Installing Software In Our Brains

The most effective way for us to learn knowledge by ourselves.

Script and Interpreter

In the programming world, scripts can achieve many functions, such as processing data and controlling machines. Generally, scripts require an interpreter to achieve these functions. For exmaple, Python scripts can be interpreted (executed) with python.exe.

For our brain, the knowledge and skills stored in the brain or recorded in books and other media are exactly the same as Python scripts. We can use this knowledge and skills to achieve specific work.

So what is the thing in the brain that corresponds to python.exe?

The brain itself? Absolutely not.

The brain itself is a "hardware" like a computer, whereas python.exe is a software. So we need a "software" in our brain to interpret this knowledge and skills codes.

How do we "install" the software in our brain?

First of all, it must be emphasized that simply memorizing the contents of these recorded knowledge and skills is just copying them into the brain, not installing an executable software.

What people without programming experience may not know is that there is no essential difference in the storage method and format between so-called executable files, such as python.exe, and so-called text files, such as my_secret.txt (Same goes for scripts).

They are all sequences of a certain length of binary digits (1s and 0s) in a specific order. The main difference is how the hardware and operating system or other softwares treat their structure and content. If the structure and content of a sequence conform to the specific requirements of a particular hardware or software, it may be considered "executable". Even scripts themselves can be "executable" as long as they meet the requirements of the interpreter. Similarly, if we want to install a software that can execute knowledge or skills in our brain, simply memorizing the knowledge and skills is not enough, as this may not meet the brain's requirement for "executability".

Here comes the point, but since this is a tutorial for everyone, I will not explain the principles in detail here to avoid information overload or deviating from the goal.

Information is stored in the brain based on the connection between nerve cells (that is, synapses). Whether it is memorizing knowledge or installing an executable software in the brain, it is necessary to reshape the connection between brain nerve cells, and it is a reshaping between a large number of cells.

The specific operation method is to use a set of similar "input information and corresponding output information" to iteratively stimulate the brain.

For example, if we want to learn a new language, in this example we choose to learn Japanese reading (because it is easy and fun), but why emphasize "reading"? This is very important, we will explain it later.

The first step is to prepare a set of similar information:

• 畑に豚がいる。             (Meaning: There are pigs in the field.)
• 畑に猪がいる。             (Meaning: There are wild boars in the field.)
• 畑に牛がいる。             (Meaning: There are cattle in the field.）
• 畑に鶏がいる。             (Meaning: There are chickens in the field.)
• 畑に羊がいる。             (Meaning: There are sheep in the field.)
• 畑に虎がいる。             (Meaning: There are tigers in the field.)
• 畑に山羊がいる。           (Meaning: There are goats in the field.)

It must be emphasized that the Japanese text before the parentheses is the input information, and the meaning corresponding to the Japanese text is the output information. The "meaning" here is the meaning that exists in the brain rather than the English text.

The English text in the subsequent parentheses is NOT the output information. These English texts here are just to help us construct the corresponding meaning of the Japanese text in our brain.

The second step is to quickly glance at the English text in parentheses to get a general understanding of the meaning described in the English text. Then completely cover the English text, and then look at the Japanese text line by line with our eyes, and recall the meaning just described in the English text. Be careful not to recall the English text itself, but the meaning in our brain, or to be more precise, the scene or picture in our mind, such as a group of pigs moving in a field.

Note that every time we "look" at a line of Japanese text, we have to recall the meaning once. Although the meaning of each line is almost the same, this is a necessary step and cannot be omitted.

Here I mean "look" in the literal sense, or more precisely, look at the shapes of Japanese texts without trying to think about or understand them. Don't even worry about how they should be pronounced. This is to establish an association between the shape of Japanese text and its corresponding meaning. This association will stimulate the brain to automatically reshape the connections between nerve cells, and eventually form a structure that can process Japanese text. This is what we call the "reading ability" of a language.

Just repeat the above steps twice when we have time, do it two or three times at different parts of the day, and we will see the effect the next day.

What is the effect? The next day we will find that we have grasped a sentence pattern:

• 畑に ABC がいる。       (Meaning: There are ABC in the field.)

Now, we've installed a simple sentence parsing software in our brain. Although it can only parse one sentence pattern, but it works. The next time we see a similar Japanese sentence, we at least know the basic meaning it expresses.

Complex sentences are nothing more than the accumulation and combination of simple sentences. We only need to master enough basic sentence patterns in this way, and eventually we can parse the complete Japanese text.

But we haven't memorized the corresponding shapes of various animal words in Japanese, let alone the pronunciation.

Yes, but this is not a problem. We only need to prepare information specifically for words and pronunciation separately in the future.

For example:

• 車に牛がいる。            　  (Meaning: There are cattle in the car.)
• 教室に牛がいる。              (Meaning: There are cattle in the classroom.)
• 本屋に牛がいる。              (Meaning: There are cattle in the book store.)
• 部屋に牛がいる                (Meaning: There are cattle in the room.)
• 動物園に牛がいる。            (Meaning: There are cattle in the zoo.)
• 図書館に牛がいる。            (Meaning: There are cattle in the library.)
• 体育館に牛がいる。            (Meaning: There are cattle in the gym.)
• 警察署に牛がいる。            (Meaning: There are cattle in the police station.)
• バーに牛がいる。              (Meaning: There are cattle in the bar.)
• スマホに牛がいる。            (Meaning: There are cattle in the smartphone.)
• ディズニーランドに牛がいる。   (Meaning: There are cattle in the Disneyland.)

Now we know what "牛" means.

But where is the alphabet? Shouldn’t we learn the "Gojūon" first when learning Japanese?

Good question.

To be continued...

Licenses

This work was written by Accellular Automata and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.