Independent Realization V.S. Absract Teaching

Lets make a few assumptions here.

1. Decius has learned all that he knows all alone and never had anyone helping him along the way. Ofcourse he learned because of other people, but he never had anyone helping him clarify his thoughts.

2. I have learned all I have because someone directly taught me.

I was wondering, is it better to realize things on your own with out the help of others? And do you think itis possible to ever fully understand something when you do NOT figure it out all on your own?

Not another Decius related thread. Everything I know I learn from books. My idea of education is self-education. Some people have a more oral, "proactive" style of learning. As Decius quite rightly says, the only measure of how good each method is their relative success.

quote:

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Everything I know I learn from books.

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So you have no common sense or any other type of way to learn or pick up on things? If you touch a pan and it burns you, will you keep touching it untill someone tells you its hot and will burn you?

quote:

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My idea of education is self-education.

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So you will continue touching the hot pan until you tell yourself that the pan is hot? If you didn't know that in the first place, the only way would stop touching it is either dumb luck, or to go look it up in a book if pans tend to be hot.


Locke strikes first Decius. Now we wait to see what Demonthenes might say.

You're better off doing both. You can't realize everything by yourself. When you come to a realization yourself, you may feel more convinced than if you witnessed it on someone else or learned it from a book, but it depends on the circumstances.

If you're told not to lick metal poles in the winter time because your tongue will get stuck, you'll either respond with "okay, I won't" or "I doubt that would happen to me" (I tripple dog dare you!!). But until you experience it, you'll never have a full understanding of what it's like to have your tongue stuck to a pole.

Deep.

Street smarts are generally gained through personal experience, while complicated mathematics usually need to be explained. So it really depends on what is being learned, but I think it's best to have both. It's one thing to know something, but another to really understand it.