Learning something new

[coberst]

Learning something new

 

It is understandable that it is difficult to begin the process of comprehending a new domain of knowledge. Our educational system is designed to provide a teacher to hold our hand as we begin the process of learning new stuff. However, when our school days are over and we must begin to comprehend new domains of knowledge on our own we must learn how to learn without this hand holding.

 

If we are not to be destined to a life time of ignorance we must learn how to learn on our own. This can be a futile exercise in which we finally capitulate or it can be the beginning of the most marvelous adventure available to humans.

 

I suggest that one stick with it and fight the urge to give up. You will quickly find that the investment of time and rational effort will pay off with great rewards. Just start with the acknowledgment that you are now the ‘master of your own domain’ and as such every effort will result in learning that will make the next effort easier.

 

I write these essays for posting after spending a great amount of time and energy in trying to enter a new domain of knowledge. Just like you, I find it difficult and frustrating, unlike you, however, I have done this many times and have developed confidence that I can and will comprehend the matter if I control my impatience and stick with it.

 

I am a retired engineer and self-actualizing self-learning is my hobby. I moved here to the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina seven years ago and the first thing I did was to visit the library at a local college and to acquire a “Friends of the Library” card. For a yearly fee of $25 I can borrow any book from this great library.

 

I suggest that everyone acquire such a library card when their school days are over. If a person is to become a self-learner after their school daze are over they need access to a large library so that when they find something that interests them they can easily find what the best thinkers in the world think abut these matters.

 

Questions for discussion

 

Why is access to a large college library important for self-learning?

 

Why is it important that we have a constant input of new ideas?

 

I think that we are unconsciously working out solutions for our questions and when we do not supply our mind with new questions our mind will just be wasted in trivia. Have you experienced the mind unconsciously helping you resolve questions?

[snoopy]

Learning something new

 

 

 

Questions for discussion

 

Why is access to a large college library important for self-learning?

 

Why is it important that we have a constant input of new ideas?

 

I think that we are unconsciously working out solutions for our questions and when we do not supply our mind with new questions our mind will just be wasted in trivia. Have you experienced the mind unconsciously helping you resolve questions?

 

No1. Access to a large library such as a college or university library is important as it saves you a lot of money in acquiring books.

 

No2 It is important that we have new ideas now and again to challenge us and our beliefs in which the human has many, sometimes we are not right or have understood an idea poorly so this constant criticism is actually quite healthy.

 

Yes I think the best way to come up with a maths proof or a new idea is to constantly `daydream` about the problem. The solution often comes to you in a flash and you struggle to write it down fast enough before you forget. Is this what you were alluding to ?

 

Anyway thats all I have to say about this. I saw your post and that nobody had replied to it. This made me sad as I know the feeling when no-one replies to your post and so I have remedied it. Hope it was a reply worthy of your question.

Bye

[freeztar]

The most important thing I carried with me when I walked away from college was a confidence of knowing, "I know how to learn!".

This is invaluable. Most major, state-run universities want to set you up for your career. Hence we have college graduates in the US that are unmotivated to further their development.

I chose a different path with school and that has made all the difference.

I learned how to learn. It sounds silly upon looking at the simplicity of the words, but it is majestic. I think a vast majority of us here can appreciate this and strive to learn on a millisecond basis. :eek_big:

 

I think your premise is very important coberst!

[coberst]

Snoopy

 

Yes, you are right on the mark. I would not call it day-dreaming but I think we mean the same thing. It appears to me that if we give our mind something worth while to work on it will help us solve our question. If we do not give it something worth while it will just waste away on trivia or just finally atrophy into dead head.

[coberst]

Freeztar

 

It is a pleasure to see your agreement. It is surprising to me just how few recognize this very vital truth. I think that our educational system has left us with a great intellectual handicap; so few adults ever learn this very important matter of learning how to become an independent learner and thinker.

[rocket art]

Have you experienced the mind unconsciously helping you resolve questions?

 

That may occur when one dreams. In dreaming, we speak to ourselves through the language of symbols.

[LJP07]

How is this so called " Learning to Learn " actually developed in some educational systems though? If I want to learn something I study? Is this not the same thing in essence.

[coberst]

Knowing is like day breaking, understanding is like lightening striking.

 

Comprehension is the payoff for struggle. There is a hierarchy of comprehension. Like a pyramid with the base being awareness, followed by consciousness (awareness plus attention) then comes knowledge with understanding at the pinnacle of the pyramid.

 

Reading is the key to knowing and essay writing is the canvas for creating understanding.

 

Of all the creatures perhaps humans are the only ones who fail to live up to their potential. Obesity is the evidence of a lack of physical endeavor and boredom is the consequence of a lazy brain.

 

“Reading is fundamental.” Essay writing is the art and science of creation.

 

We can take any issue that might enrage any one of us and we can discover that the root cause of it is the fact that we the citizens are not doing our job. In a liberal democracy wherein the sovereignty rests on the shoulders of the citizen any outrage committed by that society can ultimately be traced back to the lack of enlightenment by the citizen.

 

Enlightened does not equal informed. Information flows over us in a daily deluge but consciousness is the missing catalyst for action. Our daily dose of information might be compared to our drive to work each morning. We are deluged with information reaching our perception on our drive to work and very little of that information becomes an object of consciousness.

 

Humans are pattern recognition creatures. We survive by the patterns of which we are conscious. To be an enlightened citizen is to be a citizen who has rationally organized a matrix of pattern detecting systems.

 

We have in our genes some pattern detecting systems. When hiking in the woods I am occasionally stopped in my tracks with a deep chill by some kind of form or movement. Among this infinite amount of movement and pattern one particular set penetrates my consciousness. We have evolved with this detection system so as to survive the predators.

 

I think that if we make the intellectual effort to understand some domain of knowledge and perhaps take the additional effort to write out our understanding of that matter, our essay will serve as our pattern for recognition for matters pertinent to that domain.

 

I consider that writing an essay is a major means for reaching an understanding of a domain of knowledge.

 

I think that these forums offer a great opportunity for practicing our writing skills. Do you agree? Is writing part of your learning process?

[ErlyRisa]

to go off a bit slightly...to a higher plane (excues the pun)

 

--what happens when the domain is the universe?

 

---should the fundamental form of intelligence be not the inuverse itself?

[LJP07]

Were you responding to my question in that last response? :hyper:

 

I think that these forums offer a great opportunity for practicing our writing skills. Do you agree? Is writing part of your learning process?

 

Yes, of course they do! Writing is part of my learning process. I have to write and re-write things, pages upon pages to learn things off for examinations. I know some people just don't learn by writing, they listen and write minimally. I think writing is part of the parcel of learning anything for anyone really to even a small extent.

[coberst]

Learning without a teacher

 

Science informs us that we are creatures who have evolved over a period of billions of years. Our human nature has many traits, all of which are the products of these years of evolution.

 

I suspect that every trait we have can prove to be both positive and negative to our welfare depending upon our understanding, personality, character and how we nurture those traits. It seems to me that our task is to learn what these traits of nature are and, as much as possible, “to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative”.

 

Two characteristic traits of human nature that I would like to dwell upon are our inclination to acquire and to know.

 

It is easy enough to understand our acquisitive nature, without it we, like the squirrels, would not survive the winter. I find that our desire to know requires a little more effort to comprehend.

 

The Greek philosopher Socrates admonished his fellows that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. I think that he had discovered a very important aspect of our innate desire to know and wished to inform all of his fellows of that insight. For his efforts his fellows decided he was “corrupting the youth” and he was required to drink a cup of hemlock.

 

Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, begins one of his books with “all men by nature desire to know”. He went on to express his conclusion that knowledge is an end in itself. He says that not only is knowledge a good in itself but that knowledge is the highest end of human achievement.

 

I am convinced that virtually every mature adult can learn to understand the meaning of these claims but no individual can be taught to understand their meaning.

 

I shall repeat my last sentence. I am convinced that virtually every mature adult can learn to understand the meaning of these claims but no individual can be taught to understand their meaning.

 

What do I mean by such an unseemly statement? I conclude that there is a fundamental difference between being taught something and in being a self-learner of something.

 

To be taught indicates a relationship between a teacher and a pupil. In such a learning mode the pupil understands that the subject matter is to be learned because the teacher is teaching it. A teacher teaches pupils that which the teacher knows and desires the pupil to know. Only as a self-learner will I seek and find disinterested knowledge.

 

Understanding the meaning of the words of these two philosophers is a slowly developing reality. The self-learner must assimilate much through self-learning to reach this degree of understanding. I like to use the analogy of creating a work of art using papier-mâché. Not only is the object formed slowly piece by piece but the object is created in every way during the forming process.

 

When I am doing “self-learning” and when I speak so favorable about self-learning I am speaking of disinterested learning i.e. learning only for the sake of knowing. I self-learn so that I might gain knowledge for the sake of knowing and understanding. Self-learning can produce knowledge that is a value in and of it. Self-study for the purpose of accomplishing some task does not qualify as disinterested learning.

 

It seems to me that our culture has corrupted education to be only a means for acquisition to such an extent that it has totally masked the nature and process of disinterested learning. In our quest for more material things we have narrowed the meaning of education to such a point that all education, all learning, is merely a means to an end. We learn so as to become more efficient acquirers. We do not even comprehend why one might seek disinterested knowledge. We do not even comprehend the nature of disinterested knowledge.

 

[Questions for discussion]

 

Do you think serious self-learning after schooling is complete is important?

 

Why is learning “disinterested knowledge” important?

 

Do our schools teach students to understand or just to know?

 

Can a person learn serious domains of knowledge without a teacher?