ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge

"Behind the Mirror" is a book about how humans have learned things throughout history. Imagine that you have a big mirror in front of you, but there's something behind it that you can't see - that's where all the knowledge is hiding. The book is trying to find out how people have discovered all the things that we know today.

You know how sometimes your parents or teacher tells you things that you don't understand, and you have to ask them to explain it again? Well, that's because sometimes you need to learn more to really understand something. That's what "Behind the Mirror" is trying to do for all the knowledge that humans have gained over time.

The book talks about how people used to believe things that are different from what we know now. For example, a long time ago, people thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. But through a lot of observations and experiments, scientists discovered that the Sun is actually at the center of our solar system. It took a lot of time and effort to figure this out, and the book talks about how they were able to do it.

The author of the book also talks about how people learn things differently. Some people learn better by reading books, while others learn better by talking to other people or by doing experiments. The book talks about how people have used all these methods to gain knowledge.

Overall, "Behind the Mirror" is trying to understand how humans have gained knowledge throughout history. It looks at how people have learned things, how they have discovered new things, and how our understanding of the world has changed over time. It's a big topic, but it's really interesting to think about how we know what we know!