Ways of learning

Hello, lainons. I'm thinking about learning to learn more efficiently. I have tried numerous methods before: spaced repetition as most hyped/obvious, utilization of visual and spatial clues, retelling learned information to myself, whatever. They all are missing something, or maybe I am using them wrong. It has never been a systematic process for me, and I, in contrast, want to make it more systematic. Preferably it should be field-agnostic. Please share your findings, any experience in utilizing some techniques, if you have any. After some thinking, I realized this thread would benefit from an example... Let's assume I want to learn history of medieval Europe. What do I do? I grab a book, and read it? Should I approach text in some specific way except for just reading? Writing conspectuses? Create a timeline with different nodes? Maybe, usually something like that, maybe not. So, lainon, what is your approach?

>>97724 Efficient to what end, on what level? https://youtube.com/watch?v=CL6bswnLULY

>>97724 i'd start by figuring out exactly what you're interested in. for example your topic of medieval history of europe- what about it? the political history, socioeconomic history? Anthropology? figure out exactly what you want to learn and then ask questions to experts on the subject- you should be asking what texts are good, what authors are good, what perspectives are valid vs invalid or outdated and then you should collect reading material- I make a habit of starting with old texts- the longer material has existed and been reprinted or redistributed generally the more validity it has had historically, even if newer ideas have eclipsed older tomes today the perspective is still very valuable. so idk maybe start by searching keywords on project gutenburg- most books on there are public domain and thus older than 100 years old. here's a whole digital shelf of old free books on the subject https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/bookshelf/660 there's also the matter of learning how to learn- i've read a few books on the subject and I don't really think any are much better than common sense for the average person- maybe for a totally clueless individual it might be useful to read... idk try The Psychology of Effective Studying by paul penn. I read it super long ago though idr remember it well

>>97743 Efficient in terms of retaining learned information. While having speed is nice, prioritizing it destroys any enjoyment in learning for me. >>97747 I found the books on topic of leaning to learn pretty shallow too. I agree that prioritizing old texts over the newer ones is a good idea.

its always repetition but repetition doesnt have to be boring. In fact reptition shouldnt be boring, you want to repeat information in different ways so that it connects to multiple things in your head. For example what I often do is I find someome who likes the topic irl usually by chance but if its something im independently pursuing il find a discord or an intro level cc class and il observe for a bit and then kind of ask maybe slightly dumb questions but ones I think people will have a lot to say about. Thats just cause I like and remember conversations a lot though for you it might be something else. Then il read whatever literature is reccomended and because ive had these convos stuff will connect to them and stick better than if i cold read the book. If the book is very easy to get into il do this in the opposite order if its only if the reading is difficult or a little tedious il find people first otherwise i read first find people after. And then il kind of repeat back my thoughts on my reading in whatever social channel and also probably look up videos about it both more pop educational ones and maybe deeper dive ones just depending on what I can stomach that day. Lastly il make art about it, but thats cause im an artist (who isnt but point is its my main productive activity) so for you maybe its writing or honestly if you arent productive in a way you can share you probably still have a productive machine inside of you. Maybe you like to imagine you are talking to a historical figure and showing them the modern world, maybe you like to imagine you are in a debate with an author, maybe you like imagining how you would interact with this medieval world. I do this with everything even just people im trying to get to know, allow the subject to engrain and apply into literally anything in your life. Its more engaging this way, the problem with something like the way math is often taught is often very dumbly put as "no apply to real life" and the prescription is often something stupid like telling a teacher to talk about calculating the angle of a football throw so it will stick together for steve on football team who is assumed to be the one who will have the toughest time for some undisclosed reason. For one steve does not need to know all that soykaf to throw his perfect spiral he already does it naturally and two the person who is going to struggle the most is often not an at least somewhat motivated kid on a sports team but one whos lacking in things or hopes to connect any of it too. Thats a seperate issue though. Point is its not about finding practical usages for the knowledge its about allowing it to seep into your worldview. Say for medieval history allowing yourself to think every time you cook about how each spice you are using got to your hands today, where is it grown, why is it even in your country at all. Every question like that can be a whole frame of reference that could lead to an analysis of all of history up to this point. Take it as far as it interests you every time and you will remember things or have questions you naturally have to ask yourself again and thus naturally repeat learning on.

>>97805 Very thoughtful reply, thank you. While I was reading it, I remembered a lot of examples from my own life which illustrated your points, and you've put it into words well. Now I suspect I just didn't actually give it too much thought, or didn't have enough life experience to arrive to the same conclusions myself. Talking to people is indeed insanely good for learning, unfortunately fields of interest of my friends are not very varied, and I find it difficult to have a meaningful conversation with strangers on the internet, the effort rarely bears any fruit. The stories of successful connections that were made via the internet fascinate me, maybe it is possible after all, I may be just missing something. I try to create art whenever possible, and I'd be grateful if you provided some examples how you connect your art to learned topics, I find this approach really interesting (and promising for myself, as it sounds like it could also motivate me to actually do more art).

It's useful to look at what other people learn, and in what required order. I have benefited from the course lists and subway maps for math degrees. https://web.stanford.edu/dept/mathematics/MathCourseFlowchart.html https://ou-public.courseleaf.com/courses/math/ https://math.unt.edu/undergraduate/files/prerequisite_flowchart.pdf ------- I'm going to try something a little weird. There is a context-sensitive property of memory. You are in a context- an emotion, a place, an activity, so some memories are easier to access. I'm realizing that I've never been that socially stressed and I might be avoiding human interaction because I am so negatively sensitive to it. I've stumbled into a context where I can expose myself to it small doses, so I can desensitize myself eventually. It is good mental exercise herding my thoughts away from these stressors the rest of the day, but it still feels like wasting an opportunity. My plan is to force myself to study mathematics in the tense hangover of these interactions. If I fill the space for social stress memories with higher mathematics, what happens when my sensitivity to social stress ebbs away? It could be that the memories would just get much harder to reach, but if the foundations are the stuff I study first at my most stressed and I apply them throughout everything else, I doubt I would lose them. My hope is that the desensitization to social stress aids the integration of the math skills into everything else. Worst case, it will at least drive me mad in a unique way.

>>97869 It's really nice to have a plan, haven't thought to look up actual course lists from unis, good idea. Also it somewhat reminded me of https://roadmap.sh/ Good luck with your experiment!