The Illusion of Explanatory Depth

Imagine an alien comes to Earth and demands that you explain the concept of houses. That’s easy for you, right? You’ve presumably lived in a house all your life, as has everyone you know. Everytime you go on a walk or drive, you see at least 50 of them. Explaining houses to aliens should be a piece of cake.

And yet, as the alien takes a seat to listen, you realize you can tell him what a house is, but you can’t explain much about them. How are they built? How did we as civilians come to live in houses? How are their prices determined? What are the laws surrounding them? How long have people lived in houses, and what did they live in before? Perhaps you can answer one or two of these specific questions, but surely the alien will have even more questions you can’t answer. To think that housing is such a simple concept, and that you actually know much less than you’d predicted puzzles you greatly. This is because of the illusion of explanatory depth: having to explain your knowledge brings you to the realization that you actually know much less than you thought you did.