Reflections on Learning: A More Objective Comparison between School Learning and Autodidactic Learning
This is an "alternative" and more objective analysis of the issues discussed in the article "More on the Ills of Academia and Excessive School Learning."
Everyone is affected to one degree or another by conditioning and habits. How you learn, how you solve problems/are trained to solve problems, the things you are taught, and the things that are implied—all affect what you believe, how you think, how you learn, and how you solve problems. There may be great variation in how it affects individuals, but to say one is impervious to environmental conditioning and the influences of habitual behaviors is tantamount to denying one’s humanity. One of the things that makes conditioning so potentially influential—and often pernicious--is how easy it is to accept a genuine fact and unconsciously extrapolate one or more misbeliefs in response, making it all too easy for educators to TEACH one thing and unintentionally CONDITION something else entirely. And it’s a scientific fact that people’s psychologies have far more effect on how they think, problem-solve, and, especially, make decisions than they are programmed to assume.
Thus, learning goes way beyond the raw content of what’s taught, and it is, resultantly, impossible to cultivate a type of learning without cultivating a type of MINDSET—even if there is marked variation in individual responses. The human thinking organ (HTO) is a chimeric organ, a combination of the thinking organs of its numerous primitive ancestors with a small new section attached. To be human is to be inconsistent. Due to the inherent inconsistencies of the HTO and the manifold influences people are subjected to over the course of their lives, having identical intellectual and working beliefs is a complete PHYSICAL impossibility.
The MINDSET one brings to a task can have a profound effect on performance. For example, when people are accused of “trying too hard” or “overthinking it,” this is usually the result of a weak link in their understanding of what’s required for proficiency at the task; this, in turn, is usually the result of a flaw in mindset (for the relevant activity). This is something I learned from having an unusually theoretical orientation. Such a mindset can be “intellectually distracting,” and it’s almost never served me well at practical tasks. Educators must consider whether the action-worthiness or utility of the content outweighs the effects on mindset. The overly theoretical mindset tends to obfuscate the explanatory power and decision-altering power (or action-worthiness) of knowledge, and makes people excessively focused on the former. The PERSUASIVE power of a piece of knowledge can also be confused with its decision-altering power—and this must also be considered when designing curricula.
As Yogi Berra said, “In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice, they’re different.”
Even if the above concepts are known, or even promulgated, by educational theorists, due at least in part to knowledge idolatry (see extralogical reasoning intro part two), they don’t appear to be sufficiently accounted for in practice.
Extralogical reasoning defines passive learning as learning from direct instruction, especially from a teacher or course. It defines active learning as teaching oneself (usually from “first principals”), especially outside of a structured learning environment. Passive learning is generally didactic, active learning autodidactic. The latter tends to be more “SUBJECTIVE,” focused on areas of strength and preference; school tends to be more “OBJECTIVE,” focusing on the essentials and minimizing inconsistencies by providing rigorous correction, structure, and guidance. An extreme case of passive/didactic learning would be memorizing ideas from a teacher; an extreme case of active/autodidactic is Einstein’s discovery of relativity. Obviously, most learning is and should be somewhere in between.
KNOWING means knowing the facts/parts; UNDERSTANDING means knowing how they FIT IN WITH EACH OTHER; PROFICIENCY means KNOWING WHAT TO DO WITH IT; and WISDOM means KNOWING WHAT THE REST OF THEM ARE (in the general sense). Although they’re ranked from least to greatest importance/desirability IN PRINCIPLE, they are also DIFFERENT, and their respective desirability may vary from person to person depending on their individual goals, circumstances, natural abilities, etc. (note also that extralogical reasoning posits that the World has evolved to accommodate learned people’s comparative lack of wisdom).
Judging by these definitions, autodidactic learning provides the highest QUALITY learning while passive learning allows for the highest QUANTITY and RELIABILITY. An imbalance in EITHER form of learning is potentially problematic. Though knowledge doesn’t by any means guarantee understanding, proficiency, and especially wisdom and enlightenment, it’s still an essential means to those and other ends, and the consistency of one's knowledge set is probably even more important. As stated above, while other people can HELP YOU become enlightened, in the end, it must be discovered for oneself; and many topics, concepts, and inquiries don't fit within the structures of university education.
Beliefs and knowledge always come in packages, and understanding a package(s) means knowing how the parts fit in with each other. This requires exploration. But it’s best to learn how to get around a town by exploring the town on your own, rather than just by taking prescribed routes (though this needn’t, nor shouldn’t, be entirely lopsided). Thus, one must think about things from different points of view, such as doing math problems and derivations in different and, especially original, ways. But thoughtspace—that is, thinking viewed as a math-like space with the properties of the human thinking organ—is much fuzzier and more treacherous that actual space. It’s difficult to question one of your beliefs in a package(s) unless you’re able to question them all. Because so much of thinking and knowledge are unconscious and psychological, simply “trying” to do this can only get you so far.
For one to truly execute an exhaustive inventory of his/her understanding of something requires what Bishko called rampant self-doubt: a state of confusion and anxiety where one is compelled to question the package(s) in ways they couldn’t otherwise. Rampant self-doubt results in packages “UNRAVELING.” Resolving means undergoing a reintegration that has the potential to give rise to a new and more integrated package(s). In math and physics, I’ve found that the best catalysts for self-doubt are “why not” problems or “disproofs”—figuring out why certain methods DON’T work in some cases. Oftentimes, you can feel the anxiety and confusion as soon as you ponder it.
Although school learning and rampant self-doubt aren’t mutually exclusive, prudence demands high school and undergraduate students be mindful of getting into ruts and, therefore, consider avoiding anything that might catalyze them, including any autodidactic learning related to relevant courses (e.g., doing original derivations of the formulas in math and physics or disproofs). This can be intellectually emasculating, conditioning students to reflexively avoid rampant self-doubt, self-discovery, and the use and development of their natural intuitions. That is to say, avoid the very processes where the greatest breakthroughs are made.
In fine, too much passive learning can lead to too much passive thinking—and this includes an over-reliance on academic knowledge and a deemphasis of the use and development of one’s intuitions.
Extralogical reasoning defines the causation bias as the natural human tendency to be too quick to assume that the relationship between cause and effect will be ascertainable and satisfying. In most things, especially in the Modern World, the factors/variables involved in causality (or that are potentially involved) are numerous, intangible, and interactive. Extralogical reasoning’s causal defects are the tendency to think exactly the opposite about the relevant variables as well as to underestimate the power of self-organization—or the ability for things to organize themselves, even if what actually emerges can only be guessed. To understand the whole, or a collection of variables, one must understand the parts and how they fit in with each other. Although one must always understand how the facts/parts fit in with each other, the opposite, and much more common, form of reasoning is called reductive or reductionistic, and it’s especially inappropriate when applied to complex systems like economics, businesses, and ecosystems. Math, physics, and engineering are exceptional in that they ARE reductionistic. But to treat most collections of variables as reductive would be to not treat them for what they are. Since most of the World can’t be understood reductively or quantitively, reality is more unknowable than people are programmed and brought up to believe.
Making matters worse, a design flaw of the HTO is that it doesn’t actively distinguish between WHAT it observes and how it INTERPRETS what it observers. Left to its own devices, it blurs observation and interpretation together, making people prone to jump to conclusions and creating the illusion that opinions are mandatory. If you don’t understand something, don’t have an opinion on it. An opinion you don’t understand isn’t an opinion; it’s a dogma or an assumption.Moreover, extralogical reasoning posits that in life, false assumptions should be considered more dangerous than correct answers are beneficial. Decisions are different; decisions ARE mandatory, and you don’t have the luxury to be snooty. Because opinions are (usually) optional and since coming to conclusions prematurely can make it more difficult to change your mind if you turn out to be wrong, extralogical reasoning believes its good for people’s immediate and general thinking to be in the habit of being cautious about the opinions they choose to take on.
Unfortunately, in many ways, the conditioning effects of high school and undergraduate education discourage extralogical reasoning, especially the elements espoused in the two paragraphs above. School must create curricula with material and assignments that have ascertainable answers and explanations that fit within school structure. Ascertainable answers and explanations include student opinions, often on topics too complex and unknowable for ANYONE to really understand (e.g., the “how does it affect the World today” assignment). Spending years ensconced in such an environment without combining it with intensive autodidactic learning can create misconceptions about thinking, knowledge, and the nature of reality, however unintended.
It is the experience of myself and scholars such as Nassim Taleb and Thomas Sowell that naïve and reductionistic thinking is common amongst academics. As mentioned, while the issues discussed herein may be known by educational theorists and other scholars, they don't appear to be sufficiently ACTED UPON. Although university education, as part of an ultra-complex institution like academia, could never be "methodologically pure," extralogical reasoning asserts universities and its members' flaws are influenced by knowledge idolatry and the latter's general lack of autodidactic learning. Admittedly, however, academia, like everything else, tends to attract certain personality types more than others, including some already characterized by this type of thinking as well as those especially inclined to accept it. Therefore, one must be careful not to confuse correlations with causation.
Extralogical reasoning harbors the dogma that while school can greatly polish and enhance a learner’s enlightenment, it can’t deliver the foundation—that only comes from autodidactic learning. But it's a dogma not because it's absolute IN FACT, but because its emphasis serves a useful purpose--in this case, to help prevent the current IMBALANCE toward school learning. Whether or not one of the two forms of learning is "better," factually speaking, is actually a meaningless question; what matters is whether or not people pursue learning optimally, which requires a certain BALANCE of things not presently met (in the majority of cases). Extralogical reasoning asserts that wisdom is path independent; there tend to be many, if not an infinite number of, paths that lead to the same wisdom. Ultimately, everyone must choose their own—and extralogical reasoning can aid the overwhelming majority.
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