3 ms·

I don't think that is an effective life strategy because you actually solve problems more slowly if you have less knowledge. If you've learned skills and commit

I don't think that is an effective life strategy because you actually solve problems more slowly if you have less knowledge. If you've learned skills and committed things to memory, your brain can synthesize information much more rapidly. If you have to google everything, its like running your 2.5GHz PC at 10 MHz, and it is highly unlikely your brain will produce new information on the spot. Edited for snark removal.

pfortuny 5y ago
Following your lead: Thinking is not "answering questions". In order to build a mental model of a problem, you need a rather good model of the environment in your mind, and this comes from memory and the habit of thinking (which is what drill exercises facilitate). Rote learning is an essential tool in being able to create adequate models of the environment. The problem is lots of people think it is useless because "I did not need to memorize", when the issue is that "they are sufficiently able to memorize that they do it unconsciously". But most people need to put the effort.
grishka 5y ago
For me personally, I just can't memorize stuff on demand like exams expect people to. My brain refuses to do that, period. But when I do use some information often and many times, I somehow end up memorizing it eventually. APIs, phone numbers, addresses and routes, even people's faces.
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  > I just can't memorize stuff on demand like exams expect people to. Unless things have changed in the 30+ years since I was in college, I seem to recall exams happen after weeks of study and not "on demand". Part of learning is memorization. There's no way around that. It sounds more like you aren't cut out for the pace of high-caliber institutions which move very quickly. I have two friends with literature degrees, one from UCONN and one from Dartmouth. The Dartmouth friend had to read 4x the number of books than the UCONN friend in the same period of time for the same degree. C-students still need jobs! Just because you aren't a straight-A doesn't mean you can't still be a serviceable employee.
  - grishka 5y ago
    Just for context: I'm Russian, it all might be different in your part of the world. Anything education-related was hard for me exactly because of the pervasive "you can only use your head" mindset. You have to use formulas from memory. You have to do everything from memory, except maybe the teacher would write some constants on the blackboard. If you're lucky. In some classes in school (physics iirc?) we were allowed to use a calculator, but for math you definitely had to only make do with pen and paper. I easily grasp how stuff works, but this whole memorizing the exact intricacies or risk failing the test/exam is what gets me every dang time.
    - Inhibit 5y ago
      If I'm recalling correctly we changed our maths program to include lots of manual (calculus?) maths when the US gov wanted to churn out engineers to compete with Russia in space. The need to manually solve the formulas has since been superceded by basic calculators. But it's still all (personal opinion) unnecessary rote equation solving these days. I certainly could've used more emphasis on structure and less on longhand math. Good to know it's the same over there!

pfortuny 5y ago

Following your lead: Thinking is not "answering questions". In order to build a mental model of a problem, you need a rather good model of the environment in your mind, and this comes from memory and the habit of thinking (which is what drill exercises facilitate). Rote learning is an essential tool in being able to create adequate models of the environment. The problem is lots of people think it is useless because "I did not need to memorize", when the issue is that "they are sufficiently able to memorize that they do it unconsciously". But most people need to put the effort.

grishka 5y ago

For me personally, I just can't memorize stuff on demand like exams expect people to. My brain refuses to do that, period. But when I do use some information often and many times, I somehow end up memorizing it eventually. APIs, phone numbers, addresses and routes, even people's faces.

SavantIdiot 5y ago
> I just can't memorize stuff on demand like exams expect people to. Unless things have changed in the 30+ years since I was in college, I seem to recall exams happen after weeks of study and not "on demand". Part of learning is memorization. There's no way around that. It sounds more like you aren't cut out for the pace of high-caliber institutions which move very quickly. I have two friends with literature degrees, one from UCONN and one from Dartmouth. The Dartmouth friend had to read 4x the number of books than the UCONN friend in the same period of time for the same degree. C-students still need jobs! Just because you aren't a straight-A doesn't mean you can't still be a serviceable employee.
- grishka 5y ago
  Just for context: I'm Russian, it all might be different in your part of the world. Anything education-related was hard for me exactly because of the pervasive "you can only use your head" mindset. You have to use formulas from memory. You have to do everything from memory, except maybe the teacher would write some constants on the blackboard. If you're lucky. In some classes in school (physics iirc?) we were allowed to use a calculator, but for math you definitely had to only make do with pen and paper. I easily grasp how stuff works, but this whole memorizing the exact intricacies or risk failing the test/exam is what gets me every dang time.
  - Inhibit 5y ago
    If I'm recalling correctly we changed our maths program to include lots of manual (calculus?) maths when the US gov wanted to churn out engineers to compete with Russia in space. The need to manually solve the formulas has since been superceded by basic calculators. But it's still all (personal opinion) unnecessary rote equation solving these days. I certainly could've used more emphasis on structure and less on longhand math. Good to know it's the same over there!