How To Know Thyself

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Image courtesy of How To Academy.

How can we do something as difficult as driving without thinking about it? And how is it possible to know you’ve forgotten something?

Underlying these experiences is a complex process called metacognition—the ability to think about what we and others do or don’t think and know. It is the trait that sets us apart from other animals and even the most powerful AIs, and is the root of our greatest mental abilities.

Director of the Metacognition Group at UCL and one of the world’s leading experts on this thrilling new science, Stephen Fleming joins us to shed light on how to be a self-aware human in our modern world.

Drawing on his own pioneering studies as well as exciting new insights from computer science, psychology, and evolutionary biology, Fleming will explore why we so often think we’re amazing at tasks that we’re terrible at; what role computers and AI should play in our lives; and how we can harness the science of metacognition to think more clearly, make better decisions, and optimize learning inside and outside of the classroom. The science also has far-reaching implications for the use of eyewitness accounts in courtrooms, combating misinformation, and our understanding of what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines.

Fans of Daniel Kahneman, Malcolm Gladwell, and BJ Fogg ought not to miss this accessible introduction a ground-breaking and vital new scientific field.

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