4 ms·

This makes me want to know how quickly this type of growth happens. Is it on the order of seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? Is this why when you learn something, t

This makes me want to know how quickly this type of growth happens. Is it on the order of seconds? Minutes? Hours? Days? Is this why when you learn something, take a break, come back later and everything makes more sense happens?

whymauri 6y ago
This is a bit of an open problem, to the point of being controversial. I'd hesitate to say anyone has a real answer even though we certainly have real experimental data. The philosophical takes range from: * You never enter the same room twice. * Your brain partially re-wires every time you sleep. * Your brain rewires, but the way it rewires is surprisingly predictable and we can track the dynamics. * Your brain is rewiring literally every second, but not every rewiring is functional - does this imply an implicit robustness? Etc, etc.
jcims 6y ago
I've noticed that there's a weird area when learning a physical skill that there's a strange growth curve. You suck at first, then quickly get to some kind of milestone, then get worse before you get better. It feels like my brain is attempting to delegate some of the motor activity to lower levels before they are 'ready', but in fact it might be an essential part of training those neurons.
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  I think I get what you're saying. You _do_ get worse, then get better. It's like the brain is taking the proof of concept code and re-writing it with the necessary abstractions to make it a more performant routine. And then suddenly I start to experience the skills from new_task feeding into tasks I already know, and it feels like it's happening subconsciously.
- mikhailfranco 6y ago
  See Mastery by George Leonard which is a great book and highly recommended even if you are not into karate or martial arts. You have echoed his sketch of punctuated plateaus (p14): The Mastery Curve There's really no way around it. Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it. [pdf] http://index-of.co.uk/Social-Interactions/Mastery%20-%20The%20Keys%20To%20Success%20And%20Long-Term%20Fulfillment%20-%20George%20Leonard.pdf http://index-of.co.uk/Social-Interactions/Mastery%20-%20The%...
  - jcims 6y ago
    Will definitely check this out thank you
- joveian 6y ago
  A lot of learning involves interaction between the cerebellum and the rest of the brain, and the cerebellum has a different structure. "How the brain works" type descriptions should mention the cerebellum quite a lot, but usually don't. Partly because when I was looking at this stuff a while back there was much less known about this interaction.
deleted 6y ago
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whymauri 6y ago

This is a bit of an open problem, to the point of being controversial. I'd hesitate to say anyone has a real answer even though we certainly have real experimental data. The philosophical takes range from: * You never enter the same room twice. * Your brain partially re-wires every time you sleep. * Your brain rewires, but the way it rewires is surprisingly predictable and we can track the dynamics. * Your brain is rewiring literally every second, but not every rewiring is functional - does this imply an implicit robustness? Etc, etc.

jcims 6y ago

I've noticed that there's a weird area when learning a physical skill that there's a strange growth curve. You suck at first, then quickly get to some kind of milestone, then get worse before you get better. It feels like my brain is attempting to delegate some of the motor activity to lower levels before they are 'ready', but in fact it might be an essential part of training those neurons.

Waterluvian 6y ago
I think I get what you're saying. You _do_ get worse, then get better. It's like the brain is taking the proof of concept code and re-writing it with the necessary abstractions to make it a more performant routine. And then suddenly I start to experience the skills from new_task feeding into tasks I already know, and it feels like it's happening subconsciously.
mikhailfranco 6y ago
See Mastery by George Leonard which is a great book and highly recommended even if you are not into karate or martial arts. You have echoed his sketch of punctuated plateaus (p14): The Mastery Curve There's really no way around it. Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it. [pdf] http://index-of.co.uk/Social-Interactions/Mastery%20-%20The%20Keys%20To%20Success%20And%20Long-Term%20Fulfillment%20-%20George%20Leonard.pdf http://index-of.co.uk/Social-Interactions/Mastery%20-%20The%...
- jcims 6y ago
  Will definitely check this out thank you
joveian 6y ago
A lot of learning involves interaction between the cerebellum and the rest of the brain, and the cerebellum has a different structure. "How the brain works" type descriptions should mention the cerebellum quite a lot, but usually don't. Partly because when I was looking at this stuff a while back there was much less known about this interaction.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]