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Learning Is Remembering

saveall.ai

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Re: Learning Is Remembering

#71

Post by [deleted] »

quarok wrote: post #54
criddell wrote: post #46

I have a couple of questions... How do you trust your memory when (as I understand it), every time you recall something your brain changes in ways that can affect recall later? Is there a distinction between learning and knowing? For example, in my undergrad days I learned about Simpson's rule for numerical integration. I jammed enough of it into my memory to pass the test and quickly forgot all the details. Now, 30+…

Firstly, in terms of the distinction between learning and knowing -- the thing that matters most is the strength of the encoding in the brain. If you just memorise something with 0 understanding, the connections in the brain aren't as strong -- so they disappear. Whereas if you know something thoroughly, the connections are much, much stronger. These strong connections are why when you go back and look at it, you rec…

[deleted]

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#72

Post by thrown_22 »

p-christ wrote: post #39
buzzy_hacker wrote: post #35

You can remember something without fully understanding it. There is more to learning than just remembering.

If you don't understand it then you don't remember the information that compromises an "understanding" of the thing

In math people apply formulas they don't understand to numbers that they don't understand to get answers they don't understand.

For some reason we then give them degrees and call them educated if they remember all those things they don't understand in an exam.

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#73

Post by p-christ »

tianshuo wrote: post #60

Calling learning remembering, is like calling a computer a hard drive. Sorry, but, remembering is just one part, although important part of learning. There is loads of difference between remembering the words of a foreign language and fluently speaking it. The process of learning is complicated, eg. good teaching is not giving the final answers to learner, which should seem faster, but letting the learner arrive at t…

> eg. good teaching is not giving the final answers to learner, which should seem faster, but letting the learner arrive at their answers

Why is that "good" teaching? ---> Its because if they arrive at the answer themselves then both the answer & the process for figuring it out will be more ingrained in their long-term memory!

> Instead, learning the content rapidly (meanwhile forgetting a lot of the content), getting a whole picture, and gradually gain more understanding repeating the process using different textbooks/courses, is a much more faster way of learning.

I agree to an extent. It's inefficient to try and remember everything beyond a point. But spaced repetition is very efficient e.g. with Save All it might only take you 5 minutes to remember something for 10 years... so it is much more efficient than you think to try and remember more things.

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#74

Post by Qualadore »

sennraf wrote: post #36
p-christ wrote: post #2

I wrote this and would love to know what you think about it. Am particularly interested in hearing any reasons why it's wrong

Creating a tool to help others learn is awesome. I think what the article misses is that there is a ton of knowledge we can't 'write down' and therefore memorization is not enough. For example learning to solve Integrals. Yes, there are some rules and tricks one can memorize which helps but I would argue the only way to get good at solving integrals is to interact, resp. solve them. Another point are second order eff…

The spacing effect can also be applied to solving problems, like "distributed practice" as opposed to "massed practice" with calculus homework [0].

Speaking completely personally, forgetting a lot of information is the easiest way to ruin my motivation to learn a topic.

[0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-022-09677-2

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#75

Post by stuckinhell »

dejj wrote: post #43

“[…] the purpose of memory isn’t to remember the past. The purpose of memory is to, at least in part, so that you don’t repeat the same errors that your repeated in the past [..]” – Jordan B. Peterson I like to think that Spaced Repetition learning pre-empts these errors, so we are apt to recall when we productively need that memory. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ6_cV_RtQU

Whoa. That quote is kind of amazing. My brother committed suicide, and sometimes memories of the past really haunt me. That quote is actually really comforting.

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#76

Post by p-christ »

abrax3141 wrote: post #66

Um, there’s like 300(0) years of research on this, and, really, it isn’t anything like this simple. For “recent” science you can start on volume 1 of the jep journal of learning and memory, which is like 50+ years of continuous monthly publication.

Yeah some simplification is required to condense 300(0) years of research into a digestible article but is any of it misleadingly incorrect?

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#77

Post by falcolas »

Some other things to consider. A working memory of 7 is a median number for the population. Some folks will have a greater working memory (some outliers are in the 80+ range). Some folks will have a smaller working memory.

Specifically, someone with ADHD (a topic close to my heart), the size of working memory is typically around 3 items. Related, long term memory is also a bit more chaotic for those with ADHD; when you can only have three linked concepts at a time in working memory, it's going to be encoded with fewer overall links data.

That all is to say, if you're building a tool to help people remember things, don't just build it with the median in mind.

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#78

Post by p-christ »

pfkurtz wrote: post #64

Learning is as much forgetting as remembering. When I study something, I go for awhile, but eventually it becomes difficult, confusing, hard to see the forest for the trees. Particularly with technical information and skills like programming (or natural) languages. When I come back a little bit later, I find that I only remember the things that made sense; my confusions are forgotten, and there is fresh mental space…

Our subconcious mind often works on our problems while we aren't thinking about them, i that's more what's going on here than forgetting. your brain figured it out for you while you were doing something else

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#79

Post by BlargMcLarg »

tianshuo wrote: post #60

Calling learning remembering, is like calling a computer a hard drive. Sorry, but, remembering is just one part, although important part of learning. There is loads of difference between remembering the words of a foreign language and fluently speaking it. The process of learning is complicated, eg. good teaching is not giving the final answers to learner, which should seem faster, but letting the learner arrive at t…

>There is loads of difference between remembering the words of a foreign language and fluently speaking it.

And alternatively put, there's a difference between learning to read, and learning to speak. Yet both would boil down to primarily rote memorization, as languages tend to do.

Language is not a good example to prove your point on.

Re: Learning Is Remembering

#80

Post by stakkur »

If storing information and creating associations between bits of it were 'learning', then databases would be very smart indeed.

No, learning is not 'storing pieces of information in long-term memory and recalling them'. It's not the ability to recall information. At the very least, learning is information+behavior change+understanding+values and attitudes associated with the information. It's much more complex than memorization and recall.

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