The Importance of Understanding Reality

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This is a great demonstration that it's not that simple. One reason why we might disagree is because we're activating different concepts. We can be on exactly the same page and still have disagreement for other reasons. This points to one factor that likely interferes with productive political and social discourse. How are we getting anything done if we're all living in these private universes?

Is a hotdog a sandwich?

Well, that depends on your definition of a sandwich (and a hotdog), and according to the most recent research in cognitive science, the odds that your concept of a sandwich is the same as another person's concept are shockingly low.

In this episode we explore how understanding why that question became a world-spanning argument in the mid 2010s helps us understand some of the world-spanning arguments vexing us today.

Our guest is psychologist Celeste Kidd who studies how we acquire and conceptualize information, form beliefs around those concepts, and, in general, make sense of the torrent of information blasting our brains each and every second. Her most recent paper examines how conceptual misalignment can lead to semantic disagreements, which can lead us to talk past each other (and get into arguments about things like whether hotdogs are sandwiches).

• Celeste Kidd's Website: https://www.kiddlab.com

• Celeste Kidd's Twitter: https://twitter.com/celestekidd

• How Minds Change: www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome

• David McRaney’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidmcraney

• YANSS Twitter: https://twitter.com/notsmartblog

• Show Notes: www.youarenotsosmart.com

• Newsletter: https://davidmcraney.substack.com

• Latent Diversity in Human Concepts: https://tinyurl.com/25544m3v