About the book

If you say that human intelligence is not special, most people will reject it. This is because I believe that humans are special and intelligent.

Illusion of being intelligent

Nevertheless, many experiments on human intelligence, especially the brain, have found that the brain is gullible and sometimes even says nonsense.

This book goes further and says that the profound intellectual ability that humans believe to have is a fiction and nothing more than an impromptu pattern finding.

Misunderstanding in the title

I think the Korean title of this book, “The Illusion of Thinking,” is a mistaken title. This is because the author is not claiming that humans do not think. The original title is “The Mind is Flat: The Illusion of Mental Depth and The Improvised Mind,” and if I were to interpret it in Korean, it would be something like “the illusion of thinking.” It’s not a book title that will sell particularly well.

Controversial claims

Because the way our brain operates is not fully revealed, and the author’s argument is also an opinion, it is necessary to accept the contents of the book critically.

Nevertheless, the author supports his claims with various experimental results, and some of them are considered persuasive.

In my opinion

From here on out, these are my thoughts, which may differ from the author’s claims.

How do humans think?

Human consciousness creates the stage through our experiences and current environment. Through this stage, patterns are found and decisions are made. This process happens one at a time, improvisationally.

It’s not surprising that humans think spontaneously. Because we have all thought and acted spontaneously. There are times when we make split-second decisions that can be called reflexive.

The author’s argument is that all our thoughts and decisions are made spontaneously as above.

Illusion of consideration

Everyone has probably done something called reflection. It is the act of wrapping your head, closing your eyes, and thinking about one thing. According to the author’s argument, these actions are useless. This is because with the same experience and environment, only the same patterns will be found.

The reason why new ideas come to mind easily when we sometimes go outside for a walk or go to an unfamiliar place is because we gain new experiences and environments there, increasing the likelihood of finding new patterns.

It also reminds us how much our decisions are influenced by our experiences and environment.

The brain that makes things up

The most shocking content in the book is an experiment on how our brains deceive us.

The brain does not hesitate to use drawings to rationalize decisions made through thinking. These drawings are accepted without criticism because they themselves accept them without question. In reality, the brain does not know why it made the decisions it made. This is because it is an impromptu pattern finding.

Why humans are special

Unless the human brain structure is completely changed from before, the way we think cannot be very different from that of other animals. Nevertheless, I believe that language is the reason why human intellectual ability is special. Humans can put a variety of information on the stage through language.

Conclusion

We live in a world where metacognition is important. It is the ability to know what I know and what I do not know. I am reminded of the flaws in my decision-making, and I try to accept them in ways that are actually helpful. Even if the author’s argument is completely wrong, there is no harm in thinking it through.

Improvement

If humans only think spontaneously, existing decision-making methods need to be reexamined.

  • Preferences

Because the environment is so important in decision-making, I need to remind myself what kind of environment I am thinking about.

  • Prejudice

Beware of bias due to experience when making decisions. This may be a focus due to my specific experience rather than to make the right decision.

  • Visualization

I believe that by visualizing reliable data and logical structures and putting them on stage, there is a possibility of producing more correct results when finding patterns.

  • Doubt

Keep in mind how fragile your decision-making is.

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