Learning just for the sake of it?

[Bendy Demon]

Jeopardy (US game show)

About as worthless as it can get.

The answers are in your head. When you don't doubt yourself, you have no reason to doubt the outside world, because the doubts we have about outside world are often projections of our doubts about ourselves.

Doubts or no, I think it is safer not to trust the world as there is really nothing worth trusting.

Problem is determining what answers are actually worth having. Sadly there is WAY too many trivial answers/information that our heads get filled with as children then as adults we fill our heads with even more useless trivia.

I guess I simply learned to never trust anything I see, hear, think or feel. I found it was better to always doubt what my mind coughs up.

[Mikko-kun]

Safer, maybe, but does safe get you somewhere? Home is safe, but if you stay there, can you get out?

Faith is based on gambling. It's a process that happens after the process of forging your faith, faith that is. Forging your faith is when you keep being sincere to yourself and thus never really saying "I believe" about something you can't know about, dont even a have a feeling about. Faith is that you gamble and still place trust in something. It's best observed in situations where you must improvise, where there's no time to think logically nor sniff the flowers and get a feeling of things. You just take the jump. It's a gamble.

I had no faith really before I gambled. Before I gambled I was stuck on the process before it, the forging process. I still am to a good part, but at least I'm far from being devoid of faith. You too have it, it's just you might not think much about it. We all seem to have it in some form, though I could be mistaken. But it's more of a matter of truly gambling, which is an opposite to doubting. Doubting ain't wrong, but it becomes hard to reach things with doubting alone if you aren't in touch with what's on the other end of that road, gambling, faith.

Can you have any answers worth having if you dont have a faith?

[Mikko-kun]

And by faith I dont mean a religious thing. I believe in self-sufficiency, gardening, universal energy observed through astrology, basic human kindness, love... you dont need faith when you reach it, but that's not faith. Faith is the realisation that there's always more to reach for, it's your realisation of that. It wants to be focused. It has a natural way to focus itself. It can be pretty much anything that you can fit to (not something that fits to but something you can fit to) how your faith focuses to things. I believe in possibilities regarding those things, believing in possibilities is my way of faith.

[libstaK]

I have "learned" that I am easily bored in a formal teaching environment. Regardless of the subject so much is added that, well, just seems superfluous and basically "Learning for the sake of passing a test" rather than anything I can see myself using.

Put a mystery in front of me though - I like the process of discovery and insight and will go out of my way to find answers. What do I do with that later? I put my questions to rest and move on basically and I think that's the point, when we ask "why?" we won't stop until we know "why" something is as it is.

[Professor T]

However, the big question is, whether you have the motivation and the solution through which you actually use this information. That why I believe learning should be more a voluntary process where we can choose more, more, more freely what we learn.

I like this..

We should be able to choose the information that invigorates the mind.. Unfortunately, today's education all to often forces information that dulls it..

A mind is a powerful thing when it is properly fed, and is capable of imagination, inspiration & invention. These three things don't come from facts and figures alone.

[Bendy Demon]

Can you have any answers worth having if you dont have a faith?

Yes. Either you learn it or you don't. Like riding a bike, either you struggle to stay on or fall off.

If one is going through education to act as a doctor, for example, then they acquire the info because it is necessary for the position.

Most don't think about faith, the process of acquiring the info is like an automated system.

We should be able to choose the information that invigorates the mind.. Unfortunately, today's education all to often forces information that dulls it..

A mind is a powerful thing when it is properly fed, and is capable of imagination, inspiration & invention. These three things don't come from facts and figures alone.

Sadly our world is not set up to do any of the above. It is set up to create waves of worker drones.

Even imagination is useless if one doesn't have the required education to make use of it.

Still..for me trying to find a use for whatever info I may have inadvertently amassed is a task. I am trying hard to deliberately forget stuff that I cannot use.

As for "faith" to me it is like "hope" it is cute but it doesn't serve me at all. Either I acquire the info that is required or I don't. Sort of like auto-pilot I guess.

[Mikko-kun]

One of the greatest hindrances in learning is the money-making aspect. Can I use this and that to make money? Will learning this and that help me in my pursuit for a job an money? It drives us do things in unnatural ways.

The problem is one size for all -thinking. Some might feel natural to learn out of necessity, but our mentalities are different. We're not as fit for drones as we are to pursuit what we feel good about, we're more efficient in doing the latter. Sports teams have coaches not just because of having good strategy, but to raise the spirits too, to make the team perform better. Personal coaches are used for the same thing too, and there's gym classes where you're psyched up to exceed yourself with different methods, taunting is one of them. Those in a sense make money with the faith thing, with helping others to build belief in themselves. It works because we humans are more used to do things when we must, not at our leizure, because as you said, drone society. I think it's all the more important to try break from that kind of society because it's not the most efficient solution nor the most pleasant one, by far.

Faith can make you feel better about doing a process. And when you feel better, you're more efficient. It will not give you money and good scores at tests directly, but if that's all you'd really care about, then wouldn't that be the real problem?

[Bendy Demon]

One of the greatest hindrances in learning is the money-making aspect. Can I use this and that to make money? Will learning this and that help me in my pursuit for a job an money? It drives us do things in unnatural ways.

Little of what we do is "natural" anyways, it seems.

Personal coaches are used for the same thing too, and there's gym classes where you're psyched up to exceed yourself with different methods, taunting is one of them.

"Taunting" is used because it is a form of bullying, not faith, and those with a certain mindset will utilize it then claim they are just "helping". That is one of the tactics used by many, it appears.

It works because we humans are more used to do things when we must, not at our leisure, because as you said, drone society. I think it's all the more important to try break from that kind of society because it's not the most efficient solution nor the most pleasant one, by far.

It does seem that this is the sole desired outcome, to create workers. If society is to change in any useful manner then it has to be actively changed by altering mindsets overall, not just in one sector.

[Mikko-kun]

It can be just bullying, but it's natural for animals to be more ferocious (a synonym for effective) when driven to a corner or pushed. You can do the taunting in many ways, not just one way.

Physical world is tied to a mental one, and I think we have the tools to change the both, and I can easily give examples of people who have started to make those changes in practise. The problem is, the alternative ain't appealing enough. We chase things that are appealing to us, and after a hard day of work we look for those things, not for more work. One good thing to ask yourself is would you rather do a drone-job you feel a bit better about half the day every day like we do now, or a job you might not feel so good about but didn't have to sacrifice so much time to it and do the rest of the day a kind of work you can feel coming naturally for you. Natural and comforting ain't always the same.

[spartan max2]

I don't mean this as an insult in anyway. But it kind of sounds like your in high school at that age were your trying to find reasons why school is dumb.

Iv been there lol, sure others have

[rodentraiser]

Learning HOW to learn is essential in today's world. You can't just sit there and expect the knowledge to drift into your brain. It does require some work. When I trained my dogs, I had to teach them to learn first and become active in the learning process. You'd be surprised at how fast they learned things after that happened. Maybe, Ryu, you haven't been included in the learning process yet. Sounds like people are just mapping out a subject list for you and throwing it at you. It sounds like you're not being given any opportunity to have input into it. Well, that's like tossing a kid in the deep end of the pool and saying Swim! That only works for a very, very small percent of the population.

For school, what I always tell students is this: it's a game. Four years and you're out. Play the game as well as you can and when you're finally out, THEN you can start to do the things you want and learn what you please. Unless you're in a super facility, high school is nothing. But if nothing else, this is teaching you how to be patient, bide your time, and put up with mediocrity until you have control. And that ain't a bad lesson in itself.

But learning for yourself? Ever watched the James Burke series, "Connections"? It's amazing to see how many things we take for granted today that were invented before there was a use for them. Inventing isn't thinking up something new all at once. It's really just putting all the pieces together. And if those "useless" pieces weren't there to be found, where would we be? I've had a blast making up a number system without a zero. You can add, subtract, multiply and divide in it. It has walking numbers and all sorts of other oddities. I spent a lot of time and energy doing it and is it worth anything? According to my opinion, I say yes. You'd say no. But then, I see all the work someone puts into learning to play the piano. I would never throw away my time to do that, but people who like to play the piano think I'm crazy for saying that. What you learn and what you use your learning for is all subjective. It's YOUR decision what to learn and not to learn. There's a lot of people out there who like to make you feel you have no choice in the matter.

Likewise, in his series "The Day the Universe Changed", James Burke makes a very profound statement. He says, "You are what you know. And when what you know changes, so do you." Something to think about, as I believe that is something that drives our civilization.

[Bendy Demon]

Learning HOW to learn is essential in today's world. You can't just sit there and expect the knowledge to drift into your brain.

I don't assume that but thanks for the tip.

It does require some work.

I am aware of that, but thanks though.

Maybe, Ryu, you haven't been included in the learning process yet.

Basically I was told that if I didn't have any use for any subject, meaning if I couldn't make money off of it, then it was useless. That is still my fathers attitude to this day.

For school, what I always tell students is this: it's a game. Four years and you're out.

If it is a college then perhaps but not mandatory school.

There's a lot of people out there who like to make you feel you have no choice in the matter.

For me it is not so much a matter of choice as it is about utility. The energy spent has to have a useable payback instead of just patting myself on the back because I learned to do needlepoint or learned some obscure language.

Yes, I am aware that we all learn stuff passively as we exist but that is different from devoting and directing time and energy learning a specific set of information. In such case it has to have more of a return than just getting a gold star for learning something that has no value in real life.

I guess it is like a bit of a mental block for me. I grew up in a home where one parent feels learning something specific has to have a use while the other didn't pursue anything and was not supportive of anything. (actually my father wasn't very supportive of much either, come to think of it.)

[Blood_Sacrifice]

Just because there may be problems within the educational systems do not mean that education in itself is the culprit here.

And it's not possible to have a great wealth of knowledge about each and everything about the world (it's humanely impossible), as such specialization is necessary. Specialization doesn't imply one can't get basic or even intermediate knowledge regarding the other branches of study.

And education does not automatically refer to traditional, formal text-book-based education. An illiterate person can still be educated regarding things. Education doesn't have to come from just reading a book.

[Bendy Demon]

Education doesn't have to come from just reading a book.

True enough but still..trying to decipher what is actually worth learning, even passively is a chore.

However just hearing something on tv, radio or even overhearing something rarely means it is accurate by any means.

Come to think of it, even books now days are often rife with misinformation.

[Mikko-kun]

Forget everyone elses' attitutes and just figure things out yourself. It may be hard, but you gotta start somewhere, because it's like riding a bike. You just dont get it if you dont do it.

I've found that figuring things out by yourself includes:

-taking risks, risks that you might be wrong on some things, daring to hypothesise a bit, allowing some perhaps pointless things to carry on a bit longer in your thinking process

-learning to trust your own senses. It's a long process where you can always take steps back and I believe it's more of an extradimensional labyrinth of sorts than a two-way road of right and wrong. I doubt anyone will reach any perfect state on this, if there even is one... define perfect on this...

-stepping outside boxes and stigmatas, forgive yourself even if others wouldn't. Learning to see stigmatas and not taking them too hardly, in the end they're just something believed to be right at least some point by someone

-being ready to change your views and focusing more on developing your methods of finding the truth than just gathering it, instead of trying to prove something to be right or wrong and collecting anything you can about that being the case... the latter might not be wrong per say, but if you dont do the former then you won't be able to steer towards truth when you're wrong, and we're all wrong at some point in life unless we've figured it all out already.

[brlesq1]

To me, learning new things helps one to become a well rounded person. Have you ever talked to anyone who only "knows" one thing? Gets boring pretty fast. I like being a well rounded person because it means I can talk about almost anything. This doesn't mean I'm an expert (no way!) but it does mean that I understand the basics and can hold an intelligent conversation with people who know more about it than I do.

[Leonardo]

I see...

However, at the risk of sounding even more stupid than I already am, how is learning something that is inapplicable to real life enriching.

And what, exactly, is inapplicable to real life?

Real life is not just our job, it is also our friends and colleagues, acquaintances and family. It is our hopes, dreams, motivations and aspirations. Having discussions with those around us is part of what makes real life, life. Heck, all of you are here actually discussing (and learning about) something that would not qualify as "applicable to real life" if life only revolved around your job.

There is no such thing as "learning for the sake of learning", there is only "learning for the sake of sharing".

Edited August 24, 2013 by Leonardo

[Bendy Demon]

I guess I just don't see it that way. 99.9999% of all the topics out there are worthless. Their application is limited to economic gain but otherwise have no bearing to real life.

The rest is pointless trivia like the kind you see on Jeopardy or something.

I see nothing particularly noble about someone whose head is filled with useless trivia about movies, books or tv shows.

For example learning the basics of cooking is fine as it is a good skill for supporting yourself but learning about, say, astronomy, has really no practical use unless you plan to teach it or use it it a way that earns an income.

I am not interested in being a "well-rounded" person because I am not doing it for myself, I'd end up doing it to appease everyone else's expectations.

I know nothing about most literature because I don't care. I have no use for it. I know next to nothing about astronomy. I gave it up because I had no use for it. I see no point in learning a language because I cannot afford the luxury of travel and will never be in a job where I need it.

It's not that I don't value knowledge per se but I also don't see the value in accumulating useless information just so I can parade around and say "I memorized this or that.".

[Mikko-kun]

Just out of curiosity Ryu, what kind of knowledge you do value? Something with industrial machines, or how human relationships work, biology...?

[Bendy Demon]

I really don't feel any attraction to any particular section of knowledge, never really was interested in anything and if I was it was barely superficial.

[Michelle]

I really don't feel any attraction to any particular section of knowledge, never really was interested in anything and if I was it was barely superficial.

In your profile you wrote...

"I feel that if one makes the effort to amass even the rudimentary understanding of biology, psychology and physics then the so-called "unexplained" isn't quite so mysterious."

You go to great lengths to make it sound as if you are well informed. If you know next to nothing about any of these things how do you form your opinions? Listen to sound bytes that fit your point of view?

I'm a firm believer in knowledge is power. I learn at least three things every day no matter how trivial they may seem to you. Situations come up often that I look up a solution for...especially if it could save me money. If something isn't working properly I look it up on the internet or take it apart to see if I can fix it. I've done a tremendous amount of restoration to our hundred year old house by reading up on it and by trial and error. I see no point in paying someone for a $50 or $100 service call, plus the actual work charge, if I can figure out a solution myself.

I've studied what native plants are edible, poisonous or medicinal. I learned how to speak Arabic and cooking Middle Eastern foods from my Arabic friends. When I hear something I'm not familiar with I ask questions. When a subject comes up on UM I often look it up, especially when it comes to politics or current events...and not from a single source but several.

I like to interact with people without boring them to death. If I were in a room full of physicists everything they say would probably bore me and I wouldn't be able to contribute to the conversation because I have very little interest in it. It would be disheartening, to me, if my entire life consisted of the latest fashions or what color nail polish is "in" and the people I know would quickly lose interest. It's one thing to be the life of the party and quite another to have anything other than the same boring, shallow conversations.

[Mikko-kun]

Good point Michelle. I like going astrology forums more than here because of that, got something you can discuss more in-depth and get more into it. There a lot of people actually have the aim to learn more.

And from astrology's point of view I'd say that about 20% of people are like you Ryu, not finding knowledge-gathering all that interesting. Less gemini influence. If something is your style, something you like, it's easier for you to start learning there. Michelle already gave an example and my case would be, I'm somewhat into old Japanese culture, studied a bit of language and kanji before finding astrology. It was nothing I actually profited from nor gave me practical use, but my pen holding improved during that time and it's just a world of it's own to keep mastering the art of drawing just a few lines in order to make a more beautiful letter. I also like studying human anatomy and how our body works and how we could stretch it's limits whenever there's a chance to get a new angle, not for profit but it's my style, what I like. Isn't it natural to want to find out more about the things you like?

[Leonardo]

It's not that I don't value knowledge per se but I also don't see the value in accumulating useless information just so I can parade around and say "I memorized this or that.".

And neither would I, for that reason, but that is not the reason I like learning.

You and I are, I suspect, poles apart in our attitude towards learning at this particular point of our lives. I see learning as a way to bring me closer to things, and people. I haven't always been so, but as our lives around us change so do we.

It seems to me, however, your attitude towards learning things derives from your current life-situation, which I gather is not one that makes you particularly happy? I can understand, if that is the case, your rather negative outlook on learning, but I would hope for your sake this situation passes quickly. It's never pleasant to see another with whom we share even a small affinity, feel down.

[Bendy Demon]

If one is supposedly interested in UFO's then I simply think it would help to understand that our brains are easily fooled by anything.

If one wants to go further then do so.

After awhile I just don't care anymore if I learn anything or not. I never found it "enjoyable" especially when you are forced to learn things just so you can make money. It's a sad fact of life.

For me it is a matter of utility and not interest. Yeah sure, I was once superficially interested in a spare few things but the road to learning them in any meaningful way far outstripped their real value in my life. I once wanted to learn archery but after some introspection I realized it was just another useless hobby and that sort of "knowledge" (if you could even call it that) just is inapplicable to my life.

I once wanted to learn Japanese but my family quickly made me realize what a waste it was to delve into since I honestly had no use for it.

I guess I just grew up differently and any education was only valuable if it can be applied to a job or to immediate real life.

I experienced real life just enough to realize that it is not all that interesting or rewarding.

Isn't it natural to want to find out more about the things you like?

I don't know.

I just end up weighing the pro's and cons and often the cons far outweigh the pro's and then asking myself "What for?" after that I ask myself " Will it really benefit me?" and the answer is invariably a steadfast "No.".

Of course it doesn't help that I am stuck in an overall environment where no one has any drive to learn anything beyond their bibles and spending their time whining about the "kids" these days and how everything is garbage and trash.

I just have been doing a lot of introspection the past few years and have come to question even the things we have been indoctrinated into thinking was important.

[KNash]

No matter what we do, there will always be things we get out of it. To me, learning can be supported by the applying the concept of intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards. Sometimes we do things that have intrinsic or outter rewards such as learning so you can get a better job and make more money. On the other hand, there are intrinsic rewards of learning such as becoming interested in something or finding pleasure in learning about a particular subject that makes a person happy. These two types of reward concepts affect overall subjective well being as far as learning is concerned.