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The fertility of the older mind

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Re: The fertility of the older mind

#61

Post by billti »

chousuke wrote: post #49
kevmo wrote: post #4

I am 33, and I have paid a lot of anecdotal attention to what seems to keep my brain fresh, i.e. able to still learn new skills at a rapid clip. Just by way of credentials: I was a successful lawyer for a few years of my 20s (rising to level of federal law clerk), but then taught myself to program and have been working as a professional programmer since shortly before my 30th birthday. Even though I am on the older s…

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 helped me stay interested). But to get really "good" at something, you need to work at it until most of the skills involved are almost subconscious. (Which aligns somewhat with what I recall from "Thinking fast and slow", which I thought was a great book).

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#62

Post by pbhjpbhj »

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…

Children are used to being bad at stuff, they don't expect to be good straight away.

Adults avoid stuff they can't do and also expect to be better at stuff because they're adults. I teach clay craft/pot throwing - for some reason adults think they can come along and make/throw a vase on their first go. Like expecting to rock up and make a wedding cake with no prior experience at baking.

I'm self taught, my first timers manage pots at a level that took me about a year to achieve.

We see first hand at painting sessions the birth of inhibition in art - parents who tell their child the painting they're doing is _wrong_ because the adult thinks they (the adult!) can do it better. The child isn't allowed space to simply express, to learn the movements of the brush and feel of the paint, to make "mistakes".

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#63

Post by twoquestions »

yodsanklai wrote: post #33

One issue I'm having when learning new things (at 41) is memory. I don't feel less sharp than before, but I have a harder time to recall things that I studied a few months before. For instance, I regularly take coursera classes but one year later, I don't remember much. I'm trying to take more notes, hopefully it'll help.

Do you exercize? At 25 my memory was great even after a week of sitting on my ass, but now that I'm 31 my memory goes straight to Hell if I don't break a sweat at least twice a week.

Copious notes helps too :)

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#64

Post by kzrdude »

mseebach wrote: post #22
koolba wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's probably a corollary to that: first you have to get comfortable, but to get really good (fluent) you probably have to get pretty self conscious. It seems to me that most adults learning a new language will retain a fairly heavy accent and some clumsiness more or less permanently (while of course being perfectly articulate) unless they work really hard to get rid of it.

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.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#65

Post by soundwave106 »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #40
jdcarter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of us do learn other languages purely out of curiosity. I've been studying Japanese for the last 9 months for that reason. However it's difficult to immerse myself in spoken Japanese because, where I live, I have to go out of my way to meet up with native speakers--that's the point the parent poster was making.

> Where I live, I have to go out of my way to meet up with native speakers--that's the point the parent poster was making. The point would still be wrong. Plenty of people learn a foreign language without the ability to have much contact with native speakers. Eastern Europeans have been keen on picking up Latin American Spanish, but it’s mostly watching telenovelas or falling in love with music from there, not actual…

But you have to be motivated to learn the language. Set aside the people who love learning for learning's sake (which is not everyone). With English being the default world language, and American media outside the Internet also typically in English, well, the motivation to learn a language probably isn't quite as strong here.

The biggest advantage here would come from picking up Spanish. Live in a place with large Hispanic populations and you'll find plenty of media over here in Spanish in certain locations. It actually wouldn't be too difficult to immerse yourself somewhat. It's not surprising therefore that the greatest percentage of American bilingual speakers have Spanish as their other language (http://www.gallup.com/poll/1825/about-one-four-americans-can...).

I agree that media exposure can play a huge motivation. However, at least in the past, mainstream media in the United States was almost always originally in English. To use one example, in many other nations, foreign languages (English for sure at least) appear in pop radio hits constantly. In American pop music, in contrast, foreign languages rarely appear -- when present, they usually were one hit wonders, eg your "Sukiyaka", "99 Luftballoons", and "Amadeus" type songs. Obviously there are a few exceptions even "just outside" that mainstream circle (example: Rammstein) but "the norm" of US pop radio in the past was pretty much 99% English.

I do wonder if this will change a little. I am hearing more foreign language lyrics in American pop songs (mostly Spanish); some foreign media forms seem at least cult popular (anime is an example of a foreign medium with a decent sized American subculture); and as you point out, the Internet allows access to far more media forms than you could get previously.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#66

Post by charlieflowers »

WalterBright wrote: post #58
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…

> As a child I was obsessively aware of other people's opinions of me 1. Young people care what others think of them 2. Middle aged people don't care what others think of them 3. Old people realize that nobody thinks about them

I was told when I get older all my fears would shrink. But now I'm insecure, and I care what people think.

- Twenty One Pilots

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#67

Post by randcraw »

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.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#68

Post by konschubert »

joncampbelldev wrote: post #35
Cerium wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you have to be in the right place. I'm 28, and the most junior person on my team by at least 5 years in age and 8 in experience. It is great, since I have so many people to learn from.

I'm 28 and I wish I were the most junior on the dev team. Being a "lead" developer is fun, but I wish I had more people who I can actively learn from just by being around.

I know how you feel. I'm 26.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#69

Post by randcraw »

zero_shift wrote: post #50
kevmo wrote: post #4

I am 33, and I have paid a lot of anecdotal attention to what seems to keep my brain fresh, i.e. able to still learn new skills at a rapid clip. Just by way of credentials: I was a successful lawyer for a few years of my 20s (rising to level of federal law clerk), but then taught myself to program and have been working as a professional programmer since shortly before my 30th birthday. Even though I am on the older s…

I'm 30 and a senior developer. But I started out with an English degree and had planned to be an academic. In the intervening years I have been a technical writer, a business analyst, a QA and even had a ill-judged stint as a recruiter. Oh, and I was a UX designer for a year, albeit not a very good one. Now I am thinking of becoming a lawyer or civil servant, but worry that I may no longer be mentally agile enough to…

I know little about the career of law, but at age 60 I know something about seeking change. My advice: make sure you are shooting at a real target (a specific job that already exists) and not just in the general direction of a job title that sounds attractive.

Many attorneys seem to find that their abstract / academic "love of the law" doesn't translate into a tangible form that they can live with day to day. Many physicians discover the same thing -- the daily practice of medicine is not as charming as their inchoate notion of "healing the sick" suggested.

Concretely, after working in software for 30+ years, I'm grateful every day that the field is big enough that it let me evolve from one domain to another, and explore multiple skills and interests over the years. If I'd been trained only narrowly, perhaps as a PhD virologist, I doubt I would have been pleased at the slim variety of work opportunities that I was prepared to pursue.

Re: The fertility of the older mind

#70

Post by zero_shift »

randcraw wrote: post #69
zero_shift wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 30 and a senior developer. But I started out with an English degree and had planned to be an academic. In the intervening years I have been a technical writer, a business analyst, a QA and even had a ill-judged stint as a recruiter. Oh, and I was a UX designer for a year, albeit not a very good one. Now I am thinking of becoming a lawyer or civil servant, but worry that I may no longer be mentally agile enough to…

I know little about the career of law, but at age 60 I know something about seeking change. My advice: make sure you are shooting at a real target (a specific job that already exists) and not just in the general direction of a job title that sounds attractive. Many attorneys seem to find that their abstract / academic "love of the law" doesn't translate into a tangible form that they can live with day to day. Many ph…

You touch on a real concern and I'm not going to make any moves until I can put it to bed. Law would be a huge investment and I need confidence I could be happy in a variety of legal careers.

That being said, my motive has always been the work rather than the domain. Of course, law is very prestigious and sounds very impressive, but what really draws me is the chance to research, think and write in a way I haven't since university.

I originally wanted to be an academic, but the conditions and the realities of the work are quite depressing. Programming pays well, and I think I'm good at it, but my real skills are more verbal. I actually quite like the idea of combing through complex documents and trying to judge what's truly salient. For whatever reason it just seems my brain is wired to enjoy that kind of work. It's the same kick I got from literary criticism, poring over texts and slowly building an argument from a mass of details.

It's a hunch, anyway. Would you suggest any ways to validate it?

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