Socrates said: "I only know one thing, that is, I know nothing."
Why does God think Socrates is the cleverest man?
Because compared with those who think they know everything after a little research in the professional field, he can realize his ignorance, which is the real knowledge.
A true wise man knows how to keep an empty cup at all times and constantly improve his cognitive level.
The fundamental reason for the gap between people lies in the difference in cognition.
There is a picture on the Internet that divides people's cognition into four levels:
The first level, I don't know, I don't know-I think I know everything and I am self-righteous.
The second level, knowing that you don't know-full of awe in the unknown field, seeing your own gaps and shortcomings, and preparing to enrich your cognition.
The third level, know what you know-grasp the law of things and improve cognition.
The fourth level, I don't know whether I know or not-keeping an empty cup mentality, the highest level of cognition.
In real life, many people are in the first level of ignorance and fearlessness of "I don't know".
I don't know that this low level of cognition is a person's greatest poverty.
When I was in college, I liked reading Wang Xiaobo.
I was deeply impressed by his narration in the preface to the opening of Silent Majority.
Wang Xiaobo said that when he was young, he read Bernard Shaw's play Major Barbara, and he was deeply moved by one scene:
Andreyev, an industrial tycoon, met his son Stevin, whom he hadn't seen for years, and asked him what he was interested in doing.
The young man has nothing in science, literature and law, but he says he has one advantage: he can distinguish right from wrong.
The old man gave his son a crucial loss, saying that it stumped all scientists, politicians and philosophers. How can you not tell right from wrong if you don't know anything?
Wang was only twenty years old when he read this article. He immediately made up his mind and said:
"I can do anything in my life, but I can't be a person who can tell right from wrong by doing nothing."
When we were young, we had mastered some superficial life truths, so we thought we knew everything and made arbitrary judgments about the world.
This cognitive phenomenon is called "Ducker effect" in psychology.
Ducker effect is a cognitive deviation, which means that people with insufficient ability and low cognitive level will have an illusory sense of self-superiority and think that they are smarter than the actual situation.
As Darwin said, "Ignorance is more confident than knowledge."
This phenomenon can be seen everywhere in our daily life, and we often overestimate our abilities without knowing it.
As Teacher Luo Xiang said:
"The poorer a person is, the more he has a strange courage and pride.
Because the less knowledge you have, the more you believe in absoluteness. You have never heard the opposite view. "
When the ears of wheat in the local area are empty and shriveled, they always grow very tall and hold their heads high proudly.
When the ears of wheat are full and mature, they always show docile appearance and hang their heads.
Wheat is like this, and people are even more so.
The lower the cognitive level, the less aware of your ignorance, the more self-righteous and enterprising, and the worse your fate.
People with high cognitive level, the more they know their own shortcomings, the easier it is for them to get better and better in life.
There was a Christian who could not swim, but fell into the sea.
When he was struggling in the sea, he saw a boat and the people on it wanted to save him.
But he didn't want to wait for God to save him. He continued to struggle in the sea.
Then another ship came and the people on board tried to save him. He still said, "No, I will wait for my God to save me."
Finally, the man drowned.
His soul drifted to heaven and saw God. He complained why God didn't save him.
God said, "I sent two boats to save you, but you didn't want to come up."
Believers in this fable, like facing an opportunity, choose to ignore us who don't believe.
After missing it, I complained that the world is unfair, people are not old, and life is at stake.
The lower the cognitive level, the more passive life.
The higher the cognitive level, the better the choice.
Active and passive are destined to be two completely different lives. Passive people are led by others, and active people lead others.
They can seize every opportunity to make their own choices and try their best to control their lives.
Lincoln, the greatest president in American history, was like this.
Lincoln was born in a poor peasant family. His father brought home the bacon by reclaiming wasteland and hunting. His mother is a mediocre peasant woman.
Lincoln, on the other hand, has profound knowledge, excellent management ability and speech ability.
What is even more shocking is that his life's formal education time adds up to less than one year.
Young, he has a valuable quality, that is, the unremitting pursuit of knowledge.
Moreover, he can learn a lot of knowledge and truth from farmers, businessmen, lawyers and village Confucianism researchers.
After he was nominated as the presidential candidate, he once said: "I can achieve this small achievement entirely because of the knowledge I have learned from time to time to meet the various needs in the future."
People with high cognitive level can always follow their own hearts and bravely choose the path that suits them best.
Cheetah CEO Fu Sheng once said:
The biggest competitive difference lies in cognition. As long as we can break through the barriers and boundaries of thinking, we can become different people.
Many times, we are stuck in one thing, not because we don't work hard enough, but because we have tried all the known methods in our brain and it still doesn't work.
Over time, we will be disappointed in the world and complain about life.
At this time, we may be in a state of cognitive shielding, just like goldfish in a fish tank, never realizing the existence of the fish tank.
The only way to break the fish tank is to raise awareness.
Promoting cognition is divided into two levels, namely, self-cognition and cognition of the world.
Teacher Fan Deng mentioned when reading the book "Solutions to Puzzlement":
If you don't observe yourself, you don't know yourself, you don't know your own heart, and it's hard to know the hearts of others.
The improvement of cognition should start with opening yourself up.
Self-cultivation first lies in cultivating the mind, but also in cultivating the unity of knowing and doing.
If a person has bad intentions and is hostile to everything, then his cognition will be inaccurate, which will lead to wrong judgment.
In the era of developed Internet and free speech, many people have become leverage experts and keyboard men.
Be prejudiced against everything and highlight your advantages through argument.
Self-cultivation can make us not blindly believe, face problems positively and deal with them rationally.
It is terrible for a person to believe in nothing; But a person believes everything, but he is also sad.
With some young girls around, it's easy to believe Tik Tok's seemingly romantic but absurd views on love.
This cognitive way of trying to think about our own life with other people's brains will make our life narrower and narrower.
Only by looking at the problem from a comprehensive perspective can we see the essence clearly.
When encountering any problems, you should learn to think independently and develop the habit of searching for evidence.
Instead of speculating on the basis of one-sided understanding and local experience, this is undoubtedly a blind man.
No one is an island, everyone is a part of the world.
The more you know about the world, the less pain it will bring you.
Su Shi has a famous saying: learn from others' strengths, take everything in one way or another, and many a mickle makes a mickle.
This is his way of learning and cognitive improvement.
"Reading widely" means reading extensively. "About taking" is a process of getting rid of the weeds and keeping the seeds, and refining the essence. And "storing hair" means slowly releasing after accumulation.
A truly powerful person should be a lifelong learner.
Connect with the world and gain energy and wisdom.
If you can't take Wan Li Road, read thousands of books.
As Teacher Fan Deng said, "Reading allows you to communicate with people who have died for more than 2,000 years, and with people from different regions and countries."
People who are exhausted all day, only bury themselves in work and are unwilling to accept new things are easily abandoned by the times.
"Zhuangzi colchicine" said:
"Well, frogs can't talk to people in the sea, but they are confined to emptiness. Summer insects can't talk to people in the ice, but they are also in time. "
Everyone is limited by time and space, so we simply can't see anything beyond the cognitive level.
And your cognitive level is often the average of the cognitive level of the six people closest to you.
This reminds me of what Jiang said: "read more books, or your three views will be decided by your relatives and friends."
Sometimes the people around you can decide your living standard, because the environment has a great influence on a person, and to change all this, you need to expand your life circle.
Walking with excellent people, you will have 10 thousand possibilities to become an excellent person.
People have two lives, one is physical birth and the other is cognitive awakening.
At what level of your cognition, your life is in what state.
This is an era of lifelong learning. The higher we stand, the wider and richer the world will be.
People with advanced cognition are all empty cups. Always keep an active and open mind, explore outward and think inward.