abstract knowledge
Our brain is like a lazy fat old dude who wants to spend the least amount energy at all times. So whenever we are trying to study, we often grasp the surface level of it. We recognize and remember certain words and that’s it. If someone asks to explain it, we fumble.
That old fart brain didn’t do it’s job properly and left us hanging. It abstracted the knowledge without our permission.
But we can change the game. We can use stinginess of the brain in our favor.
We can make it abstract knowledge in a way that helps us retain more information at any given time to create a broader understanding of things.
If you can recall your science class, every chapter began with definitions - the smallest knowledge packet. The definition of one word contained a whole elaborate meaning behind it.
That’s the good kind of abstraction. The same thing I am trying to do with whatever I study. Add a layer of meaning to it, which a knowledge chunk. I can combine multiple knowledge chunks under another layer of abstraction.
It’s like I am purposely zooming out. So I can move on to other things.
Whenever I am given a big chunk of information and I am not able to understand it. I ask a lot of questions to reach the fundamental level and then come back up, repackaging the whole understanding of the topic under my designed layers of abstraction.
