My Study System Failed

Youtube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsTF4l6FRuc

Here's how I found out my study system was broken. A few years ago, I left medical school and I found myself in the situation where I needed to reskill. As I was trying to teach myself how to code, I came to find out that I couldn't study like how I did in school and that my study system was fundamentally flawed.

If you're like most people, you got your study system from school. In school, everyone had the same goal, which was to do well on the test. In order to do well on the test, you had to adopt the system of studying which was to use repetition to memorize the information and then retrieve it during the test.

The problem with this study system is that it doesn't extend further than school. Once you get into the real world you find that things are really different. Instead of competing to get the same score, everyone is trying to be unique. Rather repeating the same information, everyone is trying to find some new information to stand out. Instead of remembering every detail, they just google it.

So with the failure of my study system, I set out to understand how is it that people learn in real life. I read as much as I could but I couldn't find a book that wasn't still talking about the same study system, that is until I read the book The Beginning of Infinity written by David Deutsch.

In this book, he argues that our current understanding of how we learn is fundamentally flawed, and that we should be thinking about human learning through the lens of evolution instead. There were two key points that convinced me. First, there are only two known things that produce knowledge or information that helps you win: One is evolution and the other are humans. Secondly, he argues that there are theories that have reach in that they can explain a lot of things, and one of those theories is evolution which we can use to explain how humans learn.

So in order to under how we learn, we need to understand how evolution works. In evolution, you start at the genes. These genes change through random mutations. These different genes go on to produce variants of say a rabbit. Those rabbits belong to an environment. The environment will have some selection criteria like a wolf that is a predator of these rabbits. The rabbity type that is best able to survive passes on their genes and proliferates in the environment.

The difference with humans is that in addition to inheriting genes, we can also inherit memes. So instead of starting at the genes, we start with the memes which are like ideas. Instead of changing through random mutation, memes change through the user of our creativity. Just as different types of rabbits were trying to solve the problem of predators, we change our memes to solve problems, and the meme that best solves the problem gets passed on to other people.

Going back to the study system, if the goal is to have learning that lasts or create something new, then the study system needs to change. Firstly, we need to stop competing with everyone and start from our memes. Secondly, we need to stop repeating the same thing over and over, and instead, produce variations in our memes. And thirdly, instead of regurgitating the same information, we need to select for the meme that best solves the problem.