How To Remember Everything You Learn

Summary

This video script explores the illusion of competence in the digital age, where we often feel informed but struggle to explain concepts in depth. It highlights the importance of truly understanding information rather than just consuming it. The narrator discusses the role of memory, the challenges of information overload and multitasking, and offers strategies like recall, the Feynman Technique, and spaced repetition to improve long-term memory and comprehension. The script also touches on the value of intellectual humility and the pursuit of quality over quantity in information consumption.

Takeaways

• 😯 The illusion of competence can trick us into thinking we understand something when we don't, affecting our ability to explain or argue for our views.
• 📚 Professor Barbara Oakley highlights that merely being exposed to information doesn't equate to understanding it.
• 🔍 The act of searching for information on Google can create a false sense that the knowledge is stored in our brains.
• 🕒 Spending a lot of time with material doesn't guarantee that we truly know or understand it.
• 🗣 Philosopher Mortimer Adler stresses the importance of being able to express one's thoughts to truly know what one thinks.
• 📈 The media often packages information in a way that discourages independent thought, leading to passive consumption of opinions.
• 🧠 Understanding requires active engagement with information, challenging our biases, and considering multiple perspectives.
• 🧠💡 Long-term memory is crucial for understanding as it stores complex concepts and schemas, which are essential for deep thinking.
• 🧠📈 Working memory acts as a bottleneck for information to reach long-term memory, and overloading it can hinder the learning process.
• 📚🔁 Techniques like recall, the Feynman Technique, and spaced repetition are effective for moving information from short-term to long-term memory.
• 🤔 Intellectual humility is vital for recognizing the limits of our knowledge and fostering constructive learning and disagreements.

Q & A

What does the video discuss as a common issue people face after consuming various forms of media?

The video discusses the common issue of people feeling like they understand something deeply after consuming media like videos, books, or podcasts, but actually struggling to explain it in depth or recall it accurately after a short period.

According to the video, what are the four illusions of competence mentioned by Professor Barbara Oakley?

The four illusions of competence mentioned by Professor Barbara Oakley are: 1) Seeing information in front of you doesn't mean you know it. 2) Seeing or hearing someone come to a conclusion doesn't mean you know how to get to that conclusion or explain their argument. 3) Searching for something on Google gives you the illusion that the information is in your brain. 4) Spending lots of time with material doesn't mean you know it.

What does the video suggest is the fundamental difference between feeling informed and truly understanding something?

The video suggests that the fundamental difference between feeling informed and truly understanding something is the ability to express your knowledge and connect it with other facts and theories, rather than just having a fleeting sense of knowing without the capacity to articulate or apply it.

Why does the video argue that relying on media for forming opinions can be dangerous?

The video argues that relying on media for forming opinions can be dangerous because it often leads to the consumption of pre-packaged views without truly understanding them, resulting in people becoming mere regurgitators of others' opinions without the ability to critically evaluate or defend them.

What is the significance of the quote by Mortimer Adler in the context of the video?

The quote by Mortimer Adler emphasizes the importance of being able to express one's thoughts and ideas as a measure of true understanding. It highlights the video's theme that merely feeling informed is not the same as having a deep, articulate grasp of a subject.

What is the role of working memory in the process of understanding and retaining information, as explained in the video?

Working memory acts as a bottleneck for the vast amount of information we encounter, with only two to four slots for processing information. If we don't engage with the ideas in our working memory over time, they won't be transferred to long-term memory and will be quickly forgotten.

What are the three methods suggested in the video to help commit information to long-term memory?

The three methods suggested in the video to help commit information to long-term memory are: 1) Recall, where you actively try to remember the key points of the material after consuming it. 2) The Feynman Technique, which involves explaining the concept as if teaching it to someone else, simplifying it, and using analogies. 3) Spaced repetition, which involves revisiting and practicing the information over increasing intervals of time to strengthen neural connections.

How does the video relate the concept of 'intellectual compound interest' to the development of understanding?

The video relates 'intellectual compound interest' to the development of understanding by suggesting that as we accumulate more schemas or patterns of knowledge in our long-term memory, they begin to connect with each other, exponentially increasing our understanding over time, similar to how compound interest works in finance.

What does the video suggest as a solution to the problem of information overload and multitasking that hinder memory retention?

The video suggests eliminating multitasking and distractions, focusing on one source of information at a time, and using techniques like recall, the Feynman Technique, and spaced repetition to help commit information to long-term memory and enhance understanding.

How does the video connect the ideas of intellectual humility and the pursuit of true understanding?

The video connects intellectual humility with the pursuit of true understanding by emphasizing the importance of recognizing the limits of one's knowledge and appreciating others' intellectual strengths. This mindset fosters a more constructive approach to learning and disagreements.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Illusions of Competence in Learning

The paragraph discusses the common experience of feeling knowledgeable after consuming media or reading material, but struggling to articulate the information in depth. It highlights the illusion of competence and the difference between feeling informed and truly understanding. The speaker references Barbara Oakley's course, 'Learning How to Learn,' which identifies four illusions: seeing information, seeing conclusions, searching on Google, and spending time with material without truly knowing it. The importance of expressing one's thoughts clearly, as emphasized by Mortimer Adler, is contrasted with the passive consumption of media that often replaces personal understanding.

05:02

🧠 The Challenge of Retaining Information

This section delves into the difficulties of retaining information in our fast-paced, information-overloaded culture. It explains the concept of working memory, which has limited capacity, and how it serves as a bottleneck to long-term memory. The paragraph emphasizes that information must be actively engaged with in working memory to be transferred to long-term memory. The effects of information overload and multitasking on memory retention are discussed, along with strategies to improve memory, such as recall, the Feynman Technique, and spaced repetition.

10:04

🚀 Prioritizing Quality Over Quantity in Learning

The final paragraph focuses on the importance of focusing on the quality of information rather than the quantity. It suggests that instead of trying to absorb as much information as possible, it's more beneficial to spend more time thinking deeply about one important thing at a time. The speaker encourages finding a few intelligent things to do, as suggested by Charlie Munger, and to increase the quality of the information received. The paragraph also touches on the importance of intellectual humility and the value of recognizing the limits of one's knowledge. It concludes with a recommendation to read 'The Shallows' by Nicholas Carr for further insight into how our brains interact with the internet.

Keywords

💡Illusions of Competence

Illusions of competence refer to the false belief that one understands or knows something when, in reality, they only have a superficial grasp of it. In the video, this concept is explored through the idea that merely being exposed to information does not equate to true understanding. The script mentions several illusions, such as feeling knowledgeable after reading a book or seeing someone else's conclusion, which do not necessarily reflect one's own ability to explain or argue for that knowledge. This theme is central to the video's message about the importance of genuine comprehension over the illusion of knowing.

💡Active Reading

Active reading is the process of engaging deeply with the material one is reading, rather than passively consuming it. The video script mentions active reading as a method to improve understanding and retention of information. It contrasts with passive reading, where a reader might feel they understand the material but struggle to recall or explain it later. Active reading involves questioning, summarizing, and critically thinking about the content, which helps move information from short-term to long-term memory.

💡Working Memory

Working memory is a cognitive system that temporarily holds and manipulates information. The script explains that working memory has a limited capacity, typically two to four slots, and acts as a bottleneck for information processing. It is crucial for understanding because information must pass through working memory to reach long-term memory. The video emphasizes the importance of not overloading working memory, as this can lead to a failure to commit information to long-term memory, resulting in a lack of true understanding.

💡Long-Term Memory

Long-term memory is the part of memory that can store information for extended periods, even a lifetime. In the video, long-term memory is described as the 'seat of understanding,' where complex concepts and schemas are stored. The script discusses how long-term memory is crucial for deep understanding and intelligence, as it allows for the organization of information into meaningful patterns. The video suggests that effective learning involves transferring information from working memory to long-term memory through techniques like spaced repetition and active engagement with the material.

💡Schemas

Schemas are cognitive frameworks or structures that organize and give meaning to information. The video script uses the analogy of an investment portfolio to describe how schemas compound over time, increasing one's understanding and intelligence. As new information is encountered, it is integrated into existing schemas, enhancing the depth and richness of one's thinking. The video emphasizes the importance of developing schemas for effective learning and understanding.

💡Feynman Technique

The Feynman Technique is a learning method attributed to physicist Richard Feynman, which involves explaining a concept in simple terms as if teaching it to someone else. The video script outlines the steps of this technique: choosing a topic, writing an explanation, revisiting the material when stuck, and simplifying the explanation. This method is highlighted as an effective way to test and deepen one's understanding of a subject, as it requires actively grappling with the material and expressing it in clear, understandable language.

💡Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition is a learning technique that involves reviewing information at increasing intervals over time. The video script explains that this method strengthens neural connections and improves memory retention by 'firing' the relevant neurons at spaced intervals. It contrasts with cramming, where information is studied all at once and is more likely to be forgotten. The video suggests that spaced repetition is an effective way to move information from short-term to long-term memory and to build a deeper understanding of complex concepts.

💡Multitasking

Multitasking is the act of attempting to perform multiple tasks simultaneously. The video script argues that multitasking is detrimental to learning and memory because it leads to constant task-switching, which disrupts the brain's ability to commit information to long-term memory. The video suggests that focusing on one task at a time allows for deeper processing and better retention of information, which is essential for true understanding.

💡Intellectual Humility

Intellectual humility is the recognition of one's own limitations in knowledge and the appreciation of others' intellectual strengths. The video script discusses the importance of intellectual humility in learning and in having constructive disagreements. It suggests that by acknowledging the limits of one's knowledge, a person is more open to learning and less likely to be fooled by illusions of competence. The video emphasizes that intellectual humility is a key component of personal growth and effective communication.

💡Memory Retention

Memory retention is the ability to remember and recall information over time. The video script explores various techniques to improve memory retention, such as recall practice, the Feynman Technique, and spaced repetition. These methods are presented as ways to combat the natural tendency to forget information and to ensure that learning leads to long-term understanding. The video emphasizes that effective memory retention is crucial for moving information from short-term to long-term memory and for building a robust foundation of knowledge.

Highlights

The illusion of competence can make us feel knowledgeable without truly understanding.

UC San Diego professor Barbara Oakley explains illusions of competence in her course 'Learning How to Learn'.

Reading or seeing conclusions doesn't equate to knowing how to reach them.

Google searches create an illusion that information is stored in our brains.

Spending time with material doesn't guarantee knowledge acquisition.

Philosopher Mortimer Adler emphasizes the importance of being able to express one's thoughts.

Media is designed to make understanding obsolete, packaging intellectual positions for easy consumption.

People risk becoming human Spotify playlists, regurgitating opinions without understanding.

Charlie Munger advocates for understanding opposing arguments before forming opinions.

Active reading, listening to arguments, and engaging with smart people are key to true understanding.

Memory works through short-term and long-term components, with long-term memory being crucial for understanding.

Working memory acts as a bottleneck, processing limited information before it reaches long-term memory.

Information overload and multitasking hinder the transfer of information to long-term memory.

Eliminating multitasking and distractions is essential for better memory retention.

Recall, the Feynman Technique, and spaced repetition are effective methods for committing information to long-term memory.

The Feynman Technique involves explaining a concept as if teaching it to someone else, simplifying it to the point of understanding.

Spaced repetition strengthens neural connections, improving memory retention over time.

Focusing on the quality of information rather than the quantity is crucial for deeper understanding.

Intellectual humility is important for recognizing the limits of one's knowledge and appreciating others' strengths.

Confucius' quote emphasizes the importance of acknowledging one's ignorance as a step towards real knowledge.

Transcripts

Here's a situation...

I watch a video.

Its creator synthesizes all kinds of ideas and comes to an interesting conclusion.

I think, “Wow! I know all about that now.”

Then, a few hours later, I can sort of recall its main points,

but if someone asked me to explain it in depth,

I'd fumble for words.

This happens to me all the time.

It happens when I finish chapters of books, episodes of television,

movies, podcasts, articles... you name it.

The story I tell myself is that upon completing

any reading, watching or listening,

I feel like I know what it's all about but the truth is I don't.

I just felt like I knew something without actually knowing it.

I tricked myself into thinking I was competent.

In her course Learning How to Learn,

UC San Diego professor Barbara Oakley points out

many of these illusions of competence:

One: Seeing information in front of you such as reading a book

doesn't mean you know it.

Two: Seeing or hearing someone come to a conclusion doesn't mean you know

how to get to that conclusion or explain their argument.

Three: Searching for something on Google gives you the illusion

that the information is in your brain.

And four: Spending lots of time with material doesn't mean you know it.

Philosopher Mortimer Adler once said,

“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it

usually does not know what he thinks.”

This is the fundamental difference

between feeling informed and truly understanding something.

I am as informed as ever.

I can more or less parrot opinions I read, cite random facts,

but when tasked with explaining

what something is all about, why it is the case,

what its connections are with other facts and theories,

and putting it in context, I fall flat on my face.

What an... idiot!

Oh... What a loser!

It's dangerous when I let these illusions of competence slip into my opinions.

I so often feel strongly about a position, but if pressed, I could hardly argue for it.

So much of media now is designed

to make understanding things for ourselves obsolete.

The packaging of intellectual positions and views is a booming business.

Viewers and listeners get hit with persuasive audiovisuals,

professional rhetoric, and carefully selected data.

It all amounts to a nice little package for the viewer to make up their own mind

with little difficulty,

except the packaging is often done so effectively

that the viewer, listener, or reader doesn't make up

their own mind at all.

Instead, people become no better than a human Spotify playlist

that spits out other people's neatly wrapped opinions

without actually understanding any of it.

To continue with Adler, “To regard anyone except yourself

as responsible for your judgment is to be a slave, not a free man.”

It is from this fact that the liberal arts acquire their name.

Not being able to explain my position or parroting someone else's means

I'm never thinking for myself.

Now, you, me, anyone is

entitled to their opinion no matter what it is.

That's the hallmark of democracy,

but I know that my life would be fuller if I actually understood everything

my emotional brain so adamantly believes I do.

Charlie Munger, the longtime business partner

of legendary investor Warren Buffett, is

famously disciplined when it comes to this idea.

“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything

that I don't know the other side's argument

better than they do.”

So, like any conclusion on getting better at something,

there's a lot of work involved.

I have to do a lot of active reading,

listen to as many arguments as I can,

argue with people smarter than me,

fight against my own emotional bias,

think about as many variables as possible.

It's not the easiest thing to do!

And there's also my problem at the beginning of the video.

How am I supposed to form an opinion or understand something

when I keep forgetting all the information I digest.

One of the many reasons why people have trouble explaining

videos or books or articles

is because they simply don't remember what was said.

It's worth then to understand how the memory works.

There's two main parts: short-term and long-term.

In recent years, we've discovered

that long-term memory is the seat of understanding.

It stores not just facts but complex concepts or schemas.

“By organizing scattered bits of information into patterns of knowledge,”

writes Nicholas Carr,

“schemas give depth and richness to our thinking...

Understanding and intelligence is derived largely

from the schemas we have acquired over long periods of time.”

Think of the long-term memory like an investment portfolio.

As you gather more and more schemas,

you gain intellectual compound interest over time.

They all begin to connect to each other,

increasing your understanding of the world exponentially over time,

but... and here's the key...

for information, to get to your long-term memory in the first place,

it has to go through a part of the short-term memory

called working memory.

Working memory has about two to four slots where we process information.

It acts as a bottleneck for the infinite amount

of information around us.

The problem is what we hold there can quickly vanish

if we don't keep thinking about them or rehearse them in our heads.

In other words, if we don't grapple with the ideas

in our working memory for an extended period of time,

they never get sent to the long-term memory.

They just disappear.

Our current culture makes this process challenging.

We're blasted with new stimuli and information at the rate of a firehose.

This couldn't be worse for our memories.

Once we surpass these two to four slots in our working memory,

once we overload with information, we begin to get distracted.

Our ability to process and retain information begins to plummet.

This is in part why I feel, like, I know so much,

but understand so little,

why I can scroll down my Twitter feed and barely remember any of it.

Info jumps in to my working memory only to be replaced

by the next thing and the next thing.

Very little of it, if any, makes it into my long-term memory.

As Nicholas Carr writes,

“As we reach the limits of our working memory,

it becomes harder to distinguish relevant information

from irrelevant information, signal from noise.

We become mindless consumers of data.”

But it's not just information overload that affects our ability to remember things,

multitasking is just as bad.

Our brains are designed to focus on one thing at a time.

When we multitask,

all we're really doing is quickly switching from one task to another

and our brain struggles to commit anything to long-term memory when we're constantly

task switching, tab shifting, and notification checking.

Every switch is like hitting the reset button.

It gives no time for deeper processing.

So, what's the fix.

The first is to eliminate multitasking, distractions,

and information streams that cause overload.

Easier said than done. I know.

We're all well aware at this point that these services exploit our psychology

and it's hard to resist the addicting dopamine surge

that comes from checking them.

But, once you have that one source of information,

a book for example,

and it's the only thing you're paying attention to,

how do you remember that?

How do you get the books arguments into your long-term memory

to the point where you could explain them back to someone.

There are a lot of methods that help commit things to long-term memory

and I'm going to go through the three big ones:

recall, the Feynman Technique,

and spaced repetition.

Recall.

After you've read or watched any material,

simply look away and see what you can recall

from the material you've just taken in.

In one experiment,

students who studied a text and then practiced it

by recalling as much information as they could

and repeated that process learn far more than their peers

who either went on to something else or reread the text over and over again.

Practicing recall is counterintuitive to most consumers of content.

You finish a chapter and you go to the next one

or you finish a video and move on to something else,

but spending as little as 30 seconds after finishing a chapter or video

and recalling its key points vastly improves your understanding of a topic

and commitment of it to long-term memory.

Then, there's the Feynman technique.

World-renowned physicist and teacher Richard Feynman codified

this method of learning.

It's probably the best if you want to understand something

but it's also the most work-intensive.

One: Take something you wanna understand.

Two: Write out an explanation as if you were teaching it to someone

who didn't understand the subject.

Three: Whenever you get stuck, go back to the material and relearn.

Eventually, you'll fill in the gaps in your knowledge

until you can write an explanation without needing the source material.

Four: Finally, attempt to simplify your explanation,

getting rid of technical terms and convoluted language.

Simplify it to the point that a kid could get what you're saying.

To do this, Feynman recommended the use of analogies.

Analogies connect complex ideas to something more relatable,

making it easier to understand.

I used two earlier.

Understanding and intelligence is like an investment portfolio;

it gains compound interest as complex schemas connect with each other,

and the other, working memory acts like a bottleneck to long-term memory.

And finally, there's spaced repetition.

LeBron James has undoubtedly put in tens of thousands of hours

shooting hoops over many years.

The Beatles practiced music for years before they became masters of the craft.

Why don't we do that with information and arguments?

There are a lot of reasons, but one of the big ones is

that people assume the brain is a computer.

Once you get the information, it's there forever,

but the brain functions much more like a muscle

and like any muscle, it needs to be exercised;

its neural connection strengthened.

There's the famous saying: “Neurons that fire together wire together.”

In other words, the more often you use the neurons grappling with

the information you want to commit to memory,

the stronger those connections will get and the stronger your memory

and understanding of that information will get.

Spaced repetition does this by firing the neurons over a long period of time.

If you read, recall, or do the Feynman technique

on the key concepts from say... Kant's Philosophy

and spaced them out by three days over the course of a couple weeks,

it results in the highest amount of memory retention.

Much better than if you were to do it all at once.

You may be thinking,

“Read the same thing again? Recall the same thing again?

Do the Feynman technique again? Over a long period of time?”

Unfortunately, that's the reality if you wanna understand something long-term.

We are strapped for time most days of our lives.

Doing all this work outside of our jobs

or other responsibilities of daily life sounds like an awful task,

so we turn to others to do it for us.

It makes plenty of sense.

And I'll also add that life isn't the book report.

You don't need to be memorizing and understanding

everything that comes your way.

That's absurd.

What I wish I did more often, however,

is spend more time thinking about one important thing at a time

instead of trying to absorb as much information as possible

only to forget most of it.

As Charlie Munger has said,

“Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do,

not keep up with every damn thing in the world.”

It's a call to increase the quality of the information you receive

rather than the quantity and to spend more time with it.

Union College Psychologist

and Nobel Prize winner Christopher Chabris says,

“The internet plays to our natural tendency

to vastly overvalue what happens to us right now.”

Our bias towards novelty is strong

and forces us towards the trivial rather than the essential.

No matter what amount of work anyone does

people will continue to hold different opinions

and that's when intellectual humility becomes important.

To recognize the limits of your knowledge

and to appreciate others’ intellectual strengths is

one of the best things a person can do.

It's not only where learning happens

but it's also where disagreements become more constructive.

I think Kal Turnbull,

founder of the Change My View Subreddit

sums it up well.

“It seems to be in our nature to focus on how we were wrong

over the fact that we're now smarter as if we can't be works in progress

and we often attach our egos to what we believe.

A view is just how you see something.

It doesn't have to define you

and trying to detach from it to gain understanding

can be a very good thing.”

“Real knowledge,” as Confucius once said,

“is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”

The trick is not to be fooled by illusions of superiority

and to learn to accurately reevaluate our competence each day

because in Adler's words,

“True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.”

What's on trial is not just the weight of our opinions

but our entire understanding of the world.

This video has been brought to you by Audible

and if you're as interested as I am

in how our brains interface with the internet,

how prone we are to know a large breadth of information

but understand very little of it,

then I highly recommend The Shallows by Nicholas Carr.

He goes into philosophy, neuroscience history, and media theory.

Mm! I love this book.

Go to audible.com/will or if you live in the U.S.,

text “will” to 500-500 for a free 30-day trial.

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Happy listening, everyone. I'll see you in the comments.