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A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - Frooxius - 11-03-2013
Hellooo! I hope if you don't mind if I share with you another article I wrote, which is sort of a blend of my own experience with freelance self-education (since I intentionally quit college) and my thoughts about biology, which I started studying a few months ago, with relation to some of the crazy stuff creationists say. I hope you find it interesting/entertaining/otherwise-valuable and I'll be also happy for discussion around this topic if anyone's interested ^^
A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) (click to read on my blog!)
It’s been a while since I have decided to drop out of the college/university and keep learning on my own, as I've been doing for a while. Recently I was asked how it feels and if I regret that decision by someone and I think I could share more elaborate answer with you.
I'll start with a quick answer: No, I don't regret my decision. On the contrary, I am very happy about it and educating myself further without the combined variety of pressures of the college life feels much more relaxed and enlightening.
I've learned a lot over the time. I bought myself a bunch of books on various topics outside of my current area of expertise (computer science): most importantly a big biology textbook that covers everything from basic biochemistry to whole ecosystem (and is appropriately lengthy), since the realm of functions of biological “machines” was one of the most unknown ones to me that was also bugging my mind the most.
And when I don’t know almost anything about something, it burns. Not knowing is like extra flammable oil poured into the fire of curiosity. And that’s what really pushes me to learn about things: just my natural curiosity and desire the understand things and how the world works. I don't want to learn things because I have to according to the school curriculum, but because I want to know more about them.
Natural curiosity is good enough motivator to spend hours buried in textbooks and researching materials.
One thing I found during my time at the school is that it can have quite opposite effect and rather suffocate the flames of natural curiosity. The pressures can distort normally captivating study materials into repulsive shapes, making me actually annoyed to go through them, simply because I am forced to.
It’s well known that people have more trouble acting under a pressure and might not find many activities as entertaining. While a lot of the pressure is natural and unavoidable in daily life, some of it might be unnecessary and artificial and these could be eliminated and more importantly should be eliminated.
Even though I found certain topic interesting (although as I often like to say, I find everything interesting) I found myself often annoyed with having to go through it according to some premade schedule. I didn't have much freedom to adapt the learning process to my interests and style. I got annoyed by spending too much time on things I understood well and going too quickly or superficially over things I didn't understand well enough.
Natural curiosity can be suffocated by the school environment conflicting with personal needs of a student and actually have negative effect.
But dropping out of college and using the free time to structure the learning to my own needs did wonders. I found many books and resources on topics that caught my interest or that I needed for some project of mine and I am still finding more and more. I feel literally like a kid in a candy store, with sweets made from knowledge and understanding, not knowing what to learn first.
Nothing is pushing me or forcing me to learn something in specific way or order so instead I chew through the knowledge (and I mean actual understanding of it as well, not just memorizing stuff) candy naturally, how it bests suits me at the moment. If I get tired with particular area, I go do something else for a while, or if I would like to get more details or alternate explanations, I just go and find them.
Learning new things became very natural, relaxing and enlightening experience for me.
One thought that went through my mind, but more importantly through minds of others I encountered is that without school, without the external pressure, I'll get lazy and stop learning.
Learning has also become entertainment for me.
Yet I find myself trying to read more and more every chance I get, sometimes even having to sadly put the book down (or rather close it, since I mostly read electronic variants), because I have to do some work on a project.
I was always very curious, ever since I was a little kid I was always asking questions and always spent hours buried in books and encyclopedias and I’m very glad that I retained this curiosity and hunger for knowing more.
The very act of learning more about how various aspects of this world work is very enlightening, adding data and details to my internal model of it or even correcting some parts is very fulfilling. The better grasp of reality I get, the better I understand why things happen and how can I affect them or use them for my work.
Just a few months ago, I knew almost nothing about how organisms work and now, even though I'm only about a quarter into the Biology textbook (but it’s a pretty thick book) my understanding is much higher.
Whenever I look at animals, plants or even some phenomena involving microorganisms, I think of various biological processes happening inside of them, I think of how they developed, how they got here. And even though I understand only a fraction of all there is to know about these I still feel fascinated by the beauty of it wanting to learn more.
Understanding the world in all its complexity involves finding relations and connecting things, seeing what I actually learned in the world around me and realizing how various areas and fields relate. But the amount of information and details is so overwhelming that thinking I understand things around me fully would be pretentious and arrogant.
I love connecting my new knowledge and understanding to the real world around me.
Biology is fascinating subject and coming from computer science and engineering background makes it even more peculiar. Organisms are essentially complex molecular “machines”, but they're machines without a designer. At least an intelligent one.
When I look at function and processes in a cell, I see chaos. The biological processes result from (semi)-random interactions of molecules, floating around, bumping into each other, forming groups or dissolving and interacting in various ways.
Yet there is an order within the cell, because only the interactions and molecules that are good at keeping the whole system going and propagating themselves remain. The randomness is filtered by the conditions of reality and environment. The natural laws of physics are “designing” and “guiding” the development.
There’s no intelligence involved however, there’s no foresight or sense of elegance and clean design. Organisms are overly convoluted bunch of chemical reactions interacting with each other and often tend to compensate for this chaos by robustness and quantity, so on the outside they seem to function very well with a sense of direction, function and purpose.
But apparent sense of purpose of organisms is just an illusion.
Biology has also some interesting relations to computer science (or vice versa). Ribosomes translating RNA to polypeptides, using a sequence of specific molecules as “instructions” are very like a Turing machine. The cells have various ways of communicating with other cells or environment, a protocol involving various other molecules that trigger whole series of reactions.
Some of the processes even inspire engineers when creating solutions for problems, for example using the principles of evolution in evolutionary programming to sift through a large set of possible solutions with fitness criteria over thousands simulated generations to get the very good ones.
Biology and Computer Science seem to have more in common than one would imagine.
And not just that, we can take the inspiration a step further, because engineers can do what nature generally can’t: Design with a foresight with some intended function and redesign certain parts when they become overly convoluted.
Nature can change the “design” of organisms only by small steps to changing conditions. Much like when you're developing software and your client keeps changing his mind all the time, the constant changes and modifications result in chaotic disorganized code. And we can see that in biology.
But programmer or engineer can do a great thing when this occurs: Erase the whole design and start anew, designing the system from the scratch to handle all the complexities it’s supposed to handle in the most elegant way possible. Unlike nature, he doesn't need to change the system in a series of small steps from something very simple to something more complex.
If life had a designer, it was a brain dead one. "Retarded design" seems to be more fitting than "Intelligent design".
But we can get inspired by biology and take it a step further using our intelligence, which we, funnily enough, obtained by this long process of random variations in biological processes over many generations of organisms. This reminds me of bootstrapping in computer science, where a simple program can initiate a much more complicated one.
I wonder about the day when we will be capable of creating a “super-organism”, a being much more efficient, intelligent and generally well-designed by an actual intelligent designer(s) compared to ourselves.
And to do that we have to understand the world we live in as best as we can. And that’s why I love learning about everything I can. It satisfies my curiosity about the past, how things developed, from galaxies, to intelligent life, about the present and inspires me about the possible future.
At the moment I am captivated by biology (hence the musing about it above), but I already found interesting books on geology, psychology, cosmology or quantum computing and I can't wait to get into these topics as well.
All this fuels me to get more books on various sciences, not just one and hopefully use that to contribute to building a fascinating future as much as I can during my life.
Well… enough rambling, back to learning and working on cool stuff :3
RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - xevenofhearts - 11-03-2013
This is awesome. I've always thought about this. I won't spend a penny to get into college unless I get a scholarship, honestly. I completely agree with most of what you've said here. When you are genuinely interested in it, it's only a natural response to spend tons of time learning about it and thinking about it, therefore you've learned more than simply learning enough to finish the assignment your professor has assigned you.
One thing I've also been thinking about is that the people who simply learn only ever turn out average. Hear me out... Isaac Newton didn't have all of the physics textbooks, 3 laws of physics, and calculus, he thought of them himself (well not sure about the calculus but hopefully you're still with me here) and therefore is obviously praised immensely for being so great at what he did. If he was just taught it, was he really that amazing? When we let ourselves just think instead of learn, we can become much more than just average. It's like a magic trick; if the magician shows you how it's done, you've learned how to perform that trick. When you sat down and thought about how you could achieve that, you've benefited yourself much more.
RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - Frooxius - 11-04-2013
@Apeirogon: Thank you for your reply. Yeah, that's another thing - in some places education has become a business and many people can't afford it.
Luckily there are more options to educate yourself now and you can get a lot of materials even without school. The thing is that you have to somehow show employers that you know your stuff without school - ideally by showing some projects, but there are still many (depending on the field and area where you live) who require school.
I had a bit of advantage, since I had work since I was 16 and I got more offers based on my work, plus I am self-employed. I understand if it's difficult from the practical standpoint for some people in different position to do the same.
But yes. I think schools should focus more on how to think, rather than what to think. Teach people how to work with information and find necessary information, not become databanks. And like Albert Einstein said, the true sign if intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination. It's about how we can work with information and think of new things - create new information.
I think it should also matter less (or not at all) how person learns something and more what (s)he actually knows and can do. But I wrote other articles on that topic so I won't go into that much.
Yeah, I also think that it's best to follow what the person is genuinely interested in, because that's the best motivation. People have different potentials and we should find what they're good at. If you're really interested in something then learning more about it and getting experience is natural, so it doesn't even feel like learning.
RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - DaPaus - 11-05-2013
I think knowledge is too underrated these days. A job interview for example, they don't ask you what you know instead they look at the certificates you earned. And these certificates are given by people that only expect you to know what they think is important.
I want to follow the path you are on but my parents don't understand that there are other ways then only school.
But I have some questions for you:
How do you motivate yourself to keep learning a certain subject?
How do you pick up when you have done something else for a while? For example, I'm still in school, but I'm learning basic website hacking during vacations and days off. But I always keep forgetting what I learned the vacation before and I have to start over altough it does go faster it's still very time consuming.
RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - blackeagle - 11-06-2013
just wanted to agree with you !! thee days you can learn anything on the net for free !!
and i like the part where u said "I found myself often annoyed with having to go through it according to some premade schedule. I didn't have much freedom to adapt the learning process to my interests and style. I got annoyed by spending too much time on things I understood well and going too quickly or superficially over things I didn't understand well enough."
RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - Frooxius - 11-06-2013
@DaPaus: Well I think knowledge itself is overrated, since knowledge isn't really important - skills, understanding and ability to work with information are, but I understand what you mean - they underrate these as well and care more about diplomas and your school certificates.
I think (and I talked about this in another article of mine) that projects and your work are great way of showing off your skills and understanding of the topics required to make these projects. People can even cheat on exam to get a certificate or diploma, but cheating on your portfolio is much more difficult (unless somebody will do your projects for you or you steal them from somewhere).
Although many companies, at least in the computer science area are changing this and they actually want to see examples of someone's work in order to hire them and school/certificates aren't that (or at all) important. I know one guy who just ignores what school the person went to when hiring and only wants to see their work.
Regarding your questions:
1) I am being asked this a lot. My answer is: Natural curiosity (and I wrote about that in the article). I want to understand things, I want to know how they work, how they're made, how they came to be, how they interact with each other and how they can be used to build new things.
Just being curious is enough motivator for me to keep learning about the world and drilling deeper and deeper into its details.
Secondary motivations would be usefulness off some information to build some idea I have and having a better overview of the world, which can be useful in debates - the more I learn, the more I see how some people are wrong or ignorant (which isn't bad by itself - they can always learn or I can help them learn!) or how they use various tricks based on ignorance to manipulate people (which is bad)
And I see how easy it is for many people to fall for these tricks and be convinced, because they lack the understanding and the big picture to see that - like in creationist debates with biologists for example or some other people, who constantly try to reduce "facts" to "opinions" (e.g.: "Evolution is just your opinion", despite it being based on many facts) or just throw them away.
For example, since I'm studying psychology textbook now, I already know of various cognitive biases and ways of how mind can be tricked into believing something - if you're interested, look for confirmation bias, hindsight bias or selective attention (and dual processing - illusionists really like to use this one to trick you).
Knowing more about how the mind works and what defects it has I can better work around that and make more clear picture of the world and things around me, notice and connect things better and avoid being manipulated.
2) It's natural to forget things you don't use much, but there are also variations in memory retention in different people. You should try to find time to devote to certain task and just keep trying and experimenting with it.
I don't know how exactly are you learning - if you're just reading about how to do it - don't. You remember the most by experience, so keep trying out the examples and various challenges. Don't be afraid to use the learning resources as reference though when training. If you keep your persistence you'll eventually remember and understand how to do these things - you'll get the hang of it.
Best way to learn is by experience and experimenting - just keep trying and challenging yourself.
Of course, if you don't use it in a long time, you'll forget bits of it as the memory deteriorates, but refreshing them is much easier than learning it anew.
@blackeagle: Thank you!
Yeah, internet is transforming the way we can learn and the way we access resources and I think it'll keep changing the education in the future - but of course, you should also be careful and verify the sources, since there's also a lot of nonsense on the net.
Yes... regarding that part. Generally the education system is made for average people and people who are below the average won't keep up and above average will be often bored. If you want to get most out of each person and the education system, you have to tailor it for needs and specific properties of some person - people learn differently, process information differently and excel in different tasks. Using the same meter on everyone isn't exactly the best thing you could do.
Another part that I encountered myself is that teachers often teach from certain bias - they understand the topic very well already and they can't easily put themselves into shoes of someone who's new to it. So they might consider something to be obvious (because they find it obvious) and skip over it, when in fact students would benefit from it being explained, rather than having difficulties to figure it our themselves from the sparse information provided about it, or just not understanding it at all, which has also severe negative impact on understanding of other related things.
RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - unnamed - 11-06-2013
I have nothing to add to this conversation.
I just came here to say I really enjoyed reading through this.
RE: A year of freelance self-education (+ rambling about biology) - blackeagle - 11-06-2013
@Frooxius once again i totally agree with you !!