
Bookshelf
Every time I'm not reading, I'm thinking about reading.
46 entries·8 shelves
46 entries
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Credits to Mason Wang for heavily inspiring this format and initial reads.

Every time I'm not reading, I'm thinking about reading.
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Illusion of Explanatory Depth
Psychologists have a name for this tendency to think we understand things better than we do: the “illusion of explanatory depth.”
That's why we need the illusion of explanatory depth: most things have to feel like they make sense, even if they don't, so that we can get on with the business of living.
Okay, so an illusion of explanatory depth is extremely important to staying alive. It does, unfortunately, have a downside: it fools you into thinking the universe isn't full of mysteries.
Psychology is the domain with the deepest illusion of explanatory depth.
One of the quotes that I really liked, as a mathlete, was "But math, perhaps more so than any other intellectual pursuit, emits very strongly what we might call ignorance signals, signs that there's something you don't know."