Where does our cognition come from?

An article by Fu Sheng, the founder of Cheetah, is very popular. He said: the so-called growth is a cognitive upgrade.

The biggest difference between people is cognition, and the difference in skills can be quantified.

The cognitive differences are essential and inestimable.

Just like the Opium War, why did the Qing Empire lose so badly? Simply put, it is a contest between modern physics and the four books and five classics.

When there are cognitive differences between people, the decisions made are naturally completely different. Here, I have to marvel at Warren Buffett and his good friend Charles Munger. Their perceptions are so similar: Charlie said that he and Buffett rarely argue about which company to invest in, because they almost always agree.

Since cognitive upgrading is so important, how to upgrade cognition and where does new cognition come from?

Here I would like to introduce a famous child psychologist, jean piaget.

He is regarded as a "giant" in the history of psychology except Freud, and his theory of cognitive development has also become a classic in the history of psychology.

Piaget has a saying that can explain where our cognition comes from. He said: the driving force of intellectual development is that we have been making unremitting efforts to explain our life experiences.

The development of intelligence, that is, the upgrading of our cognition, comes from our constant thinking about various phenomena and stories encountered in life.

But when we explain various life phenomena and gain new cognition, it is actually operated by two processes: assimilation and adaptation.

Assimilation means that you use old experience to explain new phenomena and bring new things into your old system. For example, when adults told you that the animal in front of you was called a dog, you knew that the four-legged animal was a dog. So next you see an animal with four legs. Everyone calls it a dog.

What is adaptation? That is to correct your existing ideas to adapt to new phenomena. Take the dog as an example. When you find that an animal with four legs is called a cat, you will understand that the concept that four legs are dogs is wrong.

This is the essence of our cognitive upgrading: assimilation and adaptation. Let's find out in our minds whether we can use old knowledge to explain new phenomena. If not, we must correct our own ideas in order to conform to reality. Both cognitive upgrading and intellectual development come from this.

In the process of assimilation and adaptation, there is often a process from balance to imbalance. For example, you would say, Oh, my God! Why do so many four-legged animals look so different? Aren't swans all white? Why is there black? ?

Therefore, Piaget believes that our cognition is to rebalance again and again, break those low-level equilibria and rebuild a higher-level equilibrium.

So have you found out why most people in life fail to achieve cognitive upgrading?

In fact, we can classify the reasons from the process of upgrading.

The first step is to have the desire to think and explain.

More and more people are facing all kinds of life phenomena, which naturally should happen.

Li Jiaoshou, who became vice president of Baidu at the age of 25, has a very important learning method, that is, he insists on exploring the reasons behind things. When he went out to eat, he felt uncomfortable when he saw many dishes in the menu, and he wondered why such a menu would make people uncomfortable. So after some thinking, he understood that this is "decision paralysis". People's brains have too many choices, so they simply don't choose.

The second step is to break the original low-level balance.

This step has also stopped many people, just like the Opium War mentioned at the beginning. Conservatives insist that the Four Books and Five Classics can keep China going for thousands of years, and they will certainly be able to hold on to guns and ammunition.

There is also a book, I believe many people have heard or not read, "Who Moved My Cheese". There are two mice sniffing in a hurry, and two dwarfs whining, which are the protagonists of the whole story. The story is simple and profound.

Smell is a mouse that is particularly sensitive to change, and rush is an action school. They are simple-minded They keep walking when they encounter changes, don't look back, and immediately respond to changes, so they don't panic without cheese, just keep watching.

The two dwarfs represent human beings with developed minds and complicated emotions. When they encounter changes, they always analyze and recall the past. Hum, when the cheese is gone, he is impatient and stays in that warm nest forever, hoping that the cheese will come back. Haw, on the other hand, is a growing person, and he is also afraid of change. Of course, the end result was that he became no longer afraid and embarked on the road of looking for cheese.

In fact, more people in life are humming in stories, unwilling to make changes, and counting on the original situation, that is, those old ideas can protect themselves.

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The next step is the third step, developing into a more advanced balance.

Some people know that their old ideas are no longer suitable for the times, so they stop and think that this is enough.

People who like to complain are like keyboard men, who die in this ring. People who are willing to innovate go further than those who complain, destroying old things and replacing them with new systems to form a more advanced balance.

The legendary Iron Man Elon Musk is like this. He is constantly making subversive innovations.

The car consumed oil resources, so he converted it into an electric car, so there is now Tesla. Traditional rockets can only be used once, wasting resources, so he asked space exploration technology company to make reusable rockets. The ground was too blocked, so he dug a tunnel underground and had a boring company. The earth's resources are limited and almost gone, so he has the "Mars Oasis" plan, and plans to bring 654.38+0 million people to immigrate to Mars in the future, and his biggest dream is to retire to Mars.

He is like a mouse in Who Moved My Cheese, sniffing around, rushing around, simple-minded, not complaining, not attached, acting directly and constantly looking for new cheese.

He is like Doraemon. If he has nothing, he can get something. Tell me whether such a man is cool or not.

Our cognitive process is three steps: first, we are willing to think, then we break the old cognition, and finally we develop new cognition. Constantly assimilate and adapt, and rebalance and rebalance repeatedly.

Do you think this process is simple?

That's because there are too many technical articles now. In order to attract everyone's attention, writers have to use various fancy methods to attract everyone's attention. However, the more complicated the method, the farther away we are from the essence.

Finally, let's sum up with Piaget's words:

The motive force of intellectual development is that we have been making unremitting efforts to explain our life experiences.

Pea girl: The psychology lover who died in the third step above.