The Architecture of Understanding: From Synapses to Serendipity
Mental Models, Neuroplasticity, and the Art of Weaving a Smarter Mind
Preamble: This article is an attempt to weave a coherent thread through my own thoughts on teaching and learning, narrative, and mental models. It grew from a long and serendipitous percolation of ideas and was refined in collaboration with AI tools. The result is an exploration, not a final word. If it sparks constructive feedback, please share it.
Introduction
At the most fundamental level of our being, a simple principle governs how we learn: neurons that fire together, wire together1 (Max Bennett: A Brief History of Intelligence). This catchy bon mot of neuroscience is not just a biological curiosity; I believe it is one, if not the bedrock upon which all knowledge, insight, and creativity are built. Our minds are not passive vessels for facts but dynamic, living structures—vast, interconnected webs of thought. Understanding this architecture is the first step toward mastering the art of learning itself.
The Latticework and the Spiderweb: Structuring Knowledge
Charlie Munger, the celebrated investor and thinker, offers a powerful metaphor: the "latticework of mental models" (Robert Hagstrom, Investing: The Last Liberal Art, Chapter 1). To achieve "worldly wisdom," he argues, one must build a framework of the most important concepts from a wide range of fields—physics, biology, psychology, philosophy—and hang our experiences upon it. This prevents the "man with a hammer" syndrome, where every problem looks like a nail. Recent experiments with grandmasters playing 'Chess960' vividly illustrate this danger, showing how experts often default to familiar, memorized moves even when they are disastrous in the new context. Yet, as Joachim Klement argues, the true corollary is that while a rigid memory is a liability, a broader and more flexible memory—a larger library of patterns (and I argue, mental models and concepts from different fields)—is a decisive advantage. This is precisely what Munger's concept of worldly wisdom aims to build.
While "latticework" implies a structured grid, we can enrich this metaphor by envisioning it as a spiderweb. In this web, every concept we learn is a node, and the relationships between them are the threads. The conceptual "closeness" of two ideas is the length of the thread between them.2
This is where Munger's vital insight comes into play: you don't need to know every detail of every discipline. You only need to internalize the "big ideas"—evolution in biology, supply and demand in economics, compound interest in finance. These are the foundational hubs of the web, the nodes with the most connections radiating outward.
But this web is not static. The thickness of the threads is a function of their frequency of activation, a direct reflection of the neural principle: neurons that fire together, wire together. Every time we consciously connect two ideas, the pathway between those nodes grows stronger. The strength of the web lies not just in the individual threads but in their interconnectedness. Learning, then, is the act of spinning this web, strengthening connections, and adding new anchor points.3
For investors, the practical implication is clear: the stronger and more interconnected our web of ideas, the less likely we are to fall into narrow, one-dimensional thinking. A robust mental web helps us see parallels across industries, recognize risks that others miss, and spot opportunities hidden in plain sight. This is what Munger captured with his concept of worldly wisdom applied to investing.
Forging the Connections: The Art of Weaving Memory Hooks
If our mind is a web, how do we actively weave the threads and add nodes?
The psychologist Jordan Peterson describes a process of active recall: read, close the book, and summarize in your own words (Peterson: Learning and Retention, NotebookLM summary). This act of reformulation forces a mental reconstruction of the concept. And this is not just theory: In their 2008 study, cognitive psychologists Jeffrey Karpicke and Henry Roediger showed that students who practiced retrieval—testing themselves and recalling information—remembered much more a week later than those who merely re-read their notes. The act of recall itself does the heavy lifting for memory. However, the act of reformulating and teaching goes beyond recall: it forces you not only to remember, but also to simplify, restructure, and connect new knowledge to what you already know.
Peterson's key insight is to then consciously relate the new information to your existing knowledge: "How does it relate to all these other ideas that I know? ... Do I believe it? And how might I criticize it?" This, he explains, is how you create "little memory hooks." This echoes the old wisdom that to truly master a subject, you must teach it — a principle Richard Feynman turned into a systematic method. His four-step Feynman Technique goes beyond recall by demanding simplicity, clarity, and connection:
Choose your concept: Write the name of the concept you want to understand at the top of a blank page.
Teach it to a child: Write out an explanation of the concept as if you were teaching it to a child. This forces you to use simple language and avoid jargon.
Identify gaps and go back to the source: When you get stuck or use complex terms, you have identified the gaps in your understanding. Return to the source material to fill them.
Review and simplify: Read your explanation aloud. If it sounds confusing, simplify the language and use analogies until it flows smoothly.
This internal weaving is complemented by an equally powerful, though counterintuitive, external strategy: breaking the very routines we've been told are the keys to successful study. In his book How We Learn, Benedict Carey dismantles the age-old advice to find one quiet, dedicated study spot. The brain does not just store the information you are studying; it also encodes the context you are in. (How We Learn, Chapter 3). When you vary your study environment, you create multiple, distinct sets of these contextual cues, all linked to the same material. Each new environment adds fresh cues to your web (not just the concepts, but also to the surrounding sensory inputs, e.g. smells or noises), making the central concept stronger and more accessible. When you're in a stressful, unfamiliar exam room, your brain isn't dependent on one specific set of cues, but there are other contextual opportunities that potentially help in triggering one of its multitude of pathways to retrieve the needed information.
Beyond Words: The Power of Models and Narrative
Our mental web is not woven exclusively from abstract facts. The threads and nodes are spun from images, feelings, stories, and metaphors. This is why visual thinking and the creation of mental models are such potent learning tools. This principle is at the heart of what computer scientists call "transfer learning." An AI model trained on one task performs better on a new, related task. The "learning" transfers because the underlying concepts are closer. The spiderweb analogy makes this intuitive: an analogy drawn from a "nearby" concept in the web will be far more effective than one from a distant, less relevant node. The shorter the conceptual bridge, the easier the transfer, and probably, the stronger the connection.
This drive toward finding simpler, more elegant connections is at the very heart of how we think. AI pioneer Professor Jürgen Schmidhuber proposed almost two decades ago a powerful theory of "compression progress" to explain this. The core idea is that our brain is constantly trying to compress the data it receives from the world into simpler, more efficient representations. A mental model, a scientific law, or a powerful metaphor are all forms of elegant compression. According to Schmidhuber, the pleasure we feel in an "aha!" moment is the reward our brain gives us for successfully finding a new and better compression. This theory beautifully explains why the Feynman technique—the act of forcing a simple explanation—is so effective, and why a well-crafted story feels so satisfying.
But narrative does more than just position ideas logically; it synchronizes minds emotionally. As Carmine Gallo notes in Talk Like TED, compelling stories can actually align the brainwaves of the listener with those of the storyteller (Talk Like TED, Chapter 2)4. This brain-to-brain communication is a transfer of state. The new information isn't just an abstract concept; it's now tagged with a specific feeling or arousal state, wiring a more robust and memorable network of synapses.
The true power of this mental web is unlocked when we don't just build a single bridge, but triangulate the new concept. By connecting a new idea to multiple, varied points in the existing web—an anecdote, a model from physics, a visual from art—we anchor it more securely. This process situates the new idea within the broader network, defining its contours and relationships with greater precision.
The Unconscious Architect: Incubation, Creativity, and Serendipity
Perhaps the most magical aspect of a well-woven mental web is its ability to create on its own. The creative process is often marked by periods of intense immersion in a problem, followed by a period of "incubation," where we step away entirely (How We Learn, Chapter 6). We go for a walk, talk to a friend, or work on something else. It is often in these moments of distraction that the "aha!" insight strikes. This is not magic; it is the brain's subconscious at work. Specifically, it is the neocortex running simulations of reality (A Brief History of Intelligence, Chapters 11 & 12). During periods of rest, and especially during certain phases of sleep, the brain is not idle. It is testing the connections in your mental web, running counterfactuals ("what if this were connected to that?"), and exploring thousands of potential pathways, free from the narrow focus of your conscious mind. When you've saturated your mind with a problem, the neural circuits associated with it are strong and ready to get active. As you step away, your brain continues to explore pathways, and a random stimulus,e.g. a sensory input, can trigger an unexpected connection across your web of knowledge, e.g. evoke a memory, or a “random” thought. This is serendipity, and it is a direct consequence of having a broad and richly interconnected latticework of mental models.
Conclusion: The Case for a Foraging Brain
This brings us to a powerful conclusion for any investor: the immense value of a broad, humanistic education. In a world that prizes deep specialization, we risk becoming "the man with only a hammer." A wide-ranging education, as Robert Hagstrom argues, is a practical necessity for navigating a complex world. By studying widely, we gather the raw materials to build a more resilient and versatile mental spiderweb. This is why I developed my own mental model of investing as a way to add new, versatile nodes to this web, in the hopes of triggering novel associative thoughts.
This act of building requires conscious mental hygiene. The web we build is only as strong as the threads we use. If we feed our minds with low-quality or false information, we weave those toxic threads into our cognitive fabric. Learning is not merely acquisition, but curation.
Curation reaches its most refined form in the art of teaching. To teach a subject is to curate it, distilling a vast landscape of information down to its most essential principles. In preparing to transmit knowledge to others, you perfect its organization within your own mind.
In addition to being a cornerstone of teaching and learning, I argue that curation is a bridge to a true behavioral edge for investors. By combining rigorous curation, i.e. triage of information, defining "Kill Criteria" (Annie Duke, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away) before entering investments to avoid cognitive biases, and leveraging modern tools —what Steve Jobs called a 'Bicycle for the Mind'— I argue investors can develop a strong behavioral advantage in the market.
Ultimately, by embracing the role of a lifelong learner with a "foraging brain," as Benedict Carey puts it, we can continue to spin, strengthen, and expand our web of knowledge. For an investor, this transforms the mind from a simple repository of facts into a dynamic engine of insight, creativity, and worldly wisdom.
This saying encapsulates the principle of Hebbian learning, a key part of neuroplasticity. It is a foundational concept in neuroscience that explains how neural connections strengthen through repeated simultaneous activity. However, neuroscience is more complex than that: neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, impact the communication across synapses. Synapses can also be inhibitory, dampening the excitability of the neurons they connect to. Finally, it is not always the case that connections are strengthened when neurons fire their signals within a short period of one another.
This concept of an interconnected web of knowledge has deep roots in psychology. The 19th-century philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart’s theory of “apperceptive mass”, the sum of all our prior experiences, was foundational for modern pedagogy. It posits that learning is only possible when new ideas are consciously integrated into this existing mass, framing the act of teaching as the art of curating new information to connect with a student’s existing knowledge.
Note that this metaphor is not just an intuitive conceptual model; it captures the physical reality of neuroplasticity. For example, research highlighted by Joseph Henrich in The Weirdest People in the World shows how acquiring literacy—a cultural skill—physically alters the brain. The process thickens the corpus callosum (the nerve bundle connecting the brain's hemispheres) and reorganizes parts of the prefrontal cortex. Different literacy systems have different effects, and comparing highly literate societies to those with more illiteracy shows demonstrable brain structure differences. These differences are not just related to language processing, but also affect other cognitive functions and brain organization. This demonstrates how the 'weaving' of our mental web is a biological reality, not just a metaphor.
While the term "brainwave synchronization" is used by Gallo, a more precise term is "neural coupling," where the listener's brain activity patterns begin to mirror the storyteller's with a slight delay.