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ffsm8yesterday at 6:05 PM2 repliesview on HN

really?

have you ever learned a skill? Like carving, singing, playing guitar, playing a video game, anything?

It's easy to get better at it without understanding why you're better at it. As a matter of fact, very very few people master the discipline enough to be able to grasp the reason for why they're actually better

Most people just come up with random shit which may or may not be related. Which I just abstained from.


Replies

SpicyLemonZesttoday at 2:18 AM

I've learned a number of skills, and for me none of them worked in the way you're describing. I didn't learn to cut good miter joints by randomly vibe-sawing wood until I unlocked miter joints in the skill tree. I carefully studied the errors I made, and adjusted in ways I thought might correct them, some of which helped some of which did not. Then eventually I understood the relationship between my actions and the underlying principles in enough detail to consistently hit 45 degrees.

devmoryesterday at 6:11 PM

You can get better at something without understanding why, but you should be able to think about it and determine why fairly easily.

This is something everyone who cares about improving in a skill does regularly - examine their improvement, the reasons behind it, and how to add to them. That’s the basis of self-driven learning.

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