Comment by toast0
1 day ago
> Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries a lesson.
-- from "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan
Also, The Profession by Isaak Asimov is entirely dedicated to the importance of learning.
https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/2024/04/05/profession-b...
That story had a profound impact on me when I read it as a kid. It encouraged me to learn for the sake of learning and to not get worked up over some test result. Many times the test is measuring something different than you think, than even the testers think. It encouraged me to look at things differently, so find more depth. To realize that to make things different you also have to do things differently.
Reading again as I've become older I can see Asimov's call to fix education in the US and how much he resented the growing anti-scientific movements. As a child I thought it would be cool to belong to this elite group of "tape makers" (people who create knowledge)[0]. But as an adult I realized the naivety and grotesqueness of a society constructed in such a way. It is inhumane because it turns man into machine, with only a few being allowed to even be given the chance to explore the world around them.
It's a really good read. I highly recommend. It's old Sci-Fi, so can be rough, but I feel it has aged well. It's under 50 pages, so easy to finish in a single sitting. It's in Asimov's "The Complete Stories Vol I" if you find a copy, but you can find it online or I believe it is also in "The Asimov Chronicles". It's also HN, so I hope everyone knows ways to get those...
Btw, the Wiki[1] has spoilers. Do not read the paragraph starting with "Suddenly a stranger appears" nor the one that follows. Here's a short non-spoiler version instead: In the 66th century, school doesn't exist and instead people are educated through a direct download into their brain. They learn to read at 8 and are fully educated at 18, allowing them to live their lives as children do. Our protagonist, George, differs than his peers, being a nerd and using his new found ability to read to read whatever he can get his hands on. At 18, children are fully educated, tested, and then assigned careers by their aptitudes. George stands out, his test results suggest he is mentally challenged, is not given a designated career, and thus is not allowed to be further educated. Not being fit for any career or education, they commit him to psychiatric ward where he'll live out the rest of his days.
[0] In some sense I still do. I have a deep passion for research and my dream job would be somebody giving me money to just explore my ideas. Probably not too far off from what people imagine a tenured professor does, though that's quite different from what one actually does.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella)
If I had to pick three books that made me who I am, I would add Ask A Foolish Question by Robert Sheckley [0] and Hard to Be a God by Strugatsky brothers [1].
Those two are more about humility and imperialism than learning, though.
[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33854
[1] https://content.cosmos.art/media/pages/library/hard-to-be-a-...
Irulan’s books are state propaganda! The true Paul Atreides is only revealed in Leto II’s secret diaries.
Ars longa vita Brevis by Scott Alexander also has some interesting perspectives on the art of learning and teaching:
https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
> “Not infinite. Architects. Teachers. Teachers of teachers, but the art of teaching teaching is much the same as the art of teaching. Three levels is enough. Though the levels have to mix. The teacher who trains the next architect must be a master both of teaching and of architecture. I will spare you the math, but one needs a series of teachers at different points on the teaching-skill/architecture-skill tradeoff-curve. One will be a master teacher who has devoted decades to learning the textbook-writing skill, and who can write a brilliant Introduction To Architecture textbook that makes the first ten years of architecture ability seem perfectly natural and easy to master. Another will be a mediocre teacher who knows enough advanced architecture to write a passable textbook on the subject. Still another will do nothing but study pure Teaching itself, in the hopes that he can one day pass on this knowledge to others who will use it to write architecture textbooks.