The Feynman Technique
The Feynman Technique is a method of learning that is incredibly effective for deep understanding and information retention. How many time have you learned something fast only to forget how to do it weeks later? Maybe it was the Pythagoras theorem, back in high school when you crammed for your math exam. Now when you friend asks you to recite it, all you can do is shrug and say
“What the fuck is that? A Harry Potter spell?”
The problem was that you never learned the thing properly, you simply stored it in the temporary storage section of your brain. This is how many people go about learning, reciting things only to forget them later. There is a big difference between knowledge and wisdom, knowledge is having the information, wisdom is knowing how to use it.
The Feynman Technique is a mental model that will help you gain sufficient wisdom in any endeavour. Richard Feynman was a Noble Prize-winning theoretical physicist who was best known for his work in the fields of quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, superfluidity and other groovy shit. To say the least his was a smart dude, he was often called the ‘Great Explainer’ for his uncanny ability to teach complicated principles in layman terms that everybody could understand. Feynman claims that he wasn’t a naturally gifted physicist but managed to make it due to his learning style and hard work. Here is his notorious method for accelerated understanding.
Step One:
Write the name of a concept that you want to learn about on top of a blank piece of paper.
Step Two:
Write down an explanation of the concept using plain English. Pretend that you trying to teach it to the slowest person you know or a child. Assume the person has no idea what the hell you are talking about so make sure you cover everything you know simply.
Step Three:
Read over your explanation and take note of the areas in which you are lacking the sufficient knowledge in order to articulate yourself properly. Take note of these areas and return to your source material until you have a better understanding Use a variety of materials: YouTube videos, books, and experts. Return to step two and simplify further.
Note: When you simply you are cutting out the slack, do not remove things that are important for understanding whatever you trying to learn. You are simply trying to be more concise.
Step Four:
Use the aid of simple analogies, diagrams, metaphors and anything else that can help you commit what you have learned to memory. Come at it from different angles to gain a deeper understanding of the topics. Einstein is often attributed to saying:
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”
The Feynman Technique will ensure that you understand any subject incredibly well.
What Can You Learn Using The Method?
To put it simply you can learn anything with the method from:
- Computer Programming
- Calculus
- Physics
- Economics
- Chemistry
- Mathematics
Anything at all! You might have to modify the method slightly for some disciplines but the main underlying principle is what makes the method so effective.
WHY IT WORKS:
The Feynman Technique works for many reasons. Often when we are trying to learn new concepts we erroneously assume that we have learned them and understood them when in actuality we haven’t fully grasped the concepts.
Feynman once said:
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
This is the first and most critical mistake that many make when trying to learn new things. Writing what you know and trying to simplify it exposes your gaps in understanding.
The second reason it works is through the beauty of neural connections. Think back to 2 weeks ago when you went grocery shopping. Can you remember what you bought or what happened at the shops? Most likely not, your brain does not put much stock into the mundane. Now let’s assume 2 weeks ago you were shopping and you saw three firefighters running towards to deli section. Now that’s a memory you won’t forget, you might remember it for the rest of your life because it was out of the ordinary.
The strongest neural connections are always formed with things that are out of the ordinary. This is why you can remember what you were doing when you heard about 9/11 or can vividly recall your first kiss. Now when you are learning and are up to step 4. You are forced to come up with analogies and metaphors to help you understand concepts. This simple process is out of the ordinary and allows your brain to have more stimulus to work with, more checkpoints to return to when you trying to recall a piece of information. So that’s the Feynman Method, for overrun and an actual real-time example, make sure to check out my animated video here:
Animated Video Summary: With Worked Example
+1
"Often when we are trying to learn new concepts we erroneously assume that we have learned them and understood them when in actuality we haven’t fully grasped the concepts."
In my opinion, that is the most valuable piece of information in this post. If you are not able to explain something accurately, in simple layman's terms, you have not understood fully and you need to work more until you can explain it properly to a variety of people.
How can this apply to trp concepts since I shouldn't talk about it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
Glad to see posts like this.
This sub isn't for exclusively fucking women, unlike what too many people believe. Way too many rookie field reports of some wanker feeling half a boob for the first time and transcending into a metaphysical realm of realisations on women these days.
Redpill isn't PUA. Redpill isn't even about women for the most part. It's about becoming good at being a man and that just happens to have something to do with what we're like to our biological counterparts, women.
Realise this.
Thanks brother! You are right, Redpill is about becoming an effective men in this crazy world. Many facets to that.
Wow after I read this comment, I realised the many facets to becoming a man. Lmao. TY..
This sub is about becoming a better man. I know the sidebar keeps talking about sexual strategy, but I found when you focus on your life, intelligence, health, prosperity and happiness first, women are a breeze.
Not to sound old or obsolete, but word dude. Word.
Preach brother, preach!
Seriously though.
I'm gonna disagree a little. TRP is stated as being focused on sexual strategy.
Improved smv comes from becoming an inherently better man, but that should be your main goal. The rest is just a side effect.
not everybody wants to be a better man. Some just want to get laid. Some women go for bummy pieces of shit with massive confidence. Maybe some guys want to become more like that in order to replicate. Is that wrong, if a core red pill tenet is "sexual strategy is amoral"? Dark triad traits, these all fall under the scope of TRP, which I'd argue is ultimately further encompassing of reality than "being better men" is. Betas are beta precisely because they think they are being better men.
Not totally arguing with you. Building your smv and self worth in accordance to your values and truly knowing that what you want is what you deserve and you're going to make happen in every realm is optimal, and deeper than just being PUA. But trp is about taking the red pill. That is a specific analogy to understanding the reality of women, men, and sexual competition in an evolutionarily designed market that doesn't give two shits about you if you don't bring something to the table.
Someone needs to change that. It should state 'embracing masculinity' or 'becoming a better man'
I know it's semantics, but there's an abyssal difference between being a good man and being good at being a man.
Jack Donovan explains it perfectly in his book The Way of Men. He basically starts his argument by asking is Darth Vader a pussy?, since he was a morally bad man.
The red pill is amoral.
And Darth Vader was not categorically a bad man. He did wrong things (killing innocent children) and he did right things (killing slavers, killing Palpatine, saving Obi-Wan a million times, etc).
The red pill isn't exactly amoral. To play devils advocate, you could argue that TRP is morally good. It promotes happiness, a healthy lifestyle, an emphasis on knowledge, learning and gaining power. The red pill just isn't socially acceptable. To counter my own point though, morals are more to do with perspective and culture.
Well then you get can get into mgtow territory, fooling yourself that women have nothing to do with it. I don't think it should be changed. It's stated specifically as sexual strategy for a reason. Its one of the main ways men are very unsatisfied and don't know how to find success. If we suddenly lived on a male-only planet, no women, no kids, I don't think 'becoming a better man' would feel too compelling. Women aren't the sole goal in life, but they can be a huge motivator that is part of a positive feedback loop. Or a cause of depression and withdrawal when success hasn't been realized.
Just as iron sharpens iron, only men can sharpen men. It’s nice too see TRP staying true to form in this.
Did you say someone here touched boob and got to third base? Tell your your ways master! ;)
Check out the chapter from Feynman's book on how a friend redpilled him on women:
Holy shit, this was amazing. More so because this was written by a really really intelligent man. Thanks for the share.
Very interesting. Thanks for linking that.
Master of Ceremonies seems very fitting. Good read
The thing about this is, before reading this, I would never have gotten up the nerve to call the girl a whore or call her bluff for my money back.
I think I can do that now.
How is this not more well known?
If memory serves me, some recent prints of the book , which is titled 'Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!' have actually removed this chapter altogether, or have included a disclaimer, stating that, due to the death of his wife at the time, he wasn't in his right mind, etc., and that the chapter shouldn't be taken seriously.
Nice read, I enjoy good fiction :)
There is no way in the world he would remember every dialogue so this is nothing else than a made up story, perhaps it happened but not exactly the way it's told. Far, far from it.
I disagree. Mr. Feynman was an exceedingly intelligent individual, and it seems likely that he recalled the events to a high degree of accuracy.
It was also a nod by him to realizing that just because you are taught that things work a certain way, it doesn't guarantee that it's true. What I get from it, in addition to how to have better success with one-night stands (which I'm not interested in), is to always get advice about a certain topic from those who have great success in that area, which may be wildly different advice than what you've gotten from everyone else.
Richard had the intelligence to swallow his pride and look at the situation logically - what he was doing was not working, and what his friend was doing was working, and he asked the man for help.
dude you can call the fucking bible "good fiction" by your definition.
Quit being a cunt. The principle of the story stands firm.
tl;dr take notes on shit until you get it. I graduated college this way.
That's how you learn right. If you want an A and have enough time, write a summary of the book while reading it. The parts you immediately understand can be written in short, the parts you have a hard time understanding can be written in detail so that the summary is sufficient.
After that, you can even sum up the summary once more. Write a best-off-summary with stuff that you are still having problems with.
Once I went from just reading to summing everything up, my grades skyrocketed.
This is amazing advice. I love the fact that you said summarize, and then summarize the summary. I never thought about it that way.
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing it does not belong in fruit salad.
just the other day I was wondering how I can retain information better and of course redpill delivers not days later
Yup. You're spot on.
My father described it to me this way,
The brain isn't some linear, binary computer, it's more like a spiderweb. The more connections you make the easier things are stored and recalled. So if you want to learn something practice it in as many different ways as you can. You won't forget it.
Basically the same shit. It also helps to have a wide vocabulary, the more language seems to be cyclical with memory and comprehension. The more ways you can explain yourself so too, the more you can comprehend and retain.
To this day, if I want to learn and retain something I go apply it in as many different contexts as possible, fueled by as many different sources as possible. It works.
Why was this removed? Quality content that this sub has been lacking lately.
No idea, one of the mods removed it. I didn't get a reason why.
Did you post it also in another sub?
I saved this meaning to read it later and it's not here. Could you post again or maybe pm me if you have it please
Hi man. Is it okay if I got a pm on the post. Saved it yesterday night right before I fell asleep. Was removed when I was awake this morning.
You might've just helped me pass my last semester of grad bro. Thank you for sharing !
Thanks. Feynman is the most alpha physicist there is
If you use this and lift you will be an academic beast.
Obviously ‘lift bro’ was going to creep in here somewhere.
Yea but that shit is true tho fam. My academic performance has increased immensely because of it.
Exercise is a form of meditation. You are literally giving all your focus, intensively, to the iron for an hour. It clears your mind of all the other bullshit. Yet another reason to lift.
you slay alot of professor pussy?
How do I do this with martial arts
How do I do this with martial arts
Not an expert but I was a college level wrestler. Some similarities with this method and some differences, the biggest difference is that with a combat skills repetition is a requirement, you have to develop “muscle memory” the ability to perform movements with little to no thought and the only way to get that is practice.
Where the similarity i would say shows up after a foundation is made and you start refining technique. Think critically about sparing sessions take note of the situations you underperform and seek to learn a new technique or perfect one you know to counter that situation. Then get repetitions in so that new move is “muscle memory”
Also do/use the things that you learn, practice turns a newbie in to a Master
Or even better, form a study group. This isn't really life changing shit. Explaining a concept, has always been, the most effective way to learn. This is why study groups are the key to the top marks, we all know this already. You also get feedback on your explanations.
Still, it's good to see stuff like this posted.
Hey man. I bookmarked this post to go back to it. What gives????? Why is it removed
It’s back :) Where it deserves to be.
This is why you hear that the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. What you have described is basically how a good professor prepares for class.
Learning how to Learn is the first step to Learning.
The Art of Fighting without Fighting.
If you cant explain it simply than you dont understand it well enough.
Great post, I needed this. I'll be sure to try it out and see if it works out for me.
Thanks, Went to Youtube and downloaded and converted videos to mp3 on The Feynman Technique. Putting them on CD and will listen to it on my 30 minute drive to and from work!
I have got to do it this way!
Wisdom is experience.
Bit of a logical fallacy. Feynman Technique can't teach you what years of hard labor is like. It can't teach you how it feels to grow a pair of balls, approach a girl and deal with a rejection.
It may help you fake it till you make it, but that is not actual wisdom.
tl;dr
Write down the problem.
Think real hard.
Write down the solution.
I appreciate it. Thanks. I will try it out.
Need to learn this method ASAP
What book did he mention this technique in. I have read surely you're joking and I don't recall this technique
Step 3 there's a word missing:
Step 2 is important! You can really gain deep understanding when you try to explain/teach something.
Basically, you don't understand something until you can explain it to someone else so they understand it.
Feynman was awesome. I was forced by my step-dad to read his biography "Surely You're Joking" in High School, and it was pretty eye-opening stuff. I ended up majoring in physics after my Army service because of him.
A few years ago I was diagnosed with Liposarcoma, which is the cancer that killed Dr. Feynman. We've progressed a lot in treatment, obviously, and all it took for me was a couple of surgeries, but I was terrified the whole time, because if it could kill a great man like him, why the fuck wouldn't it kill me????
While true, it's not like this method will teach you computer programming or any of the others. It's a way to solidify your understanding of ONE concept. Each of the above fields has a hundred basic concepts before you even begin to get onto something useful.
It's called the Pythagorean theorem, not the Pythagoras theorem. Kind of blows my mind you used this as an example, but I digress.
It's a solid post because this is key in bettering yourself, something that this sub has drifted away from in the past year or so, focusing instead on field reports full of confirmation bias, and rants that draw absurd conclusions from limited data in news stories.
Personally, I've been questioned about why I would, as am example, take notes during a lecture when the PowerPoint slides were given to us. The act of re-writing something is miles more effective for comprehension than simply reviewing a slide, or, even worse, using a highlighter. Usually those making fun of the effort I was putting in would hit a solid 60-70% come exam time, and blamed it on base intelligence to explain why others scored better. It's akin to those who blame steroids and genetics for every fitness transformation they see, saying bullshit lines such as "If I did exactly that, it wouldn't work for me. It isn't fair, but that's the way the world is." Yes, some people have it easier. But blaming lack of progress on things you can't control is a waste of time, and something that children do. Be a man, get after it, and you'll achieve what you set your mind to.
Actually, calling it the Pythagoras Theorem is acceptable, although not as widely used as the Pythagorean theorem. A quick Google search shows that it may be mainly a British thing.
May I suggest not being a dick about something this insignificant next time?
AHhah In Australia where I am from it's called the Pythagoras Theorem because it's a theorem by Pythagoras. lol, my man!
So basically, keep doing what I’ve been doing. Neat.
This sucks. It's toothless and devoid of any actual substance. I don't find this helpful at all.
What a waste of a minute and a half.
Can you use this as a teacher
I think one can understand something but not be great at articulating it. You can also be great at articulating something and not really understand it.
Feynman: "We went into the bar, and before I sat down, I said, “Listen, before I buy you a drink, I want to know one thing: Will you sleep with me tonight?”
Nice southern girl: “Yes.” "
keep your gay pua sperg shit to yourself boys, he said!
This is the most valuable piece of information in this entire thread.