One should distinguish between common-sense concepts, and their formalization. But since they have the same name, many people fail to see the difference.
For example, people perceive time. Time flow is a thing that everybody feels and knows about; I have a hard time imaging living in a world without it (it’s easy to imagine such a world—just as some static object—but what it means to live in a static world? consciousness thing seems to be very connected to the time concept). Then, people invent some physical theories; in those theories, time is somehow formalized—for example, in relativity theory time is considered an additional dimension. Note that there are two concepts—common-sense-time, and physics-time.
Now a new cool physical theory appears, which declares that the time dimension (or whatever) is redundant, that only spatial positions of particles are required, thus rendering physics-time concept an illusion.
So physics-time is an illusion; but common-sense-time isn’t—it’s still here, in our lives, it hasn’t gone anywhere. Now it just has a different formalization in physics.
Pretty much the same thing is true for other cases: there is a real-world solid fact, and then there are formalizations, theories and concepts built on the top of it; some of them can be wrong.
Money have a subjective value—one can go and exchange it for goods and services; the (obvious) fact that money is paper is irrelevant here. We can consider various economical theories about what money is and how it all works, and conclude they are false (or not), but money itself is certainly a thing and it works somehow. The cake isn’t a lie if you can eat it.
What you are searching for isn’t a list cognitive illusions of things; rather, it is a list of wrong, yet widespread theories of them. Common-sense time exists, but time as an additional dimension, maybe, doesn’t. Common-sense-free-will exists, but philosophical-free-will, maybe, doesn’t. And so on.
Regarding free will, I guess I was probably one of those people who tried to convince you otherwise :)
I agree that there is a common-sense vs formal dimension to the concepts we use. Time is so real in a common-sense way that we measure it precisely and we manage a big part of our lives with it.
Free will and it’s correct conceptualization is critical for our freedom and political systems.
The same goes for money and its use.
I think that a list of “illusions” is more difficult (and controversial!) than a list of cognitive biases.
One should distinguish between common-sense concepts, and their formalization. But since they have the same name, many people fail to see the difference.
For example, people perceive time. Time flow is a thing that everybody feels and knows about; I have a hard time imaging living in a world without it (it’s easy to imagine such a world—just as some static object—but what it means to live in a static world? consciousness thing seems to be very connected to the time concept). Then, people invent some physical theories; in those theories, time is somehow formalized—for example, in relativity theory time is considered an additional dimension. Note that there are two concepts—common-sense-time, and physics-time.
Now a new cool physical theory appears, which declares that the time dimension (or whatever) is redundant, that only spatial positions of particles are required, thus rendering physics-time concept an illusion.
So physics-time is an illusion; but common-sense-time isn’t—it’s still here, in our lives, it hasn’t gone anywhere. Now it just has a different formalization in physics.
Pretty much the same thing is true for other cases: there is a real-world solid fact, and then there are formalizations, theories and concepts built on the top of it; some of them can be wrong.
Money have a subjective value—one can go and exchange it for goods and services; the (obvious) fact that money is paper is irrelevant here. We can consider various economical theories about what money is and how it all works, and conclude they are false (or not), but money itself is certainly a thing and it works somehow. The cake isn’t a lie if you can eat it.
What you are searching for isn’t a list cognitive illusions of things; rather, it is a list of wrong, yet widespread theories of them. Common-sense time exists, but time as an additional dimension, maybe, doesn’t. Common-sense-free-will exists, but philosophical-free-will, maybe, doesn’t. And so on.
Regarding free will, I guess I was probably one of those people who tried to convince you otherwise :)
Thx for your thoughts and taking the time!
I agree that there is a common-sense vs formal dimension to the concepts we use. Time is so real in a common-sense way that we measure it precisely and we manage a big part of our lives with it.
Free will and it’s correct conceptualization is critical for our freedom and political systems.
The same goes for money and its use.
I think that a list of “illusions” is more difficult (and controversial!) than a list of cognitive biases.