Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are really
opening up the hood on something fundamental,
learning. Right. It's something we all do every
day. Exactly. But everyone thinks they sort of
understand it, you know, but when you actually
look closely at the research, the physical stuff,
the brain science, even the philosophy behind
it, well, the picture gets way bigger. It really
does. It's not just sitting quietly with a book.
No. Not at all. We often think of learning as
this purely internal thing, happens in your head,
end of story. But our deep dive today, looking
at these sources, it forces us to stretch those
boundaries, like a lot. So our mission basically
is to unpack four key ideas. First, where does
learning actually happen? And, spoiler, it's
inside and outside the brain. That's a big one.
Huge. Second, what is learning, really? It's
not just memorizing facts. It's multi -dimensional.
We'll get into that. Third, how do we get better
at it? How do we improve our minds? It involves
effort, but maybe not just individual effort.
The social angle. Very important. And finally,
a bit of a reality check. How much can we actually
trust our own memories, our internal hard drives?
Ah, yes. The faulty hardware issue. Exactly.
OK, let's unpack this. Let's start right there
with the location of learning. You said it's
inside and outside. The inside part feels intuitive,
right? The brain's the engine. That's the classic
starting point, yes. And it's well documented.
Scientists can literally see changes. Like physical
changes. Physical changes. They track how blood
flows in the brain when someone learns something
new. And what they see suggests that... neural
pathways that weren't very active before suddenly
light up, they get used. And they even get, well,
insulated myelinated to work faster. Then, crucially,
when you use that knowledge later, those exact
same physical pathways activate again. Wow. So
learning is literally like... building new roads
in your brain. You could put it that way. Constructing
a new neural landscape. Yeah. Inside your skull.
OK, that's the inside story. Makes sense. But
then the sources kind of shift gears, don't they?
They argue humans are special because we move
cognition out of the brain. That's right. This
idea of transferring cognition or maybe outsourcing
it to the environment, it's gained a lot of traction.
Outsourcing cognition. How does that work? Well,
think about writing. It's a technology, right?
Once we learn to write, suddenly a huge chunk
of our memory doesn't need to be stored biologically.
Ah, I see. We can just download it onto paper
or, you know, into digital files, bytes of information.
So when I jot down notes or use a calculator,
that's external cognition. That's a perfect example.
The calculation isn't only happening in your
head. The paper, the calculator, they become
part of the cognitive loop. The tool is part
of the thinking. Precisely. It connects to these
bigger ideas like the extended mind theory or
what some call 4E cognition. Basically, yourself
isn't just confined to your skin and skull. Okay,
that's kind of mind -bending. What's fascinating
here is the memory, say, of that complex formula
you wrote down, it now exists on the page. not
just in a sun app somewhere. And this changes
everything. It means human learning isn't purely
biological. It's also fundamentally a socio -environmental
thing. You learn to write and boom, you've just
massively upgraded your working memory capacity.
That makes sense. So learning isn't just passively
absorbing stuff into those new brain roads. No.
It has to be about engaging with Well with both
the internal brain stuff and these external tools
we create exactly right which leads nicely into
the next point Yeah, let's talk about what learning
actually is the sources say it's multi -dimensional
So it's more than just remembering things much
more if learning was just recollection. We'd
be missing the whole point Okay, the sources
list activities like Analyzing information creating
new things based on it critiquing ideas. It's
active. It's manipulation perception recollection.
Yeah but also analyzing, creating, engaging.
Right. It moves learning from just having information
to using information. So how do you know? For
the listener, how can you tell if you've really
learned something versus just memorized it? That's
the key question. And the sources are pretty
clear. Someone who has truly learned can do way
more than just repeat the information back. OK.
The real test is application. Can you take that
knowledge and use it in a new situation? Can
you analyze something unexpected with it? Can
you create something original from it? Give me
an example. OK. Think about physics. A student
might perfectly recite Newton's laws. That's
recollection. Internal pathways firing. Got it.
But an engineer who uses those same laws to figure
out why a bridge collapsed. Or even better, to
design a completely new stable structure. That's
learned knowledge. They're analyzing, creating,
using that multi -dimensional skill set. Ah,
I see. So moving from being a parrot to being
an architect. That's a great way to put it, yeah.
From repetition to creation. That's the sign
you've truly acquired the knowledge. Okay, that's
a really important distinction. But being an
architect takes work, right? Effort. Definitely.
Which brings us neatly to the next bit. The effort
economy. How do we actually get smarter? How
do we build those skills? Well, the basic idea
is probably familiar. The brain is a muscle analogy.
Pretty much. Our cognitive abilities seem to
improve with practice, with effort. If you want
those neural pathways, those roads we talked
about, to become stronger and faster, you got
to use them. You got to use them repeatedly.
You need to stress them a bit, push them so they
adapt and get more efficient. That's where the
myelination of the insulation comes in. Right.
So practice makes permanent, neurologically speaking.
That's the idea. Active engagement. Purposeful
practice. That's how you get those effort dividends
that make knowledge stick. Use it once. The pathway
is weak. Use it often. It deepens, becomes easier
to access. Makes sense. But here's where it gets
really interesting. The sources throw a curveball.
They say this practice, this effort, it's not
just a solo activity. Absolutely not. And this
connects back to the external cognition idea.
If learning extends into the environment. Then
maybe the effort needed does too. It gets shared.
Exactly. This is where the community aspect is
just crucial. Individual practice lays the groundwork,
builds that initial path. But the strongest,
most flexible, most deeply understood knowledge,
that gets forged socially. How so? Well, think
about it. When you have to interact with other
people, maybe a mentor, maybe peers, maybe even
someone you disagree with, you're forced to use
your knowledge differently. You have to explain
it. Defend it. Maybe modify it based on their
input. You have to connect it to what they know.
That process It activates completely different
parts of your understanding than just reviewing
notes alone. It's like stress testing the knowledge.
Perfectly put, that social negotiation, the back
and forth, the synthesizing, it's like concentrated
practice. It builds much tougher memories. And
really importantly, it helps you see connections,
how what you know links up with the bigger network
of what others know. So it's the difference between
practicing basketball drills alone versus playing
an actual game. That's a great analogy, yeah.
You might learn the move solo, but the real skill,
the adaptive intelligence, comes from constantly
adjusting to other players. So what you know
and how you know it is fundamentally shaped by
the people around you, by your social environment.
You simply get a better return on your cognitive
effort when you make it collaborative. OK, this
taints a really empowering picture. We can improve.
We can learn deeply. We use tools. We leverage
community. But now, the final piece. The reality
check. Ah, yes. The counterpoint. The sources
acknowledge that learning creates these somewhat
permanent brain changes. But then they hit us
with the fact that our cognition isn't static.
And worse. Our memories are basically unreliable.
Yes. Unreliable is putting it mildly. The sources
are quite blunt. Our memories are very faulty.
Very faulty, okay. We aren't like video recorders
capturing pristine data. We're more like storytellers
constantly editing. Well, wait, how does that
square with the permanent neural pathways? If
I built the road, shouldn't the memory be solid?
That's a really sharp question. The way to reconcile
it seems to be differentiating between skills
and specific content. The ability to analyze
the skill of using language, those underlying
neural structures, the how -to pathways, they
can be very resilient, built through practice.
But the content, the specific details of what
happened, the sequence of events, who said what,
that kind of episodic memory is incredibly susceptible
to error. So I might remember how to ride a bike
forever. But I might misremember the color of
my first bike. Exactly. Or, much more significantly,
misremember important details of past events
or things you supposedly learned. Think about
how much stuff you learned in school that's just
gone. True. Lots. And even the stuff you think
you remember clearly. Chances are you're misremembering
parts of it. Our brains are constantly filling
in gaps, smoothing out inconsistencies, rewriting
the past to fit our present beliefs or needs.
It's called confabulation. Confabulation. Every
time you recall a memory you're not accessing
a perfect file. You're basically rebuilding it.
It's an active construction process, and errors
creep in constantly. So my internal memory isn't
just fading, it's actively changing the story
behind my back. Pretty much. Which makes... Relying
only on your internal memory, a very risky strategy,
doesn't it? It really does. And this inherent
faultiness is probably the strongest argument
for why we evolved this capacity for external
cognition in the first place. We need the notes,
the books, the recordings, the shared knowledge
of the group because our individual recall is
just too biased and leaky. Okay, so what does
this all mean? Let's try and tie these threads
together. We learn both inside our brains and
using external tools. Right, our cognition extends
outward. We need to do more than just recall.
We need to analyze and create. The multi -dimensional
aspect. Our effort is best when it's social,
practice with others. Because interaction strengthens
understanding. And underpinning it all is the
fact that our own internal memory is fundamentally
unreliable. Very faulty. Yes. What does that
leave us? Well, if we connect this to the bigger
picture... Learning emerges as this kind of constant
negotiation, doesn't it? A balancing act. Between
what? Between our own constantly shifting error
-prone neural pathways inside and the more stable
external downloads, the notes, the files, the
collective knowledge we create outside. The high
wire act you called earlier. Yeah, something
like that. And it means our effort has to be
ongoing. It needs that social dimension precisely
because we can't fully trust ourselves alone.
We need those external tools and communal checks
and balances as a direct response to how leaky
our own memory is. We outsource knowledge not
just for convenience, but for accuracy. For accuracy,
for reliability, maybe even for survival. Which
brings us right back to that initial startling
idea. If writing things down or storing data
digitally is actually part of learning happening
outside the brain, and if we lean on this external
network because our internal one is flawed, How
does that change what we mean by individual intelligence?
That's the million -dollar question, isn't it?
Is being smart just about how many facts you
can cram into your head anymore? Or is it more
about how skillfully you can navigate and use
this vast external knowledge system we've all
built together? A question worth mulling over.
Definitely something to think about until our
next deep dive.