I call it the “illusion of knowing.”

Editor’s note: This article is from the public micro-channel number, “said Mr. L” (ID: lxianshengmiao), Author: Lachel.

When I was writing articles and lectures, I noticed a phenomenon: some students always say this sentence habitually:

“Isn’t this xxxx?”

There are many variations of this sentence, such as:

“To put it plainly is xxxx”

“What is the difference between this and xxxx?” (Rhetorical tone)

……

The xxxx here is often a certain knowledge point they already know. They have a deep-rooted thinking habit: Whenever they come into contact with a new thing, they will always find the closest object from the old thing they already know, and then equate the two together.

I call it “The Illusion of Knowing”.

Why do you say that? The reason is simple: what is the nature of this habit? It is to take two things that look similar, erase their differences, amplify their similarities, and then tell the brain: they are actually the same thing.

Over time, its consequence is that you will accumulate a series of “paradoxical” conclusions and ideas in your brain, which may seem intriguing, but in fact they cannot withstand scrutiny.

You will be puzzled to find:

This method works well with others, but why doesn’t it work when I get to it?

This principle seems very simple, why can they think so deeply?

I have also come into contact with these things. Why can others draw inferences and use them to solve practical problems? I can’t think of it at all?

……

There is no other reason: because you have never really “learned” and “mastered” them.

When you blurt out this sentence, you have actually given up thinking.

I said in a previous article: The brain has a habit of “oversimplification”.

What do you mean? When we receive a piece of complex information, in order to save storage space, the brain often does one thing:

Extract this information mostFor important features, erase other details, use this feature to represent this piece of information, and store it.

Take an example.

For example, I recently read a paper, and its main conclusion is:

Mindfulness meditation, compared to doing nothing, can improve anxiety, stress and negative emotions. But this effect has no significant advantage over other common methods (such as exercise), and its effect is more unstable and varies from person to person in comparison. (Galante et al., 2021)

This conclusion is not complicated, but what does it lack? A clear attitude. Therefore, the brain does not know where to put it. It is vague to the brain and requires the brain to spend more resources to remember.

So, for untrained people, it is particularly easy to convert this information into “mindfulness is effective” or “mindfulness is ineffective” to remember and store in their minds.

Are these two attitudes comprehensive? In fact, they are not comprehensive. They are only part of this conclusion.

This is oversimplification.

The “illusion of knowing” is also an oversimplification. When we receive a new thing, new knowledge, the brain is busy “understanding” it, at this time, the brain will enter a state of high energy consumption.

This state is uncomfortable for the brain. In order to return from high energy consumption to low energy consumption, the brain will tend to give it a simple and crude conclusion, thus telling itself:

I already know what it is, and there is no need to waste resources thinking about it.

Furthermore, as I said in the previous article: All the information we receive will become part of our “mental world”. The brain is relying on the mental world to understand the external real world.

So, when we are exposed to a brand new information, what happens to the brain when it conflicts with the mental world?

From a stable state of “known” to an unstable state of “unknown”.

Stability and energy saving are the basic needs of the brain. Therefore, in order to get rid of this state, the brain tends to use “the information already in the mental world” to explain it.

This approach can prevent the brain from falling into chaos and reduce the impact of external information on our mental world.

Therefore, the “illusion of knowing” and over-simplification are essentially a defense mechanism created by the brain in order to save energy and protect itself.

Of course, conversely, “focusing on fresh stimuli” is another characteristic of the brain.

Because fresh stimulation often means more than expected gains, therefore, it will mobilize the directional function of the brain and let us enter a state of “curiosity-driven”.

In other words: Energy saving and orientation, they are two driving forces in opposite directions, both of which are determined by the basic needs of the brain. Which one is dominant will greatly affect a person’s cognition and processing habits of new things.

So, how do you decide which one will prevail? Mainly determined by two variables. One is the intensity and degree of novelty, and the other is the way of thinking used in daily habits.

As for the latter, there is a cognitive style theory in psychology, which divides the way people perceive and process things into different types. Among them is a classic dimension called “Passivation and Sharpening” (Leveling and Sharpening).

What do you mean? When you face new information, passivation means that you prefer to enlarge the similarity between it and the old information and classify it as one of the old information; and sharpness means that you are more likely to pay attention to its differences Sex, I prefer to distinguish it from similar things.

Psychologist Harry Morgan found that: Compared with people who are accustomed to passivation, sharpened people tend to have a more accurate understanding of new knowledge and can better connect new information with old information. This may be because they encode and store knowledge in a more orderly manner.

Conversely, people who are accustomed to passivation tend to mix the characteristics of knowledge in a disorderly manner, and store knowledge more disorderly. They usually over-simplify the key features of knowledge, ignoring the difference between similar but different things, which leads them to be very vague when extracting knowledge.

That’s why I said that this is a bad habit. It is inherently inefficient and is not conducive to learning new knowledge and absorbing new knowledge.

But, as I said in the previous article, the brain can be trained. Every choice and every action we make is training our brain.

If you have such a habit, you might as well try to correct yourself from now on, let yourself face new knowledge, and maintain more curiosity and attention.

Don’t let this habit continue to hinder your own learning.

Many students who have this habit often have an idea. They think that being able to simplify complex things is an ability and a goal we want to pursue.

Therefore, they will reject “complex” and “unfamiliar” very much, and think: Since it can be simplified, why use unfamiliar and complex language and concepts to describe it?

This concept is also wrong.

What we want to pursue, is never “simplifies complex things”, but “simplifies complex things”.

Why? Because complex things cannot be “simplified” in nature. What does “simplification” essentially mean? Loss of information.

In cognitive psychology, what does our understanding and mastery of knowledge depend on? It depends on the existing schema in our minds, that is, the experience, knowledge, and ideas that a person has and are highly related to new knowledge. It is the basis for you to understand a new knowledge.

For example: Only when you have seen a picture of a “space suit” can you imagine the picture of “an astronaut wearing a space suit standing on the moon.” If you haven’t seen a spacesuit, even if I describe it to you very clearly and in detail, the picture you imagine in your mind will have some shortcomings.

In other words: in the face of a new knowledge, if there is no schema related to it in your mind, then it is impossible for you to understand it.

You can get close to it, and maybe it “coincidentally” is all right, but you can’t really “understand” it – because “understanding” a thing itself means to disassemble it with related schemas. But we do not have this raw material.

In this case, what can we do if we want to get close to it? There are two ways of “speaking clearly” and “simplifying”.

To make it clear, I just take the trouble to tell you: what is the spacesuit like, what is its head, what is its body, what is its material, what equipment and functions are in it, even if you haven’t seen it before, Can roughly imagine “what it looks like”.

To simplify, it is actually to reduce its dimensionality and use similar concepts to roughly simulate and describe it. Avoid those schemas that we don’t have, and use those we are familiar with. Schema to replace.

That is to tell you: the spacesuit is actually an inflatable doll outfit, you just need to understand it this way, don’t think too much…

An analogy: Schema is like material. It takes a certain kind of material to build a certain kind of house. If you don’t have this material, youIt can be simulated with other materials, but the result is only “looks like” at best, and the performance of the two houses must not be exactly the same.

So, what is the general method of “simplification”? There are just these kinds of things: examples, analogies, analogies…that is, use things you are familiar with to describe new knowledge that you are not familiar with.

But in this process, there must be a loss of information-after all, they are essentially two different things.

Therefore, these means must only be auxiliary, not the main means.

So, what is my article pursuing? It is never “simplification” but “speech clearly”.

In other words, if I need to use an unfamiliar concept, I will try my best to tell you its ins and outs, internal logic, principles and scenarios, so that you can increase your information about it as much as possible-this is ” speak clearly”.

But I will not “simplify” this concept for the convenience of reading and replace it with everyday language that you are more familiar with. Because doing so is actually a kind of disrespect for the reader, it presupposes: The reader has no ability and interest to understand this complicated concept, so it has to be simplified.

Take the latter, you can write the article very simple, easy, and vividly, and you can make the course very simple, but it does not have much effect for you to truly master and understand the knowledge.

What it can give you is always just the “illusion of knowing.”

So, some friends may ask: How to judge whether you really understand, or stay in the “illusion of knowing”?

If you really understand, can’t you say “This is not xxxx”?

Yes, no.

Why? Because this habit is actually an act of “finishing the coffin”, and it rejects all possibilities. That is, its purpose is not to get close to the truth, but to end the “high energy consumption” and “unstable” state of the brain as soon as possible, so as to maintain the stability of one’s mental world.

But true seeking knowledge requires you to adapt to “high energy consumption” and “instability.”

In other words: This habit is inherently contrary to seeking knowledge. It is not really receiving new knowledge, but just to reassure itself: my mental world is stable, And there is nothing beyond my understanding.

Sit in your comfort zone and use known information to explain new information. This is not seeking knowledge, but using your own vision to distort and shape the external world, which is a narrowing of the external world.

True knowledge is not satisfied with the current comfort zone, hoping to use new information and new stimuli to break through it, expand it, and merge into a new boundary.

That’s why I said: Learning is anti-human. Because the essence of learning is to break through the boundaries of one’s own cognition and make oneself constantly switch between “uncomfortable-comfortable-uncomfortable”.

Therefore, a person who truly “understands knowledge” will not always assume that he has thoroughly understood something, but will always maintain an openness:

My understanding of this knowledge, is it possible that there is not enough comprehensiveness, accuracy, and clarity?

Is it possible for me to encounter new information to overturn my current assumptions, understandings, and beliefs?

Are different perspectives and concepts from mine, are they necessarily opposites? Is it possible that we are all right?

Therefore, we will see in life: the more people who know, the more humble their attitude towards knowledge and others will be. They will realize that everyone can have his own opinions, as long as his logic is self-consistent and rigorous, then it can be correct. Variations are what the world looks like.

This is also the point I have always emphasized in the Intellectual Camp: You can have your own views and opinions on what I have said. As long as you clearly understand what I mean, then based on your own needs, experience and perspective, you can have your own understanding, and you don’t have to force it to be completely consistent with me.

Conversely, if you do not go through your own independent thinking and just copy my approach mechanically, then you are not actually learning—you are just copying other people’s thinking patterns and cannot solve your own actual problems.

So, what is a better attitude towards knowledge?

Never assume that you have fully understood it, and never have a mentality of contempt for knowledge, thinking that it is “just xxxx”, but maintain a cautious, open and critical attitude:

How does this new knowledge relate to what I already know?

What are the similarities between them, what are the differences, what scenarios are they suitable for, and what problems are they used to solve?

For this new knowledge, what other information can I get to understand it better?

How can I try to apply it to my life and work?

This is the mentality of seeking knowledge.

So, how can this be done?

This requires an ability to exercise in daily life: you can hold more information in your heart, and observe the ability to collide, interweave, and connect with each other.

This ability has different names. I call it “cognitive space”, some places may be called “attention span”, and some may classify it as “working memory ability”… But in any case, their cores are similar Of:

Holding more and more complex information in the mind at the same time, allows the brain to adapt to this energy-intensive state, rather than rushing to simplify and narrow it.

As I said in my previous article: In many cases, slower is better.

Because you are slower, you have enough time and opportunity to let these information slowly collide, ferment, and brew, so that you can observe their internal connections and logical structure, and make everything more detailed.

Rather than hurriedly deciding where to go for them, the next conclusion, you can get more.

So, how to exercise this ability? May wish to start with these small Tips.

1) Accept an assumption: the world is complicated

Sometimes we will say: The world is simple, because the principles that make up the bottom of the world are simple.

Sometimes we say: The world is complicated, because all kinds of phenomena in the world are complicated.

So is the world simple or complex? I would suggest it. Let’s assume that it is complicated, and then explore it with this idea.

Why? It’s very simple. Because it is meaningless to simply pick up a list of principles. Principles must be combined with phenomena to make sense.

For example, “Everything is connected with each other” is a principle, but it is meaningless to say this sentence alone. It must be combined with various things and various effects, so that we can truly understand “what is connected with each other”, then It has meaning.

For another example, E=mc^2 is a principle. It is simple and beautiful enough, but the logic and background knowledge behind it requires a book to explain it clearly.

So, from complex to simple, it is a process and the only way to learn. “Simplicity” is not a principle, nor is it a goal, but that we have truly experienced the “complexity”.A realm that can only be reached later.

2) Do not rush to conclusions, but observe the whole picture

In life, we often see many phenomena and events, some of which may be more concerned and concerned by us. At this time, try to make yourself jump out, “go a little farther,” don’t rush to draw conclusions to it, but observe from multiple sides.

What to observe? Observe how the details of the event appear from different perspectives, observe the attitudes, behaviors, and positions of different characters in it, try to substitute in, feel and understand.

You may find that many things, from different perspectives, may appear differently. It is actually difficult to have a “comprehensive” attitude and conclusion.

Try to understand the world instead of rushing to regulate it. This can be very effective in enhancing your vision.

3) Don’t presuppose opposition, but keep it continuous

What do you mean? To give an example: I often say “extrovert” and “introvert”, but is a person either completely extroverted or completely introverted?

No. In fact, extroversion and introversion are not two extremes, but a continuum. You can understand it as: extroversion is 10, introversion is 0, then everyone has a position of their own on this number line, this position is likely to be near 5, just slightly closer to one end.

In fact, almost everything, is not a binary opposition, but a continuum-this is a very important premise.

For example: For a piece of information, do we have only two choices: “believe” and “don’t believe”? of course not. If we set belief at 10 and disbelief at 0, can we maintain the “7-point belief” and at the same time maintain the possibility of being overthrown and denied with 3 points?

For one thing, do we either agree or disagree? of course not. Can we “agree with reservations”? Or agree in general, but oppose certain details?

Try to use the scale of “1 to 10” to measure various things in life, and use it to replace the “one or the other” dualistic thinking, so as to get closer to the actual appearance of the world.

4) Pay more attention to differences than to pay attention to similarities

After reading my article, many readers will always ask: Is this thing the same thing as something I know?

Actually, you can try another question:

How is this thing different from something I know?

How can I understand them separately?

Try to put the two in your cognitive space at the same time, let yourself examine, pay attention to, and distinguish them at the same time, try to observe and figure them out from multiple angles, and get used to this energy-consuming state.

Your mental world will be more perfect.