The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire and have stood on the moon, and yet every one of us is fundamentally ignorant, irrational and prone to making simple mistakes every day.

In this groundbreaking book, cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach show how our success as a species is down to us living in a rich community of knowledge where we are drawing on information and expertise outside our heads. And we have no idea that we are even doing it.

Utilizing cutting-edge research, The Knowledge Illusion explains why we think we know more than we do, why beliefs are so hard to change and why we are so prone to making mistakes. Providing a blueprint for successful ways to work in collaboration to do amazing things, it reveals why the key to human intelligence lies in the way we think and work together.

Human beings are active agents who can think. To understand how thought serves action requires understanding how people conceive of the relation between cause and effect, that is, between action and outcome. In cognitive terms, the question becomes one of how people construct and reason with the causal models we use to represent our world. A revolution is occuring in how statisticians, philosophers, and computer scientists answer this question. These fields have ushered in new insights about causal models by thinking about how to represent causal structure mathematically, in a framework that uses graphs and probability theory to develop what are called 'causal Bayesian networks'. The framework starts with the idea that the purpose of causal structure is to understand and predict the effects of intervention: How does intervening on one thing affect other things? This question is not merely about probability (or logic), but about action. The framework offers a new understanding of mind: Thought is about the effects of intervention, so cognition is thereby intimately tied to actions that take place either in the actual physical world or in imagination, in counterfactual worlds. In this book, Steven Sloman offers a conceptual introduction to the key mathematical ideas in the framework, presenting them in a non-technical way, by focusing on the intuitions rather than the theorems. He tries to show why the ideas are important to understanding how people explain things, and why it is so central to human action to think not only about the world as it is, but also about the world as it could be. Sloman also reviews the role of causality, causal models, and intervention in the basic human cognitive functions: decision making, reasoning, judgement, categorization, inductive inference, language, and learning. In short, this book offers a discussion about how people think, talk, learn, and explain things in causal terms - in terms of action and manipulation.

Human beings are active agents who can think. To understand how thought serves action requires understanding how people conceive of the relation between cause and effect, between action and outcome. In cognitive terms, how do people construct and reason with the causal models we use to represent our world? A revolution is occurring in how statisticians, philosophers, and computer scientists answer this question. Those fields have ushered in new insights about causal models by thinking about how to represent causal structure mathematically, in a framework that uses graphs and probability theory to develop what are called causal Bayesian networks. The framework starts with the idea that the purpose of causal structure is to understand and predict the effects of intervention. How does intervening on one thing affect other things? This is not a question merely about probability (or logic), but about action. The framework offers a new understanding of mind: Thought is about the effects of intervention and cognition is thus intimately tied to actions that take place either in the actual physical world or in imagination, in counterfactual worlds. The book offers a conceptual introduction to the key mathematical ideas, presenting them in a non-technical way, focusing on the intuitions rather than the theorems. It tries to show why the ideas are important to understanding how people explain things and why thinking not only about the world as it is but the world as it could be is so central to human action. The book reviews the role of causality, causal models, and intervention in the basic human cognitive functions: decision making, reasoning, judgment, categorization, inductive inference, language, and learning. In short, the book offers a discussion about how people think, talk, learn, and explain things in causal terms, in terms of action and manipulation.
"Sloman has written an accessible, popular-level book that will serve as a useful general introduction to the tricky and complex issues involved in understanding causality and its role in cognitive processing. For people who are unfamiliar with the issues and the research involved, this is a good starting point, although parts may require thoughtful rereadings. For people who are generally familiar with the issues but not the recent research or theoretical conceptions (e.g., the use of counterfactuals), this book can serve as a useful guide to update one's knowledge. People who are actively working in this area will probably find this book a quick and enjoyable read."--Michael Palij, PsycCRITIQUES
"The field of Bayesian causal models is becoming increasingly important for theory building in cognitive science. This book provides a lively and lucid introduction to the core concepts, and weaves them together with the latest research on causality and related topics from the cognitive sciences. Elegant and entertaining."--Nick Chater, Director of the Institute for Applied Cognitive Science and Professor of Psychology, University of Warwick
"The scientific analysis of causal systems has become much more sophisticated with recent developments in computer science, statistics, and philosophy during the past decade. For the first time, we have available a comprehensive formal language in which to represent complex causal systems and which can be used to define normative solutions to causal inference and judgment problems. Steven Sloman's book makes these important developments easily accessible to the reader, as well as presenting many of his own exciting applications of these new ideas in behavioral studies of learning and judging causal relationships. This well-written book is full of profound insights and fascinating results. Anyone who wants to know what's going on at the cutting edge of cognitive science should read it." --Reid Hastie, Professor of Behavioral Science, University of Chicago
"In the last 15 years, there has been a quiet revolution in how we model, understand, and learn about the causal structure of the world. Having started in philosophy and computer science, but now vital in psychology and statistics, the causal revolution has been slowed by the conspicuous absence of a truly readable book-length introduction. Fortunately, Steve Sloman has now written one. In a book that includes all the key ideas behind causal modeling but none of the tedious technical details, hundreds of worked examples ranging from marketing to arithmetic, and dozens of applications ranging from how we categorize the world to how we might be evolved to learn about its causal structure, Sloman has made a difficult subject exciting and simple." --Richard Scheines, Professor of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University
"Steven Sloman's Causal Models is the first broadly accessible book to survey an important and growing field of cognitive research: how people understand the causal structure of their world, and the role of causal understanding in all aspects of thinking, perceiving, and acting. No difficult technical concepts are assumed. Important unifying themes are explained clearly and illustrated with numerous examples. It will provide an excellent entry into this field for students, researchers, or interested general readers." --Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Paul E. Newton Career Development Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Human reasoning is remarkably shallow - in fact, our thinking and justifications just scratch the surface of the true complexity of the issues we deal with. The ability to think may still be the greatest wonder in the world (and beyond), but the way that individuals think is less than ideal. In The Knowledge Illusion, Sloman and Fernbach show that our intelligence resides not in individual brains but in the collective mind. To function, individuals rely not only on knowledge that is stored within our skulls but also on knowledge stored elsewhere, be it in our bodies, in the environment or especially in other people. Put together, human thought is incredibly impressive, but at its deepest level it never belongs to any individual alone. And yet the mind supports the most sublime, incredible phenomenon of all: consciousness. How can any of this be possible with a mind that is so imperfect? This is one of the key challenges confronted in this book. The Knowledge Illusion ties together established scientific facts whilst also considering what the mind is for. Understanding why the mind is as it is, and what it is for, will show why we need to consider it as extending beyond our skulls; why we should think about 'the mind' as far more than an extension of the brain but as an emergence from multiple brains interacting. Simply put, individuals know relatively little, but the human hive that emerges when people work together knows a lot.