Sunday 5 October 2003

Pic of the day: To the child at play, everything is magic. (Screenshot from Rubies of Eventide.)

Life-long learning?

I got a rather exotic zit. No, not quite that bad, but on the inside of my left earlobe. Do you know what that means? It means I've been wearing huge, tight earphones for hours and hours throughout the weekend. Heavy earphones that press my ears against my head. And why would I do that? To play, or more exactly to learn, Rubies of Eventide. I'll reserve a final (?) review for after the major upgrade due this Monday. Right now it has a decidedly unfinished feel. But even so, I have largely enjoyed learning it.

***

In most mammals, the ability to learn fades greatly once they grow up. Primates keep it up longer, and we humans learn all our lives, unless some illness or brain damage stops us. But we don't learn in quite the same way all our lives.

Small children are eager to learn anything. They will look at all things, listen to all things, touch all things, try all things. They pick up things in the order they meet them. They will believe almost anything you tell them, and then some.

In contrast, adults are picky learners. We need motivation to learn, rather than learning for the fun of it. And we have a structure of how things should be, a world view. If things don't fit into our existing world view, we discard them.

Perhaps you have seen Lego blocks, the small plastic pieces where the underside of one fits in with the top of another. This is how we often learn. We have to attach the knowledge to something we already know. This is not a bad idea, actually. It makes sure that the new knowledge fits in with the old; not just that it doesn't contradict it, but that it is relevant. We don't need to learn and unlearn a lot of factoids we never get to use.

As we grow older, we start to see greater patterns, long lines that run through life. We start to see connections and chains of connections. We become less and less interested in the details, and less and less influenced by whatever happens right here and right now. Contrast this with a toddler, for whom only the here and now exist. "Later" is "never" when you are small. But when you are old, and "later" actually may be "never" as far as you are concerned, you start to see much further. Well, if all goes well. I believe this state of mind is called "wisdom" and is entirely optional.

***

"Choose wisely" is the motto of the afore mentioned online game. It has around 100 classes, but even as a member of a class you are free to pursue skills totally unrelated to it, even (at some extra cost) skills that are opposite of your primary skills. So a paladin could certainly study necromancy, but it would not be a wise thing to do, most likely! You get only a certain number of development points in your 50 levels of growth, so you should spend them on something that benefits yourself or your group.

In real life, we have much of the same freedom, but we are not limited to a fixed level. Well, each of us is ... we can only live so long, and the day has only 24 hours for each of us. But we cannot save up "points" by not learning something, in order to learn more another day. On the contrary: The more we learn, the more hooks we have to attach new learning. Still, in one way we face the same question in life as our online characters do: Should we specialize in what we are strong in, or should we branch out? Should we at all spend time on something that is contrary to what we already know?

As a Christian, I will never have any use for Satanism, of course. In fact, I won't even practice any of the other religions. (Hey, it is hard enough to actually practice Christianity, as opposed to just nodding to it.) For me personally, I have chosen to have nothing to do with devil worship, since I am already kind of on the opposite side of that table. As for religions followed by people who try to be good, however, I retain an interest in them, if nothing else then for the people who follow them. I have found that the earnest followers of other religions have had experiences similar to my own faith. In fact, I have met earnest atheists who were more on my wavelength than superficial Christians. (This is not to say that I am a "good" Christian, but I certainly did not choose this way just for comfort or to blend in with my friends. That is what I mean by superficial or insincere, to adhere to a religion not because of its god but because of the social benefits.)

As a free-market economist, I have a hearty distaste for socialism. It is just flat out wrong, or at best misguided, no matter how well meant (by some). Even so, I will sometimes read the Norwegian Marxist- Leninist newspaper Klassekampen. It is particularly interesting to see it in parallel with the (also Norwegian) mainstream conservative paper Aftenposten. It can be hard to believe they live in the same world, much less the same country.

***

Last week, I stopped by the comics store. The owner recommended a particular "graphic novel" as I believe they are called. I looked briefly at it, and commented on how ugly the drawings were. This really set the guy off. He found this very shallow indeed, and commented on my general unwillingness to try anything new or experience anything different. There is something in that, of course. I don't pay fortunes to travel to far-off lands and smell their garbage, although I have enjoyed food from far off indeed when it became available in my own city. (Less of this now, when I can hardly even have a kid's menu without feeling bloated.) I avoid atonal and disharmonious music, although I happily listen to different genres from Beethoven to Infinity, after growing up with country music, Hardanger fiddle and the occasional hymn. And I've read some ugly comics too ... but on the Net, where they were free.

So I explained to the comics guy: I have priorities. When it comes to paying money, I choose the pretty over the ugly, particularly when it is obvious that the artist is not incompetent, but actively making every picture ugly because it is his style. When it comes to paying, or spending lots of time, or changing my lifestyle ... then I am more cautious. There are many roads to go, but we cannot follow them all. Choose wisely ... but don't stop moving.