The Illusion of Individual Knowledge

Hubris always seems ridiculous, until it’s our own. So here’s mine: I think I know everything. Honestly.

What I don’t know, I assume I can look up or figure out, somehow. Basically, when others offer assistance of some sort, it’s almost always a “No thank you, I can figure it out on my own, thanks!” kind of deal. I value self-reliance over all else, and primarily trust my own judgment, however flawed it might be.

And until recently, I didn’t realize how damaging that mindset was for me — or how limiting.

I don’t think I’m the only one who thinks this way — most people overestimate their understanding of the world at large. Our brains are just wired to have a high-level understanding of things, but not a whole ton of depth. There was a social experiment run that proved just this: random people were asked if they knew how a zipper worked, and most people confidently said yes. They were then further pressed to explain just how a zipper does what it does, and most fell flat or then admitted their understanding of the exact mechanics of it all was limited. Individual knowledge of even the simplest things can be remarkably shallow, not necessarily because people are shallow, but because humans tend to just process things at a need-to-know basis and move on.

This hidden lack of awareness is compounded further by the fact that, thanks to the Internet, we have more access to information now than ever before. However, having the knowledge and having access to that knowledge are not necessarily synonymous.

This is where group intelligence comes in, i.e., power in numbers — the idea that real knowledge accumulates over time, with lots of people, and with successive generations. It comes, verily, from the saying, ‘standing on the shoulders of giants.’ It’s the way knowledge advanced during the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and every other significant period of advancement in human history.

Group intelligence is a new concept to me, but one that, as of late, I find absolutely fascinating.

Society celebrates individuals, but the truth is amazing things happen in groups. Rounding towards the end of my time here, it feels that, in a sense, I’m sort of done with gathering my own individual knowledge. For once in my life, I’m now really excited to learn from others and see just where that might take me.