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Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

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Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#71

Post by jimbokun »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #31
tpatke wrote: post #5

I think about Spolsky's post on programmer productivity quite often [1]. I think the most interesting part of the post is when he says, "The mediocre talent just never hits the high notes that the top talent hits all the time." Obviously, I wonder if I am a programmer who can hit the high notes and, if not, what it will take to get there. When I read a post like this, I try to apply it to making myself a better progr…

EDIT: So I got a coke and thought about this a bit. I like your point, but I feel like maybe the high-noters are high-noters precisely because they're ruthlessly self-critical and growth-minded. Ever see someone who was really good at something cringe after what you thought was an amazing performance, because they missed, e.g. the f6 in Mozart's Queen of the Night? They're better (honest?) at seeing their mistakes, a…

And Scottie Pippen only became maybe one of the top 20 basketball players of all time.

So maybe there is something to being part of a "4am" club.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#72

Post by jimbokun »

mkramlich wrote: post #63
WalterBright wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between lucky people and unlucky ones is that the lucky ones were able to recognize opportunity better. I've seen some research on this, but don't have a link handy.

i've come to view luck as preparation + opportunity. You can't directly make yourself "lucky" but you do have control over how much you prepare (study, practice, exercise, think, train, drill, paying attention to surroundings, planning for future, etc) and you can expose yourself to more opportunities by meeting more people, being more ambient, being social as well as analytical, watching community and industry news,…

Preparation + opportunity, would be a great title for the Jeremy Lin story.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#73

Post by ars »

silentscope wrote: post #36

"Education is the wisdom wrung from failure." I really couldn't disagree with this more. No doubt, failure is important in learning. However, to be educated or have an education, at the end of the day, you need to get something right. Personally, I don't learn by failing fifty times and never succeeding. I don't learn how to lose weight if I try fifty diets and never lose a pound. I don't learn how to talk to a girl…

You so completely missed the point that I wonder if you actually read it.

You have to learn FROM the mistake. Learn what you did wrong, and don't do that again.

Simply repeating your mistakes does nothing.

Can you really try 50 diets and not know what doesn't work in a diet? Don't repeat the same mistake in each diet - that's pointless.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#74

Post by pheaduch »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #31
tpatke wrote: post #5

I think about Spolsky's post on programmer productivity quite often [1]. I think the most interesting part of the post is when he says, "The mediocre talent just never hits the high notes that the top talent hits all the time." Obviously, I wonder if I am a programmer who can hit the high notes and, if not, what it will take to get there. When I read a post like this, I try to apply it to making myself a better progr…

EDIT: So I got a coke and thought about this a bit. I like your point, but I feel like maybe the high-noters are high-noters precisely because they're ruthlessly self-critical and growth-minded. Ever see someone who was really good at something cringe after what you thought was an amazing performance, because they missed, e.g. the f6 in Mozart's Queen of the Night? They're better (honest?) at seeing their mistakes, a…

What is this 4am club? I'm a big Jordan fan and I haven't heard about any of this and a quick Google search comes up nothing about Jordan practicing at 4am.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#75

Post by argumentum »

jackpirate wrote: post #13
tpatke wrote: post #5

I think about Spolsky's post on programmer productivity quite often [1]. I think the most interesting part of the post is when he says, "The mediocre talent just never hits the high notes that the top talent hits all the time." Obviously, I wonder if I am a programmer who can hit the high notes and, if not, what it will take to get there. When I read a post like this, I try to apply it to making myself a better progr…

It's very easy for us to forget about variance and standard deviation of programmer productivity when all other factors are equal. Let's imagine we have 1000 of the world's best programmers working for a year on creative projects. All of them will try something innovative. Only some of them, however, will succeed. Who succeeds is a function of what projects they were working on. And that, is almost purely random and…

The problem here is that you're segregating the "world's best programmers" without explaining how you selected them. The more relevant question here is what makes someone the "best" at something.

You're also using a limited angle of success (Larry and Sergey's business success via google). Many of the other "best programmers" on your 1000 person list may have non-commercial success (their creative project leads to a highly cited paper for example).

If you just took the top 1000 programmers (again assuming you could) in 2003, it's unlikely that Mark Zuckerberg would have been one of them. Not that he wasn't a great hacker, but what metric could have demonstrated his creative/business abilities as an undergraduate?

Of course luck is involved in anything. Einstein was "lucky" that he happened to be obsessed with the relative speed of light to different parties at a time when we knew a bit about how light/gravity etc worked. Perhaps if he'd been born in Newton's time, his style of intellect would not have had the same impact. Nonetheless we can, in hindsight, only measure someone's achievement, not his/her luck.

No doubt hyper-achievement (like Einsteins' or Zuckerbergs') is evidence that the achiever possesses a high degree of work ethic AND talent with at least a bit luck thrown in. No doubt that you would agree Hyper-achievers are a subset of "Potential Hyper-achievers" (those with talent & work ethic) and someone's level of achievement will roughly correspond to his/her personal characteristics.

In a particular poker game, it's mostly luck whether you come out ahead, but over time (as in life) those who practice harder and play smarter will (usually) come out on top.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#78

Post by argumentum »

pheaduch wrote: post #74
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EDIT: So I got a coke and thought about this a bit. I like your point, but I feel like maybe the high-noters are high-noters precisely because they're ruthlessly self-critical and growth-minded. Ever see someone who was really good at something cringe after what you thought was an amazing performance, because they missed, e.g. the f6 in Mozart's Queen of the Night? They're better (honest?) at seeing their mistakes, a…

What is this 4am club? I'm a big Jordan fan and I haven't heard about any of this and a quick Google search comes up nothing about Jordan practicing at 4am.

It was actually termed "breakfast club":

http://www.maxpreps.com/news/WpxTIZzCckWkptFeAcuDrw/how-mich...

Don't know if it was actually at 4AM or not.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#79

Post by literalusername »

argumentum wrote: post #78
pheaduch wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this 4am club? I'm a big Jordan fan and I haven't heard about any of this and a quick Google search comes up nothing about Jordan practicing at 4am.

It was actually termed "breakfast club": http://www.maxpreps.com/news/WpxTIZzCckWkptFeAcuDrw/how-mich... Don't know if it was actually at 4AM or not.

According to your link it was 7:30AM.

Re: Why Do Some People Learn Faster?

#80

Post by ryanmolden »

simon_weber wrote: post #61
WalterBright wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between lucky people and unlucky ones is that the lucky ones were able to recognize opportunity better. I've seen some research on this, but don't have a link handy.

I prefer the idea that the lucky ones "made their own luck" by increasing luck surface area. In this view, the lucky may not have recognized opportunity better, just created better opportunities for themselves (through hard work). Even if this notion isn't completely correct, I like how it incentivises working rather than waiting.

Nassim Taleb talks about this, I think in Fooled by Randomness. He couched it in terms of increasing exposure to chance (serendipitous) occurrences via being more social, studying across disciplines, keeping friends whose views differ from yours, etc...

Edit: corrected my phone's overzealous auto-correct.

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