Focusing Your Unconscious Mind: Learn Hard Concepts Intuitively (And Forever) - Deepstash
Focusing Your Unconscious Mind: Learn Hard Concepts Intuitively (And Forever)

Focusing Your Unconscious Mind: Learn Hard Concepts Intuitively (And Forever)

Curated from: Colin Galen

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About The Video

About The Video

The author of the video is a very good competitive programmer, so the advice might be more targeted towards science subjects, but I think it applies to learning any hard concept.

The video is about how to learn concepts intuitively, which means remembering them for a long time, and being able to apply them in any context.

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What Is Intuition?

Intuition = your brain accepts a concept as a fundamental truth

As an example, think of concepts you’ve learned and mastered in the past, and see how now they are just second nature to your brain. A very simple example would be 2+2 - you do not even have to think about how to calculate that, so addition is an intuitive concept for you.

On the flip-side, an unintuitive concept is one that your brain “rejects”, something that requires some effort for you to understand and learn.

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Learning A Concept Intuitively

Learning A Concept Intuitively

When learning a new concept, first start with the big picture and then proceed to learn about each specific detail that is part of the concept.

A good way to not get overwhelmed is to use the Black Box Method: assume that some parts are true without trying to understand why at first. I think a good analogy to this would be assuming that the gearbox of a car just works while you are trying to understand how the engine works.

After you learn one detail, move on to the next, until you are able to understand how they all fit together and make up the concept.

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Care About The Concept

This means two things:

  1. Actually care about the concept - this is pretty important. If you are passionate or have a goal in mind (such as an exam), this is easy. If not, a good tip from the video is to see the concept as a challenge (it should bother you that you do not understand it)
  2. Make your brain think the problem is important - think about why the concept is useful. Try to spend a lot of time playing around with the concept, so that your brain thinks it’s important. If you do so, your unconscious brain will help you internalize the concept better even after you are no longer focusing on it

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Reinforcement

Reinforcement

After understanding a concept, there are a few ways to make it stick:

  1. Invent the concept yourself (when that is possible)
  2. Practice - apply the concept to various things and use it solve hard problems
  3. Explain - understand it well enough to be able to explain it to someone else (a great tip is to write about it and post it online)
  4. Explore - think about various ideas related to the concept, try to change some parts of it and see where you end up, and question any assumptions you might have made

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You Can Learn Anything

These hard concepts were invented by people, so you can learn them too.

Usually there are a few concepts you must learn as prerequisites before learning a particular concept, so learn those first. Then, if you put in the time and effort, you should be able to learn anything.

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IDEAS CURATED BY

CURATOR'S NOTE

A few good tips for learning hard concepts.

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