Mental Sandboxes and Their Usefulness in Today’s World

  Stephen Hawking said that, as humans, we often establish the kind of learning that’s familiar to us and that doesn’t require excessive cognitive effort. In his opinion, our main enemy isn’t ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge. In other words, the feeling that we know everything already and that it’s better to reject anything that’s challenging. However, we make great advances and acquire knowledge when we assume the kinds of revolutionary concepts that are often antagonistic to our particular visions. Indeed, if we only integrated into our minds what best suited our beliefs, without contradicting them, we’d remain in…