What’s the Point of Learning If You Forget?

It Is Romantic to Memorize, but Real Men Do Things from First Principles

Memorizing text, formulas, and facts? That’s for the complacent—the lazy ones who take the easy road. The same ones who join a company and the first thing they look for are their tables rather than think of their roles.

You want to know what real genius looks like? It’s not just about recalling a formula. It’s about being able to derive that formula from first principles—understanding not just where it came from, but why it exists and how it connects to everything around you.

We tend to just repeat what we were taught and with time, and many generations of repetitions, more and more detail is lost until it is just a meme of memory. We remember what we think we know but dig a bit deeper and it cracks into formless ash.

Real smarts is about learning by recapitulating the very essence of that formula—not simply seeing it as numbers and variables, but asking, "What drove Newton, Euclid, and the great minds of our past to first write it down?"

Just as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, the development of a single idea mirrors the evolution of human thought. The idea builds on itself, evolving, until it reaches the first dichotomy—the moment of true understanding, when knowledge breaks into new territories, branching out and giving birth to something entirely new, self-sustaining, and capable of reshaping the world.

Real thinkers, real problem-solvers, don’t just memorize—they break everything down to its core truths. They don’t stop at surface-level knowledge. They dig into the foundational principles and understand them in the right order.

It’s not about throwing facts at the wall and hoping something sticks. That is being guru-esque. It’s about deconstructing the very structure of knowledge itself—how everything fits together—and then rebuilding it from scratch.

Think about it like taking apart a watch. Sure, you could put it back together, but now you understand how each piece works, how they all fit, how you can tweak things to make it work better.

Something important changed in you. You don't need memory, the knowledge has become part of your fabric of being and consciousness.

You want to be a genius? Forget memorizing like a parrot. Forget cramming the night before. That’s for the faint-hearted. Real geniuses break things down, rebuild them from the ground up, and apply them in ways that no one thought possible.

And the great side-effect: you start asking more questions and being curious about what you are learning.

Don’t just know a formula—understand its origin, its place in the larger puzzle, and how to apply it creatively to new challenges. Understand the rules so well, you can rewrite them.

That’s the truth of it. That's the point of learning if we forget.

1. The Obsolescence of Knowledge: Forgetting is Inevitable

Here’s the hard truth: knowledge spoils.

What you remember today, you’ll forget tomorrow. It’s like the fresh breath of a loved one that goes stale. What once seemed so vital, quickly fades into irrelevance.

Hermann Ebbinghaus, the pioneer of memory research, developed the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve in 1885. His research showed that within an hour, you’ll forget half of what you learned. After a day? That number jumps to 70%. A week later? You’re lucky to hang on to 10%. (Ebbinghaus, 1885)

Now, is forgetting a failure? Hell no. It’s how our brains are wired. Forgetting helps us shed the unnecessary, make room for what matters, and keep our mental space uncluttered.

But we’ve been conditioned to treat forgetting like it’s a weakness. We cram our heads with facts, thinking that if we can recall enough, we’ve “won” the learning game or earned the label of “clever.” But that’s a fallacy.

We stand on our pedestals, rest on our laurels, we bask in the glow of yesterday’s victories, we ride on the coattails of past success, unaware of the changing tides, we linger in the comfort of old habits, afraid to take the next step, we live in the shadow of former greatness, failing to step out into the light of what’s next.

Here’s the kicker: facts age like milk. What was true yesterday is outdated today.

And in a world that moves at breakneck speed, yesterday’s knowledge is nothing more than tomorrow’s joke.

Memorizing facts doesn’t prepare you for the unpredictable. You can stuff your head with history, but when the world changes overnight, your brain is stuck in the past, clinging to ancient battles while the future slams into you at light speed.

We are terrible judges of what’s truly important for survival.

We cling to memory as though it’s a life raft, trying to stay afloat amidst the tidal wave of time and change. At best, memorizing facts is like riding a boat without oars.

2. Modern Education Falls Short: We Don’t Need More Information, We Need More Thinking

You’ve been there—sitting in class, dutifully taking notes. But 99% of that knowledge won’t matter in 10 years. You’re preparing for a game that won’t even exist next year.

A whole global industry mushroomed based on this.

John Hattie (2009) synthesized over 800 meta-analyses related to student achievement and criticized traditional educational methods that focus on memorization and rote learning. These methods don’t foster the critical thinking and problem-solving skills that prepare students for life.

Hattie found that methods which encourage active engagement—where students think deeply, question assumptions, and apply knowledge—lead to better long-term retention and greater success.

Students who merely memorize are less likely to develop the adaptability needed to solve complex problems or innovate when faced with the unfamiliar. These are the very skills demanded in today’s rapidly changing world, not just for employment, but for life.

Yet, the education system still prioritizes memorization. It’s a race for who can regurgitate the most facts. Instead of cultivating critical thinkers, we focus on recall.

This results in a generation that knows a lot of facts but struggles when facing complex, unpredictable problems.

Are we not in a moment of unpredictable, complex problems that require innovative thinking right now, in 2025?

And here’s the kicker: when you put a high price on learning, it stops being about knowledge—it’s about prestige. Degrees become trophies—pieces of paper to hang on your wall, signaling that you’ve “made it.” But real learning?

Real learning should humble you. It should make you realize how much you don’t know, and fuel your desire for deeper understanding.

When education is commodified, as Michael Sandel argues in What Money Can’t Buy (2012), it loses its value as a tool for intellectual growth. Some institutions even hire efficiency engineers to maximize throughput—getting students through faster, with less time spent learning deeply.

The goal is clear: produce graduates quickly, not cultivate thinkers.

Learning has become a factory line.

3. Remembering Is for the Romantics; Real Men Do Things from First Principles

Here’s the thing: real men don’t just remember—they think from first principles. First principles thinking is about stripping away the fluff, getting down to the core truths, and rebuilding from there. You don’t memorize the answers, you create your own.

This isn’t just philosophy. This is how Elon Musk revolutionized space travel. Instead of relying on traditional methods, Musk broke the problem down from first principles. He didn’t ask, “How do we make cheaper rockets?” He asked, “Why does it cost so much? What is each component made of? How can I reduce costs at the most basic level?” And from there, he rebuilt the industry.

You think Albert Einstein sat around memorizing equations all day? No, he broke down physics to its core truths and redefined how we understood the universe.

First principles thinking is about freedom.

You’re not bound by old mistakes, outdated methods, imperfect systems, or recycled ideas.

You take the essential truths and build something new from the ground up. You think forward.

4. Forgetting: The Ultimate Brain Hack

Whatever your experience with education—whether you think you had a life-changing, great time, or feel like you barely made it through—this is a useful way of seeing your education in the rearview mirror.

Ignore this if you’re convinced you’ve already gained all you need.

But for many, it’s essential to understand that forgetting is not the enemy. It’s your secret weapon, your competitive advantage.

While everyone else is buried under an avalanche of irrelevant facts, you’re clearing the way for real, creative thinking. Psychologists like John Dunlosky (2009) have shown that forgetting isn’t just a side effect of learning—it’s essential.

When you forget, your brain isn’t failing you—it’s making room for new connections, new ways of thinking. Forgetting is a process of decluttering your mind, shedding the useless, and keeping only the valuable.

It’s about moving forward, so you can let go of past learning and make space for fresh insights.

Yes, yes, you spent 60,000 bucks for that top-tier education, and each morsel of information over those three years might feel like it should be carved in stone. Just get the university ring and move on, ok?

The real education is in the way you walk, the way you carry yourself, engage in conversations, and take on gainful projects. It is a suit no one can pick for you, shoes only you can fill, and a voice that can only come from you.

But here’s the thing: if you don’t let go of the old, you’ll be stuck dragging around a mental backpack full of outdated facts and adolescent ideas. You can’t move forward with all that weight holding you down.

Think of it like clearing out the junk from your garage. When you let go of outdated, irrelevant info, you create space for fresh ideas, new solutions, and perspectives that will move you forward.

Forgetting makes you agile. It’s not a flaw—it’s a feature. You’re not just shedding old knowledge—you’re freeing your mind to adapt, innovate, and build something new.

5. Real Learning: Mastering the Art of Thinking, Not Remembering

The best performers—whether athletes, musicians, or entrepreneurs—don’t just memorize techniques. They innovate, they improvise, and they think critically about how to improve.

And truly, that is where the fun starts. We all want to have some fun in our lives right?

It is hard to smile when everyone left, right and centre on your phone is telling you what to thing and what to do about almost everything.

Real learning happens when you question everything, challenge the norm, and dig deeper than memorization.

Here’s the problem: most people don’t think beyond what they’re taught or see. Why? Because the system has trained you to absorb, not to create. From an early age, we’re conditioned to memorize and repeat. Teachers deliver knowledge, students absorb it, and that’s supposed to be enough. But it’s not.

The Glass Pane Experiment:

In an experiment with chimpanzees, researchers placed food in a visible location beyond a pane of glass. The food was clearly visible, but the chimpanzees couldn’t figure out how to reach it. At first, they tried to grab the food directly, as if the glass wasn’t there, because they weren’t accustomed to the idea of seeing through a transparent barrier.

The experiment demonstrated an interesting insight: it’s not natural for us to see through glass. Just like the chimpanzees, humans also don’t immediately understand that glass is something we can look through—it's a concept we must learn through experience. Chimpanzees, for example, initially failed to recognize that the glass was a barrier they couldn’t simply touch through. They didn’t understand it immediately because their brains aren’t wired to perceive transparent surfaces the same way we might perceive solid ones.

Eventually, the chimpanzees adapted and learned to use the glass to their advantage, realizing that they could get the food by using tools or finding another way to reach it. This illustrated how learning and experience shape our understanding of the world, teaching us things that might not come naturally or intuitively.

The Lesson:

The anecdote highlights that perception is learned. We don’t automatically understand the nature of glass or transparent surfaces; it's something we need to experience and adapt to. It reminds us that, much like the chimpanzees, we sometimes need to learn how to see beyond what’s right in front of us, whether it’s a literal transparent barrier or a figurative one in our thinking.

Why don’t we think beyond what we’re taught? Because schools are built to standardize, not to encourage independent thinking. We’re taught to accept knowledge, not to question it.

But the good news is, in a world that’s constantly evolving, we can discard a lot of that information. The problem is, critical thinking and innovation don’t come from memorization anyway—they come from questioning, reimagining, and building.

Real learning isn’t about holding on to old facts—it’s about creating new solutions. It’s about thinking critically, solving problems, and reshaping the world.

If this is not the purpose of education, then what has become of it?

We can argue employability, but does this not make the graduate more valuable, when they solve problems and ensure employability?

Conclusion:

So, what’s the point of learning least you forget?

The point is that learning isn’t about holding on to facts—it’s about freeing yourself from outdated knowledge and focusing on the essentials.

Forget the irrelevant details. Forget the ego boosts. Forget the shiny degrees. Start thinking critically, breaking down problems, and building new solutions from first principles.

Stop memorizing. Start understanding.

Forget the old ways of doing things, and get busy creating something new.

Especially now, with the fracture in the timeline in our universe due to AI and the new realities of global economics, much of what we use today came from the 1960's and 1980's, or earlier.

Because in the end, remembering is for the romantics, and real men—real thinkers—build things from the ground up.

References:

• Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Routledge.
• Sandel, M. (2012). What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Ebbinghaus, H. (1885). Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. Dover Publications.
• Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. Routledge.
• Feynman, R. (1965). The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Addison-Wesley.
• Dunlosky, J., et al. (2009). Improving Students' Learning with Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions from Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
• Ericsson, A., et al. (1993). The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development of Superior Expert Performance. Psychological Review.