The Illusion of Knowledge Could Get You Killed!

A few weeks ago I watched an episode of Brain Games–a television show on the National Geographic Channel–that challenges how you think and attempts to show you how your brain really works. I can say that I thoroughly enjoy the series and look forward to new episodes each week.

Anyway, this particular episode (I think it was titled “What You Don’t Know”) explored how and why the brain will make up answers in an effort to be right even when you know darn good and well you DON’T know the answer, even if only subconsciously.

***Spoiler Alert***

I’m going to use a few of the examples from the show to point out what I mean. Here they are:

1. People were asked to give a range of numbers that was “guaranteed” to include the number of countries in Africa. FYI, there are 55 countries. Of the people asked (at least those shown) they all gave fairly narrow ranges that did NOT include the correct number. For example, they might have said 15-30, 22-40, or whatever. The thing is they could have easily said one to one million and that would have covered it for sure.
2. People were shown a model train that had words written on each train car. They might have said things like “coal,” “tracks,” “engineer,” and so on… basically words relating to trains and railroads. They had to memorize these words as the train passed by. Then they were then shown a second train with different words written on the train cars and subsequently asked to state which word on the second train was also on the first train. The trick is that NONE of the words on the second train were on the first train, yet one of the words (I can’t remember what it is now) was the only one related to trains and railroads and, as you might suspect, people choose the related word as being THE word that was on the first train. In other words, they didn’t know and assumed it must have been correct.

There were other examples but I don’t want to spoil the whole show for you and I assume you’re starting to see what I’m getting at… er’, maybe I shouldn’t assume? 😉

The thing is that rather than admitting they didn’t know the answer–either to other people and even to themselves–their brain still choose to answer the question rather than admit defeat! I think that’s an amazing defensive mechanism and one that could possibly get you killed!!

Why?

Well, just think about how dangerous it could be to not know that water and electricity don’t mix or that hiding under an overpass to shelter from a passing tornado is the wrong thing to do? I’m sure you can come up with plenty of other examples and I hear you saying: “But that’s plain common sense!” Maybe it is for you, but certainly not for everyone. I would venture say the sheeple don’t know many things we would take for granted. What about your your children and spouse? What things might THEY assume they know (and really don’t) that could get them killed?

Now is the time to think about and maybe even quiz your loved ones about what it is you assume they knew but really did not? In fact, the same can be said about what you know. Granted, the episode was more about how your brain will react when presented with answering a question that it shouldn’t know the answer to, but I don’t have a clue how to help you keep from answering questions you have no business answering.

I can, however, suggest that “the illusion of knowledge” is a very good reason to always be learning!