[quotes] The Knowledge Illusion - Steven Sloman and Phillip Fernbach 2017

"Our intelligence resides not in individual brains but in the collective mind."

"We all suffer, from a greater or lesser extent, from an illusion of understanding, an illusion that we understand how things work when in fact our understanding is meager."

"Our skulls may delimit the frontiers of our brains, but they do not delimit the frontier of our knowledge."

"Looking closer at things just raises more questions. There is always more to understand."

"... It's about what causes people to act and how you can modify their motivations, to make them think they're doing something for a different reason than they initially thought."

"When a community agrees to buy into a particular story, they are accepting the attitude implied by the story."

"My ability to act doesn't depend on the knowledge that happens to be in my head at a given moment; it depends on what knowledge I can access when I need it."

"The curse of knowledge is that we tend to think what is in our heads is in the heads of others. In the knowledge illusion, we tend to think what is in others' heads is in our heads. In both cases, we fail to discern who knows what."

"Each of us has our little window on the world, a little bit of knowledge that we have access to."

"We may individually suffer from the knowledge illusion, but the expertise that's present in a crowd can overcome individual biases."

"The power that culture has over cognition just swamps these attempts at education."

"Apparently, the fact that a strong majority of people has some preference does not mean that their opinion is informed."

"... great philosopher and political activist Bertrand Russell said, 'The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists.'"

"Getting people to think beyond their own interests and experiences may be necessary for reducing their hubris and thereby reducing polarization."

"... thinking through the consequences of a policy is hard - very hard. It's much easier just to hide one's ignorance in a veil of platitudes about sacred values."

"... people are less inclined to seek new information after finding out they were wrong. Causal explanation is an effective way to shatter the illusion, but people don't like having their illusion shattered."

"A good leader must be able to help people realize their ignorance without making them feel stupid."

"The idolization of individuals, as well as our corresponding failure to appreciate the role of the communities they represent, is more than just a ruse to simplify complex histories. The images we retain of these individuals shape how we think about the events they participated in."

"Understanding where you fit requires understanding not only what you know but also what others know that you don't."

"In every domain of life, knowledge is interdependent. The knowledge that I'm legally responsible for is not necessarily in my head."

"Learning and performance benefit from having a greater range of expertise. Having a diverse group of people of different backgrounds, classes, genders, and races can only increase that range."

"The big lesson of the nudge approach is that it is easier and more effective to change the environment than it is to change the person."