Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Learn Exponentially

saveall.ai

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 154 posts

Re: Learn Exponentially

#141

Post by dekleinewolf »

p-christ wrote: post #128
woojoo666 wrote: post #99

Title is misleading. This isn't learning exponentially. Anybody who has used a spaced repetition app (like Anki) knows that you generally learn around the same number of words every day. You're not going to be learning 10 words in a day and then one week later, learn 1000 words in a day. This article talks about how the reps needed to learn one piece of information, reduces exponentially over time. You might need 1 r…

Think about it in terms of how many days of knowledge each rep gets you. The first rep gets you 1 extra day of knowledge. The next rep gets you 2 extra days. The next one gets you 5 extra days. So each rep is getting you more and more knowledge even though the time required to execute the rep remains the same. This is exponential growth. If you only have 1 card then for most days you won't have any reviews to do so i…

It's not giving you more knowledge though. It's giving you the exact same amount of knowledge - you're just retaining it longer.

Re: Learn Exponentially

#142

Post by AlchemistCamp »

p-christ wrote: post #133
AlchemistCamp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The simplifying assumption around units of information and the graphs are just to visualise the main point. Effectiveness of spaced repetition scales really fast / exponentially whereas other learning methods don't scale like that - do you agree? If so then over the long-run spaced repetition is always going to be extremely efficient relative to other learning methods.

> Effectiveness of spaced repetition scales really fast / exponentially whereas other learning methods don't scale like that - do you agree?

Of course not. As I wrote, in the comment you’re replying to, I was a user and evangelist of SRS for years but eventually saw the reverse.

It’s a very useful tool for a certain narrow niche of memorization tasks. However, it’s an extremely inefficient learning method over the long run compared to reading and using information or skills in context.

Re: Learn Exponentially

#143

Post by p-christ »

dekleinewolf wrote: post #141
p-christ wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think about it in terms of how many days of knowledge each rep gets you. The first rep gets you 1 extra day of knowledge. The next rep gets you 2 extra days. The next one gets you 5 extra days. So each rep is getting you more and more knowledge even though the time required to execute the rep remains the same. This is exponential growth. If you only have 1 card then for most days you won't have any reviews to do so i…

It's not giving you more knowledge though. It's giving you the exact same amount of knowledge - you're just retaining it longer.

If you've forgotten something then you don't have that knowledge anymore. So remembering things for longer means you are effectively gaining knowledge.

It's like someone giving you $10 and then trying to argue that they haven't actually given you $10 because just a few minutes ago you had a $10 bill in your pocket but you spent it on something else.

Re: Learn Exponentially

#144

Post by copperx »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #97
copperx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Extensive Reading just that? Reading a lot in general? Or is it reading a lot on the specific subject that you want to learn, taking all possible branches?

It's about both the volume and the type of reading. See the 2nd page of this paper, under "What is extensive reading?": https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334535447_Extensive...

Thanks!

I'm not surprised. That's how I learned English.

Re: Learn Exponentially

#145

Post by otras »

p-christ wrote: post #47
otras wrote: post #33

I'm glad this post looks at how we can get better at learning — it's an interesting area, and I think that meta "how does my brain work" is important to understand as part of the process. I did want to give some feedback, though. I think this post suffers from too much hand-waving, which is what plagues most other posts about learning and spaced repetition (excluding probably just Gwern). For example, it compares fla…

> It only takes days to get twice as effective at reading with spaced repetition? Or at learning? If it's the latter, I don't think that's what the earlier study measured? It only takes days for spaced repetition to get twice as effective, not reading. It takes you years to get twice as effective at reading. > I think about other ways to build your understanding, like working through problems and applying the knowled…

Ah OK, that makes more sense. I think my main confusion there is that getting twice as effective at spaced repetition doesn't seem to directly translate into learning more — as another comment mentioned, you're still learning the same number of flash cards in the second week, right? What really is the y-axis in the graphs?

> The post is arguing that you should do that AND spend a little bit of time doing spaced repetition, not to only do spaced repetition and nothing else.

From my perspective as a reader, I'm not sure I see either post discussing working through problems and applying your knowledge, but I do think the inclusion of that would make them both much stronger, especially since it seems like you've clearly thought about them from your comments! I do see the mention of reading + spaced repetition and the mention of memory helping math problems in the other post, but I'm not sure I see where you've explored what that active use and problem solving looks like (or how spaced repetition helps).

Again, I think this a great idea, and I don't mean to be negative for the sake of negative — you were asking for feedback on your post, and I figured I'd offer some :)

Re: Learn Exponentially

#146

Post by wahnfrieden »

Denzel wrote: post #113
Silverback_VII wrote: post #50

Still waiting for the incremental reading app like the one in supermemo 18... I'm more than willing to pay for it!

What’s a good email to get in contact with you?

I'm building it, have the foundation in a popular app already. Reach out? alex ... manabi.io

Re: Learn Exponentially

#147

Post by LittleFishyChan »

Version467 wrote: post #68
motohagiography wrote: post #32

Spaced 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…

I've integrated spaced repetition quite effectively into my daily life and I've found that it's incredibly important to learn how to write good prompts. The naive approach definitely leads to rote learning of factual trivia, but proper prompts can definitely foster curiosity and understanding. In fact it's often times the process of creating new prompts that reveal a gap in my understanding. This Article from Andy Ma…

Hey, you sound like me! I’ve been using SuperMemo daily for more than a decade, and I’ve noticed something similar. Processing information and thinking in terms of “how do I make a flashcard that covers this fact?” has been helpful at both making flashcards but also just general understanding stuff. Taking notes in my Notes app in the form of questions and answers has been very useful.

Re: Learn Exponentially

#148

Post by convict_93 »

LittleFishyChan wrote: post #147
Version467 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've integrated spaced repetition quite effectively into my daily life and I've found that it's incredibly important to learn how to write good prompts. The naive approach definitely leads to rote learning of factual trivia, but proper prompts can definitely foster curiosity and understanding. In fact it's often times the process of creating new prompts that reveal a gap in my understanding. This Article from Andy Ma…

Hey, you sound like me! I’ve been using SuperMemo daily for more than a decade, and I’ve noticed something similar. Processing information and thinking in terms of “how do I make a flashcard that covers this fact?” has been helpful at both making flashcards but also just general understanding stuff. Taking notes in my Notes app in the form of questions and answers has been very useful.

Have you tried using remnote.com? it effectively weaves together flashcards and notes

Re: Learn Exponentially

#149

Post by p-christ »

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #142
p-christ wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simplifying assumption around units of information and the graphs are just to visualise the main point. Effectiveness of spaced repetition scales really fast / exponentially whereas other learning methods don't scale like that - do you agree? If so then over the long-run spaced repetition is always going to be extremely efficient relative to other learning methods.

> Effectiveness of spaced repetition scales really fast / exponentially whereas other learning methods don't scale like that - do you agree? Of course not. As I wrote, in the comment you’re replying to, I was a user and evangelist of SRS for years but eventually saw the reverse. It’s a very useful tool for a certain narrow niche of memorization tasks. However, it’s an extremely inefficient learning method over the lo…

Do you agree with just this part?

> Effectiveness of spaced repetition scales exponentially

Re: Learn Exponentially

#150

Post by p-christ »

otras wrote: post #145
p-christ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It only takes days to get twice as effective at reading with spaced repetition? Or at learning? If it's the latter, I don't think that's what the earlier study measured? It only takes days for spaced repetition to get twice as effective, not reading. It takes you years to get twice as effective at reading. > I think about other ways to build your understanding, like working through problems and applying the knowled…

Ah OK, that makes more sense. I think my main confusion there is that getting twice as effective at spaced repetition doesn't seem to directly translate into learning more — as another comment mentioned, you're still learning the same number of flash cards in the second week, right? What really is the y-axis in the graphs? > The post is arguing that you should do that AND spend a little bit of time doing spaced repet…

thanks a lot, your comments make a lot of sense and are really helpful!
Post reply on HN