Q:
I like to think of science as a ship that takes us to unknown places, the remotest parts of the universe, into the inner workings of light and the tiniest molecules of life. This ship has instruments, telescopes and microscopes, which make visible what was once invisible. But science is also the route itself, the binnacle, the chart leading us towards the unknown. (c)
Q:
Of all the places we travel throughout our lifetimes, the most extraordinary is certainly the land of childhood: a territory that, looked back on by the adult, becomes a simple, naive, colourful, dreamlike, playful and vulnerable space.
It’s odd. We were all once citizens of that country, yet it is hard to remember and reconstruct it without dusting off photos in which, from a distance, we see ourselves in the third person, as if that child were someone else and not us in a different time.
How did we think and conceive of the world before learning the words to describe it? And, while we are at it, how did we discover those words without a dictionary to define them? How is it possible that before three years of age, in a period of utter immaturity in terms of formal reasoning, we were able to discover the ins and outs of grammar and syntax? (c)
When investigating in detail how great experts learned what they know, and avoiding the temptation to draw general conclusions based more on myth, it turns out that the first two premises of Galton’s argument are wrong. The upper limit of learning is not so genetically based, nor is the path towards that upper limit so independent of genetics. Genetics are involved in both parts, but not decisively in either. (c)
Q:
The biological and the cultural are always intrinsically related. And not in a linear manner. In fact, a completely unfounded intuition is that biology precedes behaviour, that there is an innate biological predisposition that can later follow, through the effect of culture, different trajectories. That is not true; the social fabric affects the very biology of the brain. This is clear in a dramatic example observed in the brains of two three-year-old children. One is raised with affection in a normal environment while the other lacks emotional, educational and social stability. The brain of the latter is not only abnormally small but its ventricles, the cavities through which cerebrospinal fluid flows, have an abnormal size as well.
So different social experiences result in completely distinct brains. A caress, a word, an image–every life experience leaves a trace in the brain. These traces modify the brain and, with it, one’s way of responding to things, one’s predisposition to relating to someone, one’s desires, wishes and dreams. In other words, the social context changes the brain, and this in turn defines who we are as social beings.
A second unfounded intuition is thinking that because something is biological it is unchangeable. Again, this is simply not true. For instance, the predisposition to music depends on the biological constitution of the auditory cortex. This is a causal relation between an organ and a cultural expression. However, this connection does not imply developmental determinism. The auditory cortex is not static, anyone can change it just by practising and exercising.
Thus the social and the biological are intrinsically related in a network of networks. This categorical division is not a property of nature, but rather of our obtuse way of understanding it. (c)
Q:
Our choices define us. We choose to take risks or live conservatively, to lie when it seems convenient or to make the truth a priority, no matter what the cost. We choose to save up for a distant future or live in the moment. The vast sum of our actions comprises the outline of our identities. As José Saramago put it in his novel All the Names: ‘We don’t actually make decisions, the decisions make us.’ Or, in a more contemporary version, when Albus Dumbledore lectures Harry Potter: ‘It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.’ (c)
Q:
This idea that we all go through a similar educational trajectory, but the ceiling depends on a biological predisposition, was coined and sketched in 1869 by Francis Galton, one of the most versatile and prolific British scientists. The clearest example appears when the predisposition is a body trait. For example, becoming a professional basketball player is much more likely if you are tall. (c)
Q:
The great neurologist Larry Squire sketched a taxonomy that divides learning into two large categories. Declarative learning is conscious and can be explained in words. A good example of this is learning the rules of a game; once the instructions are learned, they can be taught (declared) to a new player. Nondeclarative learning includes skills and habits that are usually achieved without the learner being aware of the process. These are types of knowledge that would be difficult to make explicit in the form of language, such as by explaining them to someone else. (c)
Q:
Establishing this bridge between the implicit and the declarative turns out to be, as we will see, a key variable in every form of learning. (c)
Q:
The myth of genetic talent is based on rare cases and exceptions, on stories and photos that show precocious geniuses with their innocent youthful faces rubbing elbows with the big names of the world’s elite. The psychologists William Chase and Herbert Simon toppled this myth by closely investigating the progression of the great chess geniuses. None of them achieved an exceptionally high level of skill before having completed 10,000 hours of training. What was perceived as precocious genius was shown to be based, in fact, upon intensive and specialized training from a very young age.
The vicious circle functions more or less like that: the parents of little X convince themselves that their offspring is a violin virtuoso and they give the child the confidence and motivation to practise, and, therefore, X improves greatly, to the point of seeming talented. Acting as if someone has talent is an effective way to get them actually to have it. It seems to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it is much more subtle than the mere psychological configuration of ‘I think, therefore I am.’ The prophecy produces a series of processes that catalyse the more difficult aspect of learning: tolerating the tedium of the effort involved in deliberate practice. (c)
Q:
Here we see an important idea. An ideal way for us to adapt to new cultural needs is by recycling brain structures that evolved in other contexts to fulfil other functions. The memory palace is a very paradigmatic example. We all struggle to remember numbers, names or shopping lists. But we can easily recall hundreds of streets, the nooks and crannies of our childhood homes, or the houses of our friends when we were growing up. The secret of the memory palace is establishing a bridge between those two worlds, what we want to remember, but find it difficult to, and space, where our memory is right at home. (c)