{"id":28235,"date":"2026-07-10T17:01:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T00:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=28235"},"modified":"2026-07-15T16:52:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T23:52:30","slug":"human-limitations-and-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/07\/10\/human-limitations-and-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Human Limitations and Potential"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Rethinking categories and provisional conclusions;<\/li>\n<li>XKCD on holes;<\/li>\n<li>A new Atlantic column on The Wonder of Everyday Life;<\/li>\n<li>A Star Talk video about the limits of human intelligence.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Rethinking again the categories of posts I do here, while working on a new set of overview pages to supplement or replace my decade-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/about\/provisional-conclusions\/\">Provisional Conclusions<\/a>. I tend to collect links about reality illiteracy (e.g. flat-earthers) and tribalistic morality (conservative yearning to retreat to a simpler past), but also about modernity and secularism, and about reality.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s do a couple three on the last theme. But I only have a few minutes&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s one that explores the idea of scale. A key component of &#8216;reality illiteracy&#8217; is that humans evolved in an ancient environment where, over hundreds of thousands of years, human nature developed intuitions at local scales. We&#8217;re intuitive about distances of a few miles or down to an inch; we&#8217;re intuitive about time scales from moments to a generation. But the real world is vastly greater, in all dimensions, as humans have been able to deduce from the evidence of the physical world around us.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an example. We think of things as deep, or high, without really being aware of relative depth or height.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imgs.xkcd.com\/comics\/holes.png\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>XKCD, from a couple days ago<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/3266\/\">Holes<\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->I&#8217;ll let it speak for itself. And here&#8217;s a <a href=\"https:\/\/xkcd.com\/3266\/large\/\">large version of the image<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>And here&#8217;s the first in a series of a new column at <i>The Atlantic<\/i>, apparently.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.theatlantic.com\/thumbor\/3cvk0fb0C2nmdMJfIeShdPG2UwA=\/0x0:2000x1125\/976x549\/media\/img\/mt\/2026\/07\/2026_06_24_OrdinaryExtraordinary_intro\/original.jpg\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Atlantic, Ian Bogost, 7 Jul 2026<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/newsletters\/2026\/07\/ordinary-extraordinary-course-ian-bogost\/687823\/\">The Wonder of Everyday Life<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Welcome to Ordinary Extraordinary, our new, eight-week newsletter series.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This doesn&#8217;t seem to be about science, but more about being aware of everyday life. Like the pleasure of driving a stick-shift car. The writer published <a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/the-small-stuff-how-to-lead-a-more-gratifying-life-ian-bogost\/bb5309da15426d51?ean=9781668062630&amp;next=t&amp;next=t&amp;affiliate=12476\">this book<\/a>. I&#8217;ll follow up on later installments.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\<\/p>\n<p>This one&#8217;s more speculative, and I haven&#8217;t listened to the entire thing yet.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/video.php?height=476&amp;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Freel%2F1385055130153051%2F&amp;show_text=false&amp;width=267&amp;t=0\" width=\"267\" height=\"476\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Facebook video, Star Talk, Neil de Grasse Tyson and guest<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=1385055130153051\">Are We Intelligent Enough?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This goes to ideas of humanity&#8217;s cognitive limitations, and whether there are ideas about the universe we may never be able to understand. And, for that matter, why so many humans deny knowledge and prefer myths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rethinking categories and provisional conclusions; XKCD on holes; A new Atlantic column on The Wonder of Everyday Life; A Star Talk video about the limits of human intelligence. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Rethinking again the categories of posts I do here, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2026\/07\/10\/human-limitations-and-potential\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reality","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28235"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28288,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28235\/revisions\/28288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}