“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it, usually doesn’t know what he thinks” – Mortimer Adler –

Information is everywhere, you can’t go through one day without learning something new. And the things you can learn about today are literally limitless. Everything that humanity has knowledge of, you can have.

It is now easier than ever to hold complex intellectual views and beliefs because you no longer have to understand it for yourself, it is packaged neatly into something you can easily digest, without going through the long process of learning it first.

And for the most part, it is very useful, you can process nuanced information very quickly, and move on to the next one. But that’s the exact problem with it too. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned about a topic, thinking that I’ve got it down to the finest details, and go on to forget about it a month later. There wasn’t enough time and deliberation to incorporate what I’ve learned into my worldview in a way where it connects with other subjects.

1. Seeing information in front of you, such as reading a book, doesn’t mean you know it
2. Seeing or hearing someone come to a conclusion doesn’t mean you know how to get to that conclusion or explain their argument.
3. Searching for something on Google gives you the illusion that the information is in your brain.
4. Spending lots of time with material doesn’t mean you know it.

This is why we all sometimes feel like we know so much, but understand so little. The brain is a muscle, you need to exercise it.

There are several techniques that can be used to help you really understand information, and form your own opinions on them.

1. Recall

When you want to imprint information on your brain, read the source of the information and look away for a minute, how much can you remember? Keep repeating this until you commit it to memory.

1. The Feynman Technique

From the brilliant mind of Richard Feynman, one of the most effective way to understand a topic is to write out an explanation as if you were teaching it to someone who doesn’t know the subject. When you get stuck and don’t know what to write, go back to the source of information and re-learn it, keep doing this until you no longer need to go back, and create a simplified explanation that others can understand.

1. Spaced Repetition

To really commit a topic to your long term memory, spaced repetition is key. How many times have you learned something, never used it and eventually forgot it? Even worse, if you tried to understand a complex topic in just one day, cramming it in your brain is a sure fire way to forget it. So to commit a topic to your long term memory, you need to do the previous steps every three days over the course of a month for maximum effect. When you’re done, you’ll feel like you know the topic inside and out, and will have no problem explaining it to other people, because you truly understand it.

“Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world” – Charlie Munger –

Our lives are a never-ending learning process, we are all works in progress, and that is a beautiful thing.

Respect other people’s views, know the limits of your knowledge, and always try to surpass them.