“Much as our taste for sugar and fat may have served us well in a world of scarce nutrition, but is now maladaptive in a world of ubiquitous fast food joints, our memories aren’t perfectly adapted for our contemporary information age. The tasks that we often rely on our memories for today simply weren’t relevant in the environment in which the human brain evolved. Our ancestors didn’t need to recall phone numbers, or word-for-word instructions from their bosses, or the Advanced Placement U.S. history curriculum, or (because they lived in relatively small, stable groups) the names of dozens of strangers at a cocktail party.”

Excerpt From: Joshua Foer. “Moonwalking With Einstein.” – Amazon Link

“The prefix meta comes from the Greek term μετά, meaning “beyond.” It typically signifies when something is “about” itself or deals with a higher layer of abstraction. The character 灶, for example which means “stove,” has a 火 on the left-hand side to indicate that it has some relationship to fire. Learning this property of Chinese characters is metalearning—not learning about the object of your inquiry itself, in this case words and phrases, but learning about how knowledge is structured and acquired within this subject; in other words, learning how to learn it.”

Excerpt From: Scott Young. “Ultralearning.”