Illusion of knowledge (The Matrix Dictionary)
The Illusion of Knowledge is a thought distortion. It´s is our tendency to believe we understand something much better than we really do. Illusion of knowledge is closely related to ego-inflation. Ego-inflation happens when the ego has embezzled itself energy, which rightly belongs to the collective time. The collective time manifests itself in a widely and indefinite area, for example could a broad spectrum of common human activities and organizations be called manifestations of the collective time: parties, state formations, wars, work communities, ideologies, concerts, clans, tribes and sects, mass psychological phenomena, religious parishioners, fashion streams, group souls, books, the internet, Google, Wikipedia, etc.
Ego-inflation is of two kinds: 1) Identification with an outer power, which doesn´t belongs to the ego (an institution, a teacher, others´ works and techniques, books, meditation-centres, one´s role, Google, Wikipedia, etc.). This is very common. 2) Identification with an inner power, which nor belongs to the ego (God, master, healing energy, the collective time, collective images, etc.). This is more seldom, and actually more dangerous. New Age must be seen as being permeated with this thought distortion (not to mention New Atheist skeptics – see Richard Dawkins). It is clear that the many people within New Age and self-help who have been caught up in The Illusion of Knowledge, will spoil their spiritual practice, if they actually have any – it will leave the rails, and end up blind. But worst of all, they will lead other people on the wrong track as well. Especially when the claimed knowledge is coming from misinformed sources which themselves are based on The Illusion of Knowledge. This you for example see in the extremely widespread myth, that quantum mechanics is a proof of subjectivism; that is: that the consciousness influences (or directly creates) the object. In a critical review of Rhonda Byrne´s two books The Power and The Secret, The New York Times stated: "The Power and The Secret are larded with references to magnets, energy and quantum mechanics. This last is a dead giveaway: whenever you hear someone appeal to impenetrable physics to explain the workings of the mind, run away – we already have disciplines called 'psychology' and 'neuroscience' to deal with those questions. Byrne's onslaught of pseudoscientific jargon serves mostly to establish an 'illusion of knowledge,' as social scientists call our tendency to believe we understand something much better than we really do." People who really are caught up by the Illusion of Knowledge is a nuisance to their surroundings, especially when the surroundings know better. The Illusion of Knowledge is extremely widespread today, where everybody brands oneself as an expert in whatever one desires to be an expert in, and doesn´t hesitate to go into discussions with people who know better. See my articles Quantum Mysticism and its Web of Lies, The Ego-inflation within the New Age and Self-help environment, and The Curse of the Internet Troll. Related: The Matrix Dictionary |
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