Thursday, December 6, 2012

Invisible Gorilla

Here's a new science-y book to add to the Timicist cannon:  The Invisible Gorilla by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons.

It's yet more evidence that many of our intuitions about how we think are all wrong.  The book deals with several illusions caused by our brain:
  1. The illusion of attention
  2. The illusion of memory
  3. The illusion of confidence
  4. The illusion of knowledge
  5. The illusion of cause
  6. The illusion of potential
True, although stupid and smart people alike are likely to put more trust in confidence.  That's the illusion of confidence.

Study after study shows how we overestimate our brain's ability.  The brain is an amazing machine that does lots of great stuff, but it's not perfect, and we need to recognize its limitations.  This is why we need science:  to remove the personal biases and illusions caused by our brains.

To learn more, see http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/videos.html, or read the book. 
 

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