I wish the title of this post wasn’t true, as it’d be quite awesome if you could just push a button to add the knowledge that we want to our brain. Perhaps it will be possible in the future, but it’s certainly not here yet.
That said, it sort of is already, at least compared to our ancestors. While we can’t put info directly into our brain, having things like smartphones and Google puts all of the world’s information just a few seconds away.
To really learn something, though, takes time. In Adam Grant’s new book “Hidden Potential“, he explains it like this:
Learning from multiple guides is an iterative, interactive process. It’s not as simple as going to people and asking, “Can I pick your brain?” Also, the image of picking a brain is gross. The information isn’t just sitting there, waiting to be extracted. We don’t live in the Matrix. Guides can’t simply upload their insights for us to download.
The recent passing of Charlie Munger got me thinking about things like this. The man lived 99 years, and read as much as any human in history. He was brilliant and articulate, even at his advanced age. Then one day he’s gone, and all of that knowledge goes with him.
Thankfully, he left a lot of his knowledge behind, but it takes work to actually make use of it. One of my favorite books is his “Poor Charlie’s Almanack“, which covered much of his life and wisdom. My only problem with the book is that it was difficult to read; not in terms of the words, but the format. It’s literally a huge book (10″x10″, weighing over 5 pounds), and the book is full of call-outs and pull quotes and other things that mean you really need to take your time going through it. Here’s an example:
Fortunately, they just released it on Kindle last week and it’s a much easier read. The content is all there, but it’s laid out end to end so you can just work through it. If you want some wisdom from Charlie, that book is fantastic place to start.
This is also why I love podcasts like “Founders”, where the host walks through biographies of hundreds of different people. Even though the host gets more out of it than we do, it’s still a tremendous way to learn from those that have come before us, and it’s the closest we can get to downloading their wisdom into our brains.
Perhaps someday we can plug ourselves into a system to upgrade our knowledge, for now we can be thankful for things like Google, smartphones, Founders, and Poor Charlie’s Almanack.
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