Focusing Your Unconscious Mind: Learn Hard Concepts Intuitively (And Forever)
What this covers
A general learning method for learning and understanding hard concepts intuitively/deeply/obviously, and for long periods - up to years at a time.
I’ve put in some easter eggs this time - enjoy finding them.
Sources (probably not exhaustive): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glZLHLLalv0 https://betterexplained.com/articles/developing-your-intuition-for-math/ https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/23806/understanding-the-intuition-behind-math https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/theres-more-to-mathematics-than-rigour-and-proofs/
Music (not in order, I'm still lazy)
Local Forecast - Slower by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3988-local-forecast---slower License: [yt dislikes this link, removed]
Dreams by Bensound https://www.bensound.com Support by RFM - NCM: https://bit.ly/2xGHypM
Sthlm Sunset by Ehrling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEhoGt4mIw (not exactly sure how to credit, the link is dead)
Sunset On Terra by HYBRID V (Creative Commons License) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Support by RFM - NCM: https://bit.ly/2xGHypM
Paradise by Ikson ( https://youtube.com/ikson ) Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhtj7_KaplM
This Is For You (Prod. by Lukrembo) Link : https://youtu.be/GC0AhsnDMfc
Timestamps 00:00 Intro (and about me) 00:31 What does “intuitively” mean? 01:41 Core principles 02:58 Abstraction barrier 05:10 How to understand a single piece? 05:41 Single piece - caring 06:51 Single piece - unleashing your brain 09:26 Single piece - reading the solution 10:01 Single piece - no need to solve it 10:33 How to reinforce? 11:16 Reinforcing - invent 11:27 Reinforcing - practice 12:05 Reinforcing - explain 12:56 Reinforcing - explore 13:58 Reinforcing - over time 15:09 Tying it all together 15:31 An ecosystem of learning 16:42 IQ 18:14 Final remarks
Source description (no synthesized summary yet).
Intuitive deep understanding of complex concepts requires rewiring your brain through deliberate problem-solving engagement, not memorization, by establishing emotional investment, attempting invention before learning solutions, and reinforcing knowledge through practice and exploration from multiple angles.
- Intuition means your brain accepts a concept as fundamental truth without justification; this requires rewiring, not memorization
- Attempting to invent or solve problems before learning solutions creates a 'gap' in your brain that the real solution fills more durably
- Reinforcement through practice, explanation, and exploring variations embeds the concept permanently into your reasoning
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The final reinforcement step is exploring, which means mentally exploring random variations of a concept by asking dumb questions, changing parts and seeing if they still work, breaking the concept, and finding counter-examples.
“that final step is exploring and what does exploring mean I mean you should mentally explore random variations of the concept as the legend Terrence Tao puts it ask yourself dumb questions change one part of the concept and see if it still works if not figure out why it doesn't”
To learn intuitively, you should generate as many insights as possible, where insights are random thoughts or knowledge of the purpose and details that help illustrate a concept, mostly gained through experience.
“first you want to generate as many insights as possible and insights are random thoughts to help you understand it more like knowledge of the purpose of a particular step or a particular example that helps illustrate the concept and mostly you only gain into aside from experience so this method will give you a lot of experience with the concept in different ways”
Learning should be treated like problem-solving because the brain has exceptional capacity for both thinking and remembering when solving problems, and learners should take full advantage of that capacity.
“another thing you want to treat learning like problem solving and I'll get more into this later but your brain has an insane problem solving capacity both in thinking and remembering and you want to be able to take full advantage of that”
Breaking complex concepts into small pieces and tackling them one by one prevents overwhelm and allows deeper understanding of each component.
“another thing understand small pieces at a time because if you try and take on too much at once you'll overwhelm yourself so break the concept down into small pieces if possible and then tackle those pieces one by one”
Intuitive understanding means your brain accepts a concept as a fundamental truth without needing to justify it, making it second nature to you.
“basically it means that you're able to accept that concept as a fundamental truth without needing to justify it so basically your brain is hardwired to process that concept as a fact it's like second nature”
Everything boils down to neurons in your head; you have neurons, so you can learn anything—it's just a matter of trying and putting in the time.
“because everything just boils down to neurons in your head and you have those neurons you just have to try put in the time if it takes a while fine but you'll get there eventually”
Effective learning is fundamentally different from memorization; memorization is short-term while intuitive learning rewires the brain for permanent, lifetime retention.
“also if possible final thing forget memorization and I feel like this is important to mention this method is not memorization far from it this is rewiring your brain to accept this concept as an absolute truth memorization is short term but this is forever”
Explaining a concept to someone else in your own words is a test of understanding; if you get confused during explanation, it reveals gaps in your understanding that should be relearned.
“another useful thing you can try to do is explain the concept it's been said that you don't really understand something until you can explain it to someone who doesn't understand it for themselves and you need to be able to explain this stuff in your own words since that proves that your understanding is your own rather than someone else's so confirm your understanding by explaining it to someone else start from scratch and work your way through the details if you get confused by some detail then it means you don't understand it well enough if they get confused about some detail and you can't explain it then it means you don't understand it well enough and that's good it reflects a gap in your understanding and that's something you can improve on”
Understanding the big picture of a concept is essential because it provides context for everything else and prevents the material from seeming pointless or unmotivating.
“the first step is you need to understand the big picture and what's going on with the concept because otherwise it just won't be important to you you'll just be like what is this why does any of this even matter and you won't really be able to try as hard the big picture puts everything else into context”
The unconscious brain plays a major role in developing intuition and contributes to learning even when conscious thought has stopped; allowing the unconscious to work on a problem you care deeply about (like a delayed comeback in an argument) demonstrates its problem-solving power.
“you should give yourself time working out with both your conscious and unconscious brain the unconscious brain plays a huge part in developing intuition so you have to give it some exercise too and the way to do that is just to care about the problem enough to have it be the main focus of your brain you know how you can get in a heated argument and like 10 hours later you come by the perfect comeback when it's way too late to even be remotely useful that's your unconscious brain it was silently going to work processing the argument and crafting response without even you thinking about it and it did that because you cared about that argument”
Knowledge must be reinforced through multiple reinforcement steps—invention, practice, explanation, and exploration—otherwise it will not remain in your brain for extended periods.
“and you're not done yet there's more you have to do to internalize the solution you have to reinforce it and confirm that it stays in your brain or you won't be able to remember for long and there's a process you can do to reinforce the whole concept but it also works with reinforcing each piece of it”
If a concept is unintuitive, it means your brain disagrees with it or it conflicts with what you've learned previously, and you need to rewire your brain to accept the concept as an absolute truth through the learning process.
“but if something is unintuitive that means your brain disagrees with it or goes against what you've learned previously and you need to fix that so what if you don't have that hard wiring then you need to rewire your brain to accept the concept as an absolute truth and that's the learning process”
Having someone give you hints during problem-solving can further help the process, especially for very hard concepts that require new ways of thinking, as hints guide you through the problem-solving journey.
“you may also consider having someone give you hints because that can further help the problem solving process especially for those very hard Concepts require a new way of thinking hints may be the perfect way to guide you through it”
Asking 'why' questions about every aspect of a concept—why we do each step, why this is set up this way—and challenging intuitive assumptions helps reveal the foundational logic and uncovers deeper understanding.
“just ask why why do we do this step why is this set up this way you want to challenge every part of the concept”
You should change one part of the problem itself to see if the concept still applies, and see if some other solution applies to the same scenario, figuring out why one solution works and another doesn't.
“change one part of the problem and see if the concept still applies see if some other solution applies to the same scenario and figure out why it does or doesn't”
Even if the specific problem-solving approach doesn't apply to your domain, general principles like reinforcement, engagement, chunking, and abstraction are universally useful learning techniques.
“but even if your concept isn't laid out in a way that can make the method easy to use the method could still benefit you you can still do some of the things for example the stuff about reinforcing and engaging with the concept is universally useful so it's the idea of breaking it down to easier pieces and abstracting what you don't yet no”
When learning, you should understand how all the parts outside the abstraction layer (the 'box') work together independently, ignoring the internal details of the 'black box' until later, so that the overall purpose and flow makes sense before diving into component mechanisms.
“you have to think outside the box let me explain what I mean so like ignoring whatever you have abstracted you should understand everything outside the box if we just assume that everything inside the Box magically worked out the stuff outside the box should independently make sense even if you don't know the details of how each part works like you should understand why we do each step and what each step accomplishes and just in general the point of everything”
Contributing intuitive explanations of concepts to the public—via notes, PDFs, or online sharing—helps others learn and creates an 'ecosystem of learning' where people benefit from shared insights across time.
“I've been thinking of I'm dubbing at the ecosystem of learning if you're going to try to explain stuff in an intuitive way which you should you might as well post that explanation to the public regardless of how good you are if you've had any experience thinking about the topic you've likely had some insights about it and that means others in the future can benefit from your thinking so you can contribute to an ecosystem of learning where people learn things explain those things to test their knowledge and contribute those explanations to the Future public literally just scribble some notes while you're thinking about something collect them in a PDF and just dump it on the internet and you'll help some people out”
If you don't understand a concept, it should bother you because you are capable of learning it (assuming reasonable prerequisites) and the hierarchy created by school classes often wrongly makes concepts seem out of reach when they are actually simple with proper scaffolding.
“if not being able to understand this concept doesn't bother you well why not it should because you don't understand it how can you allow this tiny little speck of information to make a fool out of you it should bother you that you don't get it nothing is really beyond your reach”
Caring about something can be motivated by passion for the subject, by extrinsic rewards like a job or prestige, or by ego—by taking it personally that you don't understand something and treating the lack of understanding as an affront to your self-image.
“how do you care and the easiest way is just to be passionate about the subject and if you aren't passionate about the subject you can be motivated by the end result like a job or Prestige but if you don't even have that there are other ways too for example if not being able to understand this concept doesn't bother you well why not it should because you don't understand it how can you allow this tiny little speck of information to make a fool out of you it should bother you that you don't get it”
Before trying to understand how a concept solves a problem, you should deeply understand the problem itself, because searing the problem into your mind makes the solution feel natural and inevitable.
“the first thing to do is to understand the point of the piece of the concept you're trying to learn let's call the point the problem since that works for a lot of fields but really it's just like what is this piece about what does it accomplish or what does it describe and what does it do so what problem does this piece try to solve and before you even start with how the piece solves that problem you should really understand the problem because if you sear the problem into your head then the solution will be much more natural so you ultimately want a deep insightful understanding of the problem”
Even if you fail to invent the solution yourself, the attempt is still valuable because people invented these hard concepts and you are also a person, so you're capable of inventing them too; you should not give up on trying but also not beat yourself up over failure.
“don't like fake try because you won't get anything out of that you're capable of making an honest effort because the thing is people invented this these hard Concepts were invented by people and you're a people so you're capable of inventing them too don't beat yourself up if you can't do in a short time but at the same time you should have the motivation to try because it's fairly possible that you could do it or at least make some amount of progress that's really all it takes you just have to try”
The world lacks intuitive, insight-based explanations of concepts; most educational material is mechanical and misses the nuances, details, and exceptions that require deep thought.
“the world is fairly lacking in intuitive explanation so it would be nice if more people tried it and there's not much insight-based learning out there it's just like here's how this concept works and done but there's so much more than that everything has its nuances and their little details are exceptions it just requires in deep thought to be able to contemplate sharing that now knowledge and that thought for others can help them get a much deeper understanding of the concept”
Believing that IQ is a significant innate factor limiting learning ability is useless and is primarily a form of 'copium'—a comforting excuse that absolves personal responsibility by attributing failure to uncontrollable factors.
“and let's finish it off by talking about IQ is there some innate ability that makes certain people better off at learning than others and I'm a subscriber of the belief that it's completely useless to believe that like I don't know of any tangible benefit to believing that IQ is a significant factor if you're going to learn something just learn it don't worry about how others do and don't worry about this native ability garbage you're gonna do it anyway so just do it”
The learning method described is slow-paced and works particularly well for problem-solving-oriented domains like mathematics and competitive programming, but is less naturally suited to domains not naturally structured around problems.
“it's also worth mentioning this is a slow paced method you likely want to say this for the hard stuff and take a more quick approach to the simpler less important things so this is slow but it works and it works really well”
People who are not learning well are likely doing something wrong with their method, not lacking innate ability; the solution is self-reflection or external feedback on learning approach, not giving up.
“but you can you can fix yourself if you're having issues you can introspect or have someone else look at what you're doing and see if anything's going wrong because chances are they are like everyone is human to be human is to be capable of thinking and to be capable of thinking is to be capable of learning”
Once you've tried to solve a problem for a while and are completely tired of it and believe you won't get more benefit from trying, you should then look at the solution, learning it the same way you would learn other pieces by breaking it into components.
“once you've tried for a while and you're completely tired of the problem and you don't think you'll get any possible benefit from trying anymore then you can look at the solution or the the overall piece but of course don't just look at the solution you should learn in the same way but break it into pieces”
Engaging with concepts socially—talking to others about their insights and experiences with the concept—provides additional perspectives that you couldn't generate alone, expanding your understanding through collective exploration.
“talk to others and explore the concept with them ask them about their experience with Concept and the insights they've come up with”
Even after mastering a concept, occasionally practicing and engaging with it keeps it fresh in your mind, preventing decay.
“and even if you completely Master the concept it could be worth it to play with the concept every once in a while do a bit of practice with it Etc to keep it fresh in your mind”
Caring about what you're learning helps in multiple ways and will make your life easier when learning, so it is a core principle of effective learning.
“another thing of course you want to care about what you're doing because caring helps for a lot of reasons overall it'll just make your life easier if you don't know how to I'll talk more about that later too”
Two plus two equals four, not five as the speaker humorously misstates, but the point is that your intuition carries you to the answer so obviously that you don't have to consciously think about the steps involved.
“try adding two plus two bam didn't even have to think about it right the answer is obviously five so your intuition probably carried you there”
The learning method described works and is effective because it's what the speaker uses themselves, though it may not work equally well for all people or all types of concepts.
“let me know how it goes because I know this works it's what I do myself and I'm pretty good at learning but you know there's a chance it doesn't work on everyone”
The speaker positions themselves as an exceptionally skilled competitive programmer who can learn and retain complex, rarely-used technical concepts quickly and for extended periods.
“hi I'll get straight to the point I'm one of the world's best competitive programmers and what that means is I'm great at learning a bunch of random garbage that nobody ever actually uses but even though I never use it I'm still good at that stuff”
The only reason to compare yourself to others is to see if you're doing something wrong or if you can learn from their methods; comparison should be diagnostic, not competitive.
“basically the only reason you want to compare yourself to others is to see if you're doing anything wrong if there's any way you can benefit from that learning style but you've watched this video now so you have a pretty good method of learning so it doesn't really matter you'll do fine”
The speaker does not plan to put effort into making the learning ecosystem happen, though it would be helpful and doesn't require much effort from individuals to contribute.
“but yeah that's just an idea I don't plan to put in the effort to make it happen but it also doesn't take that much effort for someone to contribute to so it's somewhat feasible at least”