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The fertility of the older mind

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Re: The fertility of the older mind

#81

Post by bitwize »

koolba wrote: post #10
gopalv wrote: post #3

> Or perhaps children are simply less inhibited and aren’t so scared about making mistakes. Struck a chord there - because I had come to the same conclusion of sorts, about my ability to practice activities in public. Riding a bicycle is a fairly hard thing to learn and very easy to practice (from my experience), but learning to do that when everyone around is falling off them was much less of a struggle than trying…

Learning a language (spoken, not programming) is similar. If you're willing to sound like an idiot with a bad accent, constantly messing up words and parts of speech, it's easy to get immersed. If you're self conscious it's significantly more difficult.

I had finally achieved a long-time dream of mine by going to Japan. When I landed, it hit me: very few people knew a lick of English! I remember my exact thought upon making this realization: "I could use my crappy Japanese and be thought a fool, or I could speak English at people and remove all doubt." That helped me deal with the self-consciousness. That and booze.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#82

Post by bitwize »

jackvalentine wrote: post #79
kzrdude wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A related thing: I'm skeptical of the popular claim that it's impossible to lose an accent as an adult. I think adults can still learn to speak very close to a native accent, if they keep on trying.

I didn't realise that was something people thought! With deliberate practice and a dialect coach you can pick up an accent, I don't see why the inverse wouldn't also be possible.

In his "Hello, my name is Linus Torvalds" recording from the 90s, Linus has a pronounced accent. These days he sounds American.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#83

Post by hnzix »

ericd wrote: post #80
hnzix wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian middle schools almost always teach a foreign language, the problem is that it's more or less random - Japanese, French, Italian and Indonesian are pretty common. Depending on the school you can elect to keep studying a language in high school, and the subject weighting is quite favourable towards your final College entry rank. But most people graduate with minimal retention.

US schools are the same way, albeit usually with a focus on French or Spanish. I'm wondering more about the culture - there doesn't seem to be the same culture of language learning that I hear about from Europeans.

I would say language learning is treated as a hobby, like painting or salsa dancing. It's certainly not part of the cultural DNA.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#85

Post by matt_j »

billti wrote: post #61
chousuke wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 31, and I started learning to draw a bit over a month ago. Progress is slow, but it's been visible. The kicker was when I realized that talent doesn't really exist; talent is built. The sort of people who are "naturally" talented at drawing and arts are likely to be people who are naturally more intuitive (rather than analytical) and will spend lots of time just grinding away at things instead of trying to unders…

That's an interesting theory. I've always played a lot of pool, and am good at math/geometry. Yet when I over-analyze a shot and think about what I'm about to attempt, I miss far more often than if I just rely on muscle memory/pattern recognition and take the shot without too much thought. I think the understanding of angles, intersection points, transfer of energy, etc. helped me practice as a novice (as well as hel…

I concur. I play a fair bit of pool, and I play my best when I've had one drink and I don't think about the shots too much.

If I try to line up every shot perfectly and concentrate on my cue action, I inevitably make a bad shot.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#86

Post by mythrwy »

When I reached my early 30's I felt I was getting old.

Looking back I believe this is because I was indeed just past the age of physical prime and could feel the slight slowdown.

When I reached my early 40's all that went away and I kept forgetting I wasn't in my 20's. (although I certainly am not). I didn't feel "old" anymore, but did start to realize life was short and think more about the future.

I don't know if starting to feel "old" in early 30's is common or not. But 30's is a great decade. You certainly aren't "old" at that time relatively, no matter how much you suspect it. I didn't care so much for the 20's. You are still a kid in many ways with kid habits and not as much control over yourself as you learn later, but you don't know it. Or at least I didn't.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#87

Post by nicklaf »

randcraw wrote: post #67
hathawsh wrote: post #38

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place . That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can…

It's been said, "You learn nothing from succeeding". To grow, we must learn how to fail well. I agree; the goal is to succeed or fail egolessly: efficiently and productively, without regret, even do it eagerly as one explores a new path... then failure becomes merely a lesson in what not to try, before you try again.

It's true that we ought to be comfortable experimenting without fear of embarrassment, as well as to learn to tolerate more serious failure on occasion, and certainly unexpected failures can serve to draw attention to symptoms of deeper issues worthy of rectifying before they cause you even greater trouble down the road.

However, I will point to Richard Hamming's advice to learn from our successes rather than our failures.

"There are so many ways of being wrong and so few ways of being right that it is much more economical to study successes."

And:

"Study successes. If you study successes, when your time comes, you'll know how to succeed. If you study failures, then you'll know how to fail. So study success very closely: not only yours, but other people's. Why did Galileo do what he did? How did Newton do it? Try as best you can to study other people: how they succeed, and what the elements of their success are, which elements of that can you adapt to your personality. You can't be everybody, but you have to find your own method. Studying success is a very good way of informing your own style."

(The latter quote is from 25:30 of https://youtu.be/a1zDuOPkMSw)

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#88

Post by danielam »

hathawsh wrote: post #38

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place . That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can…

In other words, you can only learn to do by doing. However, I don't agree with the "safe place" bit. Sure, some things require a safe setting to practice in because of the danger the real thing entails, but that's not most things. You need to meet reality as it is and as you are--that's when the gears really click into place and you begin to grow. It's why pretense will always stifle learning because you're too busy shutting yourself off from a real encounter. It's a retreat from reality and into the blinding comfort of the ego. Indeed, humility, so often confused with modesty, is actually the honest appraisal of the self, strengths and weaknesses, and the willingness to examine them as fully as necessary. Those who lack humility ultimately lack the courage to go out and to gladly be subjected to all the feedback, good and bad, constructive or not. I have found that it profits a person immensely to stop trying to appear smart and to be fully honest and open to being affected, changed and improved. It's the only way to learn and to learn about yourself. Only then can the hunger of ignorance be fed with knowledge and understanding and the shackles of error and confusion be broken.

There is no practice life. You learn by living.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#89

Post by magic_beans »

danielam wrote: post #88
hathawsh wrote: post #38

As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me, so I was afraid to make mistakes. Today, I am much better at putting myself in the learning mindset because I have learned a basic truth: learning is essentially the same as temporarily making a fool of myself, but in a safe place . That's how we all learned to walk, talk, and read, after all. If we can learn such complex skills as those then we can…

In other words, you can only learn to do by doing. However, I don't agree with the "safe place" bit. Sure, some things require a safe setting to practice in because of the danger the real thing entails, but that's not most things. You need to meet reality as it is and as you are--that's when the gears really click into place and you begin to grow. It's why pretense will always stifle learning because you're too busy…

This is what I love about circus training. When you fail, you fall down. Or worse: you collapse on your partner.

If you can learn to handstand on someone else's hands without, you can do just about anything.

The point being: you have to just go for it. You WILL fail at some point, in any and every endeavor.

But the reward is that you might just be doing a handstand on another person :)

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#90

Post by BatFastard »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #77
gopalv wrote: post #3

> Or perhaps children are simply less inhibited and aren’t so scared about making mistakes. Struck a chord there - because I had come to the same conclusion of sorts, about my ability to practice activities in public. Riding a bicycle is a fairly hard thing to learn and very easy to practice (from my experience), but learning to do that when everyone around is falling off them was much less of a struggle than trying…

I'm 36 and only weeks ago started skiing. My way of dealing with the "embarrassment" of face planting the snow a lot, though I can't say I ever consciously chose this, is to make sure I'm the one doing most of the laughing. My belief is this: given how much I've learned from my mistakes, I think it would be wise to make quite a few more. Hopefully new ones.

I always went with the idea that if you are not face planting, you are not trying hard enough.
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