How to optimise the learning / knowing curve?

by Fe2O3Girl 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  Fe2O3Girl

  Watching my son grow is amazing. He is into everything, thoroughly enjoying exploring, growing and learning every day.

  I was reflecting how as each day passes, he learns more and he knows more; and thinking back to my childhood. The more I learned, the more I knew. By the time I was about seventeen, I knew everything! The world was in crystal sharp focus, everything was clear. I could see exactly where other people were going wrong, and I wondered how older people couldn't see - how could they be so stupid?

  Then something strange happened. I kept learning, but I began to know less. The more I learned, the less I knew. Now I am in my thirties, I don't know a fraction of the things I knew when I was seventeen. I have done the things I saw older people doing, that I KNEW I would NEVER do.

  I thought back to my son. Will it be possible for him to capture that optimum learning / knowing balance? If he could, he could be a Daily Mail journalist, or a politician, or maybe a great religious leader!

  What should I have done differently? Looking back, I should have stopped learning at the point when I knew everything. But I didn't. I kept reading, I kept thinking. When I met people who had a different viewpoint, I should have ignored them, or even better, ridiculed them and called them names. Instead, I listened, and sometimes they changed my viewpoint.

  Do you have any other suggestions for continuing to know everything?
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  HAL9000

  The most important lesson that I have learnt in the past 20 years came about through working with one of my former University lecturers. When I was a student we were all in awe of this guy - he was the truest academic that you could imagine and had the most phenomenal knowledge of his area of expertise.

  He was also, I found out 20 years later, one of the humblest people that I have known.

  His secret to learning & gaining knowledge? He was always willing to listen to others - someone can always teach you something worthwhile, no matter how good or how brilliant you think you are.

  Be prepared to say "I'm dumb - please tell me what you know"

  You may be surprised at what you might learn!

  h9k
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  Fe2O3Girl

  I see. Pretending to listen to someone, but not actually hearing what they say is a useful technique!
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  Narkissos

  Hi F2O3girl,

  I guess it depends how you define "learning" and "knowing" (cf. a somewhat related discussion on http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/101498/1.ashx).

  In a sense (as far as what we call "science" or "technology" is concerned, for instance) the more you learn the more you know -- although you are also more aware of your ignorance; just as the dark perimeter (= limit) of a bright spot grows along with its surface.

  In another sense you may construe all human, i.e. verbal, symbolic, mediate "learning" and "knowledge" as departing from animal, i.e. instinctive, non-verbal, immediate awareness. In that sense the more we learn the less we know; and we may poetically look up to an infant's, or an animal's "knowledge" as infinitely superior.

  When we outgrow a naive, positivist notion of "knowledge" as a sort of ever-growing "capital" we also find the sense of wonder and amazement which is perhaps the adult's way of taking up again with childhood, especially in the eyes of another child...
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  Fe2O3Girl

  What a shame! If anyone would have known how to stop learning when you know everything, something tells me it would be Mulldoon.

  Narkissos - your discussion on "unlearning" is really what I meant about how, at a certain point, as learning increases, knowing decreases.

  Maybe I would have got more responses if I had put it this way:

  "Who is your favorite Scooby-Doo character?"
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  daystar

  Strangely, a friend of mine posted this today on another medium:

  The worst taint is ignorance. Destroy this one taint and become taintless. - Buddha

  To which I responded:

  "To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge." - Benjamin Disraeli
  
  Show me a man who claims to not be ignorant and I'll show you an idiot.

  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but you seem to be asking how one might remain in that know-it-all state so many of us reside in in our late teens. How could one be motivated to grow in knowledge from there?
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  Bodhisattva1320

  i think that always having an open mind is the answer. just thinking you're right doesnt mean you are.
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  Fe2O3Girl

  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but you seem to be asking how one might remain in that know-it-all state so many of us reside in in our late teens. How could one be motivated to grow in knowledge from there?

  Yes Daystar, you have understood me perfectly. How do some people (politicians, Daily Mail journalists, religionists, YEC-ers) retain the perfect clarity and certainty typical of the late teenage years? You don't want to grow in knowledge if you already know it all.

  I think I lost it because I carried on learning. So, how do you move through life without damaging this state? I suggested ad hominem attacks on anyone who doesn't agree with you. HAL9000 demonstrated pretending to listen without getting it at all. Any other suggestions?
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  jgnat

  Cute little tongue-in-cheek there Fe203Girl. I watched the same progression in my two adult children. I think I enjoy the late twenties even more than the teensies. My chidren have finally come in to their own, established their base personality, gained full independence, and shed their deep insecurity. Now that they have admitted they don't know everything any more, they are much more fun to be around.

  NOW, I have another dillemma. I've reached the age that I REALLY DO know everything. I know how to cook the top of sunny-side-ups. I make a killer brownie. I've got the whole parenting thing down pat, and I SPEAK the language of children. I want to shout to the mommies and daddies of the world, RELAX, they will TURN OUT FINE. Now bake us some brownies.

  The dillemma is now that I've got all this accumulated knowledge, my body betrays me. How I would PAY for the energy of my youth. I'd turn the world upside down.
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  LittleToe

  Ultimate optimisation?
  "Always learning, never fully knowing, for it is infinite."

  Or put another way:
  "The more you know about the infinite, the more infinite it seems!"

  Ironically, Paul thought he knew it all (2.Tim.3:7)