There are four types among those who study with the Sages: the sponge, the funnel, the strainer, the sifter. The sponge absorbs everything; the funnel—in one end and out the other; the strainer passes the wine and retains the dregs; the sifter removes the chaff and retains the edible wheat.
To me, it expresses the need to pay attention to what you are learning, and decide which things to retain and which to discard. E.g. one student takes a course in Scala and memorizes the code for generics, while the other writes the code but focuses on understanding the notion of polymorphism and what it is good for.
If I had infinite storage space and computing power, I would store every single piece of information I encountered. I don’t, so instead I have to efficiently process and store things that I learn. This generally requires that I throw information out the window. For example, if I take a walk, I barely even process most of the detail in my visual input, and I remember very little of it. I only want to keep track of a very few things, like where I am in relation to my house, where the sidewalk is, and any nearby hazards. When the walk is over, I discard even that information. On the other hand, I often have to take derivatives. Although understanding what a derivative means is very important, it would be silly of me to rederive e.g. the chain rule each time I wanted to use it. That would waste a lot of time, and it does not take a lot of space to store the procedure for applying the chain rule. So I store that logically superfluous information because it is important.
In other words, I have to be picky about what I remember. Some information is particularly useful or deep, some information isn’t. Just because this is incredibly obvious, doesn’t mean we don’t need to remind ourselves to consciously decide what to pay attention to.
I thought the quote expressed this idea nicely and compactly. Whoever wrote the quote probably did not mean it in quite the same way I understand it, but I still like it.
While this comment is true—you can’t remember everything—I’m not sure how you could get that from the categorization in the quote. Still, if that’s what you got out of it, I can see why you posted it here.
-Pirkei Avot (5:15)
Deep wisdom indeed. Some people believe the wrong things, and some believe the right things, some people believe both, some people believe neither.
To me, it expresses the need to pay attention to what you are learning, and decide which things to retain and which to discard. E.g. one student takes a course in Scala and memorizes the code for generics, while the other writes the code but focuses on understanding the notion of polymorphism and what it is good for.
I genuinely don’t understand this comment.
Sorry. Attempt #2:
If I had infinite storage space and computing power, I would store every single piece of information I encountered. I don’t, so instead I have to efficiently process and store things that I learn. This generally requires that I throw information out the window. For example, if I take a walk, I barely even process most of the detail in my visual input, and I remember very little of it. I only want to keep track of a very few things, like where I am in relation to my house, where the sidewalk is, and any nearby hazards. When the walk is over, I discard even that information. On the other hand, I often have to take derivatives. Although understanding what a derivative means is very important, it would be silly of me to rederive e.g. the chain rule each time I wanted to use it. That would waste a lot of time, and it does not take a lot of space to store the procedure for applying the chain rule. So I store that logically superfluous information because it is important.
In other words, I have to be picky about what I remember. Some information is particularly useful or deep, some information isn’t. Just because this is incredibly obvious, doesn’t mean we don’t need to remind ourselves to consciously decide what to pay attention to.
I thought the quote expressed this idea nicely and compactly. Whoever wrote the quote probably did not mean it in quite the same way I understand it, but I still like it.
While this comment is true—you can’t remember everything—I’m not sure how you could get that from the categorization in the quote. Still, if that’s what you got out of it, I can see why you posted it here.
-- Henri Poincaré
http://tragedyseries.tumblr.com/post/66897529504/thanks-for-your-patience-while-i-am-away-working