Can Learning Make You Dumb? Yes.

I’m an idiot -- and you should be, too. Sometimes.

Thinking is hard, and thinking with a free, open mind might be the hardest thing of all. The Einstellung Effect can create cognitive illusions that blind us to different points of view. It prevents us from seeing simpler solutions or alternative ways to solve a problem. And the more we know about a given topic, the stronger the Einstellung Effect can be.

Psychology, math, and every other field is subject to Einstellung, and it’s why heroes often appear from completely different disciplines. Because a fresh set of eyes isn’t bound by a given set of knowledge, they see something in a brand new light. What’s impossible to trained professionals can be obvious to someone who’s inexperienced.

The Einstellung Effect might be the ultimate psychological paradox: the more we know, the stupider we can be. And the stupider we are, the more we can know.

*** SOURCES ***


Grand Illusions Einstein Hollow Face Illusion

The Hollow Mask Illusion

*** LINKS ***

Vsauce2:

Hosted and Produced by Kevin Lieber

Research And Writing by Matthew Tabor

Editing by John Swan

Research Assistant: German Banda

Thumbnail by Eric Langlay

Huge Thanks To Paula Lieber

#education #vsauce2

[confusedwhale]

"Survivors don't *_HAVE_* to be buried at all."

True, but I'm gonna do it anyways.

[surrealentertainment]

this is my favourite thumbnail on youtube, by far

[San-lhus]

"survivors don't need to be buried at all", they don't NEED, but they CAN

[josephcope]

When I was a kid my grandmother teased my cousins and I by asking if any of us could "stick out our tongues and touch our elbows?" After we all went through contortions trying to touch our elbows with our tongues ... and failed, she stuck out her tongue and touched her elbow WITH ONE OF HER HANDS. I never forgot that lesson and many times it's kept me from making a fool of myself when solving tricky problems.

[devilofether]

"Your brain gets smart, but your head gets dumb"
~great modern philosopher: smash mouth

[katie]

This is why wisdom and intelligence are different stats

[KingMe-qzhr]

“The human brain is the greatest computer ever created”
- Human Brain

[CatFishsm]

I've heard an interesting story once, I live in a farming community. There was a farmer who had three sons. Two of them went off to college and one of them stayed home and took care of the farm. Of the two that went to college, one went to business school, the other into agriculture. After graduating, the son who went into agriculture came back home. He preformed many tests on the soil and came up with a plan to triple their profit by planting a new crop that the family never grew. The brother who'd stayed home didn't like this idea. The father seeing them argue with one another smiled and said "Well why don't each of you take half the farm and do what you want. We can decide things next year when we see the results. They both reluctantly agreed. As the year went on the each son did their own things, the one who went to college grew his crop which had mostly shriveled and died he ended up taking a loss. The other son did things as they always had and ended up with enough profit to cover the loss, though just barely. Overall the third son had to help them through the winter. Utterly humiliated and embarrassed the educated son seeked his father for advice asking why his plan had failed. His father responded with an "I'm not sure, but we've never been able to grow those kinds of crops here." Surprised he asked "then why did you let me grow them in the first place?" His father replied "Well there's two reasons, if I hadn't let you fail then you never would have learned, also you may not have had a good relationship with your brother because of that, you need to work together. Second, because you might know something I don't, you might be able to succeed where I failed. You're brother is stuck in his ways, just as I had been at that age, but I have since learned to open my mind and be more reasonable."
From that day forward whenever the brothers had a dispute, the educated one wanted to try something new, they would result to splitting the farm. Over time the educated brother helped to increase efficiency and profit several tines. The uneducated brother learned to open his mind to more possibilities and all three brothers began working together to maximize efficiency and profit.

[HermanVonPetri]

And thus: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

[GhostSpa]

As a great philosopher once said:

"Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb."

[BenReillySpydr]

_"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."_

-Sherlock Holmes

[cosmiqoutcast]

I noticed this at uni. My theoretical physics partner who I solved the weekly problem sheets with was actually from the maths department and she said she didn‘t get the meaning of the lagrangian. She was far better than me when it came to handling the formulas while I was more interested in what they actually mean. I got sick once and she had to do the problem set alone and we got an almost perfect score. But then she admitted to me that she had no idea what the hell she was doing. It was mostly automatic for her. That was quite shocking tbh.

[skallos_]

"You can't even use the largest jar."
If you take the jar with 76 ounces, and pour out 3 ounces at a time 25 times, you are left with 1 ounce. Pour that 1 ounce into the 28 ounce jar and repeat 25 times. There, a solution using the 76 ounce jar.

[allenholloway]

This is why "beginner's luck" is a thing. Beginners look for new ways to solve problems, while experts rely on experiences that may not be perfect.

[dpearson]

This is why a “fresh set of eyes” is sometimes needed to solve a particularly stubborn problem.

[blitsriderfield]

at a scout camp, i was given a test. the test consisted of a number of wild and wacky activities like dancing like a chicken, running in circles or finding a pinecone. the sheer number of activities made me miss the line "read all the instructions before beginning the test" and as such i did not notice the last activity was to ignore all of the previous ones

[Owen_loves_Butters]

It’s not about getting “too smart”, it’s about you getting your mind fixed on one idea and missing others.

[vedvod]

but "survivors don't have to be buried at all!", right? "WRONG!"
Kevin has overlooked the fact that you need to hide the evidence *somehow*

[naveengadhwal]

Baby Kevin : w...w..w...

His Parents : he is saying his first words!!

Kevin : WRONG!!

[MilnaAlen]

I saw the efficient solution right away. But my ADHD brain also doesn't form habits - I have to consciously think of every little step in making a sandwhich or washing dishes like I have never done it before.

And constantly keep basic tasks like eating, drinking, brushing teeth, sleep in my mind. Still forget a lot of the time. It's exhausting.