Learning via osmosis
Sometimes, I read something even if I’m not interested in the subject. It could be a way to pass the time. Or I have to read it due to work. Or I like the author, because I liked what he wrote before.
So I was wondering, do people often read something even if they’re not interested in the subject? I began examining myself for the motivation behind my readings. And I found that I read to learn other things.
The primary reason I have is, if I only read what I’m familiar with, I’ll stagnate. So I read about other topics. I may not actively seek to read about, say spelunking or the collection of coins. But I will read about other topics in passing whenever they come into my attention. There are secondary benefits to this uncoordinated reading. I read to learn the sentence structure, the “voice” of the author, the presentation of ideas.
There is this article on program run time and big-O notation by Raymond Chen. Frankly speaking, I had no idea what he’s talking about the first time I read it. And it’s fairly long. And I still finished reading it. And I still have no, ok fine, marginal understanding of what he’s saying.
Some of the terms made sense. Big-O notation, hashtables, and ternary trees (wow I thought there are only binary trees!). I can’t quite wrap my head around the subject though. I still read it. I guess the secret wish was I’d slowly and eventually learn whatever he’s talking about via osmosis.
You know, knowledge and understanding flowing from a low concentration of stupidity to a higher concentration of stupidity.
This went for another article I read by Scott Adams on investing. I read it to learn about investing from another view point. And because I had nothing to do then, and I read his blog anyway and the article came into my feed reader…
Basically he presented the idea of cutting out the financial professionals managing your investment portfolio. I have little idea and opinions on the subject, so I’ll leave you to interpret however you want.
Maybe this random sampling of subjects is my default mode…
Tags: education, learning, osmosis
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Hi! I write about maths and programming and other topics of esoteric interest. I'm also the editor of the online magazine Singularity, and you can get the latest issue at the top (it's free!).
