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For instance, if a student gets an A for her exam, she says that is because of her awesomeness,
but she I gets a C, she blame her lecturer. Pareidolia is an imagined perception of a pattern or
meaning where it does not actually exist, like how we see images of interesting things when we
look at the different cloud shapes.
Idols of the cave are the understandings that derive from the mind of the individual. It is a
type of logical fallacy whereby the peculiar biases of individuals lead them to errors. It could be
education, books we read, people we hang out with and all these things distort an individuals
perception to nature, much like Platos allegory of the cave. Due to the fact that all men are
different, human perceptions of nature vary from one individual to another. For instance, some
minds are more drawn to new things and new ideas, while other minds are more drawn to
"tradition" and "old school" ideas. When we become more aware of our own mind's tendencies
toward loving novelty or tradition, we might be able to correct them and then hopefully see
things more clearly and truly.
Idols of the marketplace deal with errors arising from words and language. The constant
impact of words variously used without attention to their true meaning only in turn constrain the
understanding and raise fallacies. Words often betray their own purpose, obscuring the very
thoughts they are designed to express. It is more a matter of faulty, misguided, or sloppy
semantics. For example, overusing jargons makes people confuse because they do not understand
the meaning of those words.
It is our propensity to follow certain dogmas without questioning anything at all. Idols of
the theater come from various philosophies, sophistry and false learning. These idols are built up
in the field of theology, philosophy, and science. What is most troubling is that most people dont
even know that this is occurring within them. An example to that would be how Catholics
during the renaissance believed that the earth was the center of the universe just because it was
what the church claimed to be true. What they believed for a long time turned out to be wrong!
We would never achieve zero thinking error as we are only human but we can reduce
the chance of being ignorant victims of our nerve system by gaining knowledge of these biases
and putting efforts in overcoming them.