# How we learn

We build our understanding through [learning/education](education.md), which always starts with gathered observations:

1. Performing something and witnessing its [results](results.md). This form gives the most information but is the most [unsafe](safety.md) without [creatively](mind-creativity.md) using [technology](technology.md).
2. Directly observing something, often by seeing or touching it. Often, [media](creations.md) will reproduce that experience.
3. Observing second-hand through [language](language.md). By reading or listening to other people who have experienced, we can [imagine](imagination.md) the experience for ourselves.

APPLICATION: We can't simply learn by [rote memorization](mind-memory.md) or [acquiring information](information.md). Instead, we must experience the information to know how to work with it.

With adverse experiences, we can only learn from them if we take [responsibility](meaning.md) to [change](people-changes.md).

We then process the information:

1. We assemble the information in our mind using [visual imagery](people-image-why.md) and [language](language.md).
2. [Our bias](mind-bias.md) filters the information to get rid of the useless parts.
3. If we're not sure, we'll either [analyze](logic.md) or [meditate](awareness-meditation.md) on what we've received, or will seek our environment for more information.
4. Our [soul](humanity.md) identifies when the remainder is sufficient that we can adequately [imagine](imagination.md) what we're observing.

APPLICATION: [Small children](maturity.md) often can understand, but don't have words for what they understand. A considerable portion of their [parents'](people-family.md) job to give them those words.

APPLICATION: We must understand what to do before we [start anything](results.md), since acting in the wrong direction will make things worse than doing nothing. With experience, we can become highly qualified at knowing what specific information we need.

The result of this process is a set of abstracted things we can quickly experience through our [feelings](mind-feelings.md) as we sense them.

APPLICATION: In a sense, understanding is like [philosophy](philosophy.md) or [investing](money-investing.md) knowledge: useless by itself, but severely magnifies [power](power.md) if it's applied to a [specialty](jobs-specialization.md).

After we've integrated those experiences, we tend to call those things "our ideas". They're mostly others' ideas adapted to our form of thinking, but we've worked with them them so heavily that we make them a part of our [identity](identity.md).

However, we can never fully attain a comprehensive grasp of [reality](reality.md). Most of the foundational things we [believe](understanding-certainty.md) exist on the periphery of our fullest capacity for understanding something.

## The method for understanding

We can only focus on 1 thing at a time. Every so often we can hold things in our memory to combine ideas together, but we're incapable of thinking 2 things at once without rapidly switching.

To gain more understanding of [something we don't know](unknown.md), we generally must maintain awareness that we don't know alongside [curiosity](purpose.md) about it (which requires a certain type of [fearlessness](mind-feelings-fear.md)). This forced paradox expands itself into several tracks of inquiry to investigate ideas further:

- WHAT asks about status.
  - It's meant to distill the answer down to "bottom-line" information that strips away as many details as reasonably possible.
  - "What" is the most basic question possible, and creates the simplest answers.
- WHO asks about individuals.
  - The questions typically allude to [relationships](people-friends.mdds.md) and [group affiliations](groups-member.md).
  - Asking "who" questions is always the means to *more* questions, though it's not always necessary.
- WHERE and WHEN ask for location and time, respectively.
  - Like "what", "where" and "when" shred away all details except the most relevant.
- HOW inquires more intimately with the matter.
  - "How" questions are strictly [logical](logic.md), analytical dissections of cause-and-effect.
  - "How" gives the most useful answers for [practical reasons](purpose.md), especially when the stay focused on the present (as opposed to cause-and-effect across [time](datetime.md)).
- WHY is a difficult question to define because it's a *very* open-ended large-scale domain:
  - Why is that? - broadly asking any form of basis
  - Why do they? - asking the [motivation](purpose.md) behind the known action
  - Why does it? - asking the cause behind the known effect
  - Why can/will it? - asking the [logic](logic.md) behind a [prediction](imagination.md)
  - Why won't it? - finding the [unknown](unknown.md) obstruction toward a [purpose](purpose.md)

APPLICATION: The types of questions we ask define most of the things we grow to understand. Asking "what" will never get anyone as far as asking "how" or "why". Curiosity is necessary to gain wisdom.

In particular, "why" questions generate the most information because they request the broadest possible range of information. They also help [bridge connections](https://gainedin.site/networks/) the easiest between things, since they most easily help us to detect [patterns](symbols.md) across domains.

We tend to be very accurate about *what* we're paying attention to, but often fail at explaining *why* it is that way or *how* it would respond to any [changes](people-changes.md) around it.

APPLICATION: The quality of our learning comes through the forms of questions we ask and how deeply we try to answer them. If we're particularly intelligent, we should ask "why", but *everyone* should be asking "how".

When we face complex questions, we tend to answer a far more simple question in place of it. Unfortunately, we tend to also not notice that we made that switch, and we'll commit a simple answer to memory about an inherently complicated idea.

Often, the best way to understand something is to [write it down](language-writing.md). It forces us to use the [logic-based](logic.md) portions of our minds to [order](understanding-certainty.md) our thoughts.