I’ve taken the principle of never learning anything (or claiming to know it) unless I can deeply understand it to a very extreme place.
By “deeply understand” I mean, be able to apply it on a whole other set of inputs/problems than those that you saw it applied to. Or, if that is not doable, the more abstract version of “be able to explain it with your own words in such a way that it could reach vastly different people than those that would have understood it from the original author’s words” (which, to some extent, is based of Feyman idea).
By “never learning” I mean not starting to learn something unless I plan to reach this point and see it as feasible to reach.
Which essentially removes the “complicated” problem since using this method nothing stays complicated once you learn it almost by definition. (not, nothing stays complicated but most things still stay complex, by “complicated” I understand “hard to navigate or use”, by “complex” I understand “requiring a very large map or frequent checking of the manual”).
I think it helps create some very efficient primitives in one’s brain, at least for certain things, but I’m not sure it’s an approach I’d recommend, it puts you at odds with many things. I think wrote-memorization has it’s place and in a way it’s good to “learn” things that way, or at least necessary.
I’ve taken the principle of never learning anything (or claiming to know it) unless I can deeply understand it to a very extreme place.
By “deeply understand” I mean, be able to apply it on a whole other set of inputs/problems than those that you saw it applied to. Or, if that is not doable, the more abstract version of “be able to explain it with your own words in such a way that it could reach vastly different people than those that would have understood it from the original author’s words” (which, to some extent, is based of Feyman idea).
By “never learning” I mean not starting to learn something unless I plan to reach this point and see it as feasible to reach.
Which essentially removes the “complicated” problem since using this method nothing stays complicated once you learn it almost by definition. (not, nothing stays complicated but most things still stay complex, by “complicated” I understand “hard to navigate or use”, by “complex” I understand “requiring a very large map or frequent checking of the manual”).
I think it helps create some very efficient primitives in one’s brain, at least for certain things, but I’m not sure it’s an approach I’d recommend, it puts you at odds with many things. I think wrote-memorization has it’s place and in a way it’s good to “learn” things that way, or at least necessary.