If you think the above sentence is a bit circuitous or confusing, then read the fourth chapter of Transcendental Feeling with me. Do you know what it means?

This chapter discusses how the so-called "knowledge" and "cognition" are formed, as well as the difficulties and obstacles of knowledge.

At the beginning, the author gives a simple and interesting example to illustrate the complex relationship between feeling and cognition:

B clearly knows the answer, but feels that he doesn't know it; C thinks he knows, but the answer is wrong. We can see that feeling and cognition go hand in hand and contradict each other.

Real cognition, in addition to knowing the correct answer, is more important to your understanding of cognition.

In the author's view, the necessary conditions for understanding include:

In addition, cognition also includes expression, that is

Any society has a lot of "common sense", and most people live in it without knowing it. Is this common sense really correct? The author lists eight "common sense" for Americans:

These eight rules are "common sense" for most Americans and "common sense" for some people in China, such as 1 and 3 rules. Subsequently, the author refuted these eight "common sense" one by one. Here is just a rebuttal to Article 3:

Our common sense now is usually accumulated over decades or even hundreds of years. But in recent decades, with the acceleration of social development and the rapid update of various disciplines, most ordinary people's cognition has been unable to keep up with reality or theory. Therefore, in the new realistic contrast and theoretical vision, the past common sense is often full of fallacies.

So, why is it not easy to understand correctly? This is not only related to the way of information transmission, but also related to the complexity and variability of reality.

We master knowledge, which can usually be divided into active and passive. In the active state, we will rely on our own experience to prove our ideas, collect all kinds of evidence and make logical reasoning.

In a passive state, we are usually "informed", such as passively attending classes at school, listening to the news, reading newspapers at home or at work, or chatting with friends and colleagues.

But passively accepted information is often easily distorted. Just like the well-known "mobile game", the information sent at first will be distorted after multiple transmissions.

On the other hand, the complexity of the real world also brings great difficulties to cognition. Even in today's advanced science, we still don't know why cancer occurs, what kind of education is the best, and so on.

In addition, in addition to the complexity of the problem itself, the emergence of various new situations has also increased cognitive difficulties. There is also the loss of correct knowledge in intergenerational transmission, the conflict between concept and reality, etc., which makes correct cognition extremely difficult.

The author gives a very representative example: Satadai in the Philippines, who was originally considered as a caveman in the Stone Age, was later found to be deliberately fabricated by the Philippine authorities and became a farce in anthropological and sociological research in the 20th century.

In the evolution of hundreds of millions of years, under the joint influence of genes and environment, the human brain has gradually developed a unique cognitive system. This cognitive system is generally based on nomadic and agricultural societies, and has not fully adapted to the industrial society, not to mention today's information society.

Therefore, the underlying model of our cognition is an important tool for our survival, but it is also the main obstacle that affects our correct cognition. Therefore, the author specifically analyzes the assumptions and guesses that most people take for granted.

The author thinks:

The author also believes that "hypothesis stifles curiosity, while speculation denies the importance of evidence". This is not in line with our usual understanding.

Hypothesis and speculation are widely used in natural science and social science. Whether it is correct or not depends not only on the premise setting, but also on the specific application, so it is difficult to generalize.

This chapter is about "what is cognition". The key to my understanding is to be clear about my cognitive process and at least understand the following aspects:

In this case, keeping aware of cognition, keeping an empty cup mentality, actively collecting and analyzing different information, and being patient with complex things should be the correct attitude to acquire cognition.

The homework in this chapter is not easy to finish. Two people are more interested, one is the famous saying of epiktetos, an ancient Greek philosopher, and the other is the topic of global warming. Post ehrlich's famous words first and translate them with interested friends:

My translation and my understanding of global warming will be put in the next chapter ~

End—