you ever questioned whether the people
at the top of the hierarchy of knowledge
actually know what they’re talking about
I did but before I go into that let me
take you back to an I was a kid when I
was a kid I wasn’t strong enough to
switch the furniture in my room around I
never wanted to so had to call my mom
and dad to do it for me I also wasn’t
allowed to do it in case I broke
something and Here I am as a 17 year old
there came a time when I wanted to
redecorate my room but I kept forgetting
take permission for my mom so it never
happened and after a period of around
three months of having that desire I got
really frustrated one day and I got a
great idea why don’t I just do it myself
and so I did my parents walked into my
room they did not bat an eye seems like
a pretty trivial story to tell you right
but here’s why I used it for some reason
as a 17 year old I made the assumption
that I still wasn’t strong enough to
switch my room around and I still need
to take permission from my parents but I
was mistaken and there’s this feeling
that I got when I realized that I was
mistaken it was the same feeling that
you got when you found out that you’ve
been eating tic-tac strong your entire
life or the same feeling that you got
when he found out that Mario actually
hit the block with his hands not his
head or the same feeling that you got
when you found out the correct way to
pour milk into a cup here’s the correct
way to do it this way guarantees no
splash back and it was the same feeling
that you got when you found out that her
real name wasn’t actually mom and that
that is the feeling that makes you think
oh my god my entire life has been a lie
you see we make assumptions about the
external world all the time that’s how
as I done the story this is how we build
our reality in fact you making
assumptions about the meaning of what
I’m trying to say to you right now and I
hope you’re making the correct ones some
of these assumptions are validated in
which case we call them knowledge but in
some situations like when you’re trying
to figure out how to eat a tic-tac or
pour milk into a cup you make
unvalidated assumptions and by that I
mean that you don’t check or test
your assumptions like we do scientific
knowledge for example and I understand
that you wouldn’t need to validate such
insignificant tasks but think of how
this problem magnifies itself when you
start making unvalidated assumptions
about more important things I’m speaking
about things like principles morals and
values and what makes it even more
crucial first to stop making these
unvalidated assumptions is that they
stick with us deep in our minds and they
form parts of who we are as individuals
and as cultures and over time the desire
to validate them fades away and unless
you’re given a reason to do so
we don’t examine these assumptions now
that’s what happens when you’re hit with
one piece of unvalidated information but
what happens when you’re put through
situations where we were bombarded with
tons and tons of information that’s what
the external world does to us and we
don’t have the time to scrutinize every
single piece of information that there
is we wouldn’t have the time to check
the validity which is whether they make
logical sense or the reliability which
is whether they’re true how can we reach
the truth in a world full of so much
information of varying quality in
difficulty but with such little time and
I’m not speaking about some kind of
universal truth I’m speaking about the
truth in the situations that meet us in
our daily lives the truth or fact that
is not affected by human perception or
opinion anyway there’s a story that I
live to get me thinking about these
things but unfortunately I’m gonna have
to skip it and get to it’s more it links
into the principles that one should
follow in life
there came a time when I was incredibly
afraid of ending up as a bad person and
being oblivious to it by assuming that I
was doing the right thing and think
about it many of the immoral people of
the world don’t actually know that
they’re doing the wrong thing or that
their acts and actions caused corruption
I became frightened of the future and I
was skeptical about any new piece of
information that was thrown at me one
principal that question for example was
one that said don’t worry about what
other people think how can I not worry
about what other people think what if I
was ignorant ly doing something wrong
and only other people are able to spot
it or another principle like be yourself
I am no
near perfect and as far as I’m concerned
I am Who I am because of the path that
my life has taken had I grown up in a
different environment I may have been a
different person an even better person
what should I just be myself we’re
conclusions like be yourself and don’t
worry about what other people say true
conclusions to follow or are they merely
the result of the thinking of certain
people succumbing to the complexity of
the world giving up and taking the easy
way out by providing such
generalizations so that they can put
their minds at ease these could have
been people’s assumptions for all I know
an hour and not actually the truth and
the thing is that is quite likely to
happen because of the sheer amount of
assumptions that we make every day a
huge number of which is either
inaccurate or simply based off the wrong
information and what’s more when
assumptions are wrongly taken as facts
they can and will stick around for years
you’d be amazed as to how something can
go from an idea and someone’s head to
accepted knowledge through a chain of
people and that’s what scared me the
most
both of these conclusions there are
examples of things that have executed
the wrong way are going to render you
ignorant after a long time of
questioning these specific principles
and I understand what they imply because
I’ve experienced situations which helped
me understand them and most importantly
of all I understand that they’re merely
approximations with exceptions but back
then when I was constantly thinking
about the future I felt paralyzed the
arrow of time moves nowhere but forward
all I wanted to do was stop it because I
had to make decisions all the time yet I
was too overwhelmed with information
lack of time and confusion to make the
correct ones and we all feel that way
sometimes I wanted the truth to follow
but it seemed like ignorance was
inevitable now while all of that was
that anxiety was happening in my
personal life in my work life I was
defending the entire you do nothing but
science and mathematics with science I
struggled to understand the topics at
hand embarking on new topic was
perplexing that was because I was
confused all the time I didn’t enjoy the
learning process at all I was always
overwhelmed by complexity
there are too many questions that I was
trying to answer because there always
seemed to be gaps and inconsistencies
and what I was learning I constantly
felt like some crucial information was
missing and it was hard because I didn’t
even understand what I didn’t understand
what’s more whenever I tried answering a
question there seemed to be seas of
information to go through all of which
had the same gaps and consistencies in
them so I was always left more confused
and with more questions to answer back
then it stressed me out so much that I
made the conclusion that the entire
world was just one big misguidance
because the information we were given
was never complete so I questioned
whether it was even true I felt like I
was completely on my own because there
seemed to be no reliable source of
guidance and we all feel that way
sometimes every book and man seemed
flawed in some way and going to
university which one day seemed like a
likely solution to my confusion was no
longer an option because I came to the
because I discovered that the more you
know the more gaps and inconsistencies
that you have to deal with and at the
end of all that genuine pain and
desperation I discovered that my problem
was that I didn’t know how to think I
knew how to succumb to the complexity
and give up yeah I was pretty good at
that but I didn’t know how to think and
I was shattered because it’s a
high-performing school student I’d made
the unvalidated assumption that I was
good at thinking and that one assumption
that I made without thinking about it
put me in constant agony for the first
10 months of 2016 and it was holding me
back in both my person in my academic
life so I wondered how people like how
the grades people like Newton and Darwin
managed to formulate coherent theories
despite all the gaps and inconsistencies
that despite all the gaps that they have
in their knowledge and I wondered how a
subject like chemistry with disgusting
amount of gaps and inconsistencies
manages to change the world like it has
today and I will tell you how in a
second how I think these people did it
in a second
but before that let me tell you how that
your science
mathematics taught me how to understand
the world and seek the truth science is
trying to understand the world through
science we try to obtain knowledge about
everything and we do that by trying to
figure out the relationships between the
different variables or the parameters in
our world that’s why whenever you look
at a research paper on where or whenever
you’re learn science you’re gonna be hit
with a lot of graphs because they’re a
good way of visualizing the different
relationships between the parameters
mathematics on the other hand has taught
me to think about the universe as a
giant system full of those parameters
linked together in complicated ways and
as scientists and mathematicians we’re
trying to figure out what parameters
there are and what the links between
them are now we’re all wondering now
what exactly is a parameter a parameter
is a simple idea it’s basically
something which defines a system take
our universe for example it has time
space and forces like gravity all of
these are parameters there are things
that define this system that is the
universe and help make it the way that
it is all the theories that science
builds tries to figure out what relation
what parameters there are in the world
and the relationships between them but
the world is so complicated
with many many parameters that no one
man can encompass at all in his mind
which is what I was trying to do there’s
not enough time that’s why we split the
world into different fields of knowledge
and this categorization makes it easier
for us to understand the universe
so I’ll each field of knowledge you may
run into questions which require
knowledge from other fields in order to
be solved they remain distinguished
enough such that a chemist can get on
with their job without an in-depth
knowledge of mathematics yet if a
chemist wants to understand chemistry
from a highly mathematical point of view
there’s also a job to do that
essentially this means that scientists
isolate the world isolates different
parts of the world to a certain extent
and each scientists manages to
understand the specific questions which
they which they ask about the world
without without despite the endless seed
of questions was their own into so I
started here I realized that if I
categorize the world and
parameters and their links much like
scientists and mathematicians do I’ve
come one step closer to finding the
truth understand in the world and
solving my non endless confusion in any
of the situations that met me in my
daily life and we all want to do that
let me explain further by taking a
closer look at the method of thought
that I learned that I deduced from
scientists and mathematicians in science
we try to build models of the world if
you ever come across a science book the
fear is the stuff that it teaches you
it’s only a model of parts of the world
because we don’t yet have a complete
model of the entire world a model
approximates the world and it does this
by getting a bunch of parameters things
that define the system bashing them
together piling them up to find the
links between them and then that allows
us to come to predictions about the
world the solid scientific theory is but
that doesn’t just happen in science we
all use our minds to build models of the
world and this ladies and gentlemen is
the fundamental idea of my talk
spreading to you the fact that we should
all think about the world as if we were
as if it were a mere model in our minds
now as I said we make assumptions about
the parameters that there are in the
world and the links between these
parameters that’s how we build our
reality but that doesn’t mean that all
the parameters in your model have to be
linked for example you may find that you
don’t necessarily associate something
like eating with particle physics but
some physicists somewhere has probably
thought about the link and added it to
their model so and this is the first
step to finding the truth making sure
that the links that you do find that the
correct ones you don’t have to find all
the links because you never really can
know everything there’s not enough time
and I’m gonna use an analogy to explain
the rest of the process
I really hate analogies because they
always manage to miss off parameters and
if math teaches me anything one missing
parameter can lead to a detrimental
effect on the entire system but I’m
going to use one to bring the idea
closer imagine the model formulated in
your head is like a three dimensions pie
the rub that you’re weaving imagine the
different threads our assumptions and
that the nodes are parameters when you
look at the web from outside it seems
complex and quite often we succumb to
complexity because we’re confused and
North to overcome that imagine yourself
jumping inside the web and walking along
the path carefully pinpointing your
confusion points asking yourself
questions and trying to build an
awareness of the ideas in your head
now that’s how we deal with confusion
you prove your train of thought and you
try to understand your mind but how do
you deal with the information overload
from the external world the key is to
prioritize imagine yourself reaching
while proving your imagine wide probing
three-dimensional web you reach certain
confusion points or questions which seem
like they’re going to take too much time
the answer or to deal with if you like
leaving them out is going to leave you
confused
yeah dealing with them means more
information to deal with and more gaps
and inconsistencies deal with so even
more confusion the best way to do the
best way to deal with this is to imagine
yourself sealing off the line of thought
imagine putting a cap at the end of the
threads that there are on the web rather
than expanding them and by that by doing
that you’ve acknowledged what you do and
what you do not know and you’ve built an
awareness of how your mind works so
you’re not confused and now you can
spend your time where it needs to be
spent but after I began using this new
concept to clear my confusion and
understand the world I came across one
issue with it it should I don’t memory
too much and so I found that I was
forgetting many of the justifications
upon which certain conclusion that I’ve
come to her based try to think about a
time when you were when you were arguing
with somebody when you had a certain
opinion in your head but when confronted
you couldn’t come up with his you
couldn’t come up with a strong
justification because you’ve forgotten
your justification even worse when you
sit down with yourself and you still
can’t remember why you’ve come to a
certain conclusion your opinion may have
been perfectly valid yet you’ve wasted
time by forgetting it and the reason
that was a big problem for me was that I
began not considering other people’s
opinions at all because I was afraid
that they were convinced me of their
opinion merely because I forgot my own
so I became exactly what I was afraid of
ignorant and the only good way to
overcome this memory problem to me was
to write if there was some major lesson
that I learned I’d write it down and I
found that that that way I was actually
building my character over time rather
than building parts of it forgetting
them and then having to waste time
rebuilding them again and not only is
writing the best way to deal with the
memory problem it’s also the best way to
focus your mind while probing your train
now I’m going to finish off with an
example science and mathematics teach me
that we can go from this equation to
this equation to this equation all the
way down to that equation as you can see
the equations are getting bigger and
more complex because they’re considering
more parameters and the assumptions
within them are being refined the models
in our mind are no different they are
similar
until newly arising knowledge comes up
we have to make ourself aware of the
current model in our mind and we have to
understand why we come to certain
conclusions about the world learn how to
think by probing your train of thought
in order to alter the model in your head
be aware of the ideas and the parameters
and the links between them of the
current model in your head
penetrate complexity and don’t take the
easy way out be patient and you will
reach the truth and I hope that was
helpful thank you
[Applause] [Music]