I've been an autodidact-- that is, a self-teacher-- since almost as far back as I can remember. One of the earliest things I remember teaching myself was the BASIC programming language, when my family found an old Tandy Computer with MS-DOS outside the dumpsters at UCSD. (Ok, I'll admit, my mom helped me initially with books from the library, but I was soon flying miles ahead of those "lesson plans".) How old was I then? It's hard to remember, but I can't have been 10 yet.
The point is, I've been autodidacting for years. Some things I taught myself were the C programming language; calculus; abstract algebra (group theory and ring theory); Esperanto; Japanese; seduction (see here); spaced repetition systems (see here); blogging; NLP; self-hypnosis; how to break into buildings (or, by its friendlier name, urban exploration); RAM hacking; the list goes on and on.
I've noticed a pattern in autodidactism. When you teach yourself something, there are different phases you go through. At first, there's a massive-explosion-of-learning stage. This is the stage which will mess with your head the most. When you first start learning something radically new, you know nothing about it and you're learning new things very rapidly. It can make your head spin. Your reality is expanding very quickly.
Later on, learning starts to level out. You reach the big "plateau" stage. You're no longer learning at such a breakneck pace, and the things you do learn are no longer such a mindfvck. For example, when you're first learning a new language, learning a hundred new vocabulary words is a huge deal. But when you already know twenty thousand words, what difference does another hundred make?
During the big plateau stage, the knowledge you have shifts from an "intellectual" knowledge into an "emotional" knowledge. If "emotional knowledge" sounds too wishy-washy, just think of it like it's getting pounded into your muscle memory to the point where you know it without thinking about it. It gains a certain intuitive obviousness. With languages, this means the words and sentences come to your mind naturally without you having to consciously think about grammar rules.
There's a lot of temptation to quit during the plateau stage. If you quit at this stage, you can either maintain the new skill, refreshing it and using it just enough so as not to lose it; or you can neglect it, in which case it'll probably fade away from memory. But is there a level beyond the plateau?
Yes. Beyond the plateau is the Autodidact PhD level. In academia, when you first go to university, everything is standardized and you're pretty much just required to learn things from other people. As you get into higher levels, you start giving presentations more often, and when you become a graduate student, you might even start teaching recitation sections as a TA. To go the full distance and get a full doctorate, though, you have to stop learning from other people, and even stop teaching already-known-things, and you must do a doctoral dissertation. The distinguishing feature of a doctoral dissertation is that it should be original-- it should be something noone else has ever written before. Something new, which all those crusty old professors who used to lecture you, can actually learn a little something from themselves.
The same goes for autodidacts. When you've reached a certain point, to progress further you must create new knowledge. When I say "progress further", I don't mean in terms of skill in the field, but in terms of "status" in the field. In academia, it's possible for someone with a master's degree to be more skillful than someone with a PhD. But the person with the PhD has more status, because they've actually contributed something inimitable back to society. If the master's degree holder were erased from existence (like James Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life"), the overall advancement of the field would not be altered. But if the doctoral degree holder, and all his legacy, were erased, the field would be set back a step.
Let's take Japanese as an example. Suppose I were to seal myself off in my room and study Japanese 'til I was speaking at a native level. That would give me more "Japanese status" than I had before I knew any Japanese. But I still would have made no contribution to the larger JSL community. Sure, I might have learned the language, but noone else would gain anything from it. On the other hand, if I just learned Japanese to a mediocre conversational level, but I came up with some new learning techniques and published them, that would give me a lot more status, even though in this scenario my own Japanese is weaker.
There's a reason academia has the doctoral system set up the way it does. Beyond a certain point, a student is no longer contributing any more to society by merely learning things that are already known. Best case scenario, the student would become a walking library; which is unnecessary, since we already have (nonwalking) libraries. Eventually the diminishing returns of study become so diminishing that they're masturbation. There comes a time when the student who wishes to further her status must give something back to the community she drew all her knowledge from in the first place.
The same goes with autodidactism. Just because you're teaching yourself doesn't mean you have to be an island. When you reach a certain skill level, it's time to give something back to the community at large, something original and unique, a legacy to further mankind. Who knows, if you contribute enough, you could even get an honorary PhD from an official institution.
FURTHER READING
Be sure to check out my main article about being an autodidact. Being an autodidact is kind of like playing the game of life with a bunch of advantages hacked in. You can teach yourself any skill you desire.
The ability to teach yourself skills, is an example of a metaskill. Metaskills are skills which recursively involve other skills. Another example would be the skill which allows you to teach any arbitrary skill to someone else. Read more in my article, Skills and Meta Skills.
For more about knowledge in general, check out these articles: Trivial Knowledge, How The Mind Learns, and Sentence Mining.
The point is, I've been autodidacting for years. Some things I taught myself were the C programming language; calculus; abstract algebra (group theory and ring theory); Esperanto; Japanese; seduction (see here); spaced repetition systems (see here); blogging; NLP; self-hypnosis; how to break into buildings (or, by its friendlier name, urban exploration); RAM hacking; the list goes on and on.
I've noticed a pattern in autodidactism. When you teach yourself something, there are different phases you go through. At first, there's a massive-explosion-of-learning stage. This is the stage which will mess with your head the most. When you first start learning something radically new, you know nothing about it and you're learning new things very rapidly. It can make your head spin. Your reality is expanding very quickly.
Later on, learning starts to level out. You reach the big "plateau" stage. You're no longer learning at such a breakneck pace, and the things you do learn are no longer such a mindfvck. For example, when you're first learning a new language, learning a hundred new vocabulary words is a huge deal. But when you already know twenty thousand words, what difference does another hundred make?
During the big plateau stage, the knowledge you have shifts from an "intellectual" knowledge into an "emotional" knowledge. If "emotional knowledge" sounds too wishy-washy, just think of it like it's getting pounded into your muscle memory to the point where you know it without thinking about it. It gains a certain intuitive obviousness. With languages, this means the words and sentences come to your mind naturally without you having to consciously think about grammar rules.
There's a lot of temptation to quit during the plateau stage. If you quit at this stage, you can either maintain the new skill, refreshing it and using it just enough so as not to lose it; or you can neglect it, in which case it'll probably fade away from memory. But is there a level beyond the plateau?
Yes. Beyond the plateau is the Autodidact PhD level. In academia, when you first go to university, everything is standardized and you're pretty much just required to learn things from other people. As you get into higher levels, you start giving presentations more often, and when you become a graduate student, you might even start teaching recitation sections as a TA. To go the full distance and get a full doctorate, though, you have to stop learning from other people, and even stop teaching already-known-things, and you must do a doctoral dissertation. The distinguishing feature of a doctoral dissertation is that it should be original-- it should be something noone else has ever written before. Something new, which all those crusty old professors who used to lecture you, can actually learn a little something from themselves.
The same goes for autodidacts. When you've reached a certain point, to progress further you must create new knowledge. When I say "progress further", I don't mean in terms of skill in the field, but in terms of "status" in the field. In academia, it's possible for someone with a master's degree to be more skillful than someone with a PhD. But the person with the PhD has more status, because they've actually contributed something inimitable back to society. If the master's degree holder were erased from existence (like James Stewart in "It's A Wonderful Life"), the overall advancement of the field would not be altered. But if the doctoral degree holder, and all his legacy, were erased, the field would be set back a step.
Let's take Japanese as an example. Suppose I were to seal myself off in my room and study Japanese 'til I was speaking at a native level. That would give me more "Japanese status" than I had before I knew any Japanese. But I still would have made no contribution to the larger JSL community. Sure, I might have learned the language, but noone else would gain anything from it. On the other hand, if I just learned Japanese to a mediocre conversational level, but I came up with some new learning techniques and published them, that would give me a lot more status, even though in this scenario my own Japanese is weaker.
There's a reason academia has the doctoral system set up the way it does. Beyond a certain point, a student is no longer contributing any more to society by merely learning things that are already known. Best case scenario, the student would become a walking library; which is unnecessary, since we already have (nonwalking) libraries. Eventually the diminishing returns of study become so diminishing that they're masturbation. There comes a time when the student who wishes to further her status must give something back to the community she drew all her knowledge from in the first place.
The same goes with autodidactism. Just because you're teaching yourself doesn't mean you have to be an island. When you reach a certain skill level, it's time to give something back to the community at large, something original and unique, a legacy to further mankind. Who knows, if you contribute enough, you could even get an honorary PhD from an official institution.
FURTHER READING
Be sure to check out my main article about being an autodidact. Being an autodidact is kind of like playing the game of life with a bunch of advantages hacked in. You can teach yourself any skill you desire.
The ability to teach yourself skills, is an example of a metaskill. Metaskills are skills which recursively involve other skills. Another example would be the skill which allows you to teach any arbitrary skill to someone else. Read more in my article, Skills and Meta Skills.
For more about knowledge in general, check out these articles: Trivial Knowledge, How The Mind Learns, and Sentence Mining.
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1 comments:
Your concept of being an autodidact is very interesting. I certainly don't mean to diminish your accomplishments or even say you're wrong, but while I've thought along the same lines for some time, I think of it as more of a matter of either motivation or direction.
After all, reading a book about a subject is allowing its author to teach you that subject using his own experiences in learning the concepts that he's teaching you. You don't derive the skill or knowledge from a vacuum.
Similarly, any community that you participate in is fairly analogous to a classroom -- an advanced classroom, but a classroom nonetheless.
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