On Learning
Three Point Essay #23 | The Meta Skill, Suckers Trap, and Dunning Kruger Effect
Here’s a three-pointer to open your mind.
The mission of “Three Pointers” & about the author here
Michael Jordan and LeBron James are two of the greatest basketball players of all time.
In honor of this being Three Point Essay #23, we are going to discuss the greatest skill of all time: Learning.
The Meta Skill
Michelangelo was an Italian artist during the Renaissance. World-class in painting, sculpting, architecture, and writing, he was a knowledgeable man.
Though he received widespread praise for all he had learned, he was still focused on learning more. Even in the last year of his life at age 88, he famously asserted ‘I am still Learning’.
The skill of all skills is the ability to learn. The obstacle of all obstacles to this skill is the illusion of knowledge.
The world is a complex place, and we tend to over-simplify it based on our own narrow experience and opinions.
Mix in your cognitive biases and the prejudices of your local culture & environment and voila, you’re as foolish as anyone else who thinks their minds' interpretation of reality is 100% accurate.
But only a sucker thinks the way they interpret the world 100% accurate. And only a sucker falls for evil traps.
The Suckers Trap
Nassim Taleb is one of the most influential public figures of our time.
Some of his work focuses on the limits of human knowledge. He once wrote that “The sucker’s trap is when you focus on what you know and what others don’t know, rather than the reverse”
In other words, there’s a limited number of things you know. But there’s an unlimited number of things you don’t know. Focus more on the unlimited than the limited.
Our egos like to focus on what we do know, because it’s comfortable, and we feel smart. But you should be seeking to learn new things instead of congratulating yourself for what you’ve already learned.
Hearing ideas you disagree with or don’t understand is challenging. But it’s exactly when the most intellectual growth can occur. In those moments ask yourself the following:
Why do I disagree with this opinion or belief?
What about this person or topic don’t I understand?
What questions can I ask this person to learn from them?
Critical thinking and good questions are how you avoid the suckers trap Taleb describes.
Dunning Kruger Effect
I’m lucky enough to have a mom who is a teacher, a dad and grandfather who have libraries of books at home, and a grandmother who took me to Barnes and Nobles every week as a kid.
But there are two main problems that arise from reading so much. The 1st is that you start to think that you know a lot about the world.
The 2nd is you start to take yourself seriously. You’ve read so much, so your a smart educated scholar of high intelligence, and people should listen to you no matter what!
Wrong.
These are two massive mistakes I’ve made over the years. The solutions:
The way to accept the limits of your intellect is to realize that the smartest thing you can do is know that you know nothing.
Obviously, you don’t literally know nothing. But by taking this approach, you’ll always be a learner (and therefore not a sucker).
The way to not take yourself seriously is to realize you’re one of billions of flesh covered skeletons who happen to be alive for a blink of an eye on one of the trillions of rocks floating through space where billions of other flesh covered skeletons have already lived and died.
And 1 Three Pointer - A Psychological Phenomenon
The deeper you go into topics, the deeper awareness you gain of how deep most topics go. This awareness makes you realize how trivial your understanding of the topic was at the beginning.
Here’s an illustration of this phenomenon, what psychologists call the Dunning-Kruger effect:
This explains why writer Charles Bukowski said “the problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence”.
A lot of intelligent people are stuck in the insecure canyon. Meanwhile, all the idiots are preaching from the top of the child's hill (usually politics). It takes a perpetual learning mindset to avoid both of these horrible places, and make your way up grown-up mountain (see picture).
I’m probably still at the top of child’s hill for most things I write about, but I’m trying my best not to be.
This effect is also evident when analyzing skills of any kind. It’s amusing when someone on the basketball court thinks he’s so good, but he actually sucks. Like, really sucks. Classic Dunning Kruger effect in play.
Thank you for reading. Let’s all keep learning.
Another great article!
Keep up the good work.