Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Knowledge Illusion 20170811 : vim

We are delighted to have you at this event. The authors. [inaudible] coauthored the new book, why would never think alone. Stephen is a cognitive scientist. Helps people thing. A front close friend of mine for many years and the editor of a prestigious journal cognition. His turning conversation today but a professor of economics at mit. His with the department of brain and cognitive sciences. Before we begin. Please silence your phones. I am the direction of the mit press. It is a pleasure to welcome you. We just started doing the series of events and they been successful. If youre enjoying this, we do events about every two weeks. The next one coming up is on ma. Johns book dream trip chasers. Tonights event will last approximately 45 or 50 minutes before the book signing. Well start off talking about the book and then well have questions and moderator conversation for the audience before we do the book signing. I think i covered everything. After the presentation, with the signing books will be available for 20 discount. I dont think i need this mike . No. Think you so much amy. And thank you for coming up. Start by telling you an anecdote from the book. In the 40s atomic physicists were trying to perfect the atomic bomb. Eight atomic physicists, people who know atomic physics better than anybody, they were developing the bomb in eight of them coalesced in this room to run this experiment. An experiment the famous physicist called tickling the dragons tail. It involved taking to hemisphere a beryllium that had plutonium core bringing them closer together and then neutrons with spark, shuffling back and forth between the hemispheres and it was dangerous. You could have a lot of radioactivity. The main physicists running the experiment, a guy named louis was keeping the hemispheres separated by a flat head screwdriver. So what happened . The screwdriver slipped, the hemisphere came together. Radiation filled the room is slowed and was dead within nine days. The other physicists, they died young, probably from the effects of this radioactivity. So, the question the question in the book is, how can such smart people be so stupid . The first claim made by the book is that people are relatively ignorant. And thats a fact in the sense that 25 of americans dont know the earth revolves around the sun. 50 dont know that penicillin kills bacteria, not viruses. Talkshow host make fun of this all the time, many people cannot name the Vice President of the united states. But, the real point of the book is that people think they understand things better than they do. The main form of evidence for this originated in the lab of a great psychologist and what he did was ask people to think about simple everyday objects like livers, ballpoint pens, toilets, and yes people how well they understood them and people thought they had us sense of understanding. I said how do they work . And what people discovered was for the most part they had nothing to say. They did not understood how these everyday objects works. So when he again asked the the ratings were lower. The act of trying to explain punctured their illusion of understanding such that they lost some of it. What i have done with some colleagues at harvard and craig at ucla this take this paradigm and run it in the context of political policy. We take political policy like should there be lit unilateral sanctions on iran . We ask people how will they understand them, never say how will does it work and we see how does that work . And people dont know. So when we again asked them whether sense of understanding is it slower. We punctured their illusion of understanding, we also puncture their confidence in their attitude. They become less extreme and reduce polarization in the group. So, this is something that is probably true for only certain kinds of political issues, mainly those that rest on a consequential foundation. Those that which is the mechanism by which the policy operates that really counts. Like for cap and trade policy, what matters is how it affects people how it affects peoples willingness to put carpet in the air. Other issues like abortion or assisted suicide which arent about consequences as much as basic values. I dont think the same thing would happen for those kinds of issues. The next thing we do is try to explain why this is the case. Why said that people live in the solution of understanding or what, calls in illusion of explanatory death. The answer we offer is that its because we confuse what we know with what other people know. Theres other people who know how ballpoint pens work and therefore we do. Theres other people who know how cap and trade policies work and therefore we do. We failed to distinguish the knowledge in our head from the knowledge in other peoples. In other words, the claim is we live in a community of knowledge. So were built and that itself is a collaborative process. A process in which involves the team and does not go on so let me quickly describe an experiment which tries to make this point directly. We told people about a scientific phenomena. Something we made up. We told about a system of helium rain which my scientific friend says is not even possible. We made it up as a scientist discovered this but dont understand how it works. How well do you understand how works . And not surprisingly, people said, i dont understand it at all. And then they chose the number one. The another group, they understand how it works. They fully explain it how old you understand how it works . So its not like they feel they fully understand helium rain. But understanding thats attributable to the fact that other people understand. They give them no information about it. And now they understand. So think about this in the last election. Imagine everyone around you things they understand why hillary is cricket. Or, lets be fair, they understand why diversity is affected. Nearly the fact that everybody else understands, if understanding is contagious in the way that were suggested it will give you a sense of understanding. If everybody sense of understanding with everybody around them having a sense of understanding then they couldnt have a lot of confidence and belief based on nothing. Its basically house of cards. The last thing is to draw up science, c intelligence, decisionmaking, technology, and one or two other things that are not remembering. Thats what the book is about. As a reader of the book and some related things that a film that was new and let me to things in a different way is it great to read as well. Maybe we can put you on the couch, so its interesting especially with someone writes a book it goes through the editorial process and so on. A minister with one innocent question in the sense that the knowledge illusion is a bad thing. Its not so obvious that it is a bad thing. One could say that knowledge illusion shows that were communitarian species and if we rely that will become locked on her own individual cell. So is that a bad thing there is knowledge illusion . Think other is the question. No. I think youre absolutely right for the most part when it comes to ballpoint pens and toilets and sippers. Its not about that at all. In fact, in many other domains of life in our spiritual lives there is no problem with the fact that we think together. That we think its a team and think collaboratively. Indeed, it is a great way to solve problems. In fact, it sort of relieves us of a kind of burden. We dont have to understand everything. If we accept facts about ourselves tomorrow nick grants is easier. Theres less pressure on us. In fact, we got an email from this one guy who said that it suffered his whole life with some kind of mental disorder, he did not elaborate what it was and that it was such a relief for him to learn to that its okay to be ignorant. So in that regard, i agree completely. I just think there are certain domains in which there are ill effects. I think populism and politics is something that can cause damage. Im worried about the state of the world right now. I think it has something to do with the fact that we are living with this set of beliefs, this ideology that doesnt really have a firm ground. There are other ill effects too. I think teams could probably work Better Together if the individuals and the teams had more respect for the point of view of others. So both on the largescale in the small, i do think there are prescriptions that could be derived from these insights. Overall, i agree with you completely. Theres not a problem, not an inherent problem with them. I have a related question. It has to do with the general topic of collected knowledge which has been in the popular imagination and scientific imagination the last ten or 15 years. My question is motivated, is there a particular political preference and, i look at the example of crowd it turns out that Prediction Markets most of the interest of these are the individuals knowing who are pushing this comes from the libertarian agenda where you dont want to trust credential experts, you on everybody and a democratic way to contribute to the outcome. In your book, it seems that one of the themes is that we claim to much knowledge on her own parts and that our contribution are smaller than we think. You mentioned scientific and artistic achievement where people dont realize how much they spent, that seems to have an effect is not libertarian, or that we should understand to what extent a very small part of the whole. Set a motive . It is certainly a theme, its not in the background, its in the foreground. Its not a motive, its a fax. So, yes. Thats definitely an implication of the book. Its an implication i would be willing to defend in the domain of Prediction Markets. Im certainly aware Prediction Markets. We talk about them a little bit in the book. I was not aware that they came out of a libertarian perspective. Seems to me much of the value of Prediction Market is the means of sucking out the expertise in the community. That is, the people willing to pay the most and to risk the most on their prediction presumably should be the people who know the most. And have the most knowledge to bear. Ive i said thats the reason that Prediction Markets are successful. Thats surprising. Theres other evidence showing the people that are most confident know the lease, not the most. So david has done a lot of work showing and asking people what their views are in various issues and then measuring their knowledge about the background of finding people who do the worst on general knowledge test are the ones most confident. There was in which a bunch of researchers asked the group to locate the ukraine on the map. Most people were way off, some people got it close. But they also essays people how confident they were that the u. S. Should intervene on the warren crimea. The people were the most off and locating ukraine on the map it were the ones most confident that said they should intervene in crimea. Thats an example of the converse. How knowledge leads to lack of confidence. In the case of Prediction Markets i have assumed its true expertise that the Prediction Market was picking out. Video with Prediction Markets is that you would need a phd or credentials to vote on what should be done. I dont want to be done maybe just one more quick question which goes more to the research, is for the people infuse zero confidence with how much they think some information is generally shared. But, you have results that it really matters whether you believe someone else know something, but ultimately it has to be accessible. The knowledge. So in this contagious understanding experiment, the helium rain example but i describe earlier, we had a condition in which the researchers work for darpa, the Defense Intelligence agency. In one condition they understood the phenomena but it was secret. So people had no access to it. The question was, would, knowing the knowledge was out there but also knowing that you, the judge had no access to that knowledge, would that increase your sense of understanding . And the answers, didnt. So, knowing that others understand her believing that others understand sis something increases your sense of understanding but only if you can access that knowledge. It doesnt even have to be other people, can be machines. Theres evidence that if you been searching googles for answers for questions then you feel like youre a better question answer. I think we should give the audience a chance to ask questions. You didnt need the microphone, they are taping. I like to know your promoting your book, so im wondering why i should buy your book. In other words, how my gonna benefit from reading your book . You tell me certain things that i already knew. Son being serious,. [inaudible] i dont know what to say. You hope. Will two main lessons, two main lessons that i think the book draws, one is that most people have an inflated sense of their own understanding. No one in this room, im sure are outside this room. Second, the reason for this is because we should thing about this is a communal enterprise, not something going on inside the head. Im glad you already know that. Its true that its not a completely novel idea by any means. Its also antithetical to it a lot of people pursue. Cognitive scientist for the most part assume that that does go on inside the head and thats what was study and how we talk about it. Hello. Im in a be the annoying person that asks what it means to say that we know things. Everybody probably agrees there are 46 chromosomes for humans and so on. Probably almost nobody has actually replicated the experiment that caused us to know these things. So what is it mean to say that we know them rather than that we have the solution that we know them . So, it seems like youre reiterating my points, that we feel we understand these things and actually we took a poll, my guess is that fewer people in this room know those things than you think. So maybe im wrong. Even mit can be suppressed. So exactly. One point of communal knowledge is that we depend on worked on by others. The most of the things that we do as laypeople and scientists depend entirely on the knowledge that fits in other peoples head. Seems to be the point youre making and thats the point of the book. So most of the methodologies that we use and those that up and developed and demonstrated elsewhere, we dont replicate them. If i someone elses serum really to i go out and do that. I depend on what other people know. I cannot agree more. Is for us to find me knowledge, thats a separate issue that maybe we can talk about later. Hello. I was thinking about what youre saying and i was wondering, do you have any thoughts as to the fact that different groups of people may have different knowledge from each other. Im thinking about people in academia and how you might be in different fields people may be sideload it if theyre approaching a similar problem they might approach it in a different way. Im thinking of this book i read called and intelligent, the author talks about interesting inventors and among other things he talks about how people who come up with really Good Solutions to things may come from a totally different background may be a different Knowledge Base for people and feels that traditionally solve the problem. So do you have any thoughts on how we might leverage this ability we have to think collaboratively but also avoid pitfalls that can produce . I think what youre pointing out so eloquently is that there is a division of cognitive labor that we are all experts in only one or two very narrow areas and to accomplish anything we need expertise thats distributed across the range of possible fields. I think society is structured to a large degree in accordance with what im talking about. In accordance with the fact that there is a community of knowledge that exists because we each have our own narrow area of expertise. To publish most things a little substance we have to divide up cognitive labor. To build a ballpoint pen you need somebody who is a material scientists and some of them knows about fluid dynamics and theres all these different expertise. What youre pointing out his society has taken that into account in the reason were able to build iphones and some people to the moon and have wonderful bookstores is because we take advantage of that distribution of expertise. In a sense, we are doing the. Just what lessons are about how we can do this better. The little bit i would say about that is that we would have a little less humorous about our expertise and areas beyond our own narrow field. Should better appreciate exactly what youre saying. That other people to all kinds of useful things and have different useful knowledge that we dont have direct access to. The diversity of perspectives is a good thing. My question and im reading the book. So i think about this is a bubble, that this book is breaking that bubble for me and the awareness that is there. My question, lets have a leader and have a team and i want them to understand and be aware of this. I want you to give me a suggestion of how can i tell them this is important to take very Big Decisions like you said. There things that really need to know that are important but there are others that people should know and assume and maybe we should read more im not going to give them a test until the you know lesson you think you know, how can i converse them in a way for them to read your book. Thats a great question. The truth is, im not going to offer a satisfied answer. I dont think anybody has a satisfied answer to offer. One thing i will say is that getting people to focus on mechanism can be really enlightening. So the primary experiment of the paper in which we demonstrate the illusion is simply works by asking people to explain. The basic idea that the best way to persuade someone is to have them persuade themselves. And the way to do that in this case is to ask people for an account. Youre right, that can be kind of threading. And we have run experiments were we reverse the illusion of understandinunderstanding by aso explain that we see if now they want to learn more. Have we reduce them to be open to new information . In the answers, no. Once you make people feel ignorant they really dont want to talk to anymore. Its a fine line between getting people to see what they can to on one hand, and stroking them on the other. And that is an art. I have two questions related. On one hand i would like to give anything to contribute to the understanding of why fake news is so successfully spreading. Been you need to have trust in what you believe or dont believe. And many people believe in these news. On the other hand, i would like to know whether you think that the phenomenon you describe is changing. Theres Political Polarization doesnt increase ignorance in some way . The basic idea that we live in a community of knowledge and that the mind is built on collaboration i take to be basic facts about humanity that have been true since the beginning of time since were hunters and gatherers. What is changing is our modes of interaction. It seems to me that america, especially america has outpaced the dynamics that it is facing the. The answer going to give you selfevident. Because of the internet and the internet has changed everything. It is not only that we have lived in these bubbles for former walls and the work enough to people who live next door who might have a different political perspective. Instead of reaching out to people in bosnia have the same political perspective and that has been made worse were seeing only what we want to see, facebook and google delivered to us. Our bubbles are getting firmer and firmer. At the same time, the oldstyle leadership is disappearing. We know people dont go to church is much. They dont have this common voice that delivers the same perspective on the news. Thats regardless of medical persuasion. There been a lot of people suggesting that intellectuals are moving more to the city. And as a result people are appealing more to the bubble in order to get their perspective both validated one way to characterize the point of the book is rather than thinking of people as processors of information, we should think of people is channeling their community. So what this implies about fake news is both good news and bad news the bad news is that it is the means by which people acquire their belief to large degree. If we channel our community im not sure it matters so much in this sense that whether its real or fake people are going to believe what theyre Community Tells them anyway. Its not obvious to me that fake news is having a huge effect on their belief in society. When you look at how adults think about things, alaska about two Different Things particularly people from different cultures and who think that they think their little children great questions. The data are in i have no reason to think that they wouldnt i assume bushman and the caller hurry but more inside their own individual line. Also collaborators. That is the source of the illusion. My prediction would be indeed show the illusion. Its harder to show that population and that would be important work to be done. I like to ask you about the reasoning between individual and group reasoning. This is something that develops revolutionary and try to convince them. One of these predictions of the serious that they could be more powerful or more effective in finding the truth on the other hand, theres other planning from psychology those people try to pursue each other theres products to affect. [inaudible] what would be your call . Is group reasoning more powerful . I have not yet read the book although its on my bedside table. I think it has got to be more powerful because that is the nature of reasoning. In thinking about off the visit probably the best way to think about that form of deliberation. So, should say that im a two system theorist. I do believe that we have a strong intuition. Then we can think of as forms of reasoning. So, we will see patterns and make predictions about the future and explain things how essentially sophisticated pattern completion process that is intuitive we see what the outcome is although we dont see with the processes that delivers it. I would distinguish from deliberation. I love the word to liberation precisely because a person two different senses of deliberation. On one hand, deliberation you can think of us a cognitive process, a process of thought. The jurys deliberate to come to conclusion, and we do that, but i agree that which fit more effectively in a group level. The other argument that the mind evolves to argue i have more trouble with. I think the mind evolve to do all kinds of things. Storytelling is at least if not more important than argumentation. There are all kinds of systems that we learn culturally that we pass, or disclose to develop culturally. Im not sure that thinking about reasoning is a process of argumentation is in the end going to lead us in the best direction. I want to ask a question, it occurs to me that there are some similarities where the method which is an old trick of asking a person questions and showing them the dont really understand what they mean, thats one comment. The standard device is to show the other person that you can recreate an argument and then we can disagree. If that is in connection with this. I would be perfectly happy with that. Again, dont want to say theres something fundamentally new here. A lot of these ideas have history. When kyle originally did this work people suffer from the illusion with regard to how things work. But, they dont short with respect to narrative, or script it like state capitals. The very specific illusion but the one domain in which the student is in the domain of logical justification. People do apparently have the sense that they can justify their belief to greater extent than they can. I think matt has a question. How do people know what confidence youre asking about when you say do you understand . When he say to understand helium ray. And i think i could probably muddle through a conversation but if a student of mine asked do you understand helium ring, by brother asked whats different. So, when you have these questions, would you think these people are thinking . When we run the experiment we give a sheet of instructions by what by what we mean by understanding. One means youre unfamiliar, seven means youre the worlds expert and you can answer all questions. I take your point to be in an experimental context people can understand saying in many ways. The word understanding is vague and they could understand that to mean many Different Things. That is true. I dont think that effexor conclusion. In this contagious understanding experiment, what was shows that by saying other people understand causes people to put a higher number down on the scale. So, what exactly does that number mean . I dont know. Your point is well taken. I can tell you this. Its higher than the number the people put down when the scientist dont understand. So, whatever understanding means, when other people have it people have a greater sense of it. After listening to all of your talk im compelled to ask early spring up the topic of the argument of Climate Change in the in the political arena. I know theres Climate Change that we have to go to alternative energy. But if you are test me to explain, dont think i could either. So i should i be so proud of myself . Your policy saying you dont know what you are talking about. How would you respond. In the same way i did to this gentleman earlier, that, we all rely on expertise and really the question is, which experts are regrettably. In the case of Climate Change, im with you. I believe in upwards of scientists and climatologists who studied this and say we should worry about it. But if someone says the scientists only believe in Climate Change to get published or grant money, the truth is, all i can do is say thats not the culture of science that i know. But, its a problem. Theres some uncertainty that comes from the fact that we have to trust our experts. But look, we have to trust our experts, its all we can do. I cant fix my toilet by myself. I have to trust the experts. I can eat potato chips if i dont trust the expert who makes them. I think its a hard problem but its easier than trying to explain how everything works to every individual. I was wondering if you could comment on the people that are most from most often . Whether theres any complacency across those people that maybe the extent to which academic might be at the part of this route. And any subject Matter Expert in my believe their subject Matter Expertise in one area makes them experts in a wider variety. I cannot speak to the last issue. I have not heard of any studies on it, i can tell you that the people who suffer from the knowledge illusion are people were not reflected. Some of you may be familiar with this cognitive reflection test and simple creative test developed by Shane Frederick set yell. It essentially asked whether people tell you whats on your mind immediately or whether they verify before whats on their mind. So, this is not from the tests. Some may have heard of this if i asked how many animals the east kind to know put on the arc some people say two, the difference is that generating the responses nonreflective some people uttered. Other people verify and realize no, thats not right. So, people who suffer from the knowledge illusion tend to be the non reflective tie. If you test people who are reflective you see it. Presumably thats because they explain before they respond. How well do you understand how ballpoint pens work . People who are reflective think and try to explain how they work. Before they even put down the response so, our scientist more reflective but youll be surprised how many nonreflective scientists are. Shane ran this cognitive reports. Mit and Harvard Students mit was the best but is still the case well over half turned out not to be reflected. Thats the best i can do as they were in the saint experts, at some level there is nobody only people like in the bigshot movie were five guys are ten guys. [inaudible] they did not listen should shouldnt that nationality. [inaudible] absolutely, that should be part of it. [inaudible] people commended so what more is following her. And you shouldnt necessarily do it. So it would be a great advantage to not to it. There is an example to demonstrate. But dont mistake not following the herd with always been right. If speak to this but clearly following the herd at least for a while. We have run out of time but i want to thank the speaker. [applause] we have a short book signing. Some people have reserved books ahead of time and you are welcome to guide them there. Thanks again. Thanks to all of you for coming