I realized that my learning process for last n years was quite unproductive, seemingly because of my implicit belief that I should have full awareness of my state of learning.
I.e., when I tried to learn something complex I expected to come up with full understanding of the topic of the lesson right after the lesson. When I didn’t get it, I abandoned the topic. And in reality it was more like:
I read about complicated topic. I don’t understand, don’t follow inferences and basically in the state of confusion where I can’t even form questions about it;
Then I open the topic after some time… and I somehow get it??? Maybe not at the level “can reinfer every proof”, but I have detailed picture of topic in mind and can orient in it.
I think even “a detailed picture of the topic of the lesson” can be too high of an expectation for many topics early on. (Ideally it wouldn’t be, if things were taught well, but they often aren’t.) A better goal would be to have just something you understand well enough that you can grab on to, that you can start building out from.
Like if the topic was a puzzle, it’s fine if you don’t have a rough sense of where every puzzle piece goes right away. It can be enough that you have a few corner pieces in place, that you then start building out from.
Hard agree. I think sleeping on a problem is underrated. But even though I think that, I still fall into the failure of “I don’t get it. I must be dumb or something”.
I’d love to know the mechanics of “sleep on it” are and why it appears to work. Do you have any theories or hunches about what is happening on a cognitive level?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It seems to link to many things. And might be a bit too much for just a comment. But here are some key concepts from mostly psych that I think link to why sleeping on a problem makes it easier.
Mice developing ‘Maze Neurons’ when learning a maze
People who are woken mid-sleep and self report dreaming about a problem they’ve tried to solve, do better the next day than people who are woken and don’t report dreaming about the problem
If I boil it down, I have two hypotheses that could both be true.
When you dream about a problem you’re brain is formulating ideas that can help you solve it. All you have to do the next day is try again and those ideas will become available to you as if you had just ‘had an idea’
Sleeping on a problem breaks it up into more manageable chunks that you can better manipulate in working memory the next time you try to solve it.
There are other things that happen during sleep that will just make every problem easier to solve the next day. For example:
Cleaning up chemical ‘garbage’ that collects in your brain during the day.
Forgetting things that the brain doesn’t think you have a use for
Resetting/reducing your emotions. (If you’re stressed about a new problem, you’ll find it easier to solve it when you’re less stressed.)
I realized that my learning process for last n years was quite unproductive, seemingly because of my implicit belief that I should have full awareness of my state of learning.
I.e., when I tried to learn something complex I expected to come up with full understanding of the topic of the lesson right after the lesson. When I didn’t get it, I abandoned the topic. And in reality it was more like:
I read about complicated topic. I don’t understand, don’t follow inferences and basically in the state of confusion where I can’t even form questions about it;
Then I open the topic after some time… and I somehow get it??? Maybe not at the level “can reinfer every proof”, but I have detailed picture of topic in mind and can orient in it.
I think even “a detailed picture of the topic of the lesson” can be too high of an expectation for many topics early on. (Ideally it wouldn’t be, if things were taught well, but they often aren’t.) A better goal would be to have just something you understand well enough that you can grab on to, that you can start building out from.
Like if the topic was a puzzle, it’s fine if you don’t have a rough sense of where every puzzle piece goes right away. It can be enough that you have a few corner pieces in place, that you then start building out from.
Yes, but sometimes topics can seem to be simple (atomic) in a way that it is hard to extract something simpler to grab on.
True!
Hard agree. I think sleeping on a problem is underrated. But even though I think that, I still fall into the failure of “I don’t get it. I must be dumb or something”.
The irony of situation is that I sleep on problems often… when they are closed-ended, not problems in topical-learning.
I’d love to know the mechanics of “sleep on it” are and why it appears to work. Do you have any theories or hunches about what is happening on a cognitive level?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It seems to link to many things. And might be a bit too much for just a comment. But here are some key concepts from mostly psych that I think link to why sleeping on a problem makes it easier.
Hebb’s Law
Learning is assumed to take place over a 24hr span
Chunking
The Multi-component Model of Working Memory
Mice developing ‘Maze Neurons’ when learning a maze
People who are woken mid-sleep and self report dreaming about a problem they’ve tried to solve, do better the next day than people who are woken and don’t report dreaming about the problem
If I boil it down, I have two hypotheses that could both be true.
When you dream about a problem you’re brain is formulating ideas that can help you solve it. All you have to do the next day is try again and those ideas will become available to you as if you had just ‘had an idea’
Sleeping on a problem breaks it up into more manageable chunks that you can better manipulate in working memory the next time you try to solve it.
There are other things that happen during sleep that will just make every problem easier to solve the next day. For example:
Cleaning up chemical ‘garbage’ that collects in your brain during the day.
Forgetting things that the brain doesn’t think you have a use for
Resetting/reducing your emotions. (If you’re stressed about a new problem, you’ll find it easier to solve it when you’re less stressed.)