In 1895, Freud proposed the iceberg theory. He believed that personality is like an iceberg, with only a small part visible above the surface—the conscious level—while most of it lies in the subconscious and unconscious, beyond what others can perceive and even what we ourselves can readily sense.
The iceberg model has three levels: surface, shallow, and deep. Data and information are at the surface, knowledge is at the shallow level, and wisdom is at the deep level. We always need to use limited data and information to model more general patterns. Human communication and expression at a deeper level also work like an iceberg model: the literal meaning is the surface, the meaning behind it is the shallow level, and the speaker’s true purpose is the deep level. Seeing a mountain as a mountain is the surface level; seeing that a mountain is not a mountain is the shallow level; seeing a mountain as a mountain again is the deep level.
This kind of iceberg-model thinking, which can be generalized to every field, is called the Grand Iceberg Model. The Grand Iceberg Model can explain almost any complex phenomenon that is visible and worth studying. Follow this line of thought, and you’ll find that taking the pursuit of thought to its extreme can turn a tool with precise practical guidance into a kind of wisdom that can guide everything. But at the same time, it becomes especially abstract and insubstantial. When this pursuit reaches a certain level of wisdom, that wisdom may no longer offer you further insight, leaving you with the sense that it is useless—a feeling with a distinctly wisdom-nihilist flavor. In other words, examining the thinking behind the Grand Iceberg Model reveals that it is really just a distinction between the surface and the underlying principles: a very ordinary way of understanding the world that distinguishes between appearances and patterns, phenomena and essence, and results and causes. The takeaway is not to readily trust what you can see before you, but to think one step deeper, and then another—especially when it comes to critical issues. Sometimes we feel this wisdom is priceless; at other times, it seems like nothing more than a grand piece of empty talk. Whether we fall into that kind of wisdom nihilism depends entirely on our stage of personal growth and our current circumstances.