4 ms·

Are we learning a lot from our parents? I had highly educated parents (university professors) and what I learned from them was a tiny fraction of the total amo

Are we learning a lot from our parents? I had highly educated parents (university professors) and what I learned from them was a tiny fraction of the total amount of things that I've learned so far (from written material, other people, and life experience). I think there's merit to what you said, but I don't think the crucial bit is the parents specifically. I think the crucial bit is that without language you can't easily communicate to others what you've learned, at least not complex things. This aspect doesn't depends on life expectancy as much. Instead it depends on two things: how much knowledge there is in society (of octopuses) and how doable it is to communicate that knowledge.

Schoolmeister 8y ago
You're kind of disproving your own point here, no? Or at least, both the fact that its parents die and that they have no language creates a vicious circle. Though you skipped over it, probably the most important skill you've learnt from your parents is language. The octopus' parents die before they can transfer that skill. Hence, they can (barely) communicate with others of the same species and elevate their collective knowledge.
- fwdpropaganda 8y ago
  But you didn't have to learn language from parents specifically, you could've leart it from other members of the society. I was making the distinction between learning from parents and learning from "others". The argument around the mistmatch between the life time of parents compared to the time of the offspring to maturity only makes sense with parents. > The octopus' parents die before they can transfer that skill. Hence, they can (barely) communicate with others of the same species and elevate their collective knowledge. Yeah, but that can't be an important factor. Elephant parents hang around for long and you still don't see talking elephants.
  - corodra 8y ago
    If you've raised a kid, a lot of these things are really obvious with just a few gaps of understanding here and there where a good book on learning comes in handy. Watching a tiny human go from knowing virtually nothing more than how to breathe, three years later, singing, ABCs, various animal recognition and a plethora of other stuff is educational to understanding "learning". If you haven't raised a kid, then it's no harm, no foul. I didn't realize how important family influence was on a child's learning until I did it myself. I think you're working too hard with the semantics here. Parents, as in, who ever the hell takes care of the kid the most. That's either your bio-parents, typically. Maybe grandparents if your bios are crackheads. Maybe a foster care system because everyone in your family is jacked up in general. But parent: those that are responsible for your general well being. Yes "society" plays a roll. But random people don't walk up to a toddler to teach them their ABCs or 123s. Someone has to work with a kid from beginning to end for that developmental knowledge foundation or that kid has a really good chance of having a ton of problems down the line. And yes, schools still do the ABCs and numbers. But that's more to fill gaps, which do happen. Not to straight up teach a kid that can't do shit at all. There are different programs for when a 5 year old can't even say their own name. Research shows things like consistent night time reading and playing with infants and toddlers give them a solid base that proves them well throughout their lives. There was one paper (out of many) that was on hackernews a week or two ago about it as well. And technically elephants do communicate, both vocally and through body language. As do most mammals. Just no where near the sophistication we can. That has to do with the sophistication of the brain. Those crazy folks that have wolf sanctuaries and are "apart of the pack", would argue with you about animal language too. But to be fair, you have to be a level of crazy of jump into a cage full of wolves. Hell, bees do interpretive dance to communicate. They sure kick my ass in that field. Then take Koko. From the age of 1, they taught a guerrilla to use a modified form of American sign language and was pretty proficient at communicating. I highly doubt starting at a later age would have been as effective. Developmental years of learning are vital for that foundation.
    - fwdpropaganda 8y ago
      > I think you're working too hard with the semantics here. Parents, as in, who ever the hell takes care of the kid the most. I didn't mean we don't learn that much from parents versus who the hell takes care of the kids (that would be semantics). I meant that we don't learn that much from parents versus all the other people that you interact with throughout your life. > And technically elephants do communicate, both vocally and through body language. As do most mammals. Just no where near the sophistication we can. Right, that's why I said that the crucial point was not communication with parents (or who ever the hell takes care of the kid), but communication. If you happen to belong to a species that has difficulty communicating you will never learn much from anyone, regardless of which age your parents die.
corodra 8y ago
I wish I could remember the book, but I originally got it because it's title was something like "Understanding and improving learning", something like that. It ended up being more about the first 10 years of life's learning rather than just learning in general. Still read it because it was interesting. Anyways, to the point. The first few years of someone's life is proven to be crazy important. It's well confirmed when they find kids who have literally lived in the woods since babies (Jungle Book style, there's a few cases world wide of this and they are all nuts/heartbreaking) and of one case of some loony parents that locked up their kid in a room from birth with next to no interaction. Just enough to feed. Wasn't rescued until around 13 or so. They find that those missing the first few years of a parents teaching basic social interactions, speech and motor skills through play are at a severe disadvantage. It's simply a foundation. If you have a weak structural foundation, the building will collapse. Even though that foundation is never seen by the outside world (both for buildings and metaphorically), doesn't mean it's not there and it's not vital. A bulk of your knowledge does come from outside sources. But you can't learn calculus without knowing arithmetic. And you can't learn arithmetic without someone putting up with "What number is this?" "Twee!" "Good job!". Those sessions help accelerate your learning. Without that base, learning is probably a shallow linear line through life experiences. Because you only "learn"... ish... from what you encounter. Parental teachings give you a base that help accelerate learning from linear to something more logarithmic. I wish I could remember the book's name. She goes into some relatively well thought out public education reform that, at the least, is a damn good start in my opinion. The woman also better explains everything I mentioned because developmental teaching is her field of expertise. My library doesn't seem to offer an online history of checked out books... which is surprising or I'm stupid and can't find it. Maybe the TLDR to this is, the parents education process helps turn learning into a logarithmic endeavor instead of a trial/error shallow linear one.
- dorgo 8y ago
  Examples of neglected children (Jungle Book style) are problematic. Learning won't work if their psyche is broken. Better example would be: loving parents who never teach their children anything useful - if something like that ever happened.

Schoolmeister 8y ago

You're kind of disproving your own point here, no? Or at least, both the fact that its parents die and that they have no language creates a vicious circle. Though you skipped over it, probably the most important skill you've learnt from your parents is language. The octopus' parents die before they can transfer that skill. Hence, they can (barely) communicate with others of the same species and elevate their collective knowledge.

fwdpropaganda 8y ago
But you didn't have to learn language from parents specifically, you could've leart it from other members of the society. I was making the distinction between learning from parents and learning from "others". The argument around the mistmatch between the life time of parents compared to the time of the offspring to maturity only makes sense with parents. > The octopus' parents die before they can transfer that skill. Hence, they can (barely) communicate with others of the same species and elevate their collective knowledge. Yeah, but that can't be an important factor. Elephant parents hang around for long and you still don't see talking elephants.
- corodra 8y ago
  If you've raised a kid, a lot of these things are really obvious with just a few gaps of understanding here and there where a good book on learning comes in handy. Watching a tiny human go from knowing virtually nothing more than how to breathe, three years later, singing, ABCs, various animal recognition and a plethora of other stuff is educational to understanding "learning". If you haven't raised a kid, then it's no harm, no foul. I didn't realize how important family influence was on a child's learning until I did it myself. I think you're working too hard with the semantics here. Parents, as in, who ever the hell takes care of the kid the most. That's either your bio-parents, typically. Maybe grandparents if your bios are crackheads. Maybe a foster care system because everyone in your family is jacked up in general. But parent: those that are responsible for your general well being. Yes "society" plays a roll. But random people don't walk up to a toddler to teach them their ABCs or 123s. Someone has to work with a kid from beginning to end for that developmental knowledge foundation or that kid has a really good chance of having a ton of problems down the line. And yes, schools still do the ABCs and numbers. But that's more to fill gaps, which do happen. Not to straight up teach a kid that can't do shit at all. There are different programs for when a 5 year old can't even say their own name. Research shows things like consistent night time reading and playing with infants and toddlers give them a solid base that proves them well throughout their lives. There was one paper (out of many) that was on hackernews a week or two ago about it as well. And technically elephants do communicate, both vocally and through body language. As do most mammals. Just no where near the sophistication we can. That has to do with the sophistication of the brain. Those crazy folks that have wolf sanctuaries and are "apart of the pack", would argue with you about animal language too. But to be fair, you have to be a level of crazy of jump into a cage full of wolves. Hell, bees do interpretive dance to communicate. They sure kick my ass in that field. Then take Koko. From the age of 1, they taught a guerrilla to use a modified form of American sign language and was pretty proficient at communicating. I highly doubt starting at a later age would have been as effective. Developmental years of learning are vital for that foundation.
  - fwdpropaganda 8y ago
    > I think you're working too hard with the semantics here. Parents, as in, who ever the hell takes care of the kid the most. I didn't mean we don't learn that much from parents versus who the hell takes care of the kids (that would be semantics). I meant that we don't learn that much from parents versus all the other people that you interact with throughout your life. > And technically elephants do communicate, both vocally and through body language. As do most mammals. Just no where near the sophistication we can. Right, that's why I said that the crucial point was not communication with parents (or who ever the hell takes care of the kid), but communication. If you happen to belong to a species that has difficulty communicating you will never learn much from anyone, regardless of which age your parents die.

corodra 8y ago

I wish I could remember the book, but I originally got it because it's title was something like "Understanding and improving learning", something like that. It ended up being more about the first 10 years of life's learning rather than just learning in general. Still read it because it was interesting. Anyways, to the point. The first few years of someone's life is proven to be crazy important. It's well confirmed when they find kids who have literally lived in the woods since babies (Jungle Book style, there's a few cases world wide of this and they are all nuts/heartbreaking) and of one case of some loony parents that locked up their kid in a room from birth with next to no interaction. Just enough to feed. Wasn't rescued until around 13 or so. They find that those missing the first few years of a parents teaching basic social interactions, speech and motor skills through play are at a severe disadvantage. It's simply a foundation. If you have a weak structural foundation, the building will collapse. Even though that foundation is never seen by the outside world (both for buildings and metaphorically), doesn't mean it's not there and it's not vital. A bulk of your knowledge does come from outside sources. But you can't learn calculus without knowing arithmetic. And you can't learn arithmetic without someone putting up with "What number is this?" "Twee!" "Good job!". Those sessions help accelerate your learning. Without that base, learning is probably a shallow linear line through life experiences. Because you only "learn"... ish... from what you encounter. Parental teachings give you a base that help accelerate learning from linear to something more logarithmic. I wish I could remember the book's name. She goes into some relatively well thought out public education reform that, at the least, is a damn good start in my opinion. The woman also better explains everything I mentioned because developmental teaching is her field of expertise. My library doesn't seem to offer an online history of checked out books... which is surprising or I'm stupid and can't find it. Maybe the TLDR to this is, the parents education process helps turn learning into a logarithmic endeavor instead of a trial/error shallow linear one.

dorgo 8y ago
Examples of neglected children (Jungle Book style) are problematic. Learning won't work if their psyche is broken. Better example would be: loving parents who never teach their children anything useful - if something like that ever happened.