How Do You Learn?

Interesting conversation. Having words to describe attributes is critical. One could come up with them yourselves… but I am guessing learning would be an order of magnitude or several orders of magnitude slower.

There are certain people… good at being on the cutting edge of stuff, who know how to differentiate and categorize stuff… then organize it all, create a vocabulary, and communicate to others… thinking Darwin… Einstein. The miracle of humans is the ability to learn from others very very rapidly. Think you can learn the lessons of Darwin’s lifetime in a short time.

I was embedded in one of the centers of innovation when the basics of plate tectonics was being worked out in the 1970’s at the University of Oregon. It was a frenzy of ideas, new terminology, old terms being thrown out… it was like being a washing machine. But as I was able to match ideas to all the terms thrown around, piece by piece a coherent picture developed… a coherent self consistent global view. It was so intoxicating.


The same true in audio. I listened, read, listened, read thought and slowly a global picture of all the sound characteristics, components, and relationships developed. Not having words leaves you mind grasping for something amorphous… can’t put your finger on it.

I was a French Bordeaux fanatic when young… but got busy. I just recently decided to really learn wines. I have read several books, I got a professional set of 88 auromas, and have been systematically sampling and describing wines. It has been incredible as my sniffing and tasting descriptions have gone from a “a bit sweet”, to “rich plum with a mild blackberry overtones”… etc. my perception has gone from vague to very particular and quickly and clearly discernible details. It is as if being nearly blind and step by step having better and better glasses bring the world into focus. I ride my bike and notice the scent of flowers, wet maple leaves. Using your senses, focusing on it, and assigning words is critical. And you advancement can be phenomenal.


Well, pardon me I need to check out the bouquet of this 2018 Chateau La Tonnelle! This also can be intoxicating.

Indeed we know that it is impossible to perceive "clearly" something, even to perceive it at all, without any name or concept about it...For example the fist Aztecs "perceiving" Cortès boats dont perrceive boats at  

Beauty. Got another one. Check this out.  

Carl Sagan recounts in his book The Dragon's of Eden how he asked his son at a very early age what is the first thing you can remember? And he said, "It was red, and I was very cold." His son had been born by c-section. So that was Carl. Then there's me.

As a little kid growing up, and I mean like couple years old, I had this recurring dream or vision, or memory, don't even know what to call it. The most fascinating sparkly gleaming lights shining, sometimes waving, with the marvelous sense of floating weightless and even better, a deep sense of Oneness. Don't know what else to call it. This memory/feeling would come and go and every time made me so happy, joyous, just the best feeling ever. Whatever it was. Back then, for some reason or other, I wondered about this more than anything else. What was it???    

Then one day my parents have friends over and I hear my dad, he loved to brag about me all the time, his first born son and all that. He is telling his friend how he didn't want me to be afraid of the water. So he took me to the pool when I was still a little baby. Had me floating in the water. How I was loving it, happy as a little clam, kept my eyes open even when he let me go under the water.  

Eureka! That was it! The lights, the floating, that was it!  

Best I can figure, this early memory was formed at a time when I was so young and unformed there was no way of making any kind of sense out of it. But it made such an impression it endured nonetheless. Until I knew enough to understand, and then wow, all at once it did make sense.  

Just as with the Aztec's the experience itself is not enough. We need information to understand, or else it is all meaningless shifting patterns of light. Or sound.

Very moving stories millercarbon.... Thanks very much.....

Well, pardon me I need to check out the bouquet of this 2018 Chateau La Tonnelle! This also can be intoxicating.

Thanks
ghdprentice for your interesting posts indeed....

The information we need to perceive correctly a phenomenon  is always given to us by our culture, our body, or especially which is greatly  underestimated, by the imagination/intuition/ inspirational attention to specific things even in dreams....