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Learning is a skill
Knowns and Unknowns
When it comes to knowledge, it might be useful to think of things existing in 1 of 4 categories
- I am aware that I know something
- A person knows how to tie their shoes, and they can teach another person.
- They say, "Let me show you how."
- I am aware that I don’t know something
- A person knows that there are dozens of ways to tie a knot that they’ve never tried to do before.
- They say, "I’ve heard about the ‘turtle knot’, but I couldn’t tell you how to do it."
- I am unaware that I know something
- A person chooses to keep their workspace minimalist and tidy, attributing it to personal preference for a clean aesthetic - when in reality, their brain is responding to evolutionary adaptations that favor clear sightlines and reduced visual complexity for better threat detection and cognitive processing. They came to the correct conclusion (tidy desk makes me work better), not knowing the true depth behind their decision.
- They say, "This is just how I've always done it" or "It’s common sense" or “I just know”
- I am unaware that I don’t know something
- A person doesn't realize they've been mispronouncing a common word for years until someone finally corrects them, or they hear it pronounced correctly in a movie.
- They say, “I had no idea” or “How could I have known?”
Learning’s enemy: Knowing
It can be helpful to assume that you don’t know everything.
When we “know” something, we seem to ignore or reject contradictory information.
If you know that only X type of people do something specific, then outliers to that rule will be explained-away, cheaply.
For example- someone might "know" that all successful people wake up at 5 AM. When they meet someone successful who sleeps in late, they might say "Oh, they're just an exception" or "They could be even more successful if they woke up earlier" rather than questioning their belief about early rising and success.
This tendency to preserve our existing knowledge by dismissing contradictory evidence can limit our ability to learn and grow.
Balancing Open-Mindedness
In order to function in the world, it seems necessary to filter-out some information. It seems that it can be overwhelming to a person to not filter anything out. In order to stay “solid”, it seems as though filtering information is a way to keep one’s “belief system” solid.
It might be helpful to think of a belief system as a bridge.
A person with no belief system might hold zero opinions, beliefs, or assumptions. They might not be able to take any form of action, since they could not make any kind of prediction about outcomes.
A person with too-rigid a belief system might be like someone who built their bridge out of stone instead of steel - they can't adapt when the world shifts beneath them. They filter out so much information that contradicts their views that they end up stuck, unable to grow or change course when needed. It's almost as though they're trying to navigate modern roads with an ancient map. The territory has changed, but they insist their map must still be correct.
Your belief system can show you your path, or it can be an impassable obstacle.
Conviction and Curiosity
There’s a quote, like: “The sturdy oak is ripped right out of the land during a storm, but the flexible palm tree bends all the way to the ground.”
Stiff and rigid = brittle and unadaptive
Flexible and adaptable = resilient and growth-oriented
Imagine a fighter who stays stiff and tries to guard every part of their body at once. They’ll quickly tire out and get hit anyway. Instead, they need to be ready to shift and move as needed, responding to what's actually happening rather than trying to maintain one "perfect" defensive position.
Just as though there’s not a perfect defensive position, there is no perfect belief system.
In buddhism, there’s a quote about “a stone buddha won’t make it over the river”. It means something like, as soon as you say “AH, that is buddhism. I understand buddhism now.”- suddenly you have turned yourself into a closed-off belief system. Buddhism seems to be more ephemeral and hard-to-catch. Perhaps it’s a good approach to keep a “beginners mindset” towards things in life, so that you are always open to new information.
There is good reason to ensure some “give” in your belief system. No person knows everything. There’s another quote by someone that goes like, “you never know the whole thing, you just learn and become less wrong.”
It does not seem useful to believe you “know” something. It might be more useful to claim something like, “I have observed such and such” or “My intuition has lead me to assume this or that”. These statements are true, but also leave room for the unknown.
Leaving room for the unknown means that you are accepting that your information is limited. There is something out there to learn.
The Comfort of Fixed Beliefs
You might think that if you loosen your grip on certain belief systems, then you will be led astray. You might think you’ll be fooled by the world, you’ll lose your sense of self and what you’ve accomplished, you’ll have to revisit other sensitive beliefs, and so on…
Often, we tightly grip the beliefs that we think protect us. None of us are infallible, and sometimes we hold onto beliefs that cover up something painful, which can be scary to feel or look at.
Revisiting long-held and sensitive beliefs means looking at ourselves when we adopted that belief. The belief served a purpose.
Not all beliefs are equally as helpful to us.
An example is a person who experiences betrayal or abandonment.
One belief could be: "I can't trust anyone completely because they'll eventually hurt me." This belief seems to offer protection - if you never fully trust, you can't be fully hurt. But it also prevents genuine connection and intimacy.
This is protection but at the cost of future positive experiences.
Another belief could be: "I've been hurt before, and it’s possible it can happen again. However, I choose to trust again. I will choose to move at my own pace, and be open to connecting deeply with others again." This view honors past pain while staying open to new possibilities.
This is resilience, but at the cost of more potential pain.
The price of growth
When you choose growth, you're choosing to walk away from your old self.
It’s to give up comfort and “knowing who you are”, so that you can reach into the unknown and find out who you are. A person’s ego identity can feel really threatened by this!
Security and freedom seem to tug on each-other.
Faith
Don’t confuse faith with gripping onto a belief system. Faith is letting go, knowing that when the sun comes up, the object of your faith will come to fruition. (If not tomorrow’s sunrise, then the next day’s, and so on.) True faith is giving up, letting go, surrendering, etc.
How to ask questions
If you know everything, there’s no reason to ask any questions. It’s like the zen idea of “beginners mind”- you can’t pour a drink into a full cup, it’ll run over the top.
Imagine you could create a wide-open space of “not knowing” in your mind. You are receptive to learning thousands of new ways of looking at things, especially those that you once believed you knew so well!
You have a wide-open berth to fill with completely new concepts, and old ones arranged in new ways. It’s like a football stadium that you are standing in, alone. You could say that the size of your “knowing” is just a fraction of the size of the entire stadium! There is just so much room!
New information comes in, and you simply do not know what to do with it yet. You know to not be too quick to categorize it as “oh I know this” or “this is just like that other thing!”. You are being handed a piece of something, and the thing in itself can be organized or placed in a million different ways in your mind/football-stadium.
What to ask
Consider the chart earlier. There are things you know and things you don’t know. And there are things you don’t even know that you don’t know! That last section was the “unknown ignorance”.
You might think it’s impossible to identify your “unknown ignorance”, which may be true, but there are some tricks you can do to touch the edge of it. Start with something you know (either known knowledge or known ignorance). Start to ask random questions about it. Generate questions that are impossible to answer, even. If you are receptive, then starting with the basics is the best place to begin. Maybe there are “obvious” things that could use some investigation?
Tricks
Ask any question about anything, and try to answer it incorrectly.
“What is a cloud?” → “A cloud is an animal” or “A cloud is a secret Italian dish served in the 18th century”.
This exercise seems to be more effective if the question is more mundane and obvious and related to the topic/subject you wish to learn more about.
Create 2 columns on a paper (or in your mind). The left column represents “What I know” and the right column represents “What I don’t know”. Write a single statement in the left column, then write a single statement in the right column. Alternate between the two. It’s okay to be fast/loose and not always make sense.
What I know: “I know the user of this website is using a device connected to the internet.”
What I don’t know: “I don’t know where the user is while they are reading this.”
What I know: “I know coral is like an animal.”
What I don’t know: “I don’t know what it’s like to be coral.”
Visualizing the football stadium as mentioned above. Create an image in your head of a large space around you, which can be filled with ANYTHING. Feel the space around you, and feel its openness. Imagine yourself to be the one “solid” thing in that stadium, and that you represent “what is known”. The rest of the space? Could be filled with anything.
Suggested reading:
- "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki
- "The Book of Not Knowing" by Peter Ralston