Unlearning 101

Unlearning Barriers

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Although it is a myth that physiologists considered the barrier physically impossible, what is interesting to consider is this: By 1957 another 16 runners had also accomplished the feat.

In other words, it does appear the sub 4-minute threshold was a mental barrier to a great many runners.

The story is worth keeping in mind as you struggle against certain barriers. Are they real or just mental. If the latter, the only other question you need to ask yourself is whether you will be the one to unlearn the barrier or are you content to wait for someone else to do it?

The choice, of course, is yours but know this: Few people remember the second person to break a barrier. (In case you're wondering, Australian John Landy was the second man to run a sub 4-minute mile.)

Unlearning Choice

It is easy to believe that having more choices will lead to a greater level of happiness. However, as this new study suggests, people may be more satisfied when selecting from a smaller set of options.

There are a couple of reasons for this somewhat counter-intuitive finding, but the most poignant seems to be that when people select from a wider array of choices they often experience a greater sense of regret (after their selection) because they aren't as confident that they made the optimal choice.

Trying to convince people that having fewer choices is a good idea will be difficult endeavor, but smart companies may be able to enhance their customers feeling of satisfaction by presenting information in new and innovative methods. For instance, think of on-line dating companies. Instead of presenting customers with an ever widening array of potential partners, they might instead employ sophisticated algorithms to narrow the list of prospective mates from which a person selects their choice.

Unlearning Death

In 1899, just a few years before the Wright brothers achieved their historic accomplishment, Lord Kelvin -- then one of the world's brightest men and most accomplished scientists -- declared heavier than air machines to be "impossible."

He was wrong. To add insult to injury, Lord Kelvin was proved wrong by a pair of bicycle repairmen from Dayton, Ohio.

A few years ago, a relatively unknown computer scientist, Aubrey de Grey, declared that aging should not be viewed as something which will necessarily ultimately result in death. Rather, he theorized that aging is a  disease and should be treated as such.

The outcry from the scientific community was similar to Lord Kelvin's reaction to human flight. One group of scientists even declared that de Grey's idea was "so far from plausible that it commands no respect at all within the informed scientific community."

Well, according to this article in Wired, the idea is now beginning to gain some acceptance within scientific circles.

To be sure, society is still a long way from de Grey's goal of ending again but, as I have written before, I'd encourage people to not dismiss the idea entirely. For if he is right, it will require society to unlearn a great many ideas which it now holds as dear.

In fact, the scale of unlearning our current paradigm of "death as an inevitability" could make other past historic paradigm shifts -- such as the idea that the earth is not at the center of the universe (an idea for which Aristarchus was run out of Alexandria and Galileo was forced to recant under edict of the Catholic Church) or Darwin's theory of evolution -- look like child's play.

Unlearning Learning

When contemplating the future, people need to keep a very open mind about what might be possible. Consider this article which describes how researchers at UC San Diego are developing facial recognition technology that can recognize if a person is having trouble understanding an educational lesson—say in mathematics or biology.

As the technology continues to improve, one possible implication is that smart devices and robots will become better and more effective teachers because they will be able to pace lesson plans to an individual student’s ability to comprehend the information which is being presented.

Longer term, it is possible that robots and other smart devices will become more effective teachers than even human teachers because the machines will understand each student’s learning idiosyncrasies and then present material in a manner which is optimized for that individual student’s learning style.

Now, I understand how discomforting the idea that a robot might be a better teacher than your old favorite third grade teacher, Mrs. Hubbard, ever was; but, as that wise American philosopher Yoggi Berra once said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

For a more contemporary look at how technology is transforming education, I’d invite you to read this article which explains how Nintendo DS is helping Japanese students learn the English language, or this article which explains how video games are actually helping students learn such topics as history and world affairs.

In each case, advances in technology may result in parents, teachers and administrators having to unlearn some long-held assumptions -- such as the idea that teachers are the only ones who can teach, or that video games impede students ability to learn.

P.S. For opposing view on why robots might never make good teachers, I'd invite you to read this review of a recent article which appeared in the New Yorker.

Unlearning Computer Programming

One of the reasons I have established this blog on unlearning on Typepad is because it allows me to maintain and modifiy the site easily without knowing a lick of computer programming or software development. And, trust me, I don't know jack about those fields.

Nevertheless, I recently stumbled upon this old article, The Joy of Unlearning, which was written by Andy Hunt -- who is knowledgable about software. The article encourages programmers to embrace unlearning. I especially liked this quote:

Old habits are hard to break, and even harder to notice. The first step to unlearning--and the hardest part--is to realize that you're using an outdated approach. The next hardest part is actually letting go. Mental models and patterns of thought are built and refined at great cost, and one doesn't discard them lightly. It takes awareness, conscious effort, and hard work.

It's great advice and it doesn't just apply to programmers. It applies to all of us.

Unlearning Models

Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, has written an excellent article entitled "The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes Scientific Method Obsolete" in which he convincingly argues that massive amounts of data, in combination with sophisticated algorithms and super powerful computers, offers mankind a whole new way of understanding the world.

Anderson believes that our technological tools have now progressed to the point where the "old way" of doing science -- hypothesize, model and test -- is becoming obsolete. In its place, a new paradigm is now emerging whereby scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs simply allow statistical algorithms to find patterns where science cannot.

If Anderson is correct -- and I believe he very well could be -- this will take unlearning to a whole new level. In short, instead of having to do the unlearning ourselves (e.g. when our hypothesis doesn't work out or is proved wrong) scientists and researchers can instead rely on intelligent algorithms to do the heavy lifting.

The implication for a field such as biology which, as Anderson points out is actually becoming more difficult to model as learn more about it (due to our limited understanding of how genetics, microbes, personal behavior, the environment and a host of other factors work in partnership to determine a person's health), could be profound.

More specifically for the field of unlearning, this means we will be able to analyze data without allowing hypotheses (which may be wrong) to cloud our view of what the data is really showing us.

Before this vision can be achieved, however, it will require a great many brilliant scientists to unlearn the idea that their "model-based" method of trying to make sense of today's increasingly complex world is the only way to search for new meaning. Increasingly, we will be able to allow computers to crunch the data and extract the meaning for us.

Unlearn or Die Even More Unneccesarily

A few weeks back I had a posting  entitled "Change or Die ... Unnecessarily” in which I provided a few examples of how our inability to unlearn could, quite literally, cost some people their lives. Well, the other day, one of my favorite thinkers, Josh Wolfe, sent me a copy his weekly newsletter, The Forbes/Wolfe Weekly Insider. In it, he unveiled some startling research from a forthcoming book: apparently, six times as many people died in their cars from the 9/11 terrorist attacks as did the number of people who died in planes.

The authors don't state their research in quite this bold of a fashion; nevertheless this is one implication of their finding. On the face of it, the idea sounds absurd -- everyone knows only a few hundred people perished in the airplanes that crashed into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and in the rural field in Pennsylvania.

Essentially, it is the author's contention that because millions of people refused to fly after the 9/11 attacks -- and instead chose to drive (which is demonstrably more risky in statistical terms than flying) -- an estimated 1,595 additional people have since died as a result of the 9/11 attack than is generally recognized.

If these people could have unlearned that their fear of flying was an irrational act because it caused them to engage in an even riskier activity, it is likely they would be alive today.

On a somewhat related note, I recently received a copy of a powerpoint presentation from one of the world's leading epidemiologists, Michael Osterholm. In it, he coherently argues that the United States is woefully unprepared to deal with the very real possibility of a major pandemic.

Interestingly, in his slides, Osterholm makes the point that it possible that more people will die from non-influenza-related deaths than from the flu itself.

How so, you ask? Well, much of the pharmaceutical industry utilizes "just-in-time" inventory procedures. In the event of a pandemic; major shipping, trucking and distribution centers will be hampered and maybe even shut down entirely. As a result, hospitals -- which already have a dangerously low supply of many critical life-savings drugs -- will run out of important drugs in a matter of days.

The effect: people will die unnecessarily. That is, unless, we can unlearn the idea that "just-in-time" inventory for certain critical supplies is not necessarily a good idea.

Unlearning Miles Per Gallon

According to a new study by two professors at Duke University, consumers would make more informed buying decisions about automobiles if fuel efficiency information were conveyed in "gallons per mile" as opposed to "miles per gallon."

The current "miles per gallon" standard can play tricks on people's intuitions. The reality is that improving fuel efficiency from 10 to 20 mpg is actually a more significant savings than improving from 25 to 50 mpg -- for the same distance of driving. For example, using the first example of switching from a 10 mpg vehicle to a 20 mpg vehicle, if someone were driving 100 miles the change would result in a savings of 5 gallons. If, however, a family made the other switch (from a 25 to a 50 mpg vehicle) they would realize only a savings of two gallons.

The distinction is important because while it is obvious that a 50 mpg car would be the most fuel efficient, the reality is that many people still rely (or prefer) larger SUV's and minivans or smaller, hybrid vehicles. Therefore, when in the market for a vehicle which they will actually use, they should concern themselves more with the "gallons per mile" than "miles per gallon." (For a better understanding of this argument, I'd recommend this article.)

It will be interesting to see if buyers, automobile companies, and even environmentalists can unlearn their old focus on "miles per gallon."

Unlearning May Be in Blowing in the Wind

Energy Daily has an insightful article about an intriguing new generation wind turbine developed by BroadStar Wind Systems. The new design, which can be viewed at the right, is unlike most wind turbines. It apparently, however, has some substantial advantages including the fact that it can be manufactured, transported, installed and maintained at a lower cost than conventional wind turbines.

As added benefits, it can reportedly produce power for less than $1/watt and, because it is substantially smaller than conventional turbines, it can "infill" existing wind farms for greater overall power generation. In other words, it makes more productive use of each acre of land.

Now, I'm not an engineer so I don't claim to know with certainty that this turbine doesn't have some drawbacks or limits, but there are other innovative designs for wind turbines as well, and I merely want to suggest that people in the wind power industry be open to the idea that they may need to unlearn what they "think" a wind turbine should look like.

Unlearning Advertising

The price of 3-D cameras is falling fast. One of the implications of this is that soon advertisers and retailers will be able to produce new and more interactive methods of communication. I have written about this idea before, but I'd really encourage businesses that rely on advertising and marketing to rethink how this new technology could allow them to reach new customers in innovative ways, as well as reach out to existing customers in richer and more meaningful methods.

For example, if you own a popular destination in a touristy city why settle for offering a customer a brochure in a hotel lobby when you can engage them in a more emotional way by having them "experience" your destination. Restaurants could offer patrons a view of the entire restaurant and even allow them to select their exact table, and clothing retailers might offer an interactive mirror and allow potential customers to "virtually" try on a new pair of jeans. The list of possibilities is almost endless.

The technology, of course, is not limited to advertising. It can also give teachers a new way to engage students. However, before the technology and its full possibilities can be truly embraced, a number of people will need to unlearn the idea that billboards and brochures are the only way to advertise or that students can only be instructed from a textbook.