Comprehension Ceiling

[Narj]

Does anyone else feel like no matter how hard you try to study or understand something, that you can never get beyond a certain point?

I think the first time I hit this was Calculus II - I scraped the exam by 1% and I'm not proud of it. In my career I have also had to read RFCs and other highly technical documents and I have really struggled to get what I needed out of them. I also play piano but now accept that I will never get to a point where I will get a spot at Cadogan Hall.

I also think I have made several poor decisions in my life that may not have happened if I'd been better mentally equipped. I didn't weigh up the consequences either way and I made really bad decisions.

I bought this book and I hope it will help: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1093452846

I really feel like I need the pill from the film "limitless" to stop being a knob. Am I alone in feeling perpetually stupid when I compare myself to people who are planning orbital launches and the like? It's just immensely frustrating feeling like I should be "better" but I don't know how.

EDIT: I should add that I try to read very technical documents now and compared to 10 years ago, my attention span destroys any chance of understanding them.

Let the roasting commence.

Disclaimer: I've had a few beers. I am very honest in this situation so please be gentle.

 

[Stumble Bum]

Nope not me, I'm a top salesman.

 

[Narj]

Nope not me, I'm a top salesman.

Do you have a Gucci Belt though? Thread closed if so.

 

[tonys]

Nope not me, I'm a top salesman.

But wouldn't a salesman say that even if they weren’t?

 

[Gray2233]

But wouldn't a salesman say that even if they weren’t?

That's why the Gucci Belt is necessary to prove it.

@OP: Everyone hits a wall, we don't have endless potential for growth. There's going to come a point where you peak and it's often when we're a little younger both in mental and physical pursuits. That said, you still have worth and experience can lend itself in ways that raw capability cannot.

If you're wanting to better yourself why not look at avenues such as teaching or mentoring?

 

[Rroff]

I don't have the patience/attention span I did when I was younger for learning things but I don't really hit a comprehension ceiling, sometimes though you need to know when to take a step back and work back up from the basic principles again as if you are hitting something like that it is usually because you aren't understanding the why of something.

 

[Mason-]

It kind of boils down to nature vs nurture, do you believe we are all blank slates and a product of our upbringing and environment, or that we are born with innate potential, giving some individuals an intellectual advantage over the other?

A simple example is, if you took any random baby boy born on the same day as Einstein, and swapped them, and Einstein’s parents didn’t notice. Would that baby go on to achieve what Einstein did?

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, but if there is a genetic component to intelligence/comprehension/cognition, then yes we will have limits, and, importantly, the limit will vary from person to person.

It’s just one of those things, I’ll never be 6ft 4. You just have to make do with what you’ve got.

 

[Rroff]

People see the world differently, upbringing will have some impact on that but it is far from the be all and end all of it.

For some people it is attitude - some are very resistant to learning new things and/or putting effort in.

I see it with people at work - some just will never do a job more advanced than they are doing - they've hit their ability ceiling - no amount of training will get them significantly further, others are capable of going much further and can learn almost any job within the company given time and motivation.

 

[Gray2233]

I feel that there's a difference between memorising things and actually understanding them, within the workforce you're generally going to be able to get by with parroting whatever you've been taught unless at the higher end.

To be frank, I think the same is true for education up until a certain point too.

People aren't being trained to become trailblazers, deeper understanding will always be a wall at some level even for the most intelligent people. The OP gives me the impression he's wanting to grow intellectually in ways that might not necessarily be possible, especially given he's buying self help books from Amazon.

We absolutely all have a capacity for growth, but in terms of innate capability both mentally and physically you're looking at peaking around early middle age. There's blatant outliers to this obviously, and as I mentioned earlier experience can play a massive factor since you figure out how to apply the things you've learned.

 

[Tykey]

OP I can relate to your post. I haven't done this for a few months but I like to read scientific research/literature papers, the one's with all the big words, citations & references etc. Usually on things to do with brain neurochemistry, I don't understand a lot of the terminology but still find them interesting.

I'm 49 and over the last 6 months have produced a pretty complex (probably not complex for some, but complex to me, no-one else in VR gaming has done what I've recently done afaik) app/game, it's on Patreon since March and I have 200 members, about 100 have bought it. I've had to read some complex stuff to enable me doing this app, and ChatGPT has been a great help for helping me understand things and produce code for me much quicker than I could.

I know there are people out there who are gifted and just simply understand very complex things very easily. I'm not 1 of those people. But what I lack in raw intelligence I make up for with determination and novel approaches to problems which I think is partly a result of having ADHD.

 

[slinxy]

Yes and no….
During my years as a student, I certainly hit my limits in quantitative methods and was just fed up in programming. So much so I wanted a job after that had nothing to do with programming.

Today, somehow I was miss sold a role where I script loads and produce reports based on system states for upper management. Doesn’t mean that I like it, but there are others in the small team I’m in that are a lot worst at it than myself and if I didn’t do it, it would take some ages or it would never get done.

As I’ve discussed with the OP before, I think the interest level, frame of mind and your stage of your life matters. As a kid, everything is interesting and you want to learn… as a comfortable middle/upper manager in a big corp, sometimes we play the “do I need to know this?”, delegation or “this isn’t part of my role” card, as we simply don’t care enough or have the pressure of needing nor the joy of wanting to know it.

there’s also bad teachers/coaches… I’ve met loads during my time in education, both as a student and a member of non teaching staff and in my time in training courses, and presenting courses.

I’m not saying that a person I knew was a bad teacher just that a person maybe a bad teacher for a certain person. A good teacher changes their teaching method and explanation in suit the student so that they do understand, while some are not interested in switching their style or material. I know this is difficult or impossible in the one to many environment of schools and training courses.. but just because you failed xyz course could be down to the teaching method or material for that certain course and not down to ability.

This also applies to self learning, you may just not be understanding it as you are approaching it in the wrong manner for yourself and you just need yourself or someone else to explain/show it you in a different way.

I’ve been trying to teach a college of mine how to RegEx for the past 6 months. we have had three sessions, 1 two hour session six months ago where I thought he got it, pointed him at a few websites that explained it different ways, worked with him a few examples.. then when he tried it this week, I knew he didn’t understand how to do it. So I sat with him again for over an hour explaining how to do it in different ways, and next day still see that his RegEx wasn’t fully working. Again I sat with him for over an hour…

I know he’s not dumb, some of his engineering work has been great.. the issue is that this just maths, and I know I’m failing him by not finding a way of explaining it to him, where he “gets it”. I even rolled it back to primary school levels of breaking it down to units, tens, hundreds etc, but that may have confused him more as he lives in a different country and I think was taught maths differently. I think I may need to buy some unit blocks to show him…

I had to “educate” my nephew a few months back, As he was just going in hard on his kid for be lazy and not trying when it came to maths. I was like… “dude, he’s a 5 year old kid… how much maths does he really need to know at his age… are you sure he’s not finding it too easy, just bored and don’t want to do it? We are really good at maths in our family and he’s likely to pick it up as he gets old, if not one of us will get him going.”

Funny enough my great nephew is now great at maths, now that the quicker he does his maths homework, any spare time he gets from finishing it quicker, gets added to his Mario kart playing time, and yes he can work out to the minute how long he gets extra.

 

[Narj]

@slinxy - I had a job once programming mini apps for a larger system, it was all system performance stats based stuff/reporting and I found it immensely satisfying. That filled in some hazy gaps in my maths very quickly. Enjoying what you’re doing is definitely helpful and practical application is probably the best learning tool there is IMO.

Ultimately succeeding in life is about playing to your strengths. I’m just at a stage where I’d quite like to try to get better at things I’ve always been crap at. I did toy with doing some data science for fun but some of the course material just looks like heiroglyphics to me. I just zone out when I look at it.

Getting self help books on Amazon does seem a bit desperate but I’m willing to try. Otherwise I’ll just accept I’m a bit thick in some areas. Understanding your limitations is better than being full-on Dunning-Kruger I suppose.

Nature vs nurture is an interesting thing. A friend of mine has 2 kids who are chalk and cheese. One being extremely academically gifted while the other is a creative type. All attempts to get the second kid more academically interested are not going so well.

I did know one guy who was going on about “deep learning” and “deep work” several years ago (not in the AI sense) and he is hugely successful now. Wish I’d paid more attention

 

[bainbridge]

A man needs to know his limitations.

 

[dazzerd]

Always had this but I'm relatively successful working in pseudo IT in a telecoms business. I.e. building stuff without the site of IT so the actual delivery guys can do their jobs.

Advantage of this is I don't have to do things properly or formally so come up with all kinds of solutions using whatever technologies we can use without rattling ITs cage. And it's results driven. If it works for the delivery guys it works. None cares if it's an optimal solution.

Any ideas which work and become BAU are then passed up to IT for a formal solution. Which they usually deliver 2 years later and generally never quite as good.

Point is I don't need the expertise of IT. I have enough comprehension and knowledge of multiple technologies to provide a solution.

 

[[FnG]magnolia]

Just LOL if you're not one these.

e: noobs.

 

[Nemiyen]

I think some people are just naturally gifted and others, not so much, unfortunately.

I'd love to be 6.8ft tall but I'm about a foot too small for that! It's not just the height but some people have the build that goes with it. I know I'm never going to match that and the brain is the exact same thing. More neurons, densely packed or not damaged as many drinking at a younger age!

I find that in my job and in IT, I can retain and understand facts or information pretty easily. I can recall fixes to issues that occurred years ago etc and managed to pass my ccna first time at 40. I should have gone further (and said I would) to get my ccnp and ccie but had a break and never got back into it! But what I'm getting at is if this subject interests you or you have a natural, dare I say, gift for it then you'll find it's easy. Otherwise, you'll struggle.

My work colleagues are amazed at how well I can remember some things but come across as Joey Essex in others. We throw out random capitals of countries etc and for a week or so, I'll remember them and sound like an expert. Then a month later I've forgot them all again because I just don't give a crap about the information and my brain just dumps it out eventually!

I believe we're all great at something but you need a lot of luck, nurture, opportunities and chance to make it. I could have been the world best winter bob sled member but I've never even seen one in real life and can't skate to save my life. Had my parents been ice skaters then I may have taken that path etc and I'm sure many of us on here are what is called victims of circumstance. We will never know or find out due to the way our lives went and who we knew or met along the way.

 

[slinxy]

@slinxy - I had a job once programming mini apps for a larger system, it was all system performance stats based stuff/reporting and I found it immensely satisfying. That filled in some hazy gaps in my maths very quickly. Enjoying what you’re doing is definitely helpful and practical application is probably the best learning tool there is IMO.

Ultimately succeeding in life is about playing to your strengths. I’m just at a stage where I’d quite like to try to get better at things I’ve always been crap at. I did toy with doing some data science for fun but some of the course material just looks like heiroglyphics to me. I just zone out when I look at it.

Getting self help books on Amazon does seem a bit desperate but I’m willing to try. Otherwise I’ll just accept I’m a bit thick in some areas. Understanding your limitations is better than being full-on Dunning-Kruger I suppose.

Nature vs nurture is an interesting thing. A friend of mine has 2 kids who are chalk and cheese. One being extremely academically gifted while the other is a creative type. All attempts to get the second kid more academically interested are not going so well.

I did know one guy who was going on about “deep learning” and “deep work” several years ago (not in the AI sense) and he is hugely successful now. Wish I’d paid more attention

IDK, I know plenty of people who never challage themselves or get the opportunity to challage themselves. Until one is truely tested.. do they know there full ability?

I went to college with this lad who was a better programmer than me at the time but never finised the course as he was more intreasted in girls and other stuff at the time. But after 15 years of working at maccy Ds, he left and worked in a call centre where somehow he got placed on project work that involves programming. He know works as a data engineer for the same company.

I think a person can be successful if they find something that they enjoy doing, a lot of people are successful at their jobs as they enjoy making money, bossing people around or learning, rather than being good at their jobs. Obviously there's limitations to everyones body and mind limits peoples' successes, I would love to be a fireman but I suffer from veritgo, so it rules that out. lol

But I think the main limitations are people's attitudes. Speaking for myself, I'm rubblish at geography. I only did basic GCSEs in it and never took it up as an option. I just thought it was no use to me and I really didn't like the geography teacher at the time. So I'm don't think I could answer the most basic of geography questions but I understand this and head straight for the green pie in trivial pursuit as I know it will take me mulitple attempts to get it but once I do, the others should be a cake walk.

It's crazy how our childhood dreams shape our lives, I bumped into an old primary school teacher online, who told me that when I was 5 years old I wanted to make robots mainly because of Transformers and thinking about it know 40 odd years later, I still do. I have job in IT engineering systems and services, could work as a basic microelectronics engineer as my past jobs have involved electrontics and thought about career switching towards it. I love lego, meccano and other building blocks stuff, the only thing stopping me from getting a 3D printer is time, as I know I have tons of stuff I don't have time to play with at the moment. Who knows, once I retire or step back in work life, I may be able to finally do what 5 year old me wants to do...

I buy loads of self help books from amazon, grab any on kindle that's free... if your parents, teachers, peers can't/won't teach you.. sometimes you just have to teach yourself less you will never learn. Also there's limitations to everyone's knowledge and experience, if you are only learning from other people; you become a water down version of them.