Humans have an exceptional ability to learn.
However, there are also organisms that are able to learn even without a brain, for example “slime mould” and some plants. It’s not completely clear how Slime Mould is able to learn, however this tells us that the requirements for learning are maybe a little simpler than we thought.
It turns out, learning has three basic requirements:
- A trigger that brings a response or change
- A memory of whatever happened
- A modified behaviour pattern in the future, based on the memory.
However, in a study on the learning of Slime Mould and simple organisms, Dr. Dussutour states that for the learning to be valid:
The organism must be able to recover from the process. It cannot be locked into the new behaviour.
As humans, we naturally can learn almost an infinite number of new tasks. The key then perhaps, when we are learning a new habit, movement, skill or behaviour that we want to retain, is not to be stuck with our previous “knowledge.”
A growth mindset then includes understanding that anything we learn or perceive to be true at any one time is open to change.
