Theory of Learning

Learning is an open ended word. Some people define it as the acquisition of knowledge from experience.  I believe that the definition of learning is dynamic because the process of learning itself is dynamic. Most people would probably agree that learning is essentially the modification of old thoughts or the integration of new thoughts. I'm interested in the phenomenon of static experiences and variable learning. There exists a disconnect between what someone experiences and what they learn from the experience. You could describe two synonymous experiences as being different only because what is learned from the two experiences is different. This would suggest that how you experience reality affects what you learn from reality. Because reality is a comprehensive experience the best understanding of reality would also be comprehensive. Because of this, my strategy for the future is to alter the way I experience things in hope that it will further my learning.

Problems with sleep

Although I suppose this has very little to do with my creative learning process it does affect me and I thought I would post something about it. Sometimes I have particular trouble falling asleep because my mind seems to be racing. When I close my mind its as if lots of strings of ideas and visualizations just come streaming through. Sometimes the images are crystal clear sometimes they are not. Sometimes the thought is more of a feeling or more of a concept. Its during these extreme feelings of mania that I really can't control my mind at all though. What was even stranger is that when I finally did fall asleep I had an extremely vivid dream that took me by surprise. In the dream I went from being extremely comfortable and happy to extremely distressed in a matter of seconds. Its sort of weird how it happened but I was in this room playing with some cats and I was very happy and then well my cousin came over to me and smelled my hair. In my mind I knew it was my cousin but his face didn't actually resemble my cousins at all. After he smelled my hair he tried to lick it sort of like a dog(this is where it starts to make even less sense). I didn't want him to lick my head so I sort of pushed him away and told him gently not to. It was at this moment that my cousin dogman turned around and sort of fled because he felt bad or something. I was with this guy I know at the time also, someone who has been stressing me out recently (its a long story and one not worth really illuminating). After my cousin dogman seemed hurt I tried to console him but I only make him feel worse. This is when he starts to run away and this guy who was with me tries to stop him from leaving for the same reason I did(to make the dogman understand he didn't do anything wrong and shouldn't feel bad). This only freaks the dogman out even more until he is struggling and pretty much being held down. Its at this point that I really start to empathize with the dog and everything emotionally flips. The thing about empathy is that if its really working right you pretty much become another person for a bit and this is what happened to me at the end of the dream. I was utterly terrified and emotionally experiencing the dog's state yet I was looking at the dog from an outsiders perspective. Whats weird is that a lot of things that have been on my mind were part of the dream in some way or another. The guy, the dog(my roommate has this dog that is very loud), my cousin(my mom recently text-ed me that we'll be visiting them soon), and the bipolarity(something I've always struggled with).

Thoughts about reading

Recently I started utilizing a new style of reading. But what varies between one reading style and another? Do people usually have different styles of reading or do they reuse the same one they learned as a kid? I know the way I was taught to read 'worked' for a very long time. Even though my method of reading was "good enough", was there no room for improvement? I used my skill of reading everyday but never thought, should I change how I read? This was a classic mistake of first order thinking thats trapped me in lots of suboptimal habits that I still exhibit today.

The last couple weeks I tried something new and very different from my normal type of reading. I tried reading very slowly and found that part of the experience was different. It was as if the words themselves had slightly different meanings when read slowly. This is because words DO have different meanings when read slowly. A sentence is really just a data construct. It expresses ideas using vocabulary interwoven into grammatical structures. Books are composed of paragraphs, paragraphs are composed of sentences, sentences of words, and words of letters. Within every level of this system there are rules that govern the combination and order of elements. Its these rules that allow us to read and comprehend (at least a certain amount of the info) our language so efficiently. So how exactly does reading slowly change anything. Well its my belief that reading slowly not only aids in the comprehension of the sentences material, it also allows the mind to get better at reading itself. Its this recursive improvement thats so exciting about reading slowly. Because we read so often. The ability to further enhance the speed and assurance at which one comprehends sentences is a worthwhile skill to invest in.

Another interesting idea to explore is how to write for the best comprehension. So where exactly is the best resolution(the lower limit being letters and the upper limit being entire books) for a concept to reside within this system? Letters by themselves communicate basically nothing. Its only combinations of letters that actually form words. But words themselves are also ambiguous. Nouns are the only words that actually mean anything by themselves. In fact, we often use sentences to define words for further use in other sentences. This procedure emphasizes the complexity of even the simplest communication. So I would say the smallest resolution of comprehension is really a sentence.To understand an entire sentence one must read it all completely. A sentence's meaning is changed by each word in specific ways. Words like and,  but, and or, all serve as words that connect concepts within a sentence together. The words have no meaning outside of the sentence. 

Anyways, both reading quicker and reading slower offer some advantages and should both be considered for use.