Information, skill, insights and wisdom

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Information, skill, insights, and wisdom are interconnected concepts that play a significant role in personal and professional growth.

Information refers to data or knowledge that is communicated or received about a particular subject or topic. It can be obtained from various sources such as books, the internet, or personal experience.

Skill is the ability to do something well, typically as a result of learning, training, or practice. It involves the application of knowledge and the development of proficiency in a particular area.

Insights are a deeper level of understanding that comes from connecting information and experiences. They are often the result of the brain making new connections between previously unconnected pieces of information.

Wisdom is a deep understanding of life and the world around us. It is not just about having knowledge or information but also about knowing how to use that knowledge in a meaningful way. Wisdom comes from experience and reflection and involves being able to make good judgments and decisions based on a broader perspective.

To optimize the probability of gaining insights and wisdom, it is essential to have a strong foundation of information and skills. With this foundation, one can cultivate experiences and reflect on them to gain a deeper understanding of the world around them. This process of reflection and connection between information and experiences leads to insights and ultimately to the development of wisdom.

Your Brain is a Prediction Organ

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In a very real sense, predictions are just your brain having a conversation with itself. A bunch of neurons makes their best guess about what will happen in the immediate future, based on whatever combination of past and present that your brain is currently conjuring. Those neurons then announce that guess to neurons in other brain areas, changing their firing. Meanwhile, sense data from the world and your body inject itself into the conversation, confirming (or not) the prediction that you’ll experience as your reality.

In actuality, your brain’s predictive process is not quite so linear. Usually, your brain has several ways to deal with a given situation, and it creates a flurry of predictions and estimates probabilities for each one. Is that rustling sound in the forest due to the wind, an animal, an enemy fighter, or a shepherd? Is that long, brown shape a branch, a staff, or a rifle? Ultimately, in each moment, some prediction is the winner. Often, it’s the prediction that best matches the incoming sense data, but not always. Either way, the winning prediction becomes your action and your sensory experience.

So, your brain issues predictions and checks them against the sense data coming from the world and your body.

If your brain has predicted well, then your neurons are already firing in a pattern that matches the incoming sense data. That means this sense data itself has no further use beyond confirming your brain’s predictions. What you see, hear, smell, and taste in the world and feel in your body in that moment are completely constructed in your head.

By prediction, your brain has efficiently prepared you to act. When your predicting brain is right, it creates your reality. When it’s wrong, it still creates your reality, and hopefully, it learns from its mistakes: Your brain incorporates the prediction errors and updates its predictions, so it can predict better next time around.