Does such a theorem/principle exist?

flibbage0 · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:00

Ok, this may sound strange but I have heard it before but can't remember the name of it.

"When you learn something new, you forget something in its place."

"More you know of something the less you know of another thing."

Thanks (I know it is an odd request)

J.B · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:07

What when Homer says 'everytime I learn something new it just pushes something old out of my brain. Like the time I went on that wine making course and forgot how to drive'

EDIT with something useful:

I dont think the brain works like that, in that you can only hold x amount of information. IIRC its to do wtih how often you access that memory creates or strenghens the links to it making it easier to recall. If you dont remember it the links have started to degrade because you havent accessed it in a while. THis is why something like a smell or a sound can suddenly bring back a memory.

This may all be wrong as Im not a neurologist, I just think this is something I was told one.

semi-pro waster · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:12

Synaptic pruning? Although it's not quite the same as what you appear to be describing.

Or maybe you're thinking of something akin to what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described in his Sherlock Holmes story A Study in Scarlet "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it.".

flibbage0 · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:18

Its just that I don't think I can remember anything more, Nothing is going in.

D.P. · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:27

flibbage0 said:
Its just that I don't think I can remember anything more, Nothing is going in.

exam time?

flibbage0 · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:30

D.P. said:
exam time?

Very good guess, yes my exams are in January.

Fenris · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:38

flibbage0 said:
Its just that I don't think I can remember anything more, Nothing is going in.

You're just doing it wrong, the brain isn't like a bucket, you can't just put stuff into it and expect it to stay there. If anything it's like a bucket full of holes, you just poor water in and it will trickle out pretty quickly, you have to put something in that you solidly understand for it to stick.

flibbage0 · 17 Oct 2010 at 11:59

Fenris said:
You're just doing it wrong, the brain isn't like a bucket, you can't just put stuff into it and expect it to stay there. If anything it's like a bucket full of holes, you just poor water in and it will trickle out pretty quickly, you have to put something in that you solidly understand for it to stick.

That is a very good analogy, never thought of it like that.

Fenris · 17 Oct 2010 at 12:10

flibbage0 said:
That is a very good analogy.

To be brutally honest it isn't, really. However it's a good start. I always had the same problem in school, I would just read through a textbook and expect to remember stuff, I quickly realised this doesn't work.

Best way to learn anything is to do it over and over again, for physics make up numbers and run them through formula, for philosophy read over something and write down what you understood about it, works for nearly everything.

What subject are you revising for?

Tefal · 17 Oct 2010 at 12:11

flibbage0 said:
Ok, this may sound strange but I have heard it before but can't remember the name of it.

"When you learn something new, you forget something in its place."

"More you know of something the less you know of another thing."

Thanks (I know it is an odd request)

the second one is from

"An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less."

QlimaxUK · 17 Oct 2010 at 13:38

...i forgot how to set the jumpers on old SCSI drives, information no longer needed now its dead tech

Nate75 · 17 Oct 2010 at 13:47

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Ground_(UB40_song)

etc

jack.mitchell · 17 Oct 2010 at 13:48

*WARNING* video does contain swearing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuwoGMCEUO0&feature=youtube_gdata

TheCenturion · 17 Oct 2010 at 13:51

Nate75 said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_Ground_(UB40_song)

etc

I LOVE UB40!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to the Sheperd's Bush gig next week! It's their signing off tour. (signing off as in it's been 30 years since their first album signing off was released

However, I don't think that the lyrics for that song were based on science.

TheCenturion · 17 Oct 2010 at 13:52

Just realised: for such a theorem to work, your brain would have to be filled with absolute theoretical maximum amount of knowledge at the time that you learn something new.

QlimaxUK · 17 Oct 2010 at 14:10

not if your this guy...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...ght-on-television-Superhuman-Genius-ITV1.html

EDIT: or this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd1gywPOibg&feature=related

Retorted · 17 Oct 2010 at 14:21

Weirdly enough I'm writing an essay about this sort of thing...

There's a few theories floating around on this. Check out a chap called Alan D. Baddeley. He's written a few books on the theories of human memory. The following is taken from The Essentials of Human Memory:

The forgetting of old information caused by new is normally termed retroactive interference (RI). The term "retroactive" implies that the interference works backwards, which of course is not strictly true. What does happen is that the new material somehow supersedes the old. In general this type of interference increases as the amount of new learning increases, and is most dramatic when it is interfering with a relatively weak older memory trace.

Hope this helps

ordinaryjoe · 17 Oct 2010 at 14:50

The more you study, the more you learn. The more you learn the more you know. The more you know the more you forget. The more you forget the less you know.