I apologize in advance to the author but this is pretty dumb. Learning is not remembering all the words in a dictionary or all entries in an encyclopedia. You learn exponentially by layering concepts and ideas, one more complex than the previous one, on top of each other. You advance by understanding more deeply what you read and actually think for yourself. Wise men recommend to learn for 1/3 of the time, think for 1/3 and apply your knowledge to the real world for 1/3. You advance by learning from more advanced masters and more advanced books on the same topic.
Learn Exponentially
81–90 of 154 posts
Re: Learn Exponentially
#82I think a better title might be “Memorize Exponentially” because that seems to be the true gist of the article. There are undoubtedly many areas in which memorization is useful. I tend to use memorization as a second-order tool, in the sense that it is only useful to memorize once I’ve learned that memorization would be necessary. I memorize combinations to locks I unlock frequently. I memorize names of items I sell…
I understand what you mean but I think you underestimate how critical memory is for all forms of learning (even creative work/learning). Our working memories have a capacity of 4. This means that we basically can't understand something if it requires more than 4 pieces of New knowledge to understand. To understand more complicated things we need to move some of the knowledge into our long-term memories. We wrote an a…
I read that article, and your introduction on learning quantum mechanics is actually how I learned quantum mechanics! Or at least, about the known quantum particles in the standard model and their properties and behavior.
This is how I learn basically everything. That and practical application, so I'd learn cooking by cooking but I'd learn about information theory by just reading for hours at a time and falling down one hole after another. All this makes me wonder, where do you get the "you have 4 working memory slots" thing from? And how would you actually go about forcing things into long term memory?
Re: Learn Exponentially
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is anki the solution you imagine? https://apps.ankiweb.net/ Or is there a use case that anki doesn’t solve?
Anki public decks are usually too low quality to be useful unfortunately
They're a lot better than Save All's builtin decks, such as only including 1,000 of the most frequent words of a language, and only nouns, and not even including the word's gender.
Rarely with these SRS services do you see actual high-quality decks that outdo public Anki decks, which is a shame because it would be a great way to add value.
Re: Learn Exponentially
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha, where would you rank this one in terms of quality?
To be perfectly honest, I flagged it because of the knowledge gained graph. It's a wild extrapolation. For context, I was a big fan of SRS and even contributed to Anki back in the day! I was really into foreign language learning, had majored in one language and was learning another language in a separate language family. I built, ran and put my heart into brick and mortar language immersion school for years. Over tim…
Extensive reading sounds compelling. Do you have recommendations for services that offer such content? In my own language learning, I have found a few websites here and there (eg Hola Qué Pasa [1]), but nothing that has a large database with varying levels of competence.
Re: Learn Exponentially
#85Is anyone aware of a commercialized app that enables team learning through spaced reputation? Say for a support team learning a new process or skill where the learning can be heavily curated?
Thanks in advance.
Re: Learn Exponentially
#86its not just note taking + spaced repetition - you can also change your slope greatly by learning in public and learning with peers.
ive done a lot of thinking on this area and have mocked up a "Big L" notation for learning curves - shameless plug: https://www.swyx.io/big-l-notation
Re: Learn Exponentially
#87I really like the idea of exponential learning, and was disappointed to see that this is just an ad for spaced repetition.
My opinion is that true exponential learning depends on specific content in a specific order.
What we need is the dependency tree of concepts. Does such a thing exist? Curriculums are kind of a non-rigorous attempt at this.
Re: Learn Exponentially
#88Spaced repetition turns reading into a physical activity with feedback. If you had an activity that required the knowledge you were hoping to acquire, you would learn at the same rate or faster by practice. Most lessons are encoded really poorly. I think spaced repetition is great, but practice at something is better. A hacker is just someone who has practiced learning independently and has become exceptionally good…
So much this. People learn so much better when that knowledge is functionally applied as part of a goal they want to achieve, and that also teaches people to be doers who can follow through with a project. Too bad it take more teacher skill and student freedom, and it's not good for producing factory drones.
Yeah. I've tried to learn a few programming languages without having a project and it just. doesn't. stick.
Ever.
Even reading a great O'Reilly book being sure to complete and understand the examples isn't enough. Without that immediate practical application, it's no more educational than any other form of entertainment, and much drier.
Re: Learn Exponentially
#89Another method I have used in the past is to rewatch content I used to learn a subject at 3-4x speed. A lot of high quality content that spans multiple days can be viewed in only a few hours this way. The key I’ve learned with this is to do this across variations of the content you wish to learn and re-learn. Combine this with audio books at similar speeds and you can really get through content very quickly. When usi…
How do you get videos to 3-4x speed? I find most video players only allow up to 2x speed?
I've had to use some browser extensions for 3-4x speeds. Anything that is HTML5 enabled video will be supported by it. Unfortunately I don't have a solution for anything on the phone :/
The one I use for desktop is https://github.com/codebicycle/videospeed
Re: Learn Exponentially
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, so essentially you set a reminder for you ti sit, and remember what you learned a few days prior?
Yeah. There is software that organises the reminders for you aswell e.g. my company Save All does this https://saveall.ai/
Excellent, thank you.