I think that we (humans) are all a little (or a lot) phony, and none of us are phony in the least bit.<p>We are all making this all up as we go along. We all have difficulty with metacognition (this is my particular area of research) in certain situations (it varies for different people). And yet, <i>being phony</i> is part of the human experience.<p>There is such a disconnect between reality and consciousness that our brains trick us into thinking that our brains are accurate simulators of the world outside of us when, in fact, our brains interpolate and extrapolate a lot of the outside world, and then we act as though that inner simulation were a completely accurate rendering. See, for example, "phantom limbs", "filling in", the abject shittiness of memory encoding and recall (your brain makes up details that you are convinced really happened, all the time), and the variable time delay between sensation and perception. It is quite literally impossible to live in the present; our brains are modelling what it thinks must be the present by predicting how the world should be based on the most recent sensory input, but is in reality milliseconds in the past. And this ignores the fact that sensory input is itself filtered and incomplete at best.<p>I won't bring my own research into this, except to say that metacognition research would suggest that we all believe facts or theories about the world that simply cannot be true at all times. If that is the case, then how can we not be, at least to some extent, phony? At the same time, our counterfeitness of being in the world is exactly the same human experience that everyone shares, so if everyone is phony in the same ways, is anyone really phony?<p>The article gives two really good bits of advice. 1) "I think the more you know, the more you realize just how much you don't know." If you can bring yourself to understand that the disconnect between sensation, perception, and simulation exists, then you can also understand that you might not be absolutely correct in all situations. Embrace that, and be more humble. And 2) "Fake it til' you make it." Nothing to add there.<p>Anyway, I realize that my comment is a bit meta itself, but I couldn't help it, being the phony that I am. :)