
How to Learn New Things as an Adult - pmcpinto
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/how-to-learn-new-things-as-an-adult/519687/?single_page=true
======
sotojuan
I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or a
teenager. It's just that we have less time.

A few months ago I wanted to learn to appreciate and listen to classical
music. I woke up an hour earlier every morning and read a book, listened to an
audio course (Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Great Music),
and listened to actual music then and throughout the day. A few months later I
can recognize the structure of most pieces and if the composer "broke the
rules" (and why). I can't read music or tell which note is which (yet!) but I
made a lot of progress.

Unless it's a particularly difficult subject, simple daily practice and
learning goes a long way.

~~~
cgriswald
> I really don't think there's much difference between learning as an adult or
> a teenager. It's just that we have less time.

I am a 40-year-old full time student with a kid, but no job. I disagree
completely. I've got the time. When I was 20, I remembered everything I saw or
heard even once. I could recall it with ease. Concepts came easily when they
were explained in text or in lecture. Now? I'm still plenty smart and usually
get the best grade in my class, but I have to work hard for it, where before I
never worked at all at it. I have to spend time actually _memorizing_ things.
I have to take time to think about concepts in order to understand them.
(Weird, right?)

As far as I can tell, the only real advantages I have over my younger self are
that I am better disciplined and I appreciate my education more.

~~~
36bydesign
You also _might_ be remembering your skills inaccurately. In jr high and high
school I also got top grades easily and rarely studied. In college I finally
had to. I wondered where my ease of learning had gone, but eventually realized
the most likely explanation was that the material had simply been much
easier/more intuitive and that I was tricking myself with selection bias.

~~~
iopq
I'm not the same person, but I never studied in college either. I would go to
lecture and get 90%+ on the exam. I would get Bs and Cs because I would never
do any homework. I could use concepts from math classes without having used
them before, as long as they were explained in lecture.

------
Disruptive_Dave
I just re-learned skateboarding. I spent a lot of time skating in my late
teens (37 now), and was decent at it. I noticed three things throughout the
learning process this time around. First, there is so much more information
available today than when I was a kid. YouTube videos alone could keep me busy
for years. Then you add in the GoPro and my phone, and you have an entirely
new world available. The one downside here is that I find myself edging
towards "paralysis by analysis." Less doing, more thinking, which I never
experienced as a kid. Second, I'm forced to take things a little slower
because of my age and reluctance to get hurt. This means I've gradually
progressed through the learning steps, which has resulted in a stronger
foundation than I had as a kid. Third, and this is the big'un, I see angles I
never considered before. I'll never be confused for a smart person, and I've
always been one step away from "getting it" when learning most new things. Now
that I'm older and more aware of what it takes to "get me there" I can better
create that learning environment. Example: There is a very subtle part of the
tail "pop" in an ollie that I just never fully understood until I started
skating again recently, but this time I "got it."

(I realize this falls more in the "relearning" than "learning something new"
category, but I've typed too much at this point to bail.)

~~~
branchless
As someone who tried snowboarding for the first time this weekend and fell
over around 200 times, this gives me some heart.

~~~
Wh1zz
Don't worry, snowboarding gets really easy really quick. If you'd snowboard
for a week straight, you'd already be able to go really quick without falling
and looking pretty cool along the way. The issue is most people only do it at
most 3-4 days a year for just a couple hours, so it looks like it took them
"years" to snowboard decently.

~~~
xzel
This. Its like learning how to do anything else using edges like surfing, ice
skating, skiing. First you learn how to balance and then you learn how to
turn. After that, you can basically ski 50% of most mountains (that is in
bounds terrain). Just keep falling and watching how other people transition
between edges and you'll figure it out pretty quick.

------
personjerry
This article seems to be an advertisement so I don't have a positive
disposition towards it.

There's this free online course: [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-
to-learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn) which I think
might be preferable to the book in the article, since it has transcribed video
that you can speed up, exercises, and quizzes.

~~~
kornork
I took that course. I didn't gain much from it. There is some interesting
theory about how we learn.

The best (er.. only) trick I remember: rather than re-reading material,
reflect on it for a few minutes after you've read it, trying to recall and
organize it in your mind.

~~~
anuragojha
You are probably already a great learner then. I took the course and can
definitely say it was an eye opener.

Few additional tricks I picked up: * Recall(as you mentioned) is critical to
understanding. Effective recall also connects a topic just learned with other
known topics. * A problem looks solvable but its important to actually apply
yourself and arrive at the solution. The process of learning does not offer
rewards until the mind has been exercised. * Deliberate practice of poorly
understood concepts. Don't fall into the trap of fooling yourself to believe
that you have understood a concept or practicing problems that you are already
good at. * Read through material quickly to to create a "framework" or stick-
figures in the mind. Gradually add new concepts to the basic framework. *
Learning is best done with frequent breaks to absorb information. Learning is
also a passive process where the neurons need time to grow. * Repetition
spaced across several days forces us to recall. This helps strengthen memories
and filing concepts into long-term memory bank. * Better sleep helps.

I could go on. Really wonderful course.

~~~
z0ltan
All these are basic Common Sense, aren't they though? In fact, structuring
them like this appears to take all the fun out of the process of learning,
reducing it to a mere mechanical algorithm.

My take is this - you learn best when you are curious or can get curious about
something. That kind of learning sticks. Or maybe I'm just different.

~~~
anuragojha
When im reading purely driven by curiosity, I find myself skimming for new
info, giving myself shot after shot of dopamine by going "Aha! familiar",
"Aha! know that", but never really doing full justice to the text. I feel like
all these years of curious reading has given me a mile of breadth but only and
inch of depth in many topics.

The course teaches not just "how to learn" but really "how to learn and become
a master of the subject". While being curious and interested definitely gets
the learning cart rolling, I doubt one can become a master without
deliberately focusing on weak areas of understanding, practice and reflection
-- all painful tedious stuff. For me learning sticks when I associate it with
things I already know, zoomed in and out a couple of times to both understand
a concept itself and how it fits in the big picture. So I do believe having "a
method" to learn and deploy new learnings.

Some like me grew up in a culture of rote learning where we repeatedly read
and smear the same text over and over again hoping something would stick. A
lot of the teaching of the courses were completely counter-intuitive to me. I
have spent close to 25k hours studying CS in an academic setting and could
have saved myself so much time studying effectively. I've been working in SV
for several years now and into some serious studying again so this course was
very timely for me.

------
mbrumlow
It's not that we are getting dumber. We are just changing our skill set.
Remembering where to find a set of information or how to find a set of
information is more effective​ than remebering each item in the set. Search
engines have changed us so we don't have to remember trivia and can focus on
larger ideas that can't be searched.

~~~
dozzie
Except that without knowing those useless trivia you won't even have the
chance to draw connections and associations between them, which is essential
for working with these "larger ideas" of yours. No, search engines won't make
up for simple lack of knowledge. You have to know what to search for in the
first place.

~~~
mbrumlow
I see your point, and I feel you have unfairly made my comment mean something
much more than it originally was intended to be. I want to make it clear. I am
not advocating not knowing things. I am advocating that some things are
"trivia" and some things are not. I feel from your post that you have put more
things in the "trivia" category than I would.

This article opened up asking a single question; "what’s the capital of
Australia?” -- in an attempt to make the reader feel dumb. The name of a
capital of a country you don’t live in is just the sort of data I would
classify as trivia. Knowing that there is something called an atlas, or even
more precise that there is a book that organizes this sort of information, or
even more recently a website that you can ask this question to and receive
back reasonable answer is far more important to know than knowing Canberra is
the capital of Australia. Without knowing where to find or how to find the
answer you would just have to answer “I don’t know”, but knowing these other
concepts would allow you to answer “I don’t know, but I am reasonably sure I
can find out”.

It should also pointed out that countries have capitals -- is the "larger
idea" \-- and the fact that Canberra is the capital of Australia is triva. A
good way to look at this; things that have unique names but can be categorized
in groups are often trivia and the groups they make are the knowledge. The
article actually picked a excellent topic to illustrate this notion. The big
ideas are countries, states, provinces, territories. Learning the unique names
of these things teaching you nothing new -- other than the name. No new ideas
are conveyed by learning a new name. Learning that there are states and
provinces, how they work, and what their differences is far more valuable than
the names of each of the individual states and provinces. So yes, not knowing
the triva can still allow you to work my “larger ideas”.

~~~
sriram_malhar
I wouldn't dismiss trivia so ... trivially. Trivia has value.

Getting to know the capital of a country is like creating a tiny hook onto
which other information accretes. It creates a sense of familiarity about a
place, which sensitises you to other news about the area (for example, the
#StopAdani movement which, tragically, is going to fail).

Five years back, I started playing these trivia games at Sporcle
(sparkle.com). I mean, what is the use of knowing all the periodic table
elements? Then it turns out, a niece independently fell in love with chemistry
and the periodic table, which has opened up a nice new channel of talking to
each other. And I'm looking forward to visiting Ytterby[1] this summer

[1]
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/elements/fe...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/elements/features/2010/blogging_the_periodic_table/ytterby_the_tiny_swedish_island_that_gave_the_periodic_table_four_different_elements.html)

~~~
mbrumlow
While I did take my example to an extreme to illustrate my point I think we
can agree that trivia will be learned along the way, it just not what should
be the meat of the teaching or testing.

Your example of #StopAdani made me smile (not because it will fail) But
because it sort of proved my point. I did not know who Adani is or what they
were doing. But I knew how to search and what sites to go to to get some
context. I was ignorant that Gautam Adani and that the Adani group is trying
to make a coal mine in Australia -- but not dumb, stupid or helpless. A week
from now I will likely have flushed Adani from my mind, but I will remember
some company is trying to setup a coal mine and there is some movement to stop
it. I will likely remember that I can find more information about this on my
hacker news comments history and from there be able to then provide the
remaining details.

What I think you have touched on is something entirely different than learning
a skill that will provide lasting enhancements to your life. Learning to tie
your shoe, or riding a bicycle is a lasting life long skill. Learning that a
multinational corporation from India is trying to open a coal mine in
Australia is a current event. At most will give you a good talking topic with
a buddy where you can exchange trivial information -- much of which you will
forget years later.

After writing this I realize that yes, having a relationship with your niece
is will provide lasting enhancements to your life, but I think we can all
agree the type of knowledge we are talking about here is not relationship
building or social skills. While knowing trivia is definitely a good skill for
those things it’s not the type of knowledge and skill sets I have been talking
about.

There was a journal entry [1] by Richard Feynman shared with me on HN recently
-- strangely enough on a very similar topic -- thanks stcredzero. I think this
journal entry shows the dangers of trivia teaching and testing and why as a
society we need to accept not knowing a easily looked up question does not
make someone dumb or stupid. We should be concerning our self with ensuring we
know the concepts, how to apply them, and how and where to lookup the
information needed to complete the loop.

<rant> On a side note, I link to think of my computer as an extension to my
mind. I dabble in many areas of computers and robotics. I could not possibly
remember everything needed to do the things i do. Maybe I have subpar memory.
And remembering how to find things and answer my own questions with the
resources of the computer and internet is a cheap hack. Nevertheless it has
allowed me to do some pretty amazing things that I otherwise would have not
been able to do. The particular skill I have is something that is becoming
more popular and mainstream. I think they call it critical thinking. The
particular subskill of critical thinking is problem solving. If I relied on
trivia and came across something I did not understand and lacked the skills of
knowing how and where to find things I would have not achieved a 1000th of
what I have. Bringing this back to the original article and its attempt to
make the readers feel dumb because they did not know the capital of a random
country -- without critical thinking and problem solving skills and the
ability to recognize I have a problem in the first place, I could never have
solved the problem. I would have just thrown my hands up and said welp, I
don’t know, shit out of luck. We are only lucky the the dialog in the article
told us the capital, as we were told no googling although they did not say
anything about looking up the answer in a atlas. </rant>

[1] [http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-
education](http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education)

~~~
sriram_malhar
That Feynman link was very good indeed. Your point is well-taken. There is not
enough time and energy to be interested in everything. At the limit, one can
say that being interested in everything is being interested in nothing.

At the same time, I must say that playing around with random Sporcle trivia
quizzes keeps paying off in unexpected ways, both in my work and social life.
As I think about it while composing this response, it seems like the payoff is
in making connections with people, although I play without having an end in
mind or make a particular effort to remember anything. It is not the
individual trivia point; it is more the stochastic effect.

------
jacquesm
The trick to learning new things as an adult is to never stop learning. For
many people university (or highschool, for the slightly less fortunate) is the
last time they will actively learn, after that they are 'done learning'.

But you're never done learning! In a world that changes as fast as ours does
you'll be learning until you die if you want to keep up and stay relevant in
the near future. Even more so in the IT domain.

So don't stop learning, or you'll be playing catch-up with very little chance
of success once you do stop.

~~~
daodedickinson
I wish people would understand that such a world means that new children have
less and less of a chance at success.

~~~
jacquesm
No, that's not true. They will simply have a new baseline when they exit their
secondary education.

Secondary education levels have been a moving target ever since we started
educating people to the state-of-the-art. It's been a long time (centuries,
really) since an individual could hold the complete state of science in their
head so it is _all_ teamwork now and nobody knows everything.

So if you do your education today you simply learn more of something narrower.

------
taneq
How to learn new things as an adult:

1) Accept that you're going to suck at the thing.

2) Do the thing.

3) Keep doing the thing.

~~~
clentaminator
Brain plasticity and learning "power" aside, I believe the biggest difference
between learning something as a child and as an adult is simple how conscious
we are that we're trying to learn something and how much we self-reflect and
analyse our own abilities and progress.

As a child we typically do things just because we enjoy them, and often don't
have an idea of a goal or target, other than simply doing the thing because we
find it intrinsically fun. As an adult however we become highly analytic,
self-reflective and critical of both ourselves and others, and we start to do
things with a consciousness and awareness of others.

Additionally, by the time you reach adulthood there's a high chance that
there's a thing that you've done enough to be in a fairly experienced position
with, so anything new undertaken as an adult will now be judged in terms of
the things you can already do, which means it will feel difficult and you'll
believe that you suck at it. Which you do, because you're a beginner, and
that's normal and is precisely what it means to be taking up something new!

While trying to play the piano as a child I had no thoughts of achieving a
goal or getting to a specific level, and I certainly didn't compare myself to
others. I just did it because it was fun. By the time I was more conscious of
enjoying it and knew that I wanted to learn more seriously I'd already
acquired a basic level of keyboard fluency.

So, having bought a guitar a few weeks ago and finding that all of a sudden
trying to acquire a new physical skill is actually difficult (particularly
important to remember as a developer where often what we're learning is a
variation on an existing technique), I keep having to remind myself that it
only feels difficult because it's new, and it would feel just as difficult if
I were starting from a younger age, except I just wouldn't be so darn self-
conscious about it.

~~~
criddell
How far along are you with the guitar? I bought mine in 1996 and have been
trying to learn it on and off since then. I still don't know a single song,
other than the little toy songs in the Hal Leonard books (and only if I have
the books in front of me). It's incredibly frustrating.

I bought a second guitar a few years ago to keep at work and I use it during
times when I need a break. Even though all I do are scales and nursery rhymes,
it's still pretty relaxing.

I've had two different teachers, I've used games like Rocksmith, I've done
online self-study courses (Justin Sandercoe seems like a wonderful person),
bought the sheet music for my favorite records, etc...

My kids, on the other hand, made progress on their instruments (piano and
violin) unbelievably quickly.

~~~
mattmanser
Scales and nursery rhymes?

If you want to play songs learn chords. Learn A, D and E, play wild thing.
Takes like 20 minutes play badly, a couple of days to play ok.

Scales are for soloing rather than rhythm guitar.

~~~
criddell
I know some chords: A, Am, C, C7, D, D7, E, Em, G, G7

I can switch between those fairly fluidly.

Even Wild Thing has a solo part in the middle. A, D, and E really aren't
enough, are they?

Can you name a few other _real_ songs that you think are early beginner level?

~~~
scallycat
Knocking On Heaven's Door was the first 'real' song I could make sound halfway
decent.

~~~
criddell
Bob Dylan's version?

Any other suggestions?

~~~
scallycat
Yes, Dylan's version, you can do it with only about four chords.

Others I have enjoyed learning are REM's Country Feedback (not the slide bit,
the chords) and Bowie's cover of Jacques Brel's Amsterdam - this has an F but
you can get away with Fmaj7, which is much easier.

I'm very much a beginner too - coming towards the end of the Justin Guitar
beginner's course. The song book that goes along with it has some good tunes.

~~~
mattmanser
That reminds me, Blowing in the wind's an incredibly easy to learn song too,
four chords, easy progressions, only one quick change to an easy Em (I
believe).

[https://tabs.ultimate-
guitar.com/b/bob_dylan/blowin_in_the_w...](https://tabs.ultimate-
guitar.com/b/bob_dylan/blowin_in_the_wind_ver3_crd.htm)

You can also do it without the Em, but it doesn't sound as good.

[https://tabs.ultimate-
guitar.com/b/bob_dylan/blowin_in_the_w...](https://tabs.ultimate-
guitar.com/b/bob_dylan/blowin_in_the_wind_ver10_crd.htm)

------
MarkG509
My favorite teacher in grade school, and echoed by my favorite teachers later
in life, told me that the most important thing they are trying to teach us is
how to learn because we'd all be learning for the rest of our lives.

I still strongly agree with that sentiment, but the difference/problem with
learning as an adult is two-fold: _why_ I am learning, and how much time I
have to learn/apply that knowledge.

There is a difference in learning material to 'ace' a midterm/final exam,
versus learning something to figure out a novel way, or picking up a new
technology, to accomplish some task (e.g., at work). Part of the difference is
who decides what can be "pruned", and especially when. I think back on all the
'stuff' I knew I would never need again once the final was over. Admittedly, I
wasn't always correct, but age and experience increased my hit rate, and what
subjects I under or over estimated could be whole other threads.

I am retired now, but have gotten into learning, mostly just for fun, some of
the most complex (nasty) subject matter that I never had time for before. If I
want to go off on some tangent, or deep dive, I can. The amount of free (or
inexpensive) courses out there is wonderful and exciting.

------
pmoriarty
Motivation and perseverance are the keys. If can somehow keep those fires
burning in the long run, you'll do well.

My problem is that I tend to get really interested in learning something, work
really intensely at it for a while, then get bored and move on to something
else, leaving dozens of unfinished projects in my wake.

~~~
sotojuan
> My problem is that I tend to get really interested in learning something,
> work really intensely at it for a while, then get bored and move on to
> something else, leaving dozens of unfinished projects in my wake.

This isn't necessarily bad, just that the thing you learned wasn't actually
something you needed to learn. I don't mean that negatively though. For
example, I use JavaScript and Python at work. I recently read a Haskell book
and learned enough to do its exercises. I won't use Haskell at work any time
soon and I don't have that much time for personal projects... so was it a
waste of time? I don't think so, since I enjoyed the process of learning and a
lot of concepts will stay with me.

If you want to do project X and can't focus on learning what you need for
that, that's a problem. Otherwise, you're not much different from figures such
as Theodore Roosevelt who'd read books on a thousand different subjects every
year, for fun.

~~~
pmoriarty
It's not a complete waste, at least not all of the time, though I do forget
much more than I remember. It's just frustrating to know I could achieve
something but miss out again and again and again due to lack of discipline and
perseverance.

------
Rainymood
If you really need to memorise hard numbers, use a memory palace.

By mapping numbers to consonants and then putting vowels in between you can
make any word. The system I use is the following:

1 - t

2 - n

3 - m

4 - r

5 - l

6 - j

7 - f

8 - k,g

9 - p,b

0 - s,z

For example, Pi starts with 3.14159265. Chunk this into pairs of digits: 14,
15, 92, 65, or in consonants we find, tr, tl, pn, jl. We can create a story
with this: trtl, pan, jelly. To find the numbers just "invert" the story!

Shameless plug to my own blog [1], I get no advertising revenue or anything
from this I would just love to share this with you guys as I feel like you
guys might find it interesting. In the post I detail how I memorised the first
37 digits of Pi.

I honestly think it's amazing that I can still recall, with ease, the first 37
digits of Pi 5 (!) months after first memorising them.

[1] [http://rainymood.github.io/jekyll/update/2017/03/13/how-
to-m...](http://rainymood.github.io/jekyll/update/2017/03/13/how-to-memorise-
pi.html)

~~~
kbart
Does this really work? I've never had any success with mnemonics. The best way
I've found to remember numbers is to type them on number keyboard from time to
time and let the muscle memory do its work.

~~~
Rainymood
>Does this really work?

Well, obviously N = 1 but if I can't convince you with "I can recall a string
of 37 digits 5 months after memorising them" I don't know what will!

It is SO weird but it just works. It's hard to explain and really paradoxical
because I use it for everything now ... Allais paradox 1953 (lm => lam =>
drunk in dutch), Ellsberg paradox 1961 (jt => jeti => jeti chasing jedi with
urns on a mountain). In my honest opinion its a skill worth learning. If this
didn't convince you, Sherlock also uses it in the series ;)

------
lacampbell
I find it much easier to learn things as an adult than I did as a teenager. I
have more discipline, confidence, and experience in learning.

------
nsomaru
There's some value to be gained here from orthodox Indian philosophical
schools. All roughly agree to three stages of learning:

\- _shravana_ (literally 'listening', as India's philosophical traditions were
mostly oral, but more broadly may be understood to also be 'reading.')

\- _manana_ ('reflection' upon that which was heard. May include exercises,
debate and such)

\- _nididhyasana_ ('meditation,' may be taken to mean experience)

Further, knowing is then classified into two types - _jñana_ and _vijñana_.
These correspond to mere apprehension of information ('knowledge') and
integration of that into action, life and experience ('wisdom').

Knowledge is transformed into wisdom by a process of reflection which is
active. Passively obtaining new information is unlikely to result in wisdom
(which is useful) without reflection.

Thought this might be interesting to those in this thread who are looking to
learn and improve themselves.

Questions? my_hn_username at gmail.

Disclaimer: Have studied Vedanta in India under a master (A Parthasarathy).
This information may be found in his _magnum_ _opus_ , Vedanta Treatise: The
Eternities[0].

[0]
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9381094160/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/9381094160/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1489989012&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=SL75_QL70&amp;keywords=Vedanta+Treatise)

EDIT: formatting and email address.

------
soniman
There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, adults
can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin. I think part of
the problem is that the kick serve requires counterintuitively hitting the
ball to the sky and letting gravity and spin pull it down to earth. Adults
can't handle the idea of hitting up, it just seems wrong. I learned kick
serves as a kid and it's like riding a bicycle, I never forgot though I
stopped playing tennis for ten years. Also, some strokes decline with age.
Federer's backhand is now much better than when he was in his physical peak at
26, though his forehand is probably not as good; the same is true of nearly
all players, the backhand improves but the forehand declines. The more
instinctive a shot is, the harder it is to maintain and learn as you get
older.

~~~
hvidgaard

       There are certain tennis strokes that adults can't learn. For instance, 
       adults can't learn to hit a "kick" serve that has a lot of topspin.
    

Do you have anything to back this claim? I don't believe this at all. The
plasticity changes as we get older, but the human brains does not lose the
ability to learn things, counter intuitive or not.

~~~
jw1224
I agree - surely adults _can_ learn these tennis strokes, even if they are
harder to pick up.

There is an absolutely fascinating video about plasticity of learning between
adults and children that I'd highly recommend watching [1].

A man built a "backwards bicycle", where the handlebars steer the bike in the
opposite direction to what you would expect. It was almost impossible for him
to ride the bike more than a few feet at a time before falling off. Finally,
after _8 months_ of consistent practice, he could ride it relatively well.

When he put his 6-year-old son on the bike (who'd been riding a normal bicycle
for 3 years), he had it mastered just _2 weeks later_.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0)

~~~
dth_omn_str
He does say in the video that wasn't trying to actively learn to ride it.
Where as the guy in this video [1] claims it only took him 1 h 29 min. You
could probably argue that his age might have helped, but it could also be
equally true that he used better methods of practice to achieve that goal.

Destin also admits

"It took me 8 months to learn how to do this, but I was only picking up the
bike and running to the end of the driveway and back every day. I wasn't
"ACTIVELY" trying to learn. Meaning... I wasn't struggling and trying to make
my brain learn. I simply got on the bike every day, tried to operate it to the
end of the driveway, turned around and tried to operate it back. The goal was
to understand how my brain figured things out on its own, without trying to
force it to. Many people have built bikes like this and figured it out in much
less than 1 day by staying on the bike until they were able to master it. I
had no timelines, and was using this as an exploratory activity to learn how I
learn."

[1][https://youtu.be/nFw2JiWhTUk](https://youtu.be/nFw2JiWhTUk)

~~~
hvidgaard
With that in mind I wouldn't be surprised if he could learn it in a few hours
if he really put effort into it.

------
tuxidomasx
Nootropic supplements should be mentioned here as a way to boost brain
performance in general, which could assist in learning new things both for
children and adults.

The scientific consensus on the effects of nootropics is kinda all over the
place (there are a bunch of different types out there, and different studies
for the different types), but there's enough information to make an informed
decision.

I had a daily nootropic "stack" that included choline and piracetam, and
noticed an improvement in recall and focus. Whether it was placebo or not, I
certainly felt like I was more capable of learning than baseline.

During my foray into the nootropic world, I also came across discussions about
Hericium erinaceus, or lion's mane mushrooms. Studies have shown it to
increase the 'nerve growth factor' which is a key measurement when it comes to
growing new neurons. And since growing new neurons and making new connections
between them is correlated to learning new things, and if this factor of
'neuroplasticity' decreases with age, my guess is that lion's mane can come in
handy if you are an adult and want to learn to do other stuff good too.

However, I'm no expert; maybe someone with more direct experience or knowledge
can weigh in.

------
Tepix
Recommended free MOOC: "Learning how to learn"

[https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)

They put some interesting brain research into that course. I started last week
and love it so far.

------
kshitij_libra
Because we’re all getting `dumber in the age of Google`

What's wrong with that ? I fail to understand ? If you start putting
everything into your brain, you'll soon go mad. A regular cleanup of the
information in your brain to retain only what's relevant for your survival is
okay. It's best such things are left googleable. What is the use of keeping in
memory the capital of australia, when that trivia contributes a total `0` to
do what you do.

If you keep doing, implementing and executing stuff that you are passionate
about, I think you'll keep learning. Only thing is that we become more
focussed as adults about our interests, than we are as children (inquisitive
about everything).

------
known
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." \--
Confucius

------
z0ltan
It's more about drive than anything else. If one is able to maintain one's
sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness, then one can always continue learning
as effectively (albeit a bit more slowly) throughout one's life.

------
jhallenworld
Youtube is an amazing resource. In the past I would read, but I'm finding that
videos (and audiobooks) help speed learning:

Basic machining from MIT (I now need a milling machine and lathe):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4McYKCd2Hg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4McYKCd2Hg)

Learn about Synchrotrons from UC Berkeley (Undulators and Wigglers):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WWnxA6odso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WWnxA6odso)

------
rodionos
A much harder thing for adults is to re-learn something they already know in a
different way. For example, I thought I knew how to swim until I took private
lessons with an instructor. I spent most of the time 'unlearning' the wrong
techniques. The muscle memory was just engraved. I know guys don't ask for
directions, but if you want results, pro help can really pay off.

~~~
wingerlang
Why did you take private lessons if you already knew how to swim?

I also swim in a non-proper way and I recently found a "new way" of swimming
after seeing some video about it, and it is fairly easy. But due to muscle
memory I find myself going back to my own way.

My own way being: Imagine doing a front split[1], then pushing your body up
into a standing position, while angling your upper body 90 degrees (plane with
the water, that is).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_(gymnastics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_\(gymnastics\))

~~~
rodionos
I wanted to learn how to swim butterfly. This is difficult to master on your
own.

~~~
wingerlang
Oh I see, makes sense.

------
slmyers
> Boser explains why some of the most common ways we try to memorize
> information are actually totally ineffective, and he reveals what to do
> instead.

I couldn't get past the first paragraph. I don't think memorisation and
learning should be conflated as it appears to be in this article. Perhaps it's
the fault of the title -- clickbait?

~~~
IpV8
Clearly you didn't get past the first paragraph.

------
iopq
I forgot the name of my first crush. I have since remembered it, but names
still elude me.

Of course, I knew the capital of Australia.

------
lomereiter
For learning just facts, solving crossword puzzles regularly helps a lot (not
cryptic ones). More complicated matters are going to get forgotten rather
quickly anyway unless you need them in your daily life.

------
partycoder
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

------
z0ltan
In other words what the smart folks already do. Heh.

------
lotusko
in my opinion,just absorb the knowledge or the information is not enough, we
should practice them.

------
teekert
I don't really think there is a difference between adults and children in
learning, this whole piece is simply about efficiency in learning and
different ways of learning.

Still I think this piece misses some points. I believe there is a threshold
(perhaps different for everyone) for the types of learning the piece is about.
There is learning by forcing knowledge in by repetition. If you need to
remember a small list not based on any logic, this is the only way. Knowing
that Canberra is the capital of Australia is a poor example for the point the
author tries to make. There is no logic behind capital city names, a human
choose the name and it was not chosen according to any rules. There is no
understanding involved at all.

However, for a Buick (or i.e. the Human Body) it is different, those "things"
work according to the laws of physics, a Buick is build using a specific
design and it has a limited set of necessary components. During its operation
a repeating cycle of steps is executed. There is a very limited number of
states in which a Buick can function but not be completely broken compared to
the number of states it can be in. If you understand how a Buick was build,
you can play its function in your head and simulate what could cause the noise
a person on the phone is describing.

From childhood onward this is the way I have learned, I always felt like there
was a point in time in which my knowledge became like self contained ball in
my head, I would even visualize said ball. There is a moment of understanding,
of seeing the beauty and logic of a system. In that moment you say: "Ah yes it
felt very complicated before, but now that I get it, I would have designed it
quite like that actually." In programming it works the same, that moment when
you understand what a class is... it's beauty, you will program differently
from that moment on. In biology one can have the same but often one must
conclude: "Ok I would have designed it differently but in terms of evolution,
it does make sense indeed."

I have a lot of trouble learning new languages, I also struggle playing
elaborate games like Descent... Until that feeling of ahhhh I understand why a
game designer put that weird element in, it balances the game, it adds some
unpredictability to it. Only then does it become fun.

I'm told I am a very good and fast learner and have a good memory but I feel
it is not true, I use this systems approach. As soon as you understand what a
carburetor should do, it becomes very easy to remember how it does it. As a
scientist that means constantly updating and changing ones view of reality
itself based on new evidence. It's about building a mind model but always
knowing that model is an oversimplification that is only useful as long as it
explains your experimental results (more specifically, as long as it explains
your experimental controls).

My wife is often amazed at how I can be so highly educated and smart in some
ways and so stupid or un-understanding in others. I feel it is because I
sometimes lack a "mind-model" for certain things of situation that I can
interact with/in, I still need to build it, or it is insanely difficult to
build it. Trying to build such models for the humans in my life may my biggest
fallacy yet. It leads to countless hours of grinding thoughts, simulating
conversations that will never occur.

~~~
emondi
I think he was trying to make the point that the embarrassmen of not knowing
the capital was going to make that fact stay in the journalists head for much
more time that the mere fact of hearing it mentioned. Even if there is no
logic on naming cities.

------
Icedcool
Spoilers: the same way you did as a kid. Just with more attention.

------
goldenkey
Trick question. Australia has 8 capital cities.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_capital_c...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australian_capital_cities)

That aside, the article is rather bunk and claims to have authority.
Memorization isnt learning.

~~~
lazyasciiart
It's not a trick question at all. There is only one capital of Australia, the
others are capitals of their respective states. This response is as though I
asked where the US government is located and you said "trick question, there
are 51 US governments!"

