Smarter Every Day: The Backwards Brain Bicycle

Introduction

• Hosted by Destin Sandlin.
• Common saying: "It's just like riding a bike" suggests ease and permanence in skills.
• Destin experienced a challenge that altered his ability to ride a bike.

The Experiment

• Background: Destin learned to ride a bike as a child, a skill he was proud of.
• Challenge: A friend, Barney, created a modified bike where turning the handlebars left turned the wheel right and vice versa.
• Initial Attempt: Despite technical knowledge, Destin was unable to ride the modified bike.
  • Realization: Knowledge does not equal understanding.
  • Riding a bike involves complex algorithms in the brain.

Public Demonstration

• Destin uses the bike at events to illustrate the difficulty.
• Common misconception: People think they can ride it but fail.
• Example: Offered $200 to ride the bike 10 feet; nobody succeeded.

Learning Process

• Destin practiced for 5 minutes daily, experiencing many failures.
• After 8 months, he succeeded in riding the backwards bike.
  • Discovering neural pathways: Felt like unlocking a new path in the brain.
  • Easily reverted to old habits with distractions.

The Child Experiment

• Destin's young son learned to ride the backwards bike in two weeks.
  • Demonstrates greater neural plasticity in children.
  • Relevant to language learning in children.

Reverting to a Normal Bike

• In Amsterdam, attempts to ride a normal bike again:
  • Initial failure due to unlearning the old control algorithm.
  • After 20 minutes, reverts back to old biking ability.

Key Learnings and Insights

• Welders can be cleverer than engineers.
• Knowledge is distinct from understanding.
• Truth remains constant, regardless of personal bias.
  • Importance of recognizing personal biases.

Conclusion

• Encourages support via Audible with a book recommendation: "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth" by Commander Hadfield.
• Draws parallels between learning to ride different vehicles and Commander Hadfield's experience with space stations.

Final Thoughts

• Video highlights the complexities of learning and unlearning, showing how deeply ingrained our habitual thinking can be.
• Encourages viewers to question their biases and interpretations of the world.

Destin closes the video with a typical outro and a suggestion to support Smarter Every Day.

(Note: Some crowd interactions and laughter included in the transcript were omitted for brevity.)