3 ms·

Again, my point is not that children are faster at learning any given thing, but the total volume of learning is much greater. Further, how is it possible for

Again, my point is not that children are faster at learning any given thing, but the total volume of learning is much greater. Further, how is it possible for you to evaluate the quality of personal growth independently from all the nonoverlapping magisteria out of which every every life is composed? When you recommend that someone not have a family or a career because they detract from personal growth, it must be because you have some other metric by which personal growth is measured. Unless you have a simple, reductive utility function, I don't see how that's possible. And if you do have a simple reductive utility function, it's very like incorrect.

rowanG077 4y ago
You claim the volume is large but you have nothing to support that claim. I don't think that's true, based on the study I linked. If an adult can learn a language in a similar amount of time as a child. Then by definition both the child and adult have the same time (which you can use as a direct proxy) for learning anything else. I don't use a specific utility function. Because it doesn't matter what utility function you use. Pursuing maximizing any utility function for the maximum amount of time and effort will in general lead the maximum return if you go about it correctly. Having a family and a career requires spending loads of time on menial task which otherwise could have been used to improve on any specific metric. And, very importantly, are mutually exclusive. You can't maximize your career and your family. Precisely for the same reason.
- ryanklee 4y ago
  How does a study examining a narrow band of learning bear on gross volume of learning? It doesn't at all follow in an obvious way that opportunity cost generalizes like you seem to suggest. It's been observed that as people age, they trade fluid intelligence for crystallized intelligence. One slows down and goes deeper. Regarding my point about utility functions: no, it doesn't matter which you use, because none of them are adequate to the task at hand, which is really just figuring out how to live one's life in the absence of adequate utility functions.

rowanG077 4y ago

You claim the volume is large but you have nothing to support that claim. I don't think that's true, based on the study I linked. If an adult can learn a language in a similar amount of time as a child. Then by definition both the child and adult have the same time (which you can use as a direct proxy) for learning anything else. I don't use a specific utility function. Because it doesn't matter what utility function you use. Pursuing maximizing any utility function for the maximum amount of time and effort will in general lead the maximum return if you go about it correctly. Having a family and a career requires spending loads of time on menial task which otherwise could have been used to improve on any specific metric. And, very importantly, are mutually exclusive. You can't maximize your career and your family. Precisely for the same reason.

ryanklee 4y ago
How does a study examining a narrow band of learning bear on gross volume of learning? It doesn't at all follow in an obvious way that opportunity cost generalizes like you seem to suggest. It's been observed that as people age, they trade fluid intelligence for crystallized intelligence. One slows down and goes deeper. Regarding my point about utility functions: no, it doesn't matter which you use, because none of them are adequate to the task at hand, which is really just figuring out how to live one's life in the absence of adequate utility functions.