Unlearning

Unlearning required before learning is possible

And so you see I have come to doubt

All that I once held as true

I stand alone without beliefs

The only truth I know is you

The zen master kept pouring tea into a full cup, to teach prospective student that learning requires first emptying the cup.

Excerpts from: What is Unlearning?

Unlearning is not reframing or refreezing or something along that lines. They all focus on an end state whereas unlearning is about moving away from something rather than moving towards something.

So unlearning is to let go of what we have already learned or acquired. It is not about right or wrong. It is about being open to and exploring something that lies underneath the judgment, underneath the right and the wrong.

The process of unlearning is about liberation or freedom from the conditioning or from the known

Learning how to ride a bicycle (click on the title Bicycle Built for Two to read the story): You cannot focus first on balance, then on peddles and looking ahead. You have to do all of them simultaneously and it comes by letting go of the focus on any one of them and mastering all of them.

Unlearning could be also described as stripping the existing paint of a wall so that new paint sticks. As you know stripping is 70% of the job and repainting is 30%.

In all these examples, the focus is on emptying and creating an opening. Once openness is experienced, learning and creativity become easier.

Updated Lecture: Unlearning Jahiliyyah and Re-Learning Islam - Update/ revised and edited version of IBA lecture

Unlearning Economics - Economics Poisons the Well, destroying our built in moral capabilities. We must unlearn it, in order to learn to be human

Pursuit of Wealth - The goal of pursuing wealth is deadly to the pursuit of a meaningful life - we must unlearn the idea that life is about making money.

Iqbal on knowledge - two waysnof knowing direct adn intuitive

Empirical Evidence Against Neoclassical Utility Theory - A Survey of the massive amount of literature providing overwhelming evidence against this founding pillar of economic theory and thought.

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