改变你的思维,转变你的人生
I love reading history and being inspired by the biographies of extraordinary people. One of the most unusual people I've ever read about, is inspiring not only because he was so extraordinary. But also, because he was so ordinary. Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a born troublemaker. In rural Spain of the 1860s, there weren't many options for oddball juvenile delinquents. So that's how at 11 years old, Cajal found himself in jail. Cajal was stubborn and rebellious. Who knew that Santiago Ramón y Cajal would one day not only earn the Nobel Prize, but eventually become known as the Father of Modern Neuroscience? Cajal was already in his early 20s when he began climbing from bad boy delinquency into the traditional study of medicine. There's evidence that myelin sheaths. The fatty insulation that helps signals move more quickly along a neuron, don't finish developing in some people until they're in their twenties. This may explain why teenagers often have trouble controlling their impulsive behavior. The wiring between the intention and the control areas of the brain isn't completely formed. When you use neural circuits however, it seems you help build the myelin sheath over them. Not to mention making many other microscopic changes.
Practice appears to strengthen and reinforce connections between different brain regions, creating highways between the brain's control centers and the centers that store knowledge. In Cajal's case, it seems his natural maturation processes coupled with his own efforts to develop his thinking, helped him to take control of his overall behavior. It seems people can enhance the development of their neuronal circuits by practicing thoughts that use those neurons.
We're still in the infancy of understanding neural development. One thing is becoming clear, we can make significant changes in our brain by changing how we think. Cajal met and worked with many brilliant scientists through his lifetime. People who were often far smarter than he. In Cajal's autobiography however, he pointed out that although brilliant people can do exceptional work, just like anyone else they can also be careless and biased. Cajal felt the key to his own success was his perseverance. What he called the virtue of the less brilliant, coupled with his flexible ability to change his mind and admit errors. Anyone, Cajal noted, even people with average intelligence, can change their own brains so that even the least gifted can produce an abundant harvest. People like Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution has made him one of the most influential figures in human history, are often thought of as these, sort of, natural geniuses. You may be surprised to learn that much like Cajal, Darwin was a poor student in school. He washed out of medical school and ended up, to his father's horror, heading out on a round the world voyage as the ship's naturalist. Out on his own, Darwin was able to look with fresh eyes at the data he was collecting. Approaching material with a goal of learning it on your own, can give you a unique path to mastery. Often no matter how good your teacher and textbook are, it's only when you sneak off and look at other books or videos that you begin to see what you learn through a single teacher, or book, is a partial version of the full three dimensional reality of the subject, which has links to still other fascinating topics that are of your choosing. Taking responsibility for your own learning is one of the most important things you can do. Santiago Ramón y Cajal had a deep understanding, not only of how to conduct science but also of how people just interact with one another. He warned fellow learners that there will always be those who criticize or attempt to undermine any effort or achievement you make. This happens to everybody. Not just Nobel Prize winners. If you do well in your studies, the people around you can feel threatened. The greater your achievement, the more other people will sometimes attack and demean your efforts. On the other hand, if you flunk a test, you also may encounter critics who throw more barbs, saying you don't have what it takes. We're often told that empathy is universally beneficial. But it's not. It's important to learn to switch on an occasional cool dispassion that helps you to not only focus on what you're trying to learn, but also to tune people out if you discover that their interests lie in undercutting you such undercutting is all too common, as people are often just as competitive as they are cooperative. When you're a young person, mastering such dispassion can be difficult. We're naturally excited about what we're working on, and we like to believe that everyone can be reasoned with and then, almost everyone is naturally good hearted towards us. Like Santiago Ramón y Cajal, you can take pride in aiming for success. Because of the very things that make other people say you can't do it. Take pride in who you are. Especially, in the qualities that make you different. And use them as a secret talisman for success. Use your natural contrariness to defy the always present prejudices from others about what you can accomplish. I'm Barbara Oakley. Thanks for learning about learning.
我热爱阅读历史,并从杰出人物的传记中获得启发。我所读过的最不寻常的人物之一,不仅因为他非常非凡而鼓舞人心,而且因为他非常普通。圣地亚哥·拉蒙-卡哈尔是一个天生的捣蛋鬼。在19世纪60年代的西班牙农村,对于古怪的少年犯来说,没有太多选择。因此,11岁的卡哈尔发现自己进了监狱。卡哈尔固执而叛逆。谁能想到圣地亚哥·拉蒙-卡哈尔有一天不仅获得了诺贝尔奖,最终成为著名的现代神经科学之父?
当卡哈尔开始从不良少年犯罪转向传统的医学研究时,他已经20出头了。有证据表明,髓鞘——帮助信号更快地沿着神经元移动的脂肪绝缘层——在某些人身上直到二十多岁才完全发育。这可能解释了为什么青少年经常难以控制他们的冲动行为。大脑中意图和控制区域之间的连接尚未完全形成。然而,当你使用神经网络时,似乎你帮助它们建立了髓鞘。更不用说进行许多其他微观变化了。实践似乎加强了不同大脑区域之间的联系,并在大脑的控制中心和存储知识的区域之间建立了高速公路。在卡哈尔的例子中,似乎是他自然成熟的过程加上他自己发展思维的努力,帮助他控制了他的整体行为。似乎人们可以通过练习使用那些神经元的思想来加强他们神经回路的发展。我们对神经发育的理解仍处于初级阶段。
有一件事变得越来越清楚:我们可以通过改变我们的思维方式来对我们大脑产生重大影响。卡哈尔在他的一生中遇到了许多杰出的科学家并与他们合作。这些人通常比他聪明得多。然而,在卡哈尔的自传中,他指出,尽管聪明的人可以做出杰出的工作,但就像其他人一样,他们也可能会粗心大意和带有偏见。卡哈尔认为他自己成功的关键是他的毅力。他称之为不那么聪明人的优点,再加上他灵活改变自己的思维方式并承认错误的能力。卡哈尔指出,任何人,甚至是智力平平的人,都可以改变自己的大脑,即使是最没有天赋的人也能取得丰硕的成果。
像查尔斯·达尔文这样的人,他的进化论使他成为人类历史上最具影响力的人物之一,通常被认为是这些自然的天才之一。你可能会很惊讶地了解到,与卡哈尔类似,达尔文在学校里是个差生。他没能从医学院毕业,最后令他父亲惊恐的是,他作为船上的自然学家开始了环球航行。独自一人,达尔文能够用新鲜的眼光看待他正在收集的数据。以自学为目标去接触材料,可以为你提供一条独特的掌握之路。通常,无论你的老师和教科书有多好,只有当你偷偷去看其他书籍或视频时,你才开始看到你通过一个老师或一本书学到的东西只是这个主题完整三维现实的部分版本,它与你选择的其他迷人话题有联系。对自己的学习负责是你能做的最重要的事情之一。
圣地亚哥·拉蒙-卡哈尔不仅对如何进行科学研究有着深刻的理解,而且对人们如何相互交流也有着深刻的理解。他警告其他学习者总会有人批评或试图破坏你的任何努力或成就。这种情况发生在每个人身上,不仅仅是诺贝尔奖获得者。如果你在学习上做得很好,周围的人可能会感到受到威胁。你的成就越大,其他人有时就越会攻击和贬低你的努力。另一方面,如果你考试不及格,你也会遇到批评者,他们会扔更多的刺,说你不具备所需的能力。我们经常被告知同理心是普遍有益的。但事实并非如此。学会偶尔保持冷静的超然态度是很重要的,这不仅有助于你专注于你正在学习的内容,而且如果你发现他人的兴趣在于削弱你(这种削弱是非常常见的,因为人们往往既具有竞争性又具有合作性),你也可以将他们排除在外。当你年轻时,掌握这种超然的态度可能是困难的。我们对我们所从事的工作自然感到兴奋,并且我们喜欢相信每个人都是可以讲道理的,然后几乎每个人都对我们天生怀有良好的心意。像圣地亚哥·拉蒙-卡哈尔一样,你可以为追求成功而自豪。正是因为那些让别人说你做不到的事情。为自己是谁感到自豪。特别是那些使你与众不同的品质。并将它们用作成功的神秘护身符。利用你天生的倔强来对抗别人对你所能取得的成就的永远存在的偏见。感谢你们了解学习之道。
团队合作的价值
[BLANK_AUDIO] This is a CT scan. If you look carefully, the shadowed region right here reveals the damage caused by right hemisphere ischemic stroke. Such a stroke can cause an unusual condition known as broad-perspective perceptual disorder of the right hemisphere. People with this disorder can still function, but only partially. They can retain their intelligence, even a formidable way for solving complex math problems, if that was a skill they'd had before. But an interesting anomaly, however, is if they make a mistake in their calculations, concluding something nonsensical, such as that a hot dog stand had a, a profit and loss statement with a loss of nearly a billion dollars. It doesn't bother them. There's no big picture, click, that says, wait a minute, that answer does not make sense.
Although we need to be careful about faulty and superficial left brain, right brain assumptions. We also don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water, and ignore worthwhile research that gives intriguing hints about differences between the two hemispheres of the brain.
There's a great deal of evidence from research that the right hemisphere helps us step back and put our work into big picture perspective. People with damage to the right hemisphere are often unable to gain ah-ha, insights. The right hemisphere, as it turns out, is vitally important in getting into the right track and doing reality checks.
People with strokes can remind us of the dangers of not using our full cognitive abilities, which involve many areas of our brain. Even subtle avoidance of some of our capabilities can have a surprisingly negative impact on our work. In some sense, when you whiz through a homework or test question and don't go back to check your work, you're acting a little like a person who's refusing to use parts of your brain. You're not stopping to take a mental breath. And then revisit what you've done with the bigger picture in mind to see whether it makes sense. As leading neuroscientist Vilayanur S Ramachandran has noted, the right hemisphere serves as a sort of devil's advocate to question the status quo and look for global inconsistencies. While the left hemisphere instead tries to cling tenaciously to the way things were. This echos the pioneering work of psychologist Michael Gazzaniga who posited that the left hemisphere interprets the world for us and will go to great lengths to keep those interpretations unchanging. When you work in the focus mode, it's easy to make minor mistakes in your assumptions or calculations. If you go off track early on, it doesn't matter if the rest of your work is correct. Your answer is still wrong. Sometimes, it's even laughably wrong. The equivalent of calculating a circumference of the earth that's only two and a half feet around. But these non-sensical results just don't matter to you because the more left centered focus mode has associated with it a desire to cling to what you've done.
That's the problem with the focus, sometimes a bit left hemisphere leaning mode of analysis. It provides for an analytical and upbeat approach, but abundant research evidence suggests there's a potential for rigidity, dogmatism, and egocentricity. When you're absolutely certain that what you've done on a homework or test is fine, thank you very much, be aware that this feeling may be based on overly confident perspectives arising in part from the left hemisphere. When you step back and recheck, you're allowing for more interaction between the hemispheres, taking advantage of the special perspectives and abilities of each. Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman perhaps said it best when he pointed out, the first principle is that you must not fool yourself. And you are the easiest person to fool.
One of the best ways to catch your blind spots and errors is to brainstorm and work with others who are also smartly focused on the topic. It's sometimes just not enough to use more of your own neural horsepower. Both modes and hemispheres to analyze your work. After all, everyone has blind spots. You're naively upbeat focused mode can still skip right over errors, especially if you're the one who committed the original errors. Worse yet, sometimes you can blindly believe you've got everything nailed down intellectually, but you haven't. This is the kind of thing that can leave you in shock when you discover you've flunked the test you thought you aced. By making it a point to do some of your studying with friends, you can more easily catch where your thinking has gone astray. Friends and teammates can serve as sort of ever questioning larger scale diffuse mode outside your brain that can catch what you missed, or what you just can't see. And of course, explaining to friends helps build your own understanding.
The importance of working with others doesn't just relate to learning. It's also important in career building. A single small tip from a teammate to take a course from the outstanding Professor Passionate, or to check out a new job opening, can make an extraordinary difference in how your life unfolds. A word of warning, however. Study groups can be powerfully effective for learning, but if study sessions turn into socializing occasions, all bets are off. Keep small talk to a minimum, get your group on track. And finish your work. If you find that your group meetings start five to 15 minutes late, members haven't read the material, and the conversation consistently veers off topic, you're best off to find another group. I'm Barbra Oakley, thanks for learning how to learn.
这是一张CT扫描图。如果你仔细观察,阴影区域在这里揭示了右侧半球缺血性中风所造成的损害。这样的中风可能导致一种被称为右半球广泛知觉障碍的异常情况。患有这种障碍的人仍然可以部分地运作,但他们只能保留他们的智力,甚至是一种令人生畏的解决复杂数学问题的方法,如果这是他们之前拥有的技能的话。然而,一个有趣的异常现象是,如果他们在计算中犯了错误,得出了一些毫无意义的结论,比如一个热狗摊子有一份亏损近十亿美元的损益表。这并不会困扰他们。没有大的画面,点击一下,说,等一下,这个答案没有意义。
虽然我们需要对有缺陷和肤浅的左脑、右脑假设保持谨慎。我们也不想因为一些无关紧要的研究而忽略了有价值的研究,这些研究为我们提供了关于大脑两个半球之间差异的有趣线索。
有大量的研究证据表明,右半球帮助我们退后一步,将我们的工作放在大局的角度来看待。右半球受损的人往往无法获得洞察力。事实证明,右半球在进入正确的轨道和进行现实检查方面至关重要。
中风的人可以提醒我们不要使用我们全部的认知能力的危险,这涉及到我们大脑的许多区域。即使是对我们某些能力的微妙回避也可能对我们的工作产生惊人的负面影响。在某种程度上,当你快速完成作业或测试问题而不回头检查你的工作时,你的行为有点像拒绝使用你大脑的某些部分。你没有停下来喘口气。然后重新审视你所做的事情,用更大的画面来思考它是否有道理。正如领先的神经科学家Vilayanur S Ramachandran所指出的那样,右半球扮演着魔鬼代言人的角色,质疑现状并寻找全球性的不一致之处。而左半球则相反,试图紧紧抓住事物原本的样子。这与心理学家Michael Gazzaniga的开创性工作相呼应,他认为左半球为我们解读世界,并会竭尽全力保持这些解读不变。当你以专注模式工作时,很容易在你的假设或计算中犯小错误。如果你一开始就偏离了轨道,那么剩下的工作是否正确就无关紧要了。你的答案仍然是错误的。有时,它甚至可笑地错误。就像计算地球周长只有两英尺半一样。但这些无意义的结果对你来说并不重要,因为更多的以左中心为主的专注模式与你坚持自己所做的欲望有关。
这就是专注的问题,有时是稍微偏向左脑的分析模式。它提供了一个分析和乐观的方法,但大量的研究证据表明,这种方法可能存在僵化、教条主义和自我中心的潜力。当你确定你在作业或考试上做得很好时,非常感谢你,要意识到这种感觉可能基于过于自信的观点,这部分源于左脑。当你退后一步重新检查时,你允许左右半球之间有更多的互动,利用每个半球的特殊观点和能力。诺贝尔物理学奖得主理查德·费曼可能说得最好,他指出:“第一条原则是你不能愚弄自己。”而你是最容易被愚弄的人。
捕捉你的盲点和错误的最好方法之一是集思广益并与同样专注于该主题的人一起工作。有时候仅仅依靠你自己的神经力量是不够的。你需要使用两种模式和两个半球来分析你的工作。毕竟,每个人都有盲点。你天真乐观的专注模式仍然可能会跳过错误,特别是如果你自己是犯原始错误的人。更糟糕的是,有时候你可以盲目地相信你已经从理智上把握住了一切,但实际上并没有。当你发现你以为能通过的考试不及格时,这种情况会让你震惊不已。通过与朋友一起学习,你可以更容易地发现你的思维在哪里出了问题。朋友和队友可以充当你大脑之外的一种不断质疑的大范围扩散模式,它可以捕捉到你错过的东西或者你只是看不到的东西。当然,向朋友解释也有助于建立你自己的理解。
与他人合作的重要性不仅在于学习,也对职业发展很重要。来自队友的一个小建议,比如选修杰出教授Passionate的课程或查看新职位空缺,都可能极大地改变你的人生走向。不过,要注意一点,学习小组对于学习来说非常有效,但如果小组讨论变成了社交场合,那就适得其反了。要尽量减少闲聊,让小组回到正轨上来,并完成你的工作。如果你发现小组会议总是晚五到十五分钟开始、成员们没有阅读材料、谈话总是跑题的话,最好另找一组。感谢你们学到了如何学习。