobvious just how simplified exactly.

"Science is prediction, not explanation" - Hoyle.

There needs to be more "prediction depth", vs. explanatory depth. If you can explain something but can't predict what's going to happen, you don't have an understanding of it sufficient for engineering.

This is why economics is not much of a science. Not enough predictive power.

> Why do we think we understand the world more than we actually do?

To repurpose a quote originally about believing in good-versus-evil:

> Lord Vetinari gave [Vimes] a friendly smile.

> “Of course, of course,” he said. “You have to believe that, I appreciate. Otherwise you’d go quite mad. Otherwise you’d think you’re standing on a feather-thin bridge over the vaults of Hell. Otherwise existence would be a dark agony and the only hope would be that there is no life after death. I quite understand.” He looked at his desk, and sighed.

-- Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

I feel like its human psychology that as we get exposed to the world and we learn it, we feel like we form an understanding of the world around us at a sufficient level to survive in our current circumstances. Then we have all sorts of stimuli and feedback that tell us whether our understanding is correct or not overtime. Sometimes we challenge that understanding and realise that we were wrong. Life is an iterative process of that.

Then as we move into building a career, we essentially need to understand a topic or field to a degree that we're useful enough to sell it or provide it as a service compared to others.

Do I understand some things more than others? Perhaps. Do I need to understand everything about a particular thing to be knowledge on it, perhaps not.

> Unfortunately, when information is not directly in front of us, our memories and conceptions of it are shaky at best―but our egos are still intact.

I have often found this when as part of my job I have been exposed to a particular area of my field. But years later when presented with questions about it, whilst I can't extract all of the information I have learnt, but if my memory is jogged the information comes back. For example, lets say you learnt a particular skill 5 years ago, but now you struggle to perform it. Egotistically you know you've been able to do it, but your lack of training in recent years prevents you from doing it.

I think it's because we don't really want to understand the world. I think it's because we mentally create microcosms that we more or less understand, at least from a practical perspective, and then try and fit the world within those frameworks. Some people get really good at constructing frameworks and manipulating them and they think they understand the world because for them especially, they've ceased to understand this process and they've sublimated it.

Also see;

Wikipedia on Illusion of explanatory depth - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth

The misunderstood limits of folk science: an illusion of explanatory depth - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3062901/

How you can learn in a world of information overload - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbiyPOn-__M

The structure and function of explanations - https://cognition.princeton.edu/publications/structure-and-f...

The Science of a Good Explanation with Tania Lombrozo - https://www.annieduke.com/the-science-of-a-good-explanation-...

A good test of this kind of thing is the "jump-start civilization" game. Basically imagine oneself sent back in time and think about how useful or likely useless all your modern knowledge would be at different periods.

in some sense you could push science so far ahead, germ theory, the structure of the atom, the immune system, silicon chips. All these "broad stroke" discoveries that you already know about. But when it comes down to brass tacks what is it worth? Like I know how a thermos works, and why it works, but heck if I know how one would actually consistently manufacture an evacuated double walled container. sent far enough back you would need to invent the vacuum pump, machines, maybe even steel itself just to produce a simple thermos.

makes you realize for all your knowledge you really never know absolutely everything, and that even simple things rely on chains of discovery, manufacturing and a whole lot of little details that we just don't think about ever.

I don't know ... I actually think I'm quite aware of a lot of how complicated many things can be.

Perhaps it is because I was really curious as a kid about how things work, peeked into things, really tried to understand how it works, and figured it was far from easy.

I also tried to draw bikes, and figured you really have to think it through quite hard the first times, lol.

> On the whole, people far too often hold strong opinions about topics for which they have limited information. This can cause social and political movements to have plenty of people behind them with limited ideas of what they are even fighting for.

Same reason we think we’re smarter than we actually are?

To me it seems, most of the time people will skip their knowledge gaps when explaining things, convincing themselves that there are none.

When you talk with a real expert on a topic, you can tell immediately, because answers are comprehensive yet short as well as answers to follow up questions.

Some even manage to explain things easier to understand at the same time.

A toilet's operation wouldn't be too hard to explain to an alien who has enough science for interstellar travel. A siphon mechanism works the same way for them as for us (although they'd likely wonder at how primitive we are to be using such a wasteful mechanism).

"If you're toilet is leaking its probably a faulty flapper" is rooted into my brain. What is a flapper, and why is it called a flapper?

If you reach the point where you actually do understand the world better than you did before, it can be a slippery slope :\

The Decision Lab is a great website. Always top-notch written information.

It's the unknown unknowns:

"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."

An excellent quote from Donald Rumsfeld, despite being an absolute cunt.

What I commonly see is people take a mental model that worked in the past and apply it in another context assuming it will work again. Irregardless of different constraints, people, or technologies. Agile cult members are the worst offenders. Second on my list are the HR pop psychology fads like Myers Briggs and Fish!

We are so full of ourselves we called ourselves Homo sapiens, wise man, but wise we don't seem to be.

I recently faced this feeling of overconfidence in knowledge trying to think about how seasons work or why rainbows have a curved or arcing shape.

You might think seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth, but why? Exercise left for the reader.