How can one navigate a territory with more accuracy than experts, when one is not an an expert themselves? Can one, with no knowledge of the territory, make from the maps of experts a map that is better than any one of them?
Suppose you are new to a competitive and technical discipline. I'm a reasonably competitive dancer, so I'll use that as an example, although we could just as easily be talking about martial arts, or debate, or any of a hundred others. In any such discipline, you are immediately faced with a challenge- to figure out how to learn faster and more effectively than your peer group, so that you may outpace them, get better at them, and in time, defeat them.
The problem is, of course, that you don't know how to get better at your discipline. But you do have some advantages to turn to.
Let's say that you can determine with some accuracy what the demonstrated skill level of someone else is, as well as your own skill. Furthermore, let's say that you aren't significantly more limited by resources than your opponents, but that you also don't have significantly more resources to contribute. Is it possible, from just these two factors alone, to consistently outperform?
Obviously, if your opponents are rational actors, the answer is no. To learn faster than someone, you either need to be spending more time than them, or be spending that time more effectively. But the good news for you is that your opponents are very unlikely to be rational actors. The worst of them will be making choices seemingly at random, and are unlikely to pose any real threat. The best of them will be acting according to common wisdom.
In competitive ballroom dance, common wisdom instructs what teachers you should learn from, and how you should spend your time practicing. These are probably the two most important questions an aspiring dancer can ask themselves. However, teachers very wildly in terms of what type of practice they recommend, and often contradict each other. Inquiry into the learning strategies of successful dancers usually yields similar results- many of the best dancers in the modern world learned from either just one or an incredibly small pool of teachers, to whom they listened and did everything without question. This strategy seems to work well, since although there are a variety of strategies that may work well in the end, random combinations of those strategies often work poorly. Learning from a large number of teachers, without the knowledge to know when to ignore their advice, seems to only serve to pull dancers in too many directions, getting them nowhere.
This strategy does have a central flaw, however, and it is that you must find a skilled mentor from a place of very little knowledge. If one were to follow this strategy, find the best teacher they could, and just do whatever they say, their success would be highly reliant upon that first teacher; and if/when there are struggles, no easy test to determine whether the teacher is responsible or if you are.
Finding a mentor who you can trust absolutely is, however, extremely important, for there are many points in the process of learning a discipline where an optimal learning strategy appears sub-optimal from the start. Occasionally your perception of what you need to learn and what you actually need to learn will differ- and if you have a mentor who is both skilled enough to see that and whom you trust (in the teaching and learning of the discipline) more than yourself, you will be able to circumvent what hurdles in learning might have otherwise slowed you down.
There are two main questions I pose, and as I think about this topic more, I will try to offer answers to both.
The first deals with the very early phase, when your knowledge of the skill is at a minimum, and finding experienced teachers is of the highest import
The second deals with the later phases, where one has found a good (or a set of good) teachers, but still occasionally needs to reject their advice or seek outside counsel when that advice is not self-serving.
How can one navigate a field more accurately than experts, when one is not an an expert themselves? Can one, with no knowledge of the territory, make from the maps of experts a map that is better than any one of them?
How can one navigate a territory with more accuracy than experts, when one is not an an expert themselves? Can one, with no knowledge of the territory, make from the maps of experts a map that is better than any one of them?
Suppose you are new to a competitive and technical discipline. I'm a reasonably competitive dancer, so I'll use that as an example, although we could just as easily be talking about martial arts, or debate, or any of a hundred others. In any such discipline, you are immediately faced with a challenge- to figure out how to learn faster and more effectively than your peer group, so that you may outpace them, get better at them, and in time, defeat them.
The problem is, of course, that you don't know how to get better at your discipline. But you do have some advantages to turn to.
Let's say that you can determine with some accuracy what the demonstrated skill level of someone else is, as well as your own skill. Furthermore, let's say that you aren't significantly more limited by resources than your opponents, but that you also don't have significantly more resources to contribute. Is it possible, from just these two factors alone, to consistently outperform?
Obviously, if your opponents are rational actors, the answer is no. To learn faster than someone, you either need to be spending more time than them, or be spending that time more effectively. But the good news for you is that your opponents are very unlikely to be rational actors. The worst of them will be making choices seemingly at random, and are unlikely to pose any real threat. The best of them will be acting according to common wisdom.
In competitive ballroom dance, common wisdom instructs what teachers you should learn from, and how you should spend your time practicing. These are probably the two most important questions an aspiring dancer can ask themselves. However, teachers very wildly in terms of what type of practice they recommend, and often contradict each other. Inquiry into the learning strategies of successful dancers usually yields similar results- many of the best dancers in the modern world learned from either just one or an incredibly small pool of teachers, to whom they listened and did everything without question. This strategy seems to work well, since although there are a variety of strategies that may work well in the end, random combinations of those strategies often work poorly. Learning from a large number of teachers, without the knowledge to know when to ignore their advice, seems to only serve to pull dancers in too many directions, getting them nowhere.
This strategy does have a central flaw, however, and it is that you must find a skilled mentor from a place of very little knowledge. If one were to follow this strategy, find the best teacher they could, and just do whatever they say, their success would be highly reliant upon that first teacher; and if/when there are struggles, no easy test to determine whether the teacher is responsible or if you are.
Finding a mentor who you can trust absolutely is, however, extremely important, for there are many points in the process of learning a discipline where an optimal learning strategy appears sub-optimal from the start. Occasionally your perception of what you need to learn and what you actually need to learn will differ- and if you have a mentor who is both skilled enough to see that and whom you trust (in the teaching and learning of the discipline) more than yourself, you will be able to circumvent what hurdles in learning might have otherwise slowed you down.
There are two main questions I pose, and as I think about this topic more, I will try to offer answers to both.
The first deals with the very early phase, when your knowledge of the skill is at a minimum, and finding experienced teachers is of the highest import
The second deals with the later phases, where one has found a good (or a set of good) teachers, but still occasionally needs to reject their advice or seek outside counsel when that advice is not self-serving.
How can one navigate a field more accurately than experts, when one is not an an expert themselves? Can one, with no knowledge of the territory, make from the maps of experts a map that is better than any one of them?