6 ms·

Sherlock Holmes famously refused to learn things that would be useless for his job, to keep his mind tidily organized. He is a fictional character, but the idea

by lowry 8y ago

Sherlock Holmes famously refused to learn things that would be useless for his job, to keep his mind tidily organized. He is a fictional character, but the idea that learning facts can be detrimental to someone's ability is interesting. Look at yourself: browsing Hacker News and Twitter in the morning to achieve little by the end of the day. ;-)

DanielBMarkham 8y ago
It's an extremely relevant point. I don't know. You may be right! There is another school of thought that truly interesting and transformative work comes from joining up things that naturally don't go together. In this school of thought, people who focus too narrowly only ever do "normal" science, as Kuhn taught. They never achieve breakthrough. I suspect that both are valuable: skimming and remembering/assimilating random surface-level material from all over, and deep-diving into only those things that you feel matter. As an official Old Programming Dude, and a self-taught coder/consultant, what I see in the dang kids of today is a lack of being able to manage both needs. They're either great at one or the other. Neither bunch amounts to much intellectually in terms of being interesting, but at least with the focused group they are able to do some really cool stuff. Personally, I need more focus. I know this. (And I plan on finishing up 4 hours of coding and two essays by the end of the day, kid!) ADD: One of the things I've noticed about focus is that when solving problems, I work best when I manage my focus. I'll put the problem on the monitor or on the wall where it's always visible. Then I'll go do something else. Anything. As long as I can see the problem, somehow-or-another my brain keeps working on it, even if I'm not aware of it. So for many, the problem may not be HN/Twitter, but the inability to control the subtle parts of their work environment that might be preventing them from working at a higher level.
signal11 8y ago
He was also famously interested in all sorts of trivia (such as types of London clays, and types of cigar ashes) because it helped him with his job. I think "neo-generalist" would be a good way to describe Holmes: https://hackernoon.com/the-neo-generalist-and-why-we-should-all-have-one-13d651706a0c?gi=2977fb69deed https://hackernoon.com/the-neo-generalist-and-why-we-should-... For engineers and developers, many of whom come from a STEM background, learning about the humanities can be an enriching experience and even help them design better systems. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has the time -- and it doesn't have to mean learning random facts. There are a lot of good reading lists, podcasts, etc, that one can go through in their spare time.
ItsMe000001 8y ago
Just as an aside, the BBC version of the quote: https://youtu.be/OVXt8jBAGkc?t=87 https://youtu.be/OVXt8jBAGkc?t=87 For the last few years I took some time off to recover from a mild heavy metal poisoning, and used the time to learn learn learn. I was pretty lazy in childhood and now had a desire to learn, but also to prove to myself that I can study diligently for an extended period, which I never did (had to do) before. So I took some 60 courses on edX and Coursera mostly (but also Youtube channels and some Khan academy for refreshing some basics, plus some reading) - at the time everything still was free. Most of the courses were "life-sciency", stuff I never had to deal with since school and never thought I would ever touch. More than one course in each chemistry, org. chem., bio-chem., physiology, anatomy, neuroscience, lots of statistics (again - had forgotten everything, this time I actually cared). The more I learned the more I can relate to the Sherlock Holmes quote. It's no use. The deeper I went, the more courses I took, the more I forgot. Also, the more I felt that I don't have any practical use for any of it. It made me feel good, but society won't benefit one bit from my learning. Humans specialize, and most people who do good work in their place in society really don't benefit from cramming ever more stuff into their heads. At this point I would not even care if I met somebody who really didn't know about earth and sun, as long as they perform well in their actual job. Part of it is that the more I learned the more I also learned that I still know nothing at all. I can take all the basic courses about medical topics, it does not help one bit to make any practical decisions- There is a high threshold before the knowledge is practically useful (you can't be 1/3rd of a doctor). I have switched to mostly learning things related to my actual work now and stopped taking courses outside my field. It just felt increasingly futile. Sure, I now have quite good basics but it was a huge investment, if I hadn't had anything else to do during the time anyway it would have been quite a waste. I would not expect anything similar from larger society, let them specialize. I now think trust is far more important. It's okay if people don't know much or anything about a lot of subjects - as long as they trust others who do. Things like for-profit health care lead to things like skepticism of the specialists. I too had plenty of doctors who tried to sell me useless stuff (network marketing!) and useless treatments when I tried to find someone for the problem I had. The missing trust is something rarely if ever mentioned in discussions about "anti-vaxxers". Even those who think they are stupid know nothing at all about the immune system and about how immunization actually works (edX has some good and detailed courses, and it's a lot and can be quite boring unless one really is into the subject) - the difference is not that they know anything but that they trust official authority. So the question is not how do you teach immune system fundamentals to skeptics, but how do you create trust that they don't have to? There are enough headlines to show that mistrust of the profit-driven system is not exactly completely stupid. That it shows up as anti-vaccination attitude is, I think actually secondary and incidental and not the actual root problem. In a highly specialized society we need trust, and we don't need to want to teach everybody lots of everything. Food for thought - ignore the product this is about, it's just an example: https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d449929ef https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d4499... (see the reader-highlighted text at the end for the summary).
Brockenstein 8y ago
>but the idea that learning facts can be detrimental to someone's ability is interesting. It's interesting. I would say the issue with this idea is, is you can't predict how learning random information and combining that into new ideas will benefit you. The only reason this worked for Holmes was because his character was written that way, not because it necessarily has any merit. Maybe it reflects the thinking of the time, or Doyle's own beliefs on the matter. Although I don't think there's a problem with being choosey, like maybe you don't care about the WW2 Pacific Theater, so why learn facts about that when your interest is the history of computers?

by lowry 8y ago

DanielBMarkham 8y ago

It's an extremely relevant point. I don't know. You may be right! There is another school of thought that truly interesting and transformative work comes from joining up things that naturally don't go together. In this school of thought, people who focus too narrowly only ever do "normal" science, as Kuhn taught. They never achieve breakthrough. I suspect that both are valuable: skimming and remembering/assimilating random surface-level material from all over, and deep-diving into only those things that you feel matter. As an official Old Programming Dude, and a self-taught coder/consultant, what I see in the dang kids of today is a lack of being able to manage both needs. They're either great at one or the other. Neither bunch amounts to much intellectually in terms of being interesting, but at least with the focused group they are able to do some really cool stuff. Personally, I need more focus. I know this. (And I plan on finishing up 4 hours of coding and two essays by the end of the day, kid!) ADD: One of the things I've noticed about focus is that when solving problems, I work best when I manage my focus. I'll put the problem on the monitor or on the wall where it's always visible. Then I'll go do something else. Anything. As long as I can see the problem, somehow-or-another my brain keeps working on it, even if I'm not aware of it. So for many, the problem may not be HN/Twitter, but the inability to control the subtle parts of their work environment that might be preventing them from working at a higher level.

signal11 8y ago

He was also famously interested in all sorts of trivia (such as types of London clays, and types of cigar ashes) because it helped him with his job. I think "neo-generalist" would be a good way to describe Holmes: https://hackernoon.com/the-neo-generalist-and-why-we-should-all-have-one-13d651706a0c?gi=2977fb69deed https://hackernoon.com/the-neo-generalist-and-why-we-should-... For engineers and developers, many of whom come from a STEM background, learning about the humanities can be an enriching experience and even help them design better systems. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has the time -- and it doesn't have to mean learning random facts. There are a lot of good reading lists, podcasts, etc, that one can go through in their spare time.

ItsMe000001 8y ago

Just as an aside, the BBC version of the quote: https://youtu.be/OVXt8jBAGkc?t=87 https://youtu.be/OVXt8jBAGkc?t=87 For the last few years I took some time off to recover from a mild heavy metal poisoning, and used the time to learn learn learn. I was pretty lazy in childhood and now had a desire to learn, but also to prove to myself that I can study diligently for an extended period, which I never did (had to do) before. So I took some 60 courses on edX and Coursera mostly (but also Youtube channels and some Khan academy for refreshing some basics, plus some reading) - at the time everything still was free. Most of the courses were "life-sciency", stuff I never had to deal with since school and never thought I would ever touch. More than one course in each chemistry, org. chem., bio-chem., physiology, anatomy, neuroscience, lots of statistics (again - had forgotten everything, this time I actually cared). The more I learned the more I can relate to the Sherlock Holmes quote. It's no use. The deeper I went, the more courses I took, the more I forgot. Also, the more I felt that I don't have any practical use for any of it. It made me feel good, but society won't benefit one bit from my learning. Humans specialize, and most people who do good work in their place in society really don't benefit from cramming ever more stuff into their heads. At this point I would not even care if I met somebody who really didn't know about earth and sun, as long as they perform well in their actual job. Part of it is that the more I learned the more I also learned that I still know nothing at all. I can take all the basic courses about medical topics, it does not help one bit to make any practical decisions- There is a high threshold before the knowledge is practically useful (you can't be 1/3rd of a doctor). I have switched to mostly learning things related to my actual work now and stopped taking courses outside my field. It just felt increasingly futile. Sure, I now have quite good basics but it was a huge investment, if I hadn't had anything else to do during the time anyway it would have been quite a waste. I would not expect anything similar from larger society, let them specialize. I now think trust is far more important. It's okay if people don't know much or anything about a lot of subjects - as long as they trust others who do. Things like for-profit health care lead to things like skepticism of the specialists. I too had plenty of doctors who tried to sell me useless stuff (network marketing!) and useless treatments when I tried to find someone for the problem I had. The missing trust is something rarely if ever mentioned in discussions about "anti-vaxxers". Even those who think they are stupid know nothing at all about the immune system and about how immunization actually works (edX has some good and detailed courses, and it's a lot and can be quite boring unless one really is into the subject) - the difference is not that they know anything but that they trust official authority. So the question is not how do you teach immune system fundamentals to skeptics, but how do you create trust that they don't have to? There are enough headlines to show that mistrust of the profit-driven system is not exactly completely stupid. That it shows up as anti-vaccination attitude is, I think actually secondary and incidental and not the actual root problem. In a highly specialized society we need trust, and we don't need to want to teach everybody lots of everything. Food for thought - ignore the product this is about, it's just an example: https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d449929ef https://medium.com/@kevin_ashton/what-coke-contains-221d4499... (see the reader-highlighted text at the end for the summary).

Brockenstein 8y ago

>but the idea that learning facts can be detrimental to someone's ability is interesting. It's interesting. I would say the issue with this idea is, is you can't predict how learning random information and combining that into new ideas will benefit you. The only reason this worked for Holmes was because his character was written that way, not because it necessarily has any merit. Maybe it reflects the thinking of the time, or Doyle's own beliefs on the matter. Although I don't think there's a problem with being choosey, like maybe you don't care about the WW2 Pacific Theater, so why learn facts about that when your interest is the history of computers?