Why We Have Two Learning Systems: Max Bennett Made This Click
By Max Bennett
Recommended on: 4th January 2026
One book that really got my gears turning this month was A Brief History of Intelligence by Max Bennett. What I appreciated most was how clearly it laid out why we have two fundamentally different learning systems—an older, model-free system for fast, automatic behavior, and a newer, model-based system for deliberate planning and simulation. Bennett doesn’t just describe them—he explains their evolutionary logic. The model-free system evolved first because it’s efficient: it repeats what worked before. The model-based system came later, letting us imagine possible futures before acting. What clicked for me was how this distinction maps onto everyday learning. Much of schooling aims at building the slow, deliberative capabilities we prize—things like reasoning, abstraction, or transfer. But when working memory gets overloaded, the brain defaults to the model-free system. That means students may fall into habits or superficial strategies even when we think we’re fostering deep understanding. Bennett’s evolutionary lens helped clarify why that happens—and why guidance and structure matter so much more than we often assume. [Hat tip: Brandon Hendrickson of Science is Weird.]
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