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I'm a fast thinker and good at debating but I'm a relatively slow learner. It's probably because I tend to initially disbelieve everything I'm taught - I need t

I'm a fast thinker and good at debating but I'm a relatively slow learner. It's probably because I tend to initially disbelieve everything I'm taught - I need to see a lot of cross-references and utility value before my brain will accept new information and it will still not seem like it is a sure fact. I never feel like I know anything with 100% certainty. Every piece of knowledge I have is more like a probability in my mind. I have great memory when it comes to useful or interesting things but if I can't figure out the utility of some information, my brain struggles to learn it and will quickly discard it. The most interesting experience I remember was at school when I was a small child. I didn't understand the concept of school or education at that point. I remember after I moved up a grade, the teacher was referencing concepts which I had learned the year before (I think it was related to alphabet and reading) but because I was in a different class (and different teacher), I did not make the (supposedly obvious) assumption that the teacher was referring to concepts from the previous year (which came from a different source). In my mind, because I didn't understand the purpose of education or school, I had fully compartmentalized the knowledge from the previous year/grade and I couldn't make sense of the content from the later grade which built on top. Once I learned the purpose of school and figured out that knowledge from previous years was still relevant and that knowledge wasn't supposed to be compartmentalized based on the teacher/class, I was able to start learning faster. At least fast enough to be a slightly above average student throughout all my school and university years. I remember being surprised that all other kids seemed to know intuitively that knowledge 'stacked' regardless of the teacher or context. It was a big revelation to me. I still think I have a tendency to compartmentalize information/knowledge provided to me by different people. My brain compartmentalizes everything based on source until there is enough consensus/synthesis between the sources and then it gets merged into the trunk. But now that I think of it, it doesn't seem that ridiculous for a child to think that knowledge taught by different people isn't compatible... If you think about modern education, it's actually quite amazing and weird that two different teachers who never met might have the exact same knowledge as each other to the extent that they can reference each other's thoughts and ideas... To a child, it can seem like telepathy.

ttjjtt 4y ago
This is making me laugh out loud a little as I relate deeply and I’ve never encountered such a clear description of it, nor anyone who’s described themselves as similarly wired. For me it’s that my brain simply will not accept facts or advice unless all the underlying dynamics have been made explicit, and it’s been put into context as part of a bigger system. Until then it’s just a distant and profoundly uninteresting suggestion which my brain will rapidly dispose of. Personally I flopped at high school science once the teachers stated putting rote formulas on the whiteboard without deep explanation if their significance, i could feel my brain rejecting the contextless information. Later in life I became fascinated by the same subjects, when I started reading well written popular science books.
- Rzor 4y ago
  > For me it’s that my brain simply will not accept facts or advice unless all the underlying dynamics have been made explicit, and it’s been put into context as part of a bigger system. Until then it’s just a distant and profoundly uninteresting suggestion which my brain will rapidly dispose of. Why does this happen? Any idea? I have a really hard time committing things to memory or building understanding. I find that I have to read the same paragraph multiple times, and often need to go back to the beginning or look at the previous paragraph 5 times to make sense of things. Even after doing this, there are times when I'll overlook some obvious information, only to have a major insight the next day. It's like studying a statue from 20 different angles and learning everything about its history and the real person, including who made it, when, where it was displayed, and who owned it throughout history, just to remember its name. It doesn't feel right.
  - ttjjtt 4y ago
    My only hunch is that it seems likely to correlate with more useful cognitive features. My wife is a very fast thinker and doer, and is often frustrated (exasperated?) by my thorough but sloww processing. Yet, she often remarks how much values what she sees as my way of intuiting solutions to complex situations, and ability to describe such complex situations in detail. We’re both reliant and mystified by each other’s cognitive styles; her rapid incisive thinking and my deep scan analysis, if I’m to put a positive spin on it. I’m not saying our accuracy is remarkably high fwiw.

ttjjtt 4y ago

This is making me laugh out loud a little as I relate deeply and I’ve never encountered such a clear description of it, nor anyone who’s described themselves as similarly wired. For me it’s that my brain simply will not accept facts or advice unless all the underlying dynamics have been made explicit, and it’s been put into context as part of a bigger system. Until then it’s just a distant and profoundly uninteresting suggestion which my brain will rapidly dispose of. Personally I flopped at high school science once the teachers stated putting rote formulas on the whiteboard without deep explanation if their significance, i could feel my brain rejecting the contextless information. Later in life I became fascinated by the same subjects, when I started reading well written popular science books.

Rzor 4y ago
> For me it’s that my brain simply will not accept facts or advice unless all the underlying dynamics have been made explicit, and it’s been put into context as part of a bigger system. Until then it’s just a distant and profoundly uninteresting suggestion which my brain will rapidly dispose of. Why does this happen? Any idea? I have a really hard time committing things to memory or building understanding. I find that I have to read the same paragraph multiple times, and often need to go back to the beginning or look at the previous paragraph 5 times to make sense of things. Even after doing this, there are times when I'll overlook some obvious information, only to have a major insight the next day. It's like studying a statue from 20 different angles and learning everything about its history and the real person, including who made it, when, where it was displayed, and who owned it throughout history, just to remember its name. It doesn't feel right.
- ttjjtt 4y ago
  My only hunch is that it seems likely to correlate with more useful cognitive features. My wife is a very fast thinker and doer, and is often frustrated (exasperated?) by my thorough but sloww processing. Yet, she often remarks how much values what she sees as my way of intuiting solutions to complex situations, and ability to describe such complex situations in detail. We’re both reliant and mystified by each other’s cognitive styles; her rapid incisive thinking and my deep scan analysis, if I’m to put a positive spin on it. I’m not saying our accuracy is remarkably high fwiw.