11 ms·

Learning to Learn

320 points by jklm 2y ago

nwnwhwje 2y ago
> “What’s something you’ve learned that you believe gives you an edge - something that you’re almost surprised more people don’t know about?” My response: Nice try.
dartharva 2y ago
This is something I have personally struggled with, so I wish the author elaborated more. If you are a novice, how do you quickly identify what the foundational knowledge is? How do you know what makes you an expert and not an "expert beginner" as the author says to the extent that you can build a personal curriculum about it?
- ahmadtbk 2y ago
  This is something that can be tricky for sure. Depending on the subject you might not need to start diving deep into every topic. Sometimes you'll have to first ask some high level questions like how do I get this data from this table and convert it to this format. Once you identify what problem you're trying to solve go and learn what's needed to solve it. You won't always have an optimal solution but that's okay. The most important is to try and use the thing you're learning in some real way or with practice.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    > The most important is to try and use the thing you're learning in some real way or with practice. In my experience, that's a necessary first step to learning. I need to get my hands dirty, get a feel for what I'm working with. An experience is worth a thousand pictures, which are worth a thousand words - you can't gain that basic understanding and instinct by reading, only by having all the sensory inputs of doing it. Then it's time to read. Now you must find an expert to guide you. First, you'll have too many blind spots - you can't possibly find all that's current, you can't find the best sources efficiently, and much won't be in books yet. And without expertise yourself, you can't distinguish the worn-out theories from the evergreen standards from the unproven innovations; the promising from the unlikely from the absurd; you won't know the consensus from the fringe; the guy advocating their personal theory - maybe even a credible one - from the balanced survey of established ideas. You won't recognize when you're reading just a side of a well-known debate.
- Tier3r 2y ago
  I'm also wondering this. Two possibilities. One, find the first principles/root node/glue that holds many disparate concepts together in some causative way. Two, the specific procedure/step/concept that you keep reusing across multiple problems.
- xandrius 2y ago
  I tried to think about this and came to a personal realisation that perhaps there is no strict "foundational knowledge" for most topics. Pick programming, is knowing binary operations foundational? Is knowing compilers? Is it knowing bubble sort? Or perhaps knowing data structures? I believe that if you have been using/working in a field, whatever you touch for your own goals that's enough. And perhaps the difference between being an expert beginner and an expert is whether you still care about such a distinction? If you can achieve your current and future goals and can eventually learn new concepts then you're good. I'd say a beginner might be someone who wouldn't even know where to begin. Let's pick chemistry for myself: sure, I could follow some video but without the video I wouldn't even conceive how to get started with anything. While, say woodworking, I wouldn't call myself an expert but I would be able to imagine starting a random project from scratch and eventually figure out all the parts. So, maybe: - beginner: can't complete a project without help/support - mid: can complete but is unsure whether that's the best way - expert: has completed it before somehow
  - rustcleaner 2y ago
    I'd argue the principles Turing and Wolfram lay out in regards to universal computation and computational equivalence are the most foundational, and then various systems or architectures (flow vs stack, etc), etc, are important as there needs to be concrete examples implementing the fundamentals. If you really want to get esoteric, programming goes all the way back with society and religion. Just like how a machine can compute so too can a group of people through their actions, if they adhere as religiously to their tasks as the fablic of reality seems to adhere to its laws in governing the motions of matter. Programming is the building abstract structures which, when represented with matter in the right ways that can take advantage of the moment-by-moment Gets Things Done™ nature of the fabric of reality itself, produces useful transformations of its initial states. Very complex behavior arises from the simplest of mechanistic rulesets, and it's found universally in biology and in places all over reality. Computation is so foundationally fundamental to this place and your (dear reader) existence here, it is shameful it's not in standard middle/high schools' curricula right next to the fundamental theorems of arithmetic and algebra!
- j45 2y ago
  I'm surprised the course by the name of this post isn't here. The post covers a great mindset, but the math really is one thing, and learning how you learn and how you can learn is invaluable. This is a great course to start learning about your learning. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn After/with this, there is a slew of adult learning knowledge that will likely make you feel better. One key is learning to understand something, before learning to memorize it. Another is creating your own mind map of how the concepts you are learning fits together. Farnham street has some great books on mental models as well that was recommended to me as helping An expert is someone who can often explain complex things in very simple ways. being an innocent beginner is one of the best mindsets to cultivate - you learn what you do and don't know pretty quick, and also a sense of known vs unknown, and size and number of unknowns.
  - dartharva 2y ago
    I checked these out but couldn't find the answer to the questions I am asking. It tells you how to maximize efficiency while learning, but doesn't tell you how to identify what you should be learning in the first place and what the sequence of your focus should be when you start.
    - j45 2y ago
      https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
    - eacapeisfutuile 2y ago
      What do you specifically want to learn? What you need to learn will generally make itself known, if you have some general goal? Just starting at all is the best way to start.
      - dartharva 2y ago
        Say I want to learn web scraping. Now if I try to start, I see there are several layers of fundamentals and several potential paths, all of which seem equally important. Where do I start? What platform should I use? Should I start from the DOM and HTML parsing and go ahead from there, or should I start from learning Python libraries built for it as so many books and tutorials advise? Going one layer deeper, do I need to learn data structures before anything else? JavaScript and APIs? The fundamentals of TCP networking? Regex? It's all too overwhelming at times.
- eacapeisfutuile 2y ago
  You don’t. That is what you will build as you learn a topic, it makes no sense to “identify” it first. Do the thing you want to learn.
  - dartharva 2y ago
    I learnt data analytics and SQL for MIS/BI purposes on-the-job as a sales manager. Got pretty good at it too, built several dashboards and long-standing capabilities for my team. Now, if I say I want to get into this scene for good, I am immediately daunted with a mountain of diverging learning paths to take. Should I take to Python and its massive library ecosystem, or should focus on database fundamentals? In every choice taken there are seemingly infinite branches, and it is rather hard to focus if you aren't even sure you're on the right track. Last time I sat in an analytics/consulting interview they grilled me on highly specific technical questions on data pipelines and warehousing and testing and other topics that I've never had to worry about before at work. In another assessment, I was grilled on some AWS/Redshift-specific things. In yet another I was expected to know deep learning. It is all too hard for someone not originally with an engineering (or adjacent) background.
    - eacapeisfutuile 2y ago
      Yeah learning to actually use in practice is different from preparing for interviews. I would say continue where you already built some knowledge and branch out when you realize you have to, and then work on learning one branch as you go. For interviews you may need to lookup what type of questions to expect and memorize details on that, unfortunately. That is not useful in practice but can be necessary for interviews.
- quantum_state 2y ago
  It is an iterative process. One would move forward with a baseline foundation and pay attention to the difficulties and inefficiencies in the learning process to triangulate the additional foundation needed.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >If you are a novice, how do you quickly identify what the foundational knowledge is? You probably can't. You need to rely on knowledge of others to identify good resources. And then lean that against how you learn in order to pick the best resource for you.Same for verifying being an "expert beginner". Never be the smartest person in the room if your goal is to grow. In a crude way: google it. You'll probably get a generic (maybe even horrible AI slop) on top. But you're not looking for a perfect guide on first Google (not unless you have a very popular topic). Look for terms used and start googling those to narrow down to a more specific place. Maybe a forum post full of (hopefully) competent+ people answering your question. Maybe you find a quality guide to follow. Maybe you find you're on a completely wrong rabbit hole and figure out better terms to Google. That's basically half my learning while on the job. Usually works pretty well in my personal time too.
Tier3r 2y ago
The initial cram is an interesting concept. If you insert new things to learn at a constant rate, the repetition burden grows logarithmically. Assuming you have some fixed amount of time you can devote everyday optimally your repetition burden should be constant. So the solution is making new things to learn not constant, but front loading a lot of it.
dinobones 2y ago
I've been wanting to try this approach for learning a language. In English for example, learning the 800 most common words, you can understand 75% of the language: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44569277 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44569277. I'd love to start fresh on a new language, take 800 new words, try to learn 10 a day, and see where I get after 3 months. Can I really understand 75% of text if I have perfect recall of those 800 words?
- Tomte 2y ago
  No. Apart from grammar etc. you‘re missing, you might understand nothing while knowing 80% of the words.
- mc3301 2y ago
  Give learning Japanese a try. It's a meta-learning adventure! There are 3 distinct classes of characters (two syllabaries that each have a perfect matching pair with the other, 46 each plus some compounds) and the third are (mostly) chinese Kanji characters. Fun stuff!
  - supriyo-biswas 2y ago
    I wonder if there is a similar "Pareto priciple"-esque approach that one could use to learn Japanese.
    - opan 2y ago
      There are the "radicals" which can help you to interpret a new kanji, since they're the kanji building blocks.
      - drivers99 2y ago
        I highly recommend this site for that. https://kanji.koohii.com/ https://kanji.koohii.com/ which goes along with the book "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig (strictly speaking, you don't need the book, but I think it will help understand the idea behind the process). But the stories (mnemonics) on the website are better than the ones in the book, but also let you put in your own stories. You can also vote and choose existing stories, so there are crowd sourced mnemonics that other people have said work for them. One interesting side effect of that is a lot of people decided to use Spider Man whenever there is a "thread" radical, for more memorable stories. I did it around 15 years ago and learned how to write all the 2000+ commonly used kanji in a few months (9 months for me; 2-3 months for a more diligent person). It uses a spaced repetition system (Lietner box method).
keeptrying 2y ago
A big hole in this article is that you need to find the very best learning resource there is. This is a must. Eg: For RL it would be Barto&Sutton book. Sometimes the best source is not intuitive. Eg: The best way to become a safe driver is to go to performance drivign school - its a bit expensive but they tell you how to sit and stay alert in a car which I have never seen outside of these schools. One of my most common things nowadays is to ask ChatGPT is to ask to build a curriculum. Creating and understanding what a great curriculum looks like is 20% of the work of understanding a field. You can LEARN ANYTHING now if you have the time and inclination and elbow grease. Truly nothing is beyond your grasp - NOTHING. Its a magical time. I'm actually building a tool that will do all this for you and get you started down the learning path faster than what we have now. And for the curious - the best way to learn medicine is not a textbook. There are solutions out there like Skethcy which work much better for anatomy. My own learning project - learn Medicine "on the side". It seems ludcirous that we give up the keys to our health to doctors just so we don't have to learn 2 years of courses. Am going to fix that!
- cbracketdash 2y ago
  Would love to hear more about your thoughts on learning medicine! Why would you recommend an online program over textbooks?
  - server_man3000 2y ago
    When I’ve gotten deep into a topic I’ve actually almost ALWAYS learned that textbooks are the best way to learn things. The internet is full of information. Sometimes it’s too much, unstructured or tangential to the goal at hand. Textbooks, in my experience, are truly written by the experts. It’s been vetted, rigorously reviewed and fact checked. It’s not inspired by influencers or clickbait. Obviously YMMV, but when you find a top recommended textbook, it’s usually miles beyond a YouTube video or medium blog for deeper level content. It usually flows better and makes more sense as you study consistently.
  - keeptrying 2y ago
    U=I bought more or less every book on this. https://meded.ucsf.edu/sites/meded.ucsf.edu/files/inline-files/Required%20and%20Recommended%20Textbooks-2022-23_0.pdf https://meded.ucsf.edu/sites/meded.ucsf.edu/files/inline-fil... Start with Anatomy. Start with a problem you HAve personally. And understand the anatomy and physiology. Use that to learn every abstraction you bump into. Example you'll definitely need to learn about the skin for example Also go to uptodate.com for your condition. Thats basically what a doc uses anyways. For inspiration go to r/medicalschool . Constantly use
deafpolygon 2y ago
The biggest challenge in learning is identifying gaps in your knowledge. Dunning-Kruger is a real thing and you want to avoid that. Part of learning to learn, is learning how to identify the things you don't know. Then learning how to structure your 'personal curriculum' them in a rational way - you don't need to know everything up front to be effective.
zfnmxt 2y ago
Posts like this that talk about learning "efficiency" always come off as soulless and dystopian to me. I think learning should be fun and that fun learning is the most effective---that's the only thing I optimize for and I certainly don't think about efficiency percentages. What a drag that would be.
- celurian92 2y ago
  I so much agree with you. I understand and remember the things I learn more when I am having fun or it piqued my curiosity. But I guess shortness of time needs us to focus on the efficiency aspect of it too.
- sam29681749 2y ago
  I somewhat disagree. Although having fun is important, I also want to make the most of my time. further, I think some aspects of learning can be a real slog, but when you get through it you find it rewarding.
- esperent 2y ago
  I studied mathematics and I think this subject illustrates my feelings on this perfectly. Coding, just as well. When it comes to learning maths, or a new programming language, there's all this tedious boilerplate you need to know. The rules, or syntax, the names of everything, how it all fits together. There's ways to make learning this stuff more fun, but ultimately, not that much more fun. And anyway, the learning part is not the good part, it's the things you can do once you reach a certain knowledge level that are incredible, beautiful, even sublime. On the other hand, take something like learning to paint, or taking dancing lessons. Unless you're hoping to become a member of an international ballet company, learning to dance is the fun part. As another point, if you're a knowledge worker and you're likely to have situations in your life where someone basically says to you "right mate, you've got the job, here's a huge body of deep technical knowledge to learn, get up to speed, see you Monday" then a certain amount of skill in knowing how to absorb that quickly is a good thing.
  - marginalia_nu 2y ago
FL33TW00D 2y ago
Neel Nanda did it better: https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/34-learning https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/34-learning
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
DeathArrow 2y ago
Identifying what the foundational knowledge is isn't easy for an absolute begginer. Building an efficient path to expertise is hard for a beginner. I think the fastest way to learn is asking an expert to build a learning path for you, starting from what you know and what you don't know.
james-revisoai 2y ago
Learning depends on the environment and whether it is pursued in an auto-didactic sense (Even for a job, say) or whether you are learning for an exam/part of a cohort. It's not wrong to say Curriculum does not matter. But the level of curriculum is also something that needs to adjust to your current level and related fields you have knowledge within, to prevent you becoming overwhelmed. Most people stop learning being motivation dries up as Test Anxiety rises to the point where they are at a "low-performance" place in the eustress curve. A few days there and people pause until it becomes urgent. A lot of this is a lack of momentum, but also not dedicating or having access to judgements of learning about your own progress. In other words, if you judge your learning at all, it helps you manage. There is a natural tradeoff between the flow-state of "just one flashcard with one information principle at a time, endlessly" and the longer term state influencing your time in flow-state of "am I progressing, what don't I know, how do I feel about my learning and mistakes?" Think about learning databases, or CSS. When did you really takeoff? Probably A) Practically copying others examples (existing queries ran in PhpMyAdmin, or codepen code) And then later B) Once you overcame a big mistake and saw progress - suddenly what "Display" did clicked for you, and you saw how useful it could be to use the "fixed" option, it unlocked your understanding of the items in A and confirmed or disconfirmed your understanding of how it works. Again it all depends. Self-motivated learning, even for a job, is easier to work with than compulsory learning. Because there, you don't even have the motivation to gaze up to the horizon and gather any excitement or understanding for what the learning might later lead to. It doesn't feel like a path, it feels like a brick wall. In this regard, a list of subjects is somewhat skin to someone stacking bricks, rather than elucidating a path. Overwhelming anxiety while learning is a real thing. The context really matters as to whether this approach is always the wisest.
vonnik 2y ago
For me, there’s always an early social element to learning: trying to figure out who the experts are; getting them to point you toward the best resources; and if you’re lucky, bouncing your mental models off them to be corrected. A good LLM can take you part of the way on many subjects, which removes some of the initial friction. Not every field is like that though. Some problems are wicked and new, lots of knowledge is basically enacted more than known, and the solutions one seeks often require several disciplines.
sumosudo 2y ago
Piano piano si va lontano
jamager 2y ago
IMO, how to learn depends greatly on why to learn and what constraints do you have. If you need to pass an exam, obtain a certificate, etc. you will need a different approach than if you are just curious about a subject and explore what it is about. There are commonalities, however. Much of the advice on deliberate practice (From the book Peak Performance) is valid even if you don't try to be a top expert.
timwaagh 2y ago
I dont think it's going to be that important. Different people have different learning styles but also vastly different capacities making this really difficult to research accurately. People claim to find the secret sauce from time to time. They're most likely wrong.
paldepind2 2y ago
I agree with the blog post that learning how to learn is an important skill. But the post offers very little beyond a few tips on how to actually achieve that. For people interested in actually learning how to learn I'd recommend the book "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning", which offers a lot of details on this topic based on actual scientific research.
- wordpad25 2y ago
  that book seems to be very inline with cutting edge research on learning, thanks book summary "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" Summary: Key Premise: Effective learning strategies differ from common study methods like rereading and cramming, which provide an illusion of mastery but lead to poor retention. Main Learning Principles: Retrieval Practice: Actively recalling information strengthens memory and makes learning more durable. Self-quizzing is more effective than passive review. Spaced Repetition: Spacing out learning sessions over time leads to better retention than cramming. Interleaved Practice: Mixing different types of problems or subjects during study sessions improves learning compared to studying one topic in blocks. Elaboration: Explaining ideas in your own words and connecting them to existing knowledge improves understanding. Generation: Attempting to solve a problem before being shown the solution enhances learning. Reflection: Reviewing what you’ve learned and considering how it applies to your life strengthens learning. Varied Learning: Learning in different contexts and environments makes the knowledge more adaptable and versatile. Key Takeaways: Rethink study habits: Active learning techniques outperform passive ones. Learning is more effective when it's effortful—embrace challenges. Long-term retention relies on consistent, spaced, and active engagement with material.
  - paldepind2 2y ago
    That summary is pretty good based on what I remember from the book. I think the second to last point, _effort_, deserves a bit more of an emphasis though. It's actually a common theme through all the effective learning methods that they require more effort and that more effort generally implies more effective learning. As an example, simply rereading a text takes little effort compared to doing flash cards, and the later is more effective.
nbzso 2y ago
Crypto Data Live-Streamed. One article. Wisdom all around.
personjerry 2y ago
> Very quickly identify what the foundational knowledge is. This seems to be the most important part but also has the hidden and problematic dependency of... already knowing (i.e. already having learned) what the foundational stuff is?
lawls 2y ago
It's true.
erganemic 2y ago
Contra to a lot of what's being said in this thread, I think a lot of smart people get stuck in the trap of overvaluing quality of input relative to quantity of input. Put another way: the bitter lesson applies to the AI inside your skull too.
- bckr 2y ago
  Hmm. Given that Textbooks are all you need, I’m not sure this holds. Maybe “don’t focus so much on organizing your inputs, instead focus on many quality input reps”?
- cloverich 2y ago
  Relatedly, it took me a while to appreciate that seeking out and organizing the best knowledge on a topic is, for me, just a form a procrastination. Its ok if I'm doing it for fun. But if I want to learn, the key seems to be that every single day I start the day learning or reinforcing something, and do no other activity until that one is completed. A somewhat related thing I learned in medical school, is that many people have an internal cue for when you've really learned something. When you have re-visited something for the nth time, and the feeling you have is a deep level of annoyance that you are rehashing the same thing again, that is usually the signal that it will stick. May not work for all but worked well for me and the folks I shared it with.
setgree 2y ago
Something from Andrej Karpathy on learning that stuck with me [0]: > Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the quickie doesn't do anything, it's just that it is wildly suboptimal if you actually care to learn. [0] https://x.com/karpathy/status/1756380066580455557?lang=en https://x.com/karpathy/status/1756380066580455557?lang=en
- cynicalsecurity 2y ago
  Judging from his name, he has been struck with post-soviet spirit of doom and gloom.
  - throw_pm23 2y ago
    Doesn't make it less true though.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    He was born in '86 in Slovakia, so he probably doesn't remember much of the late communist and early post-communist times.
  - danielmarkbruce 2y ago
    He's also been struck with 10-100s of millions of dollars, an insanely successful career, and a good nature.
- cloverich 2y ago
  A counter point, or maybe complementary point (b/c I agree w/ the quote). I killed myself trying to do more than 8 pull ups in a gym for ages; at times I'd be going to the gym 4x a week doing full body workouts, always working hard, always sweating, always gassed at the end; consistently doing pull ups to exhaustion on multiple sets. Yet 8 was a kind of ceiling. At some point I stopped working out, but got a pull up bar at home. I stuck it in my office doorway. I would do occasional pull ups -- never more than 2-3, usually only 1. But just casually a few times a day, nearly every day, when I walked by it. It was never hard, it never felt like work. It became more of a way to briefly relax, an alternative to the cigarettes I used to smoke. Well after a year of that when someone challenged me to a friendly pull up competition, I was shocked that I could do 15 in a row easily, I still had more in the tank even. That always stuck with me because it taught me that while hard work is important, consistency is _more_ important. Working "hard" as such is often not only not required, but perhaps often not actually the thing that will help.
kwar13 2y ago
I cannot recommend reading A Mathematician's Apology enough. It was written by GH Hardy and I think it's one of the best non-math texts out there to understand how a mathematician's brain works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician%27s_Apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician%27s_Apology Fairly short and beautifully written.
- will-burner 2y ago
  I also like mathematician's apology and would recommend it for understanding now a mathematician's brain works and in particular a mathematician's perspective and mindset on being a mathematician. But I'm curious what prompted you to bring that up in this thread? I don't see how it's connected to the blog post.
  - kwar13 2y ago
    Oops! Thought I was in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909564 Thank you friend!
mediumsmart 2y ago
I think the best learning resource for something is being really interested in it.
- tartoran 2y ago
  That interest could be cultivated though...
will-burner 2y ago
>What’s something you’ve learned that you believe gives you an edge - something that you’re almost surprised more people don’t know about? I don't know if it's just me but I would not be stoked to be asked this question during an interview. During interviews you're implicitly trying to differentiate yourself from others vying for the position. You usually do this by talking about your experience in different ways. I find it annoying when the interviewer explicitly asks you to differentiate yourself from others vying for the position. In part it annoys me because I think that should be the job of the interviewer to determine based on how I've answered their concrete questions about my experience. But also explicit questions like this one give such an opportunity for bs that I do not think they give a lot of signal. I guess I could be wrong though and don't spend enough time thinking about what makes me better than other people.
textread 2y ago
I have a related question: Is learning interlinked with writing? PG tweeted:- You can't replace reading with other sources of information like videos, because you need to read in order to write well, and you need to write in order to think well.
jjice 2y ago
Pareto distributions are everywhere, and most learning ends up being one. Recently encountered this while getting into weight training for hypertrophy. The core is good form, diet, and progressive overload. Other than that, learning the basis of a specific exercise is something you can pick up as you expand. It's so similar to most of the things I've specifically sought to learn as an adult. You get so much bang for your buck, time-wise, when learning something new. The best part is when you don't even need to dig deep past that foundational 80% and you can become pretty knowledgeable about something in a very reasonable amount of time.
Gabellestaborn 2y ago
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credit_guy 2y ago
Part of growing up, going to school and then college, and then through life is that you learn how to learn. Everyone develops their strategies to learn. Some think that the strategy they found for themselves is great, and they start preaching it. Like this person here. But it's an illusion. Maybe it even has a name. This particular strategy doesn't sound bad, but there are so many types of people out there, and it's certain that for many, if not most, other strategies fit better. It's like trying to teach someone how to run. Advice like keep your back straight, or land on your toes, etc. In the end, running is the best teacher. Just go ahead and run, and your body will figure out how to keep the back straight.
negoutputeng 2y ago
I will have to disagree with the author on specifics (but agree on the broad premise) it is not what the foundational knowledge "is" - but "how" the foundational knowledge is "unpacked" by each person from the first principles. this was articulated by Descartes in "Rules for the direction of the mind" which remains sadly unread and forgotten. the difference between the 2 approaches is that the author's approach does not clearly delineate what is meant by "learning". In fact, it could even encourage rote-learning of the foundational material. Descartes outlines an alternative. An interesting anecdote about Descartes is that he "unlearnt" everything he knew early in life, and attempted to "rebuild" his knowledge. Few of us have the luxury to do that. link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_the_Direction_of_the_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_the_Direction_of_the...

320 points by jklm 2y ago

> “What’s something you’ve learned that you believe gives you an edge - something that you’re almost surprised more people don’t know about?” My response: Nice try.

dartharva 2y ago

This is something I have personally struggled with, so I wish the author elaborated more. If you are a novice, how do you quickly identify what the foundational knowledge is? How do you know what makes you an expert and not an "expert beginner" as the author says to the extent that you can build a personal curriculum about it?

ahmadtbk 2y ago
This is something that can be tricky for sure. Depending on the subject you might not need to start diving deep into every topic. Sometimes you'll have to first ask some high level questions like how do I get this data from this table and convert it to this format. Once you identify what problem you're trying to solve go and learn what's needed to solve it. You won't always have an optimal solution but that's okay. The most important is to try and use the thing you're learning in some real way or with practice.
- mmooss 2y ago
  > The most important is to try and use the thing you're learning in some real way or with practice. In my experience, that's a necessary first step to learning. I need to get my hands dirty, get a feel for what I'm working with. An experience is worth a thousand pictures, which are worth a thousand words - you can't gain that basic understanding and instinct by reading, only by having all the sensory inputs of doing it. Then it's time to read. Now you must find an expert to guide you. First, you'll have too many blind spots - you can't possibly find all that's current, you can't find the best sources efficiently, and much won't be in books yet. And without expertise yourself, you can't distinguish the worn-out theories from the evergreen standards from the unproven innovations; the promising from the unlikely from the absurd; you won't know the consensus from the fringe; the guy advocating their personal theory - maybe even a credible one - from the balanced survey of established ideas. You won't recognize when you're reading just a side of a well-known debate.
Tier3r 2y ago
I'm also wondering this. Two possibilities. One, find the first principles/root node/glue that holds many disparate concepts together in some causative way. Two, the specific procedure/step/concept that you keep reusing across multiple problems.
xandrius 2y ago
I tried to think about this and came to a personal realisation that perhaps there is no strict "foundational knowledge" for most topics. Pick programming, is knowing binary operations foundational? Is knowing compilers? Is it knowing bubble sort? Or perhaps knowing data structures? I believe that if you have been using/working in a field, whatever you touch for your own goals that's enough. And perhaps the difference between being an expert beginner and an expert is whether you still care about such a distinction? If you can achieve your current and future goals and can eventually learn new concepts then you're good. I'd say a beginner might be someone who wouldn't even know where to begin. Let's pick chemistry for myself: sure, I could follow some video but without the video I wouldn't even conceive how to get started with anything. While, say woodworking, I wouldn't call myself an expert but I would be able to imagine starting a random project from scratch and eventually figure out all the parts. So, maybe: - beginner: can't complete a project without help/support - mid: can complete but is unsure whether that's the best way - expert: has completed it before somehow
- rustcleaner 2y ago
  I'd argue the principles Turing and Wolfram lay out in regards to universal computation and computational equivalence are the most foundational, and then various systems or architectures (flow vs stack, etc), etc, are important as there needs to be concrete examples implementing the fundamentals. If you really want to get esoteric, programming goes all the way back with society and religion. Just like how a machine can compute so too can a group of people through their actions, if they adhere as religiously to their tasks as the fablic of reality seems to adhere to its laws in governing the motions of matter. Programming is the building abstract structures which, when represented with matter in the right ways that can take advantage of the moment-by-moment Gets Things Done™ nature of the fabric of reality itself, produces useful transformations of its initial states. Very complex behavior arises from the simplest of mechanistic rulesets, and it's found universally in biology and in places all over reality. Computation is so foundationally fundamental to this place and your (dear reader) existence here, it is shameful it's not in standard middle/high schools' curricula right next to the fundamental theorems of arithmetic and algebra!
j45 2y ago
I'm surprised the course by the name of this post isn't here. The post covers a great mindset, but the math really is one thing, and learning how you learn and how you can learn is invaluable. This is a great course to start learning about your learning. https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn After/with this, there is a slew of adult learning knowledge that will likely make you feel better. One key is learning to understand something, before learning to memorize it. Another is creating your own mind map of how the concepts you are learning fits together. Farnham street has some great books on mental models as well that was recommended to me as helping An expert is someone who can often explain complex things in very simple ways. being an innocent beginner is one of the best mindsets to cultivate - you learn what you do and don't know pretty quick, and also a sense of known vs unknown, and size and number of unknowns.
- dartharva 2y ago
  I checked these out but couldn't find the answer to the questions I am asking. It tells you how to maximize efficiency while learning, but doesn't tell you how to identify what you should be learning in the first place and what the sequence of your focus should be when you start.
  - j45 2y ago
    https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
  - eacapeisfutuile 2y ago
    What do you specifically want to learn? What you need to learn will generally make itself known, if you have some general goal? Just starting at all is the best way to start.
    - dartharva 2y ago
      Say I want to learn web scraping. Now if I try to start, I see there are several layers of fundamentals and several potential paths, all of which seem equally important. Where do I start? What platform should I use? Should I start from the DOM and HTML parsing and go ahead from there, or should I start from learning Python libraries built for it as so many books and tutorials advise? Going one layer deeper, do I need to learn data structures before anything else? JavaScript and APIs? The fundamentals of TCP networking? Regex? It's all too overwhelming at times.
eacapeisfutuile 2y ago
You don’t. That is what you will build as you learn a topic, it makes no sense to “identify” it first. Do the thing you want to learn.
- dartharva 2y ago
  I learnt data analytics and SQL for MIS/BI purposes on-the-job as a sales manager. Got pretty good at it too, built several dashboards and long-standing capabilities for my team. Now, if I say I want to get into this scene for good, I am immediately daunted with a mountain of diverging learning paths to take. Should I take to Python and its massive library ecosystem, or should focus on database fundamentals? In every choice taken there are seemingly infinite branches, and it is rather hard to focus if you aren't even sure you're on the right track. Last time I sat in an analytics/consulting interview they grilled me on highly specific technical questions on data pipelines and warehousing and testing and other topics that I've never had to worry about before at work. In another assessment, I was grilled on some AWS/Redshift-specific things. In yet another I was expected to know deep learning. It is all too hard for someone not originally with an engineering (or adjacent) background.
  - eacapeisfutuile 2y ago
    Yeah learning to actually use in practice is different from preparing for interviews. I would say continue where you already built some knowledge and branch out when you realize you have to, and then work on learning one branch as you go. For interviews you may need to lookup what type of questions to expect and memorize details on that, unfortunately. That is not useful in practice but can be necessary for interviews.
quantum_state 2y ago
It is an iterative process. One would move forward with a baseline foundation and pay attention to the difficulties and inefficiencies in the learning process to triangulate the additional foundation needed.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>If you are a novice, how do you quickly identify what the foundational knowledge is? You probably can't. You need to rely on knowledge of others to identify good resources. And then lean that against how you learn in order to pick the best resource for you.Same for verifying being an "expert beginner". Never be the smartest person in the room if your goal is to grow. In a crude way: google it. You'll probably get a generic (maybe even horrible AI slop) on top. But you're not looking for a perfect guide on first Google (not unless you have a very popular topic). Look for terms used and start googling those to narrow down to a more specific place. Maybe a forum post full of (hopefully) competent+ people answering your question. Maybe you find a quality guide to follow. Maybe you find you're on a completely wrong rabbit hole and figure out better terms to Google. That's basically half my learning while on the job. Usually works pretty well in my personal time too.

Tier3r 2y ago

The initial cram is an interesting concept. If you insert new things to learn at a constant rate, the repetition burden grows logarithmically. Assuming you have some fixed amount of time you can devote everyday optimally your repetition burden should be constant. So the solution is making new things to learn not constant, but front loading a lot of it.

dinobones 2y ago

I've been wanting to try this approach for learning a language. In English for example, learning the 800 most common words, you can understand 75% of the language: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44569277 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44569277. I'd love to start fresh on a new language, take 800 new words, try to learn 10 a day, and see where I get after 3 months. Can I really understand 75% of text if I have perfect recall of those 800 words?

Tomte 2y ago
No. Apart from grammar etc. you‘re missing, you might understand nothing while knowing 80% of the words.
mc3301 2y ago
Give learning Japanese a try. It's a meta-learning adventure! There are 3 distinct classes of characters (two syllabaries that each have a perfect matching pair with the other, 46 each plus some compounds) and the third are (mostly) chinese Kanji characters. Fun stuff!
- supriyo-biswas 2y ago
  I wonder if there is a similar "Pareto priciple"-esque approach that one could use to learn Japanese.
  - opan 2y ago
    There are the "radicals" which can help you to interpret a new kanji, since they're the kanji building blocks.
    - drivers99 2y ago
      I highly recommend this site for that. https://kanji.koohii.com/ https://kanji.koohii.com/ which goes along with the book "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig (strictly speaking, you don't need the book, but I think it will help understand the idea behind the process). But the stories (mnemonics) on the website are better than the ones in the book, but also let you put in your own stories. You can also vote and choose existing stories, so there are crowd sourced mnemonics that other people have said work for them. One interesting side effect of that is a lot of people decided to use Spider Man whenever there is a "thread" radical, for more memorable stories. I did it around 15 years ago and learned how to write all the 2000+ commonly used kanji in a few months (9 months for me; 2-3 months for a more diligent person). It uses a spaced repetition system (Lietner box method).

keeptrying 2y ago

A big hole in this article is that you need to find the very best learning resource there is. This is a must. Eg: For RL it would be Barto&Sutton book. Sometimes the best source is not intuitive. Eg: The best way to become a safe driver is to go to performance drivign school - its a bit expensive but they tell you how to sit and stay alert in a car which I have never seen outside of these schools. One of my most common things nowadays is to ask ChatGPT is to ask to build a curriculum. Creating and understanding what a great curriculum looks like is 20% of the work of understanding a field. You can LEARN ANYTHING now if you have the time and inclination and elbow grease. Truly nothing is beyond your grasp - NOTHING. Its a magical time. I'm actually building a tool that will do all this for you and get you started down the learning path faster than what we have now. And for the curious - the best way to learn medicine is not a textbook. There are solutions out there like Skethcy which work much better for anatomy. My own learning project - learn Medicine "on the side". It seems ludcirous that we give up the keys to our health to doctors just so we don't have to learn 2 years of courses. Am going to fix that!

cbracketdash 2y ago
Would love to hear more about your thoughts on learning medicine! Why would you recommend an online program over textbooks?
- server_man3000 2y ago
  When I’ve gotten deep into a topic I’ve actually almost ALWAYS learned that textbooks are the best way to learn things. The internet is full of information. Sometimes it’s too much, unstructured or tangential to the goal at hand. Textbooks, in my experience, are truly written by the experts. It’s been vetted, rigorously reviewed and fact checked. It’s not inspired by influencers or clickbait. Obviously YMMV, but when you find a top recommended textbook, it’s usually miles beyond a YouTube video or medium blog for deeper level content. It usually flows better and makes more sense as you study consistently.
- keeptrying 2y ago
  U=I bought more or less every book on this. https://meded.ucsf.edu/sites/meded.ucsf.edu/files/inline-files/Required%20and%20Recommended%20Textbooks-2022-23_0.pdf https://meded.ucsf.edu/sites/meded.ucsf.edu/files/inline-fil... Start with Anatomy. Start with a problem you HAve personally. And understand the anatomy and physiology. Use that to learn every abstraction you bump into. Example you'll definitely need to learn about the skin for example Also go to uptodate.com for your condition. Thats basically what a doc uses anyways. For inspiration go to r/medicalschool . Constantly use

deafpolygon 2y ago

The biggest challenge in learning is identifying gaps in your knowledge. Dunning-Kruger is a real thing and you want to avoid that. Part of learning to learn, is learning how to identify the things you don't know. Then learning how to structure your 'personal curriculum' them in a rational way - you don't need to know everything up front to be effective.

zfnmxt 2y ago

Posts like this that talk about learning "efficiency" always come off as soulless and dystopian to me. I think learning should be fun and that fun learning is the most effective---that's the only thing I optimize for and I certainly don't think about efficiency percentages. What a drag that would be.

celurian92 2y ago
I so much agree with you. I understand and remember the things I learn more when I am having fun or it piqued my curiosity. But I guess shortness of time needs us to focus on the efficiency aspect of it too.
sam29681749 2y ago
I somewhat disagree. Although having fun is important, I also want to make the most of my time. further, I think some aspects of learning can be a real slog, but when you get through it you find it rewarding.
esperent 2y ago
I studied mathematics and I think this subject illustrates my feelings on this perfectly. Coding, just as well. When it comes to learning maths, or a new programming language, there's all this tedious boilerplate you need to know. The rules, or syntax, the names of everything, how it all fits together. There's ways to make learning this stuff more fun, but ultimately, not that much more fun. And anyway, the learning part is not the good part, it's the things you can do once you reach a certain knowledge level that are incredible, beautiful, even sublime. On the other hand, take something like learning to paint, or taking dancing lessons. Unless you're hoping to become a member of an international ballet company, learning to dance is the fun part. As another point, if you're a knowledge worker and you're likely to have situations in your life where someone basically says to you "right mate, you've got the job, here's a huge body of deep technical knowledge to learn, get up to speed, see you Monday" then a certain amount of skill in knowing how to absorb that quickly is a good thing.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago

FL33TW00D 2y ago

Neel Nanda did it better: https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/34-learning https://www.neelnanda.io/blog/34-learning

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

DeathArrow 2y ago

Identifying what the foundational knowledge is isn't easy for an absolute begginer. Building an efficient path to expertise is hard for a beginner. I think the fastest way to learn is asking an expert to build a learning path for you, starting from what you know and what you don't know.

james-revisoai 2y ago

Learning depends on the environment and whether it is pursued in an auto-didactic sense (Even for a job, say) or whether you are learning for an exam/part of a cohort. It's not wrong to say Curriculum does not matter. But the level of curriculum is also something that needs to adjust to your current level and related fields you have knowledge within, to prevent you becoming overwhelmed. Most people stop learning being motivation dries up as Test Anxiety rises to the point where they are at a "low-performance" place in the eustress curve. A few days there and people pause until it becomes urgent. A lot of this is a lack of momentum, but also not dedicating or having access to judgements of learning about your own progress. In other words, if you judge your learning at all, it helps you manage. There is a natural tradeoff between the flow-state of "just one flashcard with one information principle at a time, endlessly" and the longer term state influencing your time in flow-state of "am I progressing, what don't I know, how do I feel about my learning and mistakes?" Think about learning databases, or CSS. When did you really takeoff? Probably A) Practically copying others examples (existing queries ran in PhpMyAdmin, or codepen code) And then later B) Once you overcame a big mistake and saw progress - suddenly what "Display" did clicked for you, and you saw how useful it could be to use the "fixed" option, it unlocked your understanding of the items in A and confirmed or disconfirmed your understanding of how it works. Again it all depends. Self-motivated learning, even for a job, is easier to work with than compulsory learning. Because there, you don't even have the motivation to gaze up to the horizon and gather any excitement or understanding for what the learning might later lead to. It doesn't feel like a path, it feels like a brick wall. In this regard, a list of subjects is somewhat skin to someone stacking bricks, rather than elucidating a path. Overwhelming anxiety while learning is a real thing. The context really matters as to whether this approach is always the wisest.

vonnik 2y ago

For me, there’s always an early social element to learning: trying to figure out who the experts are; getting them to point you toward the best resources; and if you’re lucky, bouncing your mental models off them to be corrected. A good LLM can take you part of the way on many subjects, which removes some of the initial friction. Not every field is like that though. Some problems are wicked and new, lots of knowledge is basically enacted more than known, and the solutions one seeks often require several disciplines.

sumosudo 2y ago

Piano piano si va lontano

jamager 2y ago

IMO, how to learn depends greatly on why to learn and what constraints do you have. If you need to pass an exam, obtain a certificate, etc. you will need a different approach than if you are just curious about a subject and explore what it is about. There are commonalities, however. Much of the advice on deliberate practice (From the book Peak Performance) is valid even if you don't try to be a top expert.

timwaagh 2y ago

I dont think it's going to be that important. Different people have different learning styles but also vastly different capacities making this really difficult to research accurately. People claim to find the secret sauce from time to time. They're most likely wrong.

paldepind2 2y ago

I agree with the blog post that learning how to learn is an important skill. But the post offers very little beyond a few tips on how to actually achieve that. For people interested in actually learning how to learn I'd recommend the book "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning", which offers a lot of details on this topic based on actual scientific research.

wordpad25 2y ago
that book seems to be very inline with cutting edge research on learning, thanks book summary "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" Summary: Key Premise: Effective learning strategies differ from common study methods like rereading and cramming, which provide an illusion of mastery but lead to poor retention. Main Learning Principles: Retrieval Practice: Actively recalling information strengthens memory and makes learning more durable. Self-quizzing is more effective than passive review. Spaced Repetition: Spacing out learning sessions over time leads to better retention than cramming. Interleaved Practice: Mixing different types of problems or subjects during study sessions improves learning compared to studying one topic in blocks. Elaboration: Explaining ideas in your own words and connecting them to existing knowledge improves understanding. Generation: Attempting to solve a problem before being shown the solution enhances learning. Reflection: Reviewing what you’ve learned and considering how it applies to your life strengthens learning. Varied Learning: Learning in different contexts and environments makes the knowledge more adaptable and versatile. Key Takeaways: Rethink study habits: Active learning techniques outperform passive ones. Learning is more effective when it's effortful—embrace challenges. Long-term retention relies on consistent, spaced, and active engagement with material.
- paldepind2 2y ago
  That summary is pretty good based on what I remember from the book. I think the second to last point, _effort_, deserves a bit more of an emphasis though. It's actually a common theme through all the effective learning methods that they require more effort and that more effort generally implies more effective learning. As an example, simply rereading a text takes little effort compared to doing flash cards, and the later is more effective.

nbzso 2y ago

Crypto Data Live-Streamed. One article. Wisdom all around.

personjerry 2y ago

> Very quickly identify what the foundational knowledge is. This seems to be the most important part but also has the hidden and problematic dependency of... already knowing (i.e. already having learned) what the foundational stuff is?

lawls 2y ago

It's true.

erganemic 2y ago

Contra to a lot of what's being said in this thread, I think a lot of smart people get stuck in the trap of overvaluing quality of input relative to quantity of input. Put another way: the bitter lesson applies to the AI inside your skull too.

bckr 2y ago
Hmm. Given that Textbooks are all you need, I’m not sure this holds. Maybe “don’t focus so much on organizing your inputs, instead focus on many quality input reps”?
cloverich 2y ago
Relatedly, it took me a while to appreciate that seeking out and organizing the best knowledge on a topic is, for me, just a form a procrastination. Its ok if I'm doing it for fun. But if I want to learn, the key seems to be that every single day I start the day learning or reinforcing something, and do no other activity until that one is completed. A somewhat related thing I learned in medical school, is that many people have an internal cue for when you've really learned something. When you have re-visited something for the nth time, and the feeling you have is a deep level of annoyance that you are rehashing the same thing again, that is usually the signal that it will stick. May not work for all but worked well for me and the folks I shared it with.

setgree 2y ago

Something from Andrej Karpathy on learning that stuck with me [0]: > Learning is not supposed to be fun. It doesn't have to be actively not fun either, but the primary feeling should be that of effort. It should look a lot less like that "10 minute full body" workout from your local digital media creator and a lot more like a serious session at the gym. You want the mental equivalent of sweating. It's not that the quickie doesn't do anything, it's just that it is wildly suboptimal if you actually care to learn. [0] https://x.com/karpathy/status/1756380066580455557?lang=en https://x.com/karpathy/status/1756380066580455557?lang=en

cynicalsecurity 2y ago
Judging from his name, he has been struck with post-soviet spirit of doom and gloom.
- throw_pm23 2y ago
  Doesn't make it less true though.
- sofixa 2y ago
  He was born in '86 in Slovakia, so he probably doesn't remember much of the late communist and early post-communist times.
- danielmarkbruce 2y ago
  He's also been struck with 10-100s of millions of dollars, an insanely successful career, and a good nature.
cloverich 2y ago
A counter point, or maybe complementary point (b/c I agree w/ the quote). I killed myself trying to do more than 8 pull ups in a gym for ages; at times I'd be going to the gym 4x a week doing full body workouts, always working hard, always sweating, always gassed at the end; consistently doing pull ups to exhaustion on multiple sets. Yet 8 was a kind of ceiling. At some point I stopped working out, but got a pull up bar at home. I stuck it in my office doorway. I would do occasional pull ups -- never more than 2-3, usually only 1. But just casually a few times a day, nearly every day, when I walked by it. It was never hard, it never felt like work. It became more of a way to briefly relax, an alternative to the cigarettes I used to smoke. Well after a year of that when someone challenged me to a friendly pull up competition, I was shocked that I could do 15 in a row easily, I still had more in the tank even. That always stuck with me because it taught me that while hard work is important, consistency is _more_ important. Working "hard" as such is often not only not required, but perhaps often not actually the thing that will help.

kwar13 2y ago

I cannot recommend reading A Mathematician's Apology enough. It was written by GH Hardy and I think it's one of the best non-math texts out there to understand how a mathematician's brain works. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician%27s_Apology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician%27s_Apology Fairly short and beautifully written.

will-burner 2y ago
I also like mathematician's apology and would recommend it for understanding now a mathematician's brain works and in particular a mathematician's perspective and mindset on being a mathematician. But I'm curious what prompted you to bring that up in this thread? I don't see how it's connected to the blog post.
- kwar13 2y ago
  Oops! Thought I was in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41909564 Thank you friend!

mediumsmart 2y ago

I think the best learning resource for something is being really interested in it.

tartoran 2y ago
That interest could be cultivated though...

will-burner 2y ago

>What’s something you’ve learned that you believe gives you an edge - something that you’re almost surprised more people don’t know about? I don't know if it's just me but I would not be stoked to be asked this question during an interview. During interviews you're implicitly trying to differentiate yourself from others vying for the position. You usually do this by talking about your experience in different ways. I find it annoying when the interviewer explicitly asks you to differentiate yourself from others vying for the position. In part it annoys me because I think that should be the job of the interviewer to determine based on how I've answered their concrete questions about my experience. But also explicit questions like this one give such an opportunity for bs that I do not think they give a lot of signal. I guess I could be wrong though and don't spend enough time thinking about what makes me better than other people.

textread 2y ago

I have a related question: Is learning interlinked with writing? PG tweeted:- You can't replace reading with other sources of information like videos, because you need to read in order to write well, and you need to write in order to think well.

jjice 2y ago

Pareto distributions are everywhere, and most learning ends up being one. Recently encountered this while getting into weight training for hypertrophy. The core is good form, diet, and progressive overload. Other than that, learning the basis of a specific exercise is something you can pick up as you expand. It's so similar to most of the things I've specifically sought to learn as an adult. You get so much bang for your buck, time-wise, when learning something new. The best part is when you don't even need to dig deep past that foundational 80% and you can become pretty knowledgeable about something in a very reasonable amount of time.

Gabellestaborn 2y ago

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credit_guy 2y ago

Part of growing up, going to school and then college, and then through life is that you learn how to learn. Everyone develops their strategies to learn. Some think that the strategy they found for themselves is great, and they start preaching it. Like this person here. But it's an illusion. Maybe it even has a name. This particular strategy doesn't sound bad, but there are so many types of people out there, and it's certain that for many, if not most, other strategies fit better. It's like trying to teach someone how to run. Advice like keep your back straight, or land on your toes, etc. In the end, running is the best teacher. Just go ahead and run, and your body will figure out how to keep the back straight.

negoutputeng 2y ago

I will have to disagree with the author on specifics (but agree on the broad premise) it is not what the foundational knowledge "is" - but "how" the foundational knowledge is "unpacked" by each person from the first principles. this was articulated by Descartes in "Rules for the direction of the mind" which remains sadly unread and forgotten. the difference between the 2 approaches is that the author's approach does not clearly delineate what is meant by "learning". In fact, it could even encourage rote-learning of the foundational material. Descartes outlines an alternative. An interesting anecdote about Descartes is that he "unlearnt" everything he knew early in life, and attempted to "rebuild" his knowledge. Few of us have the luxury to do that. link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_the_Direction_of_the_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_the_Direction_of_the...