The key to adult learning is not to increase the amount of information, but to improve their own thinking model

 The key to adult learning is not to increase the amount of information but to improve their own thinking model

In the current society, most people are using the learning method, that is, with the development of society, they are constantly acquiring new information and learning new knowledge. In fact, I don't agree with this approach, because we are now in an era of rapid development. New knowledge and information are exploding all the time, and learning is a step-by-step process. How can we catch up with the progress of the times?

In my opinion, the key to adult learning is not to increase the amount of information but to improve their own thinking model. In a low-level thinking model, adding more content is just a low-level repetition. Only by improving the level of the thinking model can we accept more high-dimensional information and knowledge. Of course, to achieve this goal, learning more thinking models and important contents of important disciplines is an indispensable link.

What are the thinking models and important contents of important disciplines that we should learn? From another perspective, we are in the era of philosophy. Different disciplines have their own first principles. In fact, these first principles are human cultural genes. So, can we find a common combination of the cultural genes and use it to effectively enhance the thinking model of all mankind? About this problem, we can use a thought experiment to illustrate.

In the year when I was a visiting scholar at Stanford University, I once attended a class by Professor Zhang Shousheng. The name of this class was very interesting, called "behind the 2012 envelope". He said that if the end of the world was coming, Noah's Ark could only carry a pair of animals and an envelope to summarize all human knowledge, what would you write down? This thought experiment is very interesting. It requires you to write something very simple.

The answer given by Professor Zhang Shousheng is as follows. He listed eight important subjects: first, in the field of philosophy, he listed atomism； Second, in the field of mathematics, he listed Euclidean geometry; Third, in the field of biology, he cited natural selection; Fourth, in the field of economics, he cited the "invisible hand"; Fifthly, in the field of political science, he cited "all men are created equal"; Sixth, *e=mc*2; Seventh, the law of entropy increase; Eighth, the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. The last three items belong to the field of physics. The above content is an important part of the human cultural gene that Professor Zhang Shousheng believes.

Since the development of human civilization, science and technology has leaped and information has exploded, but the content that can really be called meta-knowledge and meta information is the basic concept of various disciplines.