Micro Misconcepts

The way we live is a theory too

30th October 2026 | Read on misconcepts.org​

From me

We tend to think of knowledge as a collection of proven facts, handed down by someone with authority, whether that's a parent, a teacher or an expert.

But the best explanation of knowledge we currently have suggests otherwise. Critical rationalism says that knowledge is provisional. It grows through creative conjecture and criticism. The scientific method is built on that premise, with theories tested and refuted every day.

Yet we don't apply the same lens to our own lives, partly because we don't think of our beliefs about daily living as a form of knowledge. Nobody hands us a curriculum for how to live well, make good decisions or build lasting relationships. We pick those up from the environment we happened to grow up in and assume that's just the way things are, rather than a model of how things work.

Like any scientific theory, these models are fallible and can be improved through error-correction, which is why we call them misconcepts. They shape how we experience life and the decisions we make within it, so improving them is how we improve our lives.

​Read the full piece →​

From others

Physicist Albert Einstein on how hard it is to think differently from the crowd:

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions that differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."

Source: Aphorisms for Leo Baeck (1953)

Scientist and writer Donella Meadows on challenging what we think we know:

"Remember, always, that everything you know, and everything everyone knows, is only a model. Get your model out there where it can be viewed. Invite others to challenge your assumptions and add their own."

Source: Thinking in Systems: A Primer (2008)

For you

What are you treating as just the way things are, when it's only a model?

To good iterations,

Syn Yun

P.S. We hold two sets of misconcepts: a deliberate set that requires effort to access and a default set that runs automatically. Cognitive biases can block access to the deliberate set, which is why we don't always make good decisions even when we know better.

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