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Assume everything is learnable This made me think of late grandmother who used to say : "c'est faite par du mondes" which roughly expand to "a person did/learn

Assume everything is learnable This made me think of late grandmother who used to say : "c'est faite par du mondes" which roughly expand to "a person did/learned/discovered that so there is no a prioi reason that I cannot do so myself". That's the greatest value she passed unto me. When I feel that I cannot do something, I think about that phrase and persevere.

danenania 3y ago
Something else I find encouraging, and the reason, basically, that "everything is learnable" is that all knowledge, no matter how complex, is composed of fundamentally simple parts. Just as complex tasks or complex movements are composed of many simple steps or movements. This is what makes the maxim that "you don't understand something unless you can explain it in simple terms" true.
- stvltvs 3y ago
  Yes, and this has its limits. Many true experts in their fields would struggle to explain their field simply. I like to think I'm an expert in my work, but how many times have I explained to my wife what I do in simple terms, and she still has no idea what I do? Complex ideas often get distorted or lost in simple explanations.
  - danenania 3y ago
    I think the limits are mainly a matter of time and mental energy. While quantum physics is ultimately composed of many simple concepts, the number is so large that it takes years to enumerate them all. You could explain your work to your wife in terms simple and exhaustive enough for her to fully understand. It would just take a longer time and more concentration than either of you wants to expend.
  - danielmarkbruce 3y ago
    Absolutely. And most things most people work on today are complex. To do my job I need to understand 100 different things. Not a single one is difficult. But to explain it in simple terms simply isn't possible because it's not 1 or 2 big things. When people explain things in simple terms, they are often either borderline lying, or tucking an exceptionally large tree of concepts under a single word or phrase.
steveBK123 3y ago
I actually work for a guy like this now and at first I didn't quite get what he was doing, but I really like it now. He comes from a non-technical background but can code enough to be dangerous now. He loves talking to experts in every facet of what we do, and just start from the most basic foundational questions. He has absolutely no ego about embarrassing himself by the basics of questions he asks and no shame about digging in with follow ups. It's actually quite a powerful thing. Experts love to explain things if given the space. You also start to realize how narrow and sometimes shallow expertise is, and it lowers your own anxiety.
- lo_zamoyski 3y ago
  Yes, pride is the biggest obstacle to growth. It prevents you from making our needs known, because it means making an admission that you lack something (like knowledge or understanding, in this case). It means being honest about what you are (humility), revealing your deficits. And we all have deficits. We all have lack. Love is about seeking and receiving what you lack (eros), and giving to those who lack what they seek (agape). So what does this tell us, this tendency toward pride? I means many of us spend a horrifying amount of time posing, pretending, feigning worth we don't actually have, in order to appear to be something we are not, because we think this will get us things we couldn't by being honest. In order words, we're liars, fraud, and cheats. We lie to get things we know, or least believe, we do not deserve, through false advertising. And we fear being belittled and ridiculed and put down, or losing or losing something. We shirk responsibility this way. We confuse purity with a kind of "cleanliness". We want to appear clean, but become impure and corrupt in doing so. The choice between pride and humility is, I think, the basic decision in life one must make, and keep making, and it can be difficult as the world does not make it easy to prefer what is good. It seems to want to reward you for pretense, and punish you for honesty and the truth. That's why you also need courage, the courage to surrender to the consequences, of doing the right thing and being humble, and embrace them. You cannot control anything but your actions within your limits. You need to be able to accept just but painful outcomes gladly, and suffer the injustices. The inability to suffer, to suffer injustice, is the gateway to pride, and pride comes before the fall, before death and stagnation. You get further in life by suffering and moving forward, suffering and moving forward, suffering and moving forward.[0] There is no life in you otherwise. There is no love in you otherwise. [0] This is also why the Via Crucis is so powerful. Life is not a party or a pleasure garden. It's a struggle that ends in death. The only choice is one between miserable comfort and wasteful decay on the one hand, and struggle, suffering, and total exhaustion on the other. The Via Crucis, a road full of suffering that passes through death, at least ends in final liberation. But that is the price, the narrow gate. Most choose the wide gate of miserable self-preservation, something they will loose in the end anyway.
drakonka 3y ago
I always assumed everyone assumed everything was learnable. Realizing this (i.e., that being everyone's default belief) might not be the case is kind of blowing my mind a little right now.
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  You can learn anything you want, but really wanting is the hardest part.
  - drakonka 3y ago
    Agreed, I've always believed you can learn anything you want. The realization I was talking about was the one where maybe that's not the default assumption for everyone.
    - coldtea 3y ago
      Of course it's not the default assumption.
      - rmwaite 3y ago
        Why “of course”? I too took a long time to discover this wasn’t the case. I don’t think it’s as obvious as your wording makes it sound.
        coldtea 3y ago
        Surely you've heard countless "I just can't do math", "I can't draw to save my life", "I don't have talent for X", "Piano teacher tried but I just have no talent for it", "Wow, you must be very talented for doing Y", no?
  - deegles 3y ago
    I think actually following through over time is the hard part. Wanting to do something is easy.
scoot 3y ago
That in turn reminds me of a British reality TV series from the 2000s called "Faking It". Participants were trained by experts in a specific skill that they had no existing knowledge of, and then they had to convince others that they were genuinely skilled in that area, which they almost always did. It was "fake it 'till you make it" condensed into a single episode. Loved that show!
- abecedarius 3y ago
  Interesting how different the things we're reminded of are: I was thinking of a maxim Feynman liked, "What one fool can do, another can." (Not sure if it's original to him; my memory suggests it might've been from one of the calculus book he read as a teen.)
  - aimor 3y ago
    Ancient Simian Proverb That's how it's attributed in Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson and it stuck with me too.
Scubabear68 3y ago
I found this out late in life working on an environmental cause. We were all volunteers and had limited money, so I started learning about pipelines and regulations and legal concepts, etc etc. If you have the right kind of mind, it very empowering to be able to step into a new field and really learn it and work it. The flip side of this is that not everyone’s brain works this way. In fact, I’d say the vast majority can’t do this. The biggest mistake an autodidact can make is assuming other people can learn like they do. But if you have the gift, use it and explore it and it will likely be highly rewarding to your life.
- drakonka 3y ago
  I don't think I can believe that the majority can't do this without some evidence. But regardless, I'm really curious what makes you think that? What in your opinion would be stopping them, other than maybe just not believing they can or bothering to try (which imo has nothing to do with whether they _can_)?
  - Scubabear68 3y ago
    Based on the environmental and community based work I’ve done, and also my experience at school. I pick up most things on my own, and always suffered in a classroom environment. But most people I know and have worked with are the opposite. They have real trouble picking up new subjects without a teacher guiding them through it and formal courses. Anecdotal I know, but the true autodidacts I’ve encountered are rare in general terms. That said, a LOT of technology people can largely self-teach, and I think a much higher percentage of HN readers can learn new subjects quickly compared to the general population.
    - drakonka 3y ago
      Thanks for elaborating. I think I realize now that we are talking about different things. I wasn't distinguishing between learning styles (e.g., guided or self taught), but more thinking of the ability to step into a new field and learn about it using whatever method works best for each individual. I think I understand now!
at_a_remove 3y ago
Yeah. I clued into this at some point. I think it came to a head when I had a washer start making a lot of noise and behaving badly. I thought, "The worst thing you can do is break it more, these things were designed to be repaired by other humans with a manual, humans who might not have even gone to college, gasp." So I ordered the manual and the parts I thought needed replacement and went at it. Boom, done.
d-lisp 3y ago
You probably mean "c'est fait par du monde" or maybe that's some way of mocking french language that I am not aware of !?
- nick__m 3y ago
  it's the way it's spoken where I reside.
  - d-lisp 3y ago
    Where do you reside ?
    - nick__m 3y ago
      southeast of Québec
      - nicbou 3y ago
        As another Québécois I could immediately tell. That's exactly how it sounds, and I think it's a somewhat common expression.
  - johnchristopher 3y ago
    I am curious now, without revealing too much, can you give the phonetics ?
  - marcellus23 3y ago
    My French knowledge is a little rusty but I was under the impression there would be no phonetic difference between monde and mondes (and possibly fait and faite, though I'm less sure about that).
    - Biganon 3y ago
      "fait" being pronounced "faite" is a telltale sign of Québec or Acadie if I'm not mistaken

danenania 3y ago

Something else I find encouraging, and the reason, basically, that "everything is learnable" is that all knowledge, no matter how complex, is composed of fundamentally simple parts. Just as complex tasks or complex movements are composed of many simple steps or movements. This is what makes the maxim that "you don't understand something unless you can explain it in simple terms" true.

stvltvs 3y ago
Yes, and this has its limits. Many true experts in their fields would struggle to explain their field simply. I like to think I'm an expert in my work, but how many times have I explained to my wife what I do in simple terms, and she still has no idea what I do? Complex ideas often get distorted or lost in simple explanations.
- danenania 3y ago
  I think the limits are mainly a matter of time and mental energy. While quantum physics is ultimately composed of many simple concepts, the number is so large that it takes years to enumerate them all. You could explain your work to your wife in terms simple and exhaustive enough for her to fully understand. It would just take a longer time and more concentration than either of you wants to expend.
- danielmarkbruce 3y ago
  Absolutely. And most things most people work on today are complex. To do my job I need to understand 100 different things. Not a single one is difficult. But to explain it in simple terms simply isn't possible because it's not 1 or 2 big things. When people explain things in simple terms, they are often either borderline lying, or tucking an exceptionally large tree of concepts under a single word or phrase.

steveBK123 3y ago

I actually work for a guy like this now and at first I didn't quite get what he was doing, but I really like it now. He comes from a non-technical background but can code enough to be dangerous now. He loves talking to experts in every facet of what we do, and just start from the most basic foundational questions. He has absolutely no ego about embarrassing himself by the basics of questions he asks and no shame about digging in with follow ups. It's actually quite a powerful thing. Experts love to explain things if given the space. You also start to realize how narrow and sometimes shallow expertise is, and it lowers your own anxiety.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago
Yes, pride is the biggest obstacle to growth. It prevents you from making our needs known, because it means making an admission that you lack something (like knowledge or understanding, in this case). It means being honest about what you are (humility), revealing your deficits. And we all have deficits. We all have lack. Love is about seeking and receiving what you lack (eros), and giving to those who lack what they seek (agape). So what does this tell us, this tendency toward pride? I means many of us spend a horrifying amount of time posing, pretending, feigning worth we don't actually have, in order to appear to be something we are not, because we think this will get us things we couldn't by being honest. In order words, we're liars, fraud, and cheats. We lie to get things we know, or least believe, we do not deserve, through false advertising. And we fear being belittled and ridiculed and put down, or losing or losing something. We shirk responsibility this way. We confuse purity with a kind of "cleanliness". We want to appear clean, but become impure and corrupt in doing so. The choice between pride and humility is, I think, the basic decision in life one must make, and keep making, and it can be difficult as the world does not make it easy to prefer what is good. It seems to want to reward you for pretense, and punish you for honesty and the truth. That's why you also need courage, the courage to surrender to the consequences, of doing the right thing and being humble, and embrace them. You cannot control anything but your actions within your limits. You need to be able to accept just but painful outcomes gladly, and suffer the injustices. The inability to suffer, to suffer injustice, is the gateway to pride, and pride comes before the fall, before death and stagnation. You get further in life by suffering and moving forward, suffering and moving forward, suffering and moving forward.[0] There is no life in you otherwise. There is no love in you otherwise. [0] This is also why the Via Crucis is so powerful. Life is not a party or a pleasure garden. It's a struggle that ends in death. The only choice is one between miserable comfort and wasteful decay on the one hand, and struggle, suffering, and total exhaustion on the other. The Via Crucis, a road full of suffering that passes through death, at least ends in final liberation. But that is the price, the narrow gate. Most choose the wide gate of miserable self-preservation, something they will loose in the end anyway.

drakonka 3y ago

I always assumed everyone assumed everything was learnable. Realizing this (i.e., that being everyone's default belief) might not be the case is kind of blowing my mind a little right now.

jvanderbot 3y ago
You can learn anything you want, but really wanting is the hardest part.
- drakonka 3y ago
  Agreed, I've always believed you can learn anything you want. The realization I was talking about was the one where maybe that's not the default assumption for everyone.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Of course it's not the default assumption.
    - rmwaite 3y ago
      Why “of course”? I too took a long time to discover this wasn’t the case. I don’t think it’s as obvious as your wording makes it sound.
      - coldtea 3y ago
        Surely you've heard countless "I just can't do math", "I can't draw to save my life", "I don't have talent for X", "Piano teacher tried but I just have no talent for it", "Wow, you must be very talented for doing Y", no?
- deegles 3y ago
  I think actually following through over time is the hard part. Wanting to do something is easy.

scoot 3y ago

That in turn reminds me of a British reality TV series from the 2000s called "Faking It". Participants were trained by experts in a specific skill that they had no existing knowledge of, and then they had to convince others that they were genuinely skilled in that area, which they almost always did. It was "fake it 'till you make it" condensed into a single episode. Loved that show!

abecedarius 3y ago
Interesting how different the things we're reminded of are: I was thinking of a maxim Feynman liked, "What one fool can do, another can." (Not sure if it's original to him; my memory suggests it might've been from one of the calculus book he read as a teen.)
- aimor 3y ago
  Ancient Simian Proverb That's how it's attributed in Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson and it stuck with me too.

Scubabear68 3y ago

I found this out late in life working on an environmental cause. We were all volunteers and had limited money, so I started learning about pipelines and regulations and legal concepts, etc etc. If you have the right kind of mind, it very empowering to be able to step into a new field and really learn it and work it. The flip side of this is that not everyone’s brain works this way. In fact, I’d say the vast majority can’t do this. The biggest mistake an autodidact can make is assuming other people can learn like they do. But if you have the gift, use it and explore it and it will likely be highly rewarding to your life.

drakonka 3y ago
I don't think I can believe that the majority can't do this without some evidence. But regardless, I'm really curious what makes you think that? What in your opinion would be stopping them, other than maybe just not believing they can or bothering to try (which imo has nothing to do with whether they _can_)?
- Scubabear68 3y ago
  Based on the environmental and community based work I’ve done, and also my experience at school. I pick up most things on my own, and always suffered in a classroom environment. But most people I know and have worked with are the opposite. They have real trouble picking up new subjects without a teacher guiding them through it and formal courses. Anecdotal I know, but the true autodidacts I’ve encountered are rare in general terms. That said, a LOT of technology people can largely self-teach, and I think a much higher percentage of HN readers can learn new subjects quickly compared to the general population.
  - drakonka 3y ago
    Thanks for elaborating. I think I realize now that we are talking about different things. I wasn't distinguishing between learning styles (e.g., guided or self taught), but more thinking of the ability to step into a new field and learn about it using whatever method works best for each individual. I think I understand now!

at_a_remove 3y ago

Yeah. I clued into this at some point. I think it came to a head when I had a washer start making a lot of noise and behaving badly. I thought, "The worst thing you can do is break it more, these things were designed to be repaired by other humans with a manual, humans who might not have even gone to college, gasp." So I ordered the manual and the parts I thought needed replacement and went at it. Boom, done.

d-lisp 3y ago

You probably mean "c'est fait par du monde" or maybe that's some way of mocking french language that I am not aware of !?

nick__m 3y ago
it's the way it's spoken where I reside.
- d-lisp 3y ago
  Where do you reside ?
  - nick__m 3y ago
    southeast of Québec
    - nicbou 3y ago
      As another Québécois I could immediately tell. That's exactly how it sounds, and I think it's a somewhat common expression.
- johnchristopher 3y ago
  I am curious now, without revealing too much, can you give the phonetics ?
- marcellus23 3y ago
  My French knowledge is a little rusty but I was under the impression there would be no phonetic difference between monde and mondes (and possibly fait and faite, though I'm less sure about that).
  - Biganon 3y ago
    "fait" being pronounced "faite" is a telltale sign of Québec or Acadie if I'm not mistaken