Unlearning 101

Don't Play Russian Roulette With Your Future: Unlearn!

The first chapter of my new book, Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future, is entitled “Unlearn or Die.” To better appreciate why unlearning will be such a critical skill in the future, I’d like to share this paragraph from Josh Linkner’s outstanding article, Vu Deja: Tricking Yourself Into Looking At Problems With a Fresh Perspective:

The way you solved a customer issue or launched a product in the past may have worked great, but the world isn’t standing still. Quite the opposite–every night when we go to bed and wake up the next day, things have changed. Those who get stuck in the past and lean on the golden ways of a time gone by are playing Russian roulette with their future.

In other words, unlearn or die!

If you’d like some concrete examples of how to look at a problem from a fresh perspective, my new book (also available as an e-book) has plenty of examples along the lines of this old post: 5 Ways to Make the Familiar Strange.

 

Unlearn Your Ideas of What is "Impossible"

"Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." The Queen in "Through the Looking Glass"

"It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow." Robert Goddard, U.S. physicist & pioneer rocket engineer (1882-1945)

An Antidisciplinary Approach to Learning -- and Unlearning

“One of the most important disciplines in the twenty-first will be no discipline at all,” writes Frank Moss in his new book, The Sorcerers and Their Apprentices—a new book about MIT’s Media Lab.

So does this mean the hard disciplines of physics, mathematics, chemistry, and engineering can be abandoned?

Absolutely not.

Instead, the school—whose stated mission is “to invent the future”—takes an “anti-disciplinary” approach to problem-solving by putting its ideas into the public domain for anyone to take and run with.

What I like about this approach is that it recognizes that every discipline has approaches, methods or boundaries which constrain its thinking. The only way to overcome these artificial barriers is to push your ideas out to other disciplines (and peoples) who view the world from a perspective different than your own.

Interested in other "anti"-approaches to unlearning? Check out these older posts:

Unlearning Requires an Anti-Library

What's on Your Anti-Resume?

 

 

A Curious Connection? Brains, Mind Maps and the Universe

Take a look at the pictures to the right. The symmetry between microscopic neurons and a macroscopic galaxy is rather surprising. Is there a connection between the two?

Honestly, I don’t know but I do believe the human mind is capable of discovering the answer.

To this end, I invite you to watch this six minute video of a fascinating and powerful (and potentially disruptive) new educational tool called Nibipedia. Pay special attention to the configuration of the “Mind Map”—you may be surprised at the similarity to the above images of the brain and the universe.

Is there a connection? Again, I don’t know but, perhaps, with the assistance of Nibipedia, James Burke and the brainpower of millions of other people we can find out.

Related Posts

Dancing into the Future with Three TED Videos 
Make More Connections to the Future

 

Listen and Unlearn

Recently, I was on a flight and as we were descending the pilot's voice came over the intercom and, tongue-in-cheek, he asked everyone to "turn off their books." It was a funny comment but it does hint at a broader sea change -- more and more people are reading books on their Kindles and iPad's.

This is no surprise.

What might be surprising is just how quickly many authors and publishers will embrace videos; location-based information; and other digital features to create more interactive books. To understand what the book of the future might look like, I invite you to watch this three-minute presentation by Mike Matas on next-generation digital media. (Caution: It may require some unlearning for you book lovers.) 

My 1-Minute Video Application to TED

As the speed of change accelerates, it will necessitate unlearning. Below is a one-minute video application I recently submitted to speak at a TED conference. Although the video doesn't specifically address unlearning, I think you'll get the drift of my message.

Unlearn Your Mind-Set and Adopt a Mind-Flex

I have read that when we are born our brains contain somewhere near one hundred billion neurons, and it can make a nearly infinite variety of possible connections--or neural pathways. As we grow older, however, we "pave" over many (or "hard-wire" if you will) of these neural pathways because they are so critical to our survival. 

This "hard-wiring," unfortunately, has some negative consequences. For example, it is speculated that this is why adults have a more difficult time learning a second language than children. Their brains are no longer as malleable.

In an era of relative stability (where society and our jobs didn't change much) there wasn't much of a downside to closing down seldom used neural pathways. But what about in an era of accelerating and constant change--such as society is now experiencing and will continue to experience?

I personally believe this is a bad thing. Moreover, it isn't merely sufficient to be open to adopting a new "mind-set" now and again. Instead, I believe we need to encourage a strategy of "mind-flex"--of keeping open as many possible neural pathways for as long as possible--for we must always be receptive to change and doing things in a new and fresh way.

How do we do this? To be honest, I don't have the slightest clue but perhaps we could start by:

Keeping An Open Mind; Embracing Ambiguity; Seeing Things from Different Perspectives; Asking New Questions; Acknowledging What We Don't Know; and Teaching Unlearning in Kindergarten.

If you agree--or even if you disagree--I'd love to hear your suggestions for how else we might encourage "Mind-Flex."

Disenthrall to Unlearn

In today's Wall Street Journal Matt Ridley has an excellent article on unlearning. In it, however, he credits someone else with pairing the concept of unlearning with Abraham Lincoln's use of the word "disenthrall." For the record, I did it two years ago in this post.

Related Posts

To Unlearn: Learn to Disenthrall

Teach Unlearning in Kindergarten

Unlearning the Future: Part II

 

Unlearning the Future: Part II

Anticipating the future is a tricky business. I mean just a quick scan of today’s news reveals the possibility for lab-grown meat; crafting beating human hearts out of new skin cells;fighting off depression with a “brain pacemaker;” and cars that can travel 261 miles-per-gallon.

Although, I’m a fan of exponential growth, it is irresponsible to assume all technological advances will unfold in an exponential fashion and that we will soon be eating lab-grown meat; growing our own replacement hearts; implanting brain chips; and traveling coast-to-coast on a single tank of gas. It is equally foolish, however, to assume that some of these breakthroughs won’t occur.

The reason I continue to emphasize unlearning as a critical skill for the future is because we must remain open to the possibility that the “unexpected” can happen. Over-anticipating the future is one danger. The other danger is anticipating events that are no longer likely to happen--and the one thing you can almost be guaranteed that isn’t going to happen is that the future will resemble today.

Related Posts

Teach Unlearning in Kindergarten

The Lesson of the Lily Pad

 

Teaching Kids to Live in a Multiple Answer World

Ken Robinson (the presenter of one of the best TED talks I have ever seen) has, with the help of the fine folks at RSA Animate, produced another short video on the importance of rethinking--or unlearning--how we educate our children. I highly recommend it.