

Ask HN: Books on meta-learning - jobeirne

I think meta-learning (i.e., learning how to learn) is a way too commonly overlooked subject. Unpopularity notwithstanding, there are some excellent books on the subject. What are some of your favorites?<p>Mine is probably Tony Buzan's "Use Your Head".
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mooneater
Related, see "How to Solve it": <http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/polya.html>

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silentbicycle
There's probably considerable overlap with books on creativity and making your
thinking more flexible. Roger von Oech's _A Whack on the Side of the Head_ and
_ Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!_ may be helpful.

Also, look at some of the books about home schooling, targeted to both parents
and the teenagers themselves. I remember Grace Lewellyn's _ The Teenage
Liberation Handbook_ having sections along the line of, "How do I go about
really learning history/math/foreign languages/etc."

Many things with meta-learning advice will have it as a secondary topic,
albeit an important one. Try your public library -- this is an excellent
question for a librarian.

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nazgulnarsil
overcomingbias.com

i've spent hours clicking everything the blog posts link to. these are your
bibles: <http://www.logicalfallacies.info/>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases>

study those throughly and you will be better equipped than the vast majority
of humanity. Disclaimer: exposing the fallacies in social sciences may not win
you over with your professor.

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icey
It's not a book, but understanding the methodology behind supermemo is a good
place to start.

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Jaytee
I didn't fully understand meta-learning until I started reading neuroscience
books. Find some introductory text book on neuroscience (Amazon). Then read a
book that explains extensively on various forms of neural plasticity.
Developmental neuroscience also provides crucial insights Once you understand
the fundamental mechanism of how the brain learns, all the methodology behind
meta-learning can be derived. (e.g. practice science) Because the brain is a
complicated machine and only recently has evolve more complex types of
learning, so I personally think it's more important to understand its
limitations, (e.g. when you are not learning, or why you can learn physical
skills faster than mental skills etc.)

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garymeeg
Kathy Sierra's blog is fantastic:

<http://headrush.typepad.com/>

Here are printout versions of her posts:

<http://enklo.com/passionate/>

/Gary

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gtani
[http://search.oreilly.com/?q=mind+hacks&submit.x=0&s...](http://search.oreilly.com/?q=mind+hacks&submit.x=0&submit.y=0)

i remember these 2 mind hacks from Oreilly being good, but i htink mine got
borrowed forever.

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tst
I read the mind performance one. It was good but only as a introduction to
things like remembering things, calculating fast or planning the day.
Lifehack.org delivers also great information about this topic and for free ;)

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aspirant
I've never heard of meta-learning, but about a year ago I stumbled onto a
branch of philosophy called _epistemology_ or the Theory of Knowledge. My
studies there have been absolutely exhilarating and disturbing.

Next time you see someone at the coffee machine, ask them them what is meant
by knowledge, reason, belief, truth, evidence, opinion, conviction, and
hypocrisy.

The incoherent jumble you'll get back is indicative of the broken and sloppy
process of the attempt to process data into knowledge (learning).

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aaronblohowiak
It is easy to describe those terms through their role in interpersonal
interaction and culture, but to either 1) make any claim about the working of
the mind or 2) try to bridge the gap between symbol and signified is asking
for heartache and endless rhetorical squabbling.

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aspirant
Studying a theory of knowledge for the past year hasn't left me with a bunch
of definitions, but with models for the acquisition of knowledge that have
proven very useful.

I'm sure someone probably told Newton that all that math stuff looked like
more trouble than it was worth.

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aaronblohowiak
Oh, surely. I myself have a great deal of interest in knowledge and skill
acquisition (in particular, the differences between first and successive
language acquisition, but i digress.) Studying processes and patterns in
learning can be a fascinating and deeply enriching experience. My comment was
intended to warn against delving into endless debate over terms. I see how my
(1) was worded incorrectly, instead it should have said something like "to
argue about the emergence of consciousness from the material world and its
role on the nature of subjective experience and truth", which i do believe is
not a fruitful discussion. If anyone has a particularly convincing or useful
discourse about the previous I am open to change, but as it stands all I've
read on the matter has been speculation and/or justification for some moral or
social agenda.

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ryanmahoski
The Art of Memory by Frances Yates. Classic study of how people learned to
retain vast stores of knowledge before the printed page.

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Alex3917
I've heard that Thinking And Deciding is good, but I haven't read it
personally.

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DavidSJ
Gödel Escher Bach

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MaysonL
"Learning How to Learn": Idries Shah

