In this section, we examine the brain and its basic functions that lie at the basis of learning, and lay the foundations of learning to learn. In this section, you will have lots of information about the effect of learning on your life quality, the basic capacities and flexibility level of the brain, the concepts of neurons and synapses, which are the building blocks of the brain, the extent to which your genetic structure affects your learning and abilities, the power of practice on your brain, how your brain is built until today, and basically how the brain and learning function! Excited, right? Let’s start 🚀
You can navigate directly from the options below to the sections that catch your attention, or start from the very beginning and enjoy this immersive journey!
THE EFFECT OF LEARNING ON QUALITY OF LIFE
In (EPISODE 1) – SWAMP, we emphasized the need to acquire skills on learning in order to acquire sufficient intellectual ability and its direct impact on our quality of life, and in (EPISODE 3) – PROBLEM THEORY , we emphasized the necessity of having effective learning skills, which is the only skill in order to overcome all our lives and the problems we face.
Problem Solution = 100% Knowledge with Problem Solving (Info + Experience + Skill)
The problem that we do not have one hundred percent knowledge cannot be solved, and the knowledge is obtained as a result of the ability to learn. The more effective we can be in acquiring existing knowledge and experience, the more effective we can be in problem-solving ability. This situation opens the door to a more quality, trouble-free, more self-confident and successful life. So much so that when you develop your learning skills sufficiently and see that you can solve problems one after another, this creates an addictive effect, and you start to demand more and more. As your self-confidence increases, the limits of your imagination begin to expand, and this rapid progress offers a relatively controlled and satisfying life.
No matter where we go, no matter where we live, we can never escape the responsibility of learning. In this world, where we have to solve problems to satisfy our needs from the moment we are born until we die, the quality of our ability to learn is thus vital. Whether you’re a 6-year-old trying to make friends with other kids, a shepherd living in the mountains with wild and domestic animals, a white-collar employee in the city, a manager at the head of an international company or a government leader. You will always encounter areas where you have ignorance, and thus you will encounter problems.
Since human energy, time and ultimately life are limited, the amount of knowledge he can acquire is also limited. Therefore, people have turned to certain areas of expertise in the society we are in, thus solving each other’s problems in areas where they have incomplete knowledge within the framework of mutual benefit and giving birth to the present economic system. This exchange of benefits is provided today through “money”, which is an independent medium of exchange. We will examine the basis of the economy and how individuals, and therefore we, are positioned in this huge system. But first of all, in order to understand the system, it is necessary to start from the building block of the system. So, let me take a closer look at the human being, the building block of the economic system, and the brain, which is the main center of decision-making, and its function of learning.
NEUROPLASTY & EXPOSURE FACTOR
Why can’t humans walk and talk from the moment they’re born, but animals can walk and run and interact with their other congeners as they are born? The reason for this is that animals come into the world like computers set up. Their brains are not flexible, but rather rigidly knitted, and their bodies adapt only to their own habitat. This situation leads to them not being able to continue their lives if they are born outside their own living space. However, man is a being that can be established according to every circumstance in which he exists. In the first two years after birth, he becomes whatever he is exposed to in his environment. To the environment in which it is physically located; It has the culture, language, values, customs, forms of communication and interaction, and belief systems in which it was born. The reason for this is that our 5 sense organs are exposed to an infinite flow of data from the moment we are born until we die, these data are constantly analyzed and separated by the brain, and the most exposed ones are strengthened and settled. For this reason, human traces can be found even in the most extreme conditions such as Antarctica and the Amazon. This plasticity feature of the human brain is called neuroplasticity.
Thus, neuroplasty is the main functional skill that makes it possible for the brain to adapt to all kinds of situations. This skill is the functional capacity that explains how the functional deficiency experienced when a certain part of the brain is damaged can be compensated by the further strengthening of another part. The improvement in the hearing ability of a person who has lost his eyesight is one of the most basic examples of this. In the simplest sense, we can say that being able to learn and develop, acquiring any skill, and transforming flexibly is the result of this skill.
TWO BASIC CONCEPTS FOR RECOGNIZING THE BRAIN: NEURON & SYNNAPS
NEURON (NERVE CELL) & SYNAPSE
Neurons, also known as nerve cells, are the most basic functional units of the nervous system, whose main function is to carry out the transfer of information. It is estimated that there are approximately 100 billion neurons in the human nervous system. A normal nerve cell is connected to as many as 50,000-250,000 other neurons. [1]
Synapses are specialized attachment points that allow neurons (nerve cells) to transmit messages to other neurons or to non-neuron cells such as muscles or glands. [2] Thanks to these ports, we can travel between thoughts seamlessly. At the same time, the brain’s dopamine exchange, which is related to rewarding, is also carried out through synapses. You can check out the videos below to fully grasp it 👇🏼
The brain is completely woven with these neural networks, as in the case of video, neurons are like sites in this huge internet network, synapses are like links. Thus, they connect with all these internet networks, sites and links to each other. Thus, thought and consciousness occur with instant flow and transmission. That is, neurons are sets of information and synapses are the connections between these informations. Thanks to the nervous system that spreads throughout our body, neurons instantly take shape by collecting information and establishing connections. You can review the moving image of this connection installation process recorded by means of technology below. 👇🏼
GENETICS AND LEARNING
🧬When a person is first born, he is like a blank draft. This is a draft that he genetically acquired from his ancestors, from his parents, hereditary. This master draft can only be changed for long periods of time by being passed on from generation to generation as a result of intense exposure to similar efforts and stimuli and having identical connections. These hereditary genetic factors are strong on various factors such as predispositions, temperament, tendencies, weaknesses, strengths of the person. So much so that it can give some signs about which subject the person can be more successful. (Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences can provide a clue as to what you’re predisposed to, which we’ll cover in the following sections.) However, the brain is flexible, and even skills that are not naturally predisposed to can be developed with practice. Those who have talent have the chance to approach perfection depending on the level of practice they perform in that job. This also means that although you have talent, your impractical talent makes no sense.
USE IT OR LOSE IT – THE POWER OF PRACTICE
One-tenth of genius is talent and nine-tenth is work.
-Albert Einstein
Now let’s visually examine the equivalent of practice and learning in our brains. 👇🏼
🧠 As you can see from the video, the connections between our neurons are like paths in a forest. When we need to pass through a path that has never been crossed, we need to clear our way by clearing all the vegetation (branches, grasses.) and all other obstacles that we will encounter. This costs us a lot of energy and is therefore difficult. But the more we use the same path, the less energy we start to expend. Now that our path is ready, we only need to remove what falls in our way, to regularly go over the same grasses. So much so that after enough passes, the grass does not even end there. This is a path that can now be run unhindered. So the more we use the same path, the easier and more practical that path becomes for us. Conversely, when we stop using the trail, the vegetation grows again and the tracks gradually begin to disappear. This is very similar to the working principle of our brain; When we stop doing something, the connections between our neurons weaken day by day, and eventually the connections are completely severed, such as the closure of roads in the forest. As a result, according to our level of abandonment, we have either partially or completely lost the skill, the knowledge. Therefore, it is difficult to return to everything that has been interrupted for a long time. However, it is possible that some neural networks become so powerful that pathways, connections, never disappear completely.
Now let’s look at exactly what effect practice has on our brains with another video. 👇🏼
Theoretically, the strengthening of the connections between neurons, which is practiced, is also explained as the coating of the connections with another organic substance called “myelin“, which acts as an insulation. The more practice is done, the more this insulation increases and thus the energy leakage is less. This makes it possible to make the connection smoother and more economical. This explains how the challenged brain evolves into the corresponding capacity. This skill is the result of neuroplasticity.
Practice makes perfect.
– Benjamin Franklin
CREATIVITY & DECIPHERING
We have already mentioned that a person is born as a blank draft. With this blank draft, a person comes into the world with the main skill that makes man human and enables him to reach the level of civilization today: with the skill of “creativity”, that is, with the skill of “analysis by connecting”. Thanks to this skill, it constantly tries to find useful connections by deciphering. By analyzing everything it is exposed to, it strives to find meaning and create useful information to serve its creation. In this way, it will continue to exist, protect it from discomfort, and will be able to acquire the pleasures from which it reaps the fruits of living and being. As a result, in order to establish and maintain its existence, it acquires its basic vital abilities by incorporating the characteristics it is most exposed to from its environment and becomes a harmonious individual of that society by being shaped by both punishments and rewards by the society in which it is born.
Let’s watch how connection building takes place in the brain 👇🏼
NOTEBOOK METAPHOR
Man is not like a computer, and when files are uploaded into the computer, the files remain and do not interact with each other without intervention. However, when a person acquires new knowledge, he compares all his previous knowledge with the new information is about to connect and connects the information that is related to what he has just acquired. We can liken this to the fact that notebooks thrown into the computer interact with each other and scan each other instantaneously, creating new notebooks with new information from the information in themselves, or even software that will allow them to function better. That’s how the brain works all the time.
The basis of this is the drive to save energy and to continue life in the best way with limited resources. The brain works mostly in saving mode. In this way, it pushes consciousness to actively work only when necessary, and also thinks and reacts with our most ancient structure, our reactive brain. This is because staying at the level of consciousness consumes a high degree of energy. The department specifically responsible for controlling and managing consciousness is the Prefrontal Cortex. We can say that this section is the control center that makes human beings human, such as controlling impulses, solving problems, directing and realizing analytical skills. This chapter is our newest chapter compared to other chapters, it has evolved over time and has evolved us to be human. We will discuss the parts of the brain in detail in the next section.
SYNAPTIC PRUNTING
We briefly talked about the difference in flexibility and neuroplasticity between animals and humans. Now that we understand what the neurons and synapses, which are the building blocks of the brain, are, we can examine how the human brain underwent a structuring during the first two years. This concept has been touched upon in previous videos, and here we will look at it through a closer lens.
In the first two years of the human brain, it is constantly exposed to data through 5 sense organs and builds a huge synaptic bond pattern. In this process, everything it is exposed to is somehow traced in the brain; after the first two years, this huge bond goes to pruning, and while there were very dense thin, weak connections before, now only the most exposed of these connections, and thus the ones that are important, are rooted and thickened. This process is called “Synaptic Pruning”.
The main purpose of this pruning process is to make the brain work more effectively. We mentioned before that the brain optimizes itself in a way that can best manage limited resources and takes shape accordingly. Here’s how synaptic pruning prioritizes and reinforces only the information that is most exposed, especially important according to survival instinct. Information that is not important in this respect and/or is not constantly exposed to it will lead to destruction. As a result, we can travel between thoughts faster and think more effectively with intense attention.
Now let’s examine this process visually in detail 👇🏼
Resources
- https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinir_h%C3%BCcresi#:~:text=Sinir%20h%C3%BCcresi%20ya%20da%20n%C3%B6ron,250.000%20kadar%20ba%C5%9Fka%20n%C3%B6ronla%20ba%C4%9Flant%C4%B1l%C4%B1d%C4%B1r.
- https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaps#:~:text=Sinaps%2C%20n%C3%B6ronlar%C4%B1n%20(border%20h%C3%BCcres),junction%20n%C3%B6romusk%C3%BCs%20ba%C4%9Flant%C4%B1%20as%20adland%C4%B1r%C4%B1l%C4%B1r.
- https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2020.00054
- BOOK: THE BRAIN BY DAVID EAGLEMAN
RELATED TOPICS
In the next section, we will directly cover the basics of learning and examine what we should pay attention to when performing the learning function. Do not miss the opportunity to get to know yourself in this unique series where we are getting deeper and deeper! See you in the next section !
>>>Continue: (EPISODE 5) – LEARNING TO LEARN 🧠 – PART 2
To share:
Incredible research! However, l do have a question Is possible to make your brain function at an accelerated speed? How do you train it?
Thank you for your comment and the question @Mary !
Great question !
With regular practice no doubt that it becomes more faster. However if we point the macro scope, there must be many different variables which effect directly and indirectly.
These maybe genetics, hormones, nutrition, practice on learning sense tools to optimize them and many if we think about it.
It must be the topic of another subject with a good research 💯
Regards,