Illusion of the swimmer’s body

Illusion of the swimmer’s body

Nasim Nicholas Taleb, the author of the book “Black Swan”, one day complained about his extra belly fat and decided to get rid of it. That’s why he looked around and realized that swimmers are the most handsome and well-built people. He started swimming to get in shape, but after a while he made an important discovery; A discovery that introduces us to one of the most important cognitive errors.

“Naseem Taleb” realized that swimmers do not have well-trained and muscular bodies because of swimming and training, but because they have suitable bodies for swimming, they became swimmers. When we confuse the factors of a phenomenon with the result, we have suffered the cognitive error of “swimmer’s body illusion”. An error caused by the transfer of factors with results.

In fact, no swimmer has trained for the sake of swimming, but because his body was suitable for this sport, he became a swimmer. Now, he may be able to maintain the ideal form by continuing to practice and exercise. But the fact is that the primary reason was the swimmer’s body, not his training.

Many of us think that smiling and attractive people who advertise cosmetics are smiling and attractive because they use these products; While in most cases, because they are attractive and happy, they have been recognized as suitable for advertising.

In order to understand the context of an event, we must carefully examine the chain of cause and effect so as not to make a cognitive error in analysis and decision making.

#cognitive_error

@DevelopmentSc
“School of Development” channel