Illusions are interesting phenomena, because they reveal where our thinking gets wrong. An illusion reveals that we make sense of the world in a way that is consistent internal, but not necessarily consistent with the actual reality. There are classes of illusions, like the photo next (from this very interesting website dedicated to optical illusions) is revealing that our brain uses ‘tricks’ to calculate the nearness and size of objects. These tricks can be used to mislead the brain.
Optical illusions reveal ‘faults’ the way we make sense of visual stimuli. It is more difficult to reveal mistakes in the way we make sense of other data. Like the illusion that mankind is the crown of the creation. Or that language is the basis of our thinking. Or that we steer our own thinking. Five illusions that delude us quite often:
1 the illusion of individuality
2 the illusion of stability
3 the illusion of truth as a binary phenomenon (true or false, right or wrong)
4 the illusion of insight and understanding
5 the illusion of knowledge transfer as a rational phenomenon.
In my following blogs I would like to write about those illusions, culminating in the sixth: the illusion of control. I don’t think these represent a complete and systematic framework of ‘thinking illusions’. But I hope that thinking and writing about them will give me some insight in how we (I, my clients and maybe you) withhold progress in our thinking, and how we systematically deceive ourselves in order to keep alive the illusion of control.
[...] is exactly this adaptation that creates the second important illusion: the illusion of [...]