Learning & Association
By Kevin
In the previous entry, I promised that I'll come back to this topic; I mentioned something about a counter-intuitive phenomenon when it comes to learning:
When everyone is reading their textbooks and preparing for exams, it would seem somewhat unwise to be reading some other popular Economics books or even the Bible. Yet as a student captured in this whole paper chase, one needs also to realise that there is little value in re-reading what one has been reading for practically the whole year. Combining the content learnt with newer, obliquely relevant knowledge improves your associative memory and can remarkable enhance the ability of questions to trigger knowledge you've already acquired previously over the term.
Drilling yourself can create an 'instinctive' reaction but damage proper association in our memory. Your understanding of things becomes locked in a fixed sequence, a sort of linear series that does little justice to the true underlying logic of the subject matter. Knowledge and the actual connections within information is often networked, in the style of a web; much like a wikipedia entry with lots of linked stuff here and there. You cannot study things in a set sequence unless the specific topic involves simply a sequence of logical steps that is almost necessarily unidirectional. Even when there're steps in sequence, as long as you can move in different directions and jump between steps, a web-like structure of studying would better aid learning.
Crap helps sometimes
Mindmaps and tables are incredibly useful methods of organizing web-structured information. Of course, when I suggest tables, I was actually thinking of multi-dimensional ones broken up into sets of 2-dimensional tables. It is the same as the sort of summary you find in the resource section of our site. And the unique feature of web-structured information is that having more information and holding more knowledge actually helps you to retain new things/ideas even better.
Anyone who had the chance to read Joshua Foer's 'Moonwalking with Einstein' would realise that their traditional notions about mental capacities are completely mistaken. Your mind is not a closet that runs out of space after storing too much stuff; rather your mind doesn't lose the ability to store stuff - it simply loses the ability to retrieve things when you fail to catalogue it properly when trying to memorise it. You don't have to try and master the techniques he mentioned and be a memory champion in order to ace your exams but it does help to pick up a tip or two about the implications of these memory techniques that the mental athletes use.
Storage & Cataloguing
I'm using rather machine-like terms but the mind is something wonderfully organic and obviously defies machine logic. It appears to act like a machine while being way more flexible and powerful without requiring too much resources (ie. efficient). When studying, nothing is more important than focus and concentration. There's some things that can be picked up quickly within a short span of time, then try to spend short, focused units of time on them and then take breaks. Others requires long amounts of less intense concentration but lots of practice - and you should know what to do by now. Still, take breaks.
Pin-point Focus
During these breaks, read a book, look at things around you and relate the things you learn to your life. Pay your bills and think about your finances; go online to shop for stuff and think about the signals behind those prices; hunt for bargains near your home and consider the consumer surplus vendors are trying to extract from you when using two-part pricing. Don't compartmentalize what you learn from your life. It's kind of nerdy/geeky but whatever, human progress by putting knowledge into application and not knowing things, storing them into paper manuscripts and placing them in a library. Economic progress at the cutting edge are made in industries, businesses and market exchanges, not research laboratories, academics offices or think-tanks.
Those thoughts and stuff you learn from the books you read helps to anchor the ideas you've acquired; they do not distract you from the main point unless you wander too far yourself. More importantly, they are more useful anchors than the pointless information that Joshua Foer has to remember in order to have a set index of the cards. These additional information you acquire forms a natural index for you to organize the information in your mind.
When your eyes are tired, try listening audio versions of the things you're trying to learn; when your ears are tired, try writing notes from the textbooks or organize the information in a different way (when you do that, you're interpreting them in your own terms). At the same time, you're engaging more sense to help you remember the information. Your mind not only remembers the abstract ideas but associates the muscle fatigue, the movements of your eyeballs across the pages, or the sounds you hear, whether it's the voice of the lecturers, the tones and pitches, the emphasis and such. All these meta-information helps to enhance the anchors in learning and provides a denser web for more ideas to cling on to.
Recall & Retrieval
Now during the exam, you realise that when the question comes, it triggers you to recall the information that has been acquired, sometimes with a little adjustment, that your mind makes quite smoothly. Other times, you need to locate what it is that you need to retrieve before acting on it. The actual pathway of recall is usually more bizarre than we'd like to imagine it is. The thought process could go like:
What is this (concept)? I remember I read it (somewhere in this textbook). I remember I was in my room when reading it. Ah yes, I was sitting on my bed then, and after that particular reading I went to get tea for myself. Oh yea, and I was thinking about how the distribution of the quality of the tea would come from the 'ensemble distribution' when they are sampled somewhat randomly even though the quality of the tea might be simply directly correlated with the packet that comes before it. Ah, so the ensemble distribution is the potential limiting distribution for the variable following the random walk process at any time 't'.
Obviously 'tea' and time 't' does have some sort of audial association but I shall not go into that. Even if you don't know what the concept mentioned above is about; you get my drift about how seemingly unrelated stuff can help you in the process of your knowledge retrieval. They need not be directly related but they help when at the point of studying, you constantly make mental associations between the things you learn and the things you're doing, or engaged in. Explaining to friends about the ideas and challenging each other's understanding of the concepts helps immensely.
When it comes to learning, it pays to understand the organ we're using to learn so that we can trick it into doing what we need it to.
Mode of Doing
By Kevin
Take Action!
After spending 15 years in education, I spent a brief two and a half year or so working (2 years in the military and then 6 months in the private sector). I returned to education after that; almost completing my first year of education since the hiatus. So I guess I know a thing or two about studying, or at least learning. Of course, everyone have different styles of learning but from my experience with people around me (who have mostly done remarkably well in the education system back in Singapore), studying/revising for school work almost definitely involves some form of active 'doing' rather than passive stuff (like plain reading).
The trick to absorbing new materials and learning in general is to involve as many senses as possible. This is a concept I explored a while back in 'Remembering Stuff'. It is then, more sensible to draw mindmaps while reading, to do underlining, annotations, taking notes while going through materials. When I go through my Economics notes, I often have to try deriving the equations myself because if I don't walk myself through the equations using my own interpretation of the logic of the theory, I will never be able to internalize the materials. This true for all the hard sciences (granted, economics is not exactly a hard science but when it comes down to the equations and formulas, we can reasonably assume it takes on that slice of nature of hard sciences).
But what about social sciences and humanities? It helps to draw mindmaps, basically to make connections between things that are studied. And the best part about mind maps is that it allows you to make many different complex connections. Although at the end of the day you might not actually find the stuff you drew particularly useful, the mindmap is really more of a tool to pin down your thinking of the connections than a visual representation of the actual concepts (especially true when you're doing revision) so it's fine. Getting in the mode of 'doing' activates your kinesthetic self and enlist the help of your muscles to 'remember' stuff for you. It's not that the muscle cells helps you to remember stuff but that the motor neurons help to provide another channel by which the new material enters your brains.
All that busyness also keeps you engaged and focused, especially if you're like me, dozing off easily as I stare at my materials. So for those who are studying out there, preparing for examinations, plainly trying to be consistent, don't waste your time staring blankly at your notes. Take some action and learn something.
Cognitive Surplus
By Kevin
Extra Mindspace?
ERPZ has always been a result of the 'Cognitive Surplus' that Clay Shirky wrote about and spoke about on TED. There is no organization supporting us, we are not driven commercially; we just are keen to do some stuff and share with the rest of the world. I'm not sure if we are serving any social causes; perhaps LOLcats contribute more than us.
In many sense, we are propagating some ideas by Kevin and his friends that they've found useful and think could be shared. We believe in the importance of disciplining one's minds and to empower it appropriately through careful thinking and motivation. This helps us build positive habits that will do us great in long run. We too often do not realise how little we need to spend at a high frequency to achieve a lot in the end. That is actually the idea of cognitive surplus: watching an hour less TV and use it to do something meaningful would allow you to achieve a lot more in your life. It's also about maximizing your potential, to do what you want to do that will benefit someone else as well.
And here we are, motivating many others to do the same, for themselves as much as everyone else. I always encourage people to think of giving as contributing to personal development though it often don't work on calculative people. So write more, I tell myself occasionally, and change the world somehow - with that cognitive surplus.
Thinking Beliefs
By Kevin
The Skeptic
Michael Shermer speaks on TED about Beliefs, and how people are wired to want to believe in things. He explains 'The pattern behind self-deception' but it really is more about how the brain makes decision on what it pretends to be 'objective' based on extremely limited information. The decisions would therefore be a result of evolutionary experiences as well as learning.
It is really very true that you choose to believe in false patterns and become superstitious especially when you feel out of control, helpless in a specific matter. That is the reason why gamblers often believe in luck and we Chinese think that you should not touch a book ('shu', a homonym of 'losing' in Chinese) before entering a gambling den. One of the articles in The Economist's special report on Gambling discusses this. It quotes from David Sklansky:
[E]xpert players do not rely on luck. They are at war with luck. They use their skills to minimise luck as much as possible.
Therefore, it is the less skilled who'd think that they are 'victims' of fate or luck. The article's conclusion highlights a point from David that shifts your perspective of luck from winning to losing:
Imagine trying intentionally to lose at a game of pure chance, like roulette or baccarat. It would be impossible. At the beginning of a deal or a roll you have to bet on something. You can no more deliberately play badly than you can deliberately play well. The same is not true for poker, which offers multiple opportunities to make sure you lose.
That is to say that for something which you can deliberately play badly in, you'd have a good control of the outcome, and you need to make use of that control. It applies to life at large; when you choose to blame other things, events, people and circumstances for your situation, you're victimizing yourself and thinking that you've been toyed by chance. It makes you more likely to believe in false patterns and weakens you. That sets the basis for bad thinking and destructive self-deception.
Michael is also the founder of Skeptic Magazine. The magazine appears to be both humourous (at least from my point of view) and full of science tidbits that most people would really enjoy. For those who believes the world is ending in 2012, do check out a little interview they've done for you guys.
The takeaway? Understand your tendency towards beliefs and learn how to use them to your advantage; maintain a healthy skepticism and at times, accept false things so that you'd feel better. Most importantly, empower yourself with your beliefs.
I Don’t Know
By Kevin
Sure or not?
It's been a long time since I wrote something about learning and studying. Recently it just came to my attention of the problem of the lack of active curiosity amongst students nowadays. People who are self-confident won't use the term 'I don't know' or admit they don't know something; as illustrated by the rather lame riddle, which testers claim has stumped 96% of Harvard students while majority of Kindergartners could offer an answer.
I turn polar bears white and I will make you cry.
I make guys have to pee and girls comb their hair.
I make celebrities look stupid and normal people look like celebrities.
I turn pancakes brown and make your champagne bubble.
If you squeeze me, I'll pop.
If you look at me, you'll pop.
Can you guess the riddle?
Apparently the answer is 'no' and rather than give the answer, people who don't give up would be in the 'work in progress' stage where the 'let me guess' thinking process doesn't cease. While this spirit may have failed for this riddle, it is the thing that drives the very same people to Harvard. At work, 'I don't know' is one of the most irresponsible phrase, both in terms of your duty and towards your personal development. It is okay not to know something but then just plain stating that reflects inaction, the implicit refusal to get pass the stage of ignorance. It is important not to fall into such a trap; being completely confident in yourself is not always good but then the liberal use of 'I don't know' represents another extreme.
Instead of saying 'I don't know', use 'let me check', 'I'll find out', 'I'm working on it' to remind yourself that you have the responsibility to know and should be finding out. Changing your attitude from a preference for inaction and status quo to one that involves actively overcoming one's inadequacy is an important step to achieving personal excellence.
The Truth About Procrastination
By Martin See
To all my friends at EPRZ, I am back!
I have been intending to write this article for months, ever since I published my first in June 09. But why didn’t I write it? Because I have to practise what I preach. I have to do the things that I advise my readers to do. Today’s article discusses the benefits of good procrastination and there is no better way to validate its credibility than to use myself as the test subject. Here are the facts of my research.
As children, we were told by our parents to stop procrastinating and start working on our household chores. As students, we were told by our teachers to stop procrastinating and start working on our school assignments. And they would always use this popular saying, “the early bird catches the worm”, to support their argument. Fair enough. But what happens to the early worm? Doesn’t it get eaten? The truth of the matter is that procrastination can be good or bad depending on how you use it. So the important issue is not how you should avoid procrastination but how you should use procrastination to your advantage.
There are many activities that you could be doing now. All these activities are competing for your time and attention. How do you decide which activity to begin and which to postpone? Through objective evaluation, you will have to rate each activity in importance. After that, you will have to practice the principles of good procrastination- to learn when to do the right things and to postpone the wrong things. It means choosing to avoid lesser activities in favour of greater goals. If you have just been struck by a brilliant inspiration, for example, then you should work on that new idea and postpone the thought of running an errand for your parents. Learning to prioritise is, thus, the key to good procrastination.
During my absence from ERPZ, I have completed my National Service, organised several grassroots events, and earned my driving license among many other completed tasks. I have been using procrastination to my advantage by avoiding the less important activities to do the real work. And even though I have sacrificed the cleanliness of my room, the well-being of my stomach, and of course the welfare of the readers at ERPZ, I have accomplished much by practising good procrastination.
Most people will tell you that procrastination is bad and that you should avoid it or cure it. Their ill advice is predicated on the false belief that procrastination means doing absolutely nothing. Author Paul Graham writes that “there are three types of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on a) nothing, b) something less important, c) something more important.” The last type, good procrastination, is what you should strive for.
Importance of Focus
By Kevin
Getting focus right...
It's been a while since I last written something on studying; recently I observed how some students take a long time to study. Obviously, many of these people spend substantial amount of time plainly staring at pieces of information, occasionally reading through them with a tiny bit of appreciation and often not quite understanding what they are studying anyways. Computer gaming, and loads of interactive stuff online coupled with consistent television watching has reduced our attention span significantly and impaired our abilities to focus.
So to improve how you study as well as your concentration, you might like to try a few of the following:
Plan Revision & Stick to it
The first step to keeping focusing is having a good, realistic plan. Without a plan, when we decide that we're going to study, we'll often just lay out the books and stare at words, possibly read a little and then zone out. When we don't have a plan that dictates specifically what we are going to study and for how long, we'll often just drift about the different materials we have, not doing anything eventually. So come up with a proper plan, noting down what topics for what subject you'll be studying and for how long. Give yourself breaks between topics and when you're executing your plan, make sure you follow through and only skip the breaks if you believe you can continue. If you find yourself needing more or less time than planned, adjust your plans accordingly. Don't tire yourself out if you are fast with your studying; reward yourself with a longer play time or break when you finish early.
Find a Good Site
Some people just can't study at home. I'm not exactly such a person but many people around me are like that. The problem is when there's people familiar around you, you'd be tempted to eavesdrop their conversation, observe what they are doing - in other words, doing everything else except the task at hand. This happens less (at least at a lower intensity) when it comes to having strangers around you, unless you're really busybody. Studying outside might be a better option; Starbucks is pretty friendly with studying people, especially the more remote branches, The Coffee Bean is not.
Media White-out
For those who can't even withstand a bit of distraction will need to try a boycott of media and other attention-seeking stuff. Turn off your TV, radio, computer for a pre-designated time that follows from your study plan. Do not allow yourself to use the computer or those devices even when you're taking a break. Limit distractions to nuts, snacks, and drinks without digital or analog devices that produces visuals or audio. These people might realise they'll be better off staying at home and paying their family to get out of the house. Of course, once you're done with whatever you need to accomplish, you can get back to the stuff you like to do so that they act as a reward for your efforts.
A measure of self-awareness is necessary to help you with this; knowing how your mind gets distracted and what it is easily distracted by will help you attain focus through the elimination of these distractions. It sounds like a pretty simple concept but people usually don't take steps to help themselves concentrate. Instead, they wait around for their moods to come or the distractions to go away; if you want to make any progress at all, you'll have to start taking charge of how you waste your time.
The Value of Pessimism
By Wei Seng
To smile or frown?
I felt a bit vindicated to read in the Lexington column in The Economist's Christmas edition that two writers have decided to tackle 'the American tendency towards mindless optimism'. Being a habitual pessimist it does feel good occasionally to read about people who are pessimists and stand up for their views instead of let themselves be bashed by optimists.
The two writers mock the optimists for being too positive and too dependant on positive thinking to help them in their lives, from defeating cancer to not gaining weight. I like that the example of the banking crisis was used to justify when one should listen to 'the killjoys' and stop letting the bubble inflate. Optimism apparently blinds sometimes, and this is where pessimism comes in. I like how one of the writers allude pessimism to 'foul weather' like thunderstorms: it might be dampening and depressing, but to some it refreshes and energises them. It can wake people up from their daydreams and their eternal sunshine (even though many people love thunderstorms because they can sleep comfortably through the cool weather).
But of course, there needs to be some optimism. Ultimately, Lexington argues that pessimism should be taken like a pinch of salt, just a pinch / ounce and not too much. For instance, one of the writers (a conservative) argues that mass immigration will not benefit America, but ultimately 'America was built on the mass immigration of optimists'. I guess there needs to be a balanced dose of both sides.
On a side-note, reading The Economist makes me feel more and more pessimistic about the world... is it because of the coverage, or are world affairs really that gloomy and glum?
Vertical Thinking
By Kevin
Lateral Thinker
I finally found a copy of Edward De Bono's Lateral Thinking, published in 1970s. It collects his earlier insights about Lateral Thinking and reflects his more original ideas about the subject. The books he published much later are more or less repetition of these earlier ideas, presented in alternative means - some acting as encouraging creativity, others at simplicity of thought and some plainly about motivation and happiness.
I'm not exactly a fan of De Bono - I think he exploits his authority in the area of lateral thinking pretty well and have managed to set himself apart from the general 'creative thinking' bunch. I think his Six Thinking Hats programme made him quite a lot of money and his success in trying to frame his concepts into thinking in the business realm means more money. Still, he offers much valuable ideas that are untapped by the masses.
He highlights some problems with Vertical Thinking that we traditionally use to think about problems and perceive our world; these problems are intricately woven with the advantages of this system of thinking so the point is to be aware of these inadequacies and counteract them with Lateral Thinking. Here are some of the problems with our thinking system I would like to share and explain how they might impede us in our daily thinking:
1) Our thinking creates patterns that helps create an efficient system of memory that relies of amazingly few details to trigger the recollection of an entire experience. Unfortunately, they become established ever more rigidly since they control our attention; we're constantly searching for patterns to fit into our experience to make sense of things. These patterns are also difficult to change once they become established.
This is the case of conspiracy theorists who see patterns in places people don't and form elaborate theories of conspiracies even when they are just a series of coincidence. The pattern that these conspiracy theorists establish in their minds direct their attention to particular details that reinforce their beliefs in their theories. It's difficult to convince them that their ideas are flawed.
2) Our system of thinking tends towards 'centering' (a term used by De Bono), which means that anything which has any resemblance to standard pattern will be perceived as the standard pattern. Because the information that is arranged as part of a pattern cannot be easily used as part of a completely different pattern, it is hard to change the way one perceive the same set of information to interpret them differently.
This is a case of stereotyping on steroids, best exemplified by the character Mr "Everything Comes From India" in the BBC Sketch Comedy, Goodness Gracious Me. Here's an Youtube clip showing how he makes his arguments that frustrates his poor son.
3) There's also marked tendency to 'polarize' in our system of thought, moving to either extreme instead of maintaining some balanced point between them. This implies that even when the choice between two competing patterns are very fine, one of them would be chosen with another being completely ignored.
Using the above example of Mr "Everything Comes From India", we notice that his thinking is such that there's only the two extremes of 'Indian' and 'Not Indian'. He thinks little of the effects of globalization and the influence of culture on each other or the possibility of overlapping rituals between different cultures.
Finally, patterns that we accumulate can get bigger and bigger, resulting in declarations like, "There are only 2 kinds of people in this world..." People package a whole lot of individual patterns and lump them within a bigger pattern, that immediately trigger off other perceptions that are unreal or not observed. Of course, there are advantages to this system, with it's roots in instinctive fight-or-flight responses when efficiency of generating a response is more important than producing a precise/correct response.
The idea is to know when we should make use of what sort of thinking. In pondering over important issues in life and generating ideas for a project and such, one should suspend our typical system of thought in favour of lateral thinking that has the advantage of proliferating more ideas even if they don't appear to be quality on first impression.
Making Judgments
By Kevin
Go on and strike!
Just a few days back I was discussing how we have to hold contradicting ideas as social science students; and it dawned on me that some students after training themselves to do just that, fails to make a judgment using the ideas. To them, it seems that everything is equally right and there's no quantitative means of assessing which side is better. I hate to say this but then you actually have the power to decide what is right. After all, politicians, social scientist, economists and such are always at loggerheads and as I mentioned in that earlier post, no one is exactly right - at least we'll never know what is truly right. We can only be sure of approximations to the right thing but then again there are high estimates, low estimates, depending on how things turn out.
The fact is we all make many decisions these way. There's no way to know for sure that a plan will carry through and we have default positions, knowing all well what they rest upon and how they might change. We might wake up at 10am every Sunday Morning but then we adjust accordingly when we have appointments around that time on that day. You know that your priority is with the appointment and not with sleep; so unless your priority is the other way round, you'll compromise. Likewise, when confronted with the question as to whether a Monopoly is harmful to consumers you might have to consider your priorities. You might be concerned with net transfer of wealth from consumers to the monopolist and thus against the theoretical supernormal profits. In that case you'll argue that while the firm might be a natural Monopoly and the only one serving the market, it is harmful as long as it's not taxed such that it only earn normal profits (with the tax revenue redistributed to the consumers).
On the other hand your sympathy might lie with consumer choice and welfare so you believe that as long as the monopolist exhibit some sort of dynamic efficiency, innovating and proliferating the market with variety then you're fine with the Monopoly. After all, it is giving the consumers what they want that earn them the profits. But in an event when it becomes complacent and exhibits some sort of inefficiency (not in the P=MC sense though) then it needs some competition injected. Following that line of argument, some might choose to take side with competition right from the start and argue that as long as the market is a rather contestable market, with huge players ready and able to enter anytime (despite high barriers to entry), then the Monopoly need not be too closely regulated. The above arguments would all make sense and they could well be right answers for economics essays but then the question is whether you've presented your case convincingly by showing what are your priorities or principal considerations.
In other words, you do not make judgments when you're analyzing or dissecting the ideas but when called upon, you're able to demonstrate your principal concerns and judge the ideas in accordance to them. You should be comfortable with changing your stand when you adjust your judging guidelines and not cling on too hard to your positions. Karl Albrecht, author of Practical Intelligence believes that the open-mindedness so essential to learning and the path towards intelligence require this ability to see opinions/positions and separate from ourselves. So learn to pick up opinions from making judgments but readily drop them and learn to justify what prompted you to do so (new information input, changing circumstances, difference in judging guidelines).
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