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Leitura de 16 min

Learning Isn’t A List of Items Your Can Check Off

Summary

The episode begins with host Jonathan Cutrell sharing a personal update about a tornado that affected his neighborhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee, disrupting the podcast schedule and causing damage. He invites listeners to donate to the Tornado Relief Fund through the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga.

Cutrell then introduces the main topic: our addiction to knowledge, or more accurately, the illusion of knowledge and certainty. He argues that we are primed by traditional education systems to view learning as a checklist—completing courses, earning degrees, and filing away facts for later recall. This perspective treats knowledge as a static library we carry, rather than a dynamic function of our ever-changing minds.

He challenges this model, especially in the information age where facts are readily accessible via tools like Google. If mere recall is no longer a unique advantage, what does it mean to truly learn? Cutrell suggests that true learning is not about accumulating facts but about the state of our minds as we encounter new information. Our brains are not separate from knowledge; knowledge is embedded in our brain’s functions, and new experiences continuously reshape our understanding.

Overconfidence and the pursuit of certainty can actually impede learning by closing us off to new possibilities. Instead, Cutrell advocates for cultivating a childlike mindset of curiosity and wonder, free from the guilt of not knowing. He points to prolific learners like Albert Einstein who emphasized seeing the world through a lens of questioning. The episode concludes by encouraging listeners to embrace curiosity as a more productive heuristic for learning in their careers and lives.

Recommendations

People

  • Albert Einstein — Referenced as an example of a prolific learner who talked about maintaining a childlike mindset and seeing the universe through a lens of wonder and curiosity rather than just understanding.

Tools

  • Google — Mentioned as an example of how access to factual knowledge has become instantaneous and ubiquitous, changing the fundamental nature of what it means to ‘know’ something in the information age.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Personal update on tornado impact and relief fund — Jonathan Cutrell explains the disruption to the podcast schedule due to a tornado touching down near his Chattanooga neighborhood. He shares that his home had minimal damage but the community was significantly affected, especially during the quarantine period. He provides information for listeners who want to help by donating to the Tornado Relief Fund via the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga.
  • 00:02:07 — Introduction to our addiction to the illusion of knowledge — Cutrell introduces the core theme: we are addicted to knowledge, or the feeling of certainty and progress it provides. He states his goal is to inspire a different perspective on learning—to see the world through eyes primed for better learning. He questions how we typically define learning as remembering facts and understanding procedures.
  • 00:04:01 — Challenging the checklist model of learning from school — The host argues that the improper way to think about learning is as a library of knowledge where you check boxes and move on. He attributes this mindset to our school experiences, where passing courses gives the illusion of permanent knowledge acquisition. He challenges listeners to think of learning not as stored knowledge, but as the state of their mind when exposed to new stimuli.
  • 00:06:01 — How the information age has changed the value of knowledge — Cutrell discusses how knowledge historically provided social ranking (e.g., knowing where to hunt or find water). In the modern era, with instant access to information via search engines, that old model is leveled. This raises the central question: what does it mean to learn when facts are universally accessible? The playing field for mere recall has been evened.
  • 00:08:44 — The problem of certainty and overconfidence impeding learning — Returning after the sponsor ad, Cutrell delves deeper into our addiction to being perceived as knowledgeable. He explains that the certainty we feel is an ‘echo’ of past experiences and a pursuit of social reward. This overconfidence is not conducive to learning; it actually closes us off to new information and hinders our ability to think well and improve our mental state.
  • 00:11:49 — A heuristic for learning: embracing childlike curiosity — Cutrell offers a simple heuristic: look to the most rapid learning period of our lives—childhood. He notes that in our early years, we are incredibly curious and lack self-awareness or guilt about not knowing something. This acceptance of ignorance and pursuit of knowledge through questioning is a better model. He references prolific learners like Albert Einstein who valued a ‘childlike mindset’ of wonder over pure understanding.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2020-04-17T09:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:13:54

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to Developer Tea. Before we get started with

[00:00:08] today’s episode, I wanted to give you a quick update. You may have noticed that we didn’t

[00:00:12] keep our normal three-episode cadence this week. Additionally, we will be airing Dan

[00:00:19] Heath’s episodes, the interview with Dan Heath next week rather than this week. The reason

[00:00:25] for that is because on Sunday night, a tornado touched down very close to my neighborhood.

[00:00:32] We had minimal damage at our home, but our neighborhood was totally rocked. We lost power.

[00:00:39] We lost internet here at my house for a little over a day. We were prepared for much longer

[00:00:47] than that. Unfortunately, for the city of Chattanooga, not everyone was. We took a little

[00:00:54] bit of time to…

[00:00:55] recuperate from that. Now we’re back with more episodes. We’re safe. We’re very fortunate

[00:01:03] here at my home. Of course, this is perhaps one of the hardest times to be hit with a

[00:01:10] natural disaster when we’re already in essentially a quarantined environment. People are staying

[00:01:16] home and avoiding contact with others. So there are a lot of people in Tennessee and

[00:01:21] specifically here in Chattanooga that were affected by these terrible storms. We’re

[00:01:25] taking this opportunity to share some of the stories. Let’s start off by telling you

[00:01:26] about a few of the выпros that we need to share with the guests.

[00:01:26] In this episode, we’ll talk about how the tornado affected many of our neighbors who

[00:01:26] were damaged in the storm. Here’s a personality review that’s going to be a huge bargain

[00:01:27] for a big community.

[00:01:27] I wanted to give you a very quick, brief invitation if you would like to help the

[00:01:32] folks who were affected by this terrible storm here around my hometown. You can do

[00:01:39] that by donating to the Tornado Relief Fund. That’s the Community Foundation of Greater

[00:01:44] Chattanooga, cfgc.org slash tornado relief fund. The Tornado Relief Fund is all separated

[00:01:51] by dashes. I will spare you the spelling of all that.

[00:01:55] It’s the Tornado Relief Fund. It’s the Tornado Relief Fund. It’s the Tornado Relief Fund.

[00:01:55] the cfgc.org slash tornado relief fund separated by dashes.

[00:02:01] Now let’s jump in to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:02:07] We are addicted to knowledge, or at least we’re addicted to the illusion of knowledge.

[00:02:16] The feeling that we have some certainty, some facts, some progress towards knowing more.

[00:02:24] Knowing more practical things about the world, but also more intangible things.

[00:02:32] In today’s episode, I hope to inspire you towards a different perspective on learning

[00:02:38] and seeing the world through a pair of eyes that is primed for better learning.

[00:02:44] My name is Jonathan Cutrelli, you’re listening to Developer Tea.

[00:02:46] My goal on this show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose

[00:02:51] in your careers.

[00:02:52] If you had to define what learning means to you as an engineer, as a human, you would

[00:02:59] probably define it as some kind of mix of remembering facts and then understanding some

[00:03:08] procedure that uses those facts.

[00:03:11] Some active function that you can perform that relies on those facts to be able to be

[00:03:19] performed properly.

[00:03:21] And I’m not here to tell you that you’re wrong, necessarily, because learning is indeed

[00:03:29] the exploration of the unknown at its fundamental core.

[00:03:35] The ability to be exposed to new information and navigate your way through it.

[00:03:43] But the improper way to think about learning is as if there is some library of knowledge,

[00:03:51] that we can work our way through, and that once you’ve checked off a box, then you can

[00:03:58] move on to the next subject.

[00:04:01] We’re kind of primed to think this way because of school.

[00:04:05] We go through certain courses, and once we’ve achieved that course, once we’ve passed it,

[00:04:11] then we file that away as knowledge that we’ve gained.

[00:04:14] We continue forward.

[00:04:17] Instead, in today’s episode, I’m going to challenge you to think about learning.

[00:04:20] I’m going to challenge you to think about learning.

[00:04:20] I want you to think about learning not as knowledge that you gained, that you’ve filed

[00:04:26] away in your library for later recall, but instead, I want you to think about your learning

[00:04:33] process as the state of your mind at any given point in time as you’re exposed to this new

[00:04:41] stimulus, one stimulus after another, and how you approach the next one.

[00:04:47] As we said on a very recent episode of this show,

[00:04:50] the vast amount of knowledge that is available, and we can call knowledge data, we can call it

[00:04:57] information, we can call it things that make any kind of sense at all, or that could make sense

[00:05:04] at all, the vast amount of that is inaccessible to us.

[00:05:10] It’s physically inaccessible, but it’s also philosophically inaccessible.

[00:05:16] And we become addicted to knowledge because it’s important to have that knowledge.

[00:05:20] To have knowledge, to be able to survive, it’s also important in the social hierarchy

[00:05:25] to know what’s going on, to be able to be trusted.

[00:05:30] And the leaders of a given group are typically emerging because they know something that

[00:05:36] others don’t.

[00:05:37] You can imagine our ancestors, Paleolithic ancestors, or whatever period you want to

[00:05:43] pick, that the leader of a given group might be the one that knows where good hunting is,

[00:05:50] or the leader of a given group might be the one that knows where good hunting is, or the

[00:05:50] leader of a given group knows where water might be.

[00:05:53] This is one of many signals that provides a positive ranking in a social order.

[00:06:01] We don’t live in a time where our knowledge should put us in a particular social ranking,

[00:06:08] because so much of that knowledge that we otherwise would be able to gain as humans,

[00:06:14] where is the good hunting, or where is the water, we can Google very quickly.

[00:06:19] And to compare our knowledge from back when our ancestors were alive to now is, of course,

[00:06:28] we’ve vastly outpaced them in terms of access to the knowledge that people have.

[00:06:34] And so learning has changed with the way that that knowledge is shareable, the accessibility

[00:06:40] of all of this canonical knowledge.

[00:06:45] And so we have all these facts at our fingertips.

[00:06:48] And even still, the vast majority of those facts are not available to us.

[00:06:54] And so how can we define learning in this environment?

[00:06:57] If we know that access and recall to the information that we want to have, it’s available to us,

[00:07:04] it’s available to everyone, it kind of evens the playing field out for that old version

[00:07:09] of learning.

[00:07:10] So what exactly does it mean to learn in this information age?

[00:07:16] That’s what we’re going to talk about right after this.

[00:07:18] Today’s episode is sponsored by Linode.

[00:07:23] I’m going to go off script here for a moment, because Linode has been a sponsor of the show

[00:07:28] for a very long time.

[00:07:30] And it shows something about Linode that you’ll find in their products as well.

[00:07:34] They are embedded in the developer community because they are made of developers.

[00:07:40] Linode has open source projects, you can find them on GitHub.

[00:07:43] Their cloud manager is an open sourced single page app that gets updated very regularly.

[00:07:48] They have a Python CLI, they have a version 4 API, so the tooling is obviously mature.

[00:07:58] Beyond that, Linode also provides world-class hardware, SSD, native SSD storage.

[00:08:06] You get root access to a Linux server for $5 a month.

[00:08:11] That’s their Nano plan.

[00:08:12] And Linode is providing $20 worth of credit for new customers right now.

[00:08:16] You can find that at…

[00:08:18] linode.com slash developer T, use the code developer T2020.

[00:08:23] By the way, they have really high-end plans too.

[00:08:26] You can get a dedicated physical CPU core, or you could do GPU if you need something

[00:08:33] like AI processing or something like that.

[00:08:35] Go and check it out.

[00:08:36] Head over to linode.com slash developer T, use the code developer T2020 at checkout.

[00:08:41] Thanks again to Linode for sponsoring today’s episode.

[00:08:44] So we are addicted to having knowledge, or at least…

[00:08:48] people perceiving that we have knowledge.

[00:08:50] And so it’s easy for us to convince ourselves that we are certain.

[00:08:55] That’s what today’s episode is about, that we’re convincing ourselves that we are not just smart.

[00:09:02] That’s probably not an accurate depiction, but rather that we have a certain lock on knowledge,

[00:09:10] on a specific set of knowledge, that we’ve checked the box and we’ve kind of put that knowledge

[00:09:16] into our…

[00:09:17] into our…

[00:09:18] long-term storage.

[00:09:19] We’ve got it.

[00:09:19] We’ve got it available.

[00:09:21] And this is perpetuated, as we’ve already mentioned in the earlier part of this episode.

[00:09:25] This perspective is either reflected or perpetuated or both by the education system that most

[00:09:33] of us have grown up under.

[00:09:35] And so we earn degrees and we earn grades and we pass courses.

[00:09:39] And all of this kind of adds to our pedigree and it adds to our CV.

[00:09:46] And we can imagine that we have this illusion of a library of knowledge that we’re carrying

[00:09:52] around with us, rather than the more accurate depiction of knowledge, which is this constant

[00:09:59] function of our brains.

[00:10:01] Our brains don’t operate in a vacuum.

[00:10:05] We don’t have a brain and knowledge.

[00:10:08] There’s not a separate location for that knowledge.

[00:10:11] The knowledge is embedded in the functions of our brain.

[00:10:16] And when you start to think about this reality, we know that our brains are experiencing new

[00:10:21] information all the time.

[00:10:22] But because our brains are not separated from that knowledge, our experiences with new information

[00:10:28] are fundamentally connected with that information itself.

[00:10:34] The more information that we experience, the more our experiences are changed.

[00:10:40] So what does this mean for us as developers and as humans?

[00:10:45] Well, really what it means…

[00:10:46] What it boils down to is that the certainty that we believe we have is essentially an echo.

[00:10:55] It’s an echo of all of the experiences that we’ve had before.

[00:11:00] And it’s a seeking of that reward that we were talking about earlier.

[00:11:05] The addiction that we have to being able to be perceived as though we have all of this knowledge.

[00:11:12] Now, none of this is necessarily conducive to learning.

[00:11:16] None of this is conducive to gathering more information, per se, or becoming more functional

[00:11:23] with that information, or improving the state of our mind, improving our ability to think well.

[00:11:30] In fact, it kind of impedes that process because as we become more and more certain and more

[00:11:36] and more overconfident in our own knowledge, we close out the possibility of learning new things.

[00:11:44] So I have a simple heuristic for you to use going forward.

[00:11:49] And this is what I’ll leave you with in today’s episode.

[00:11:52] If we think about the most rapid learning period in our lives,

[00:11:57] it’s immediately clear that that period is our early lives.

[00:12:03] In particular, the first 10 or so years of our lives.

[00:12:07] What we also notice about these years of our lives is that we’re incredibly curious

[00:12:14] and we don’t have much self-awareness or guilt about not knowing something.

[00:12:22] This acceptance of our lack of knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge through questioning

[00:12:29] and wondering, this is a better heuristic for learning.

[00:12:36] And in fact, you can find many quotes from some of the most prolific learners of all time,

[00:12:44] people who have learned a lot of knowledge.

[00:12:44] People like Albert Einstein, where they talk about their childlike mindset

[00:12:50] or the ability to see the world or the universe or whatever topic they’re looking at

[00:12:58] through the lens of wonder and curiosity rather than the lens of pure understanding.

[00:13:06] I encourage you to cultivate your curiosity in whatever way you find productive.

[00:13:14] We can talk about those ways more on a future episode of Developer Tea.

[00:13:18] But for now, thank you so much for listening to today’s episode.

[00:13:22] Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Linode.

[00:13:24] Head over to linode.com slash developer tea to get started today.

[00:13:27] Use the code developer tea 2020.

[00:13:30] That’s developer tea 2020 for $20 worth of credit at checkout.

[00:13:35] Today’s episode, like every other episode, is a part of the spec network.

[00:13:39] Head over to spec.fm.

[00:13:40] Today’s episode was also produced by Sarah Jackson.

[00:13:44] My name is Jonathan Cottrell.

[00:13:45] And until next time, enjoy your tea.

[00:13:47] I’m Jonathan Cottrell, and I’ll see you in the next episode of Developer Tea.

[00:13:52] Bye.

[00:13:52] Bye.

[00:13:52] Bye.

[00:13:52] Bye.

[00:13:52] Bye.

[00:13:52] Bye.

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