I'd recommend reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range if only to see why being a generalist is another option. You should feel free to allow yourself the flexibility to switch your interests as you change throughout your life.
First, have you asked yourself why you want to be an expert in many things? If it is just to know things, then it doesn't matter; just keep learning until you can't anymore. If it is to apply the knowledge to something, then you can use that fact to determine how much utility over time the knowledge of each thing would have, and focus on the greatest first.
> First, have you asked yourself why you want to be an expert in many things?
Not the OP, but here's my answer. I want to be able to win arguments. If I debate the merits of an economic proposal with you, and you say, "Sure, and what are your qualifications, exactly? Do you have a PhD in economics?", I want to be able to say, "Yes, I do have a PhD in economics, actually", or "I have read over 490 books about economics, including graduate-level texts. What are YOUR qualifications?". I want to be able to stand my ground with credentialed experts without necessarily having the same degrees.
Realistically a lot of people who you'd otherwise learn from will avoid discussing things with you because of this behavior. Meanwhile those willing to listen and who aren't as concerned with winning arguments will learn much more than you.
EDIT: to expand on this, the smartest person I ever knew (the late Justin Corwin. Maybe someone here also knew him) would sit quietly during arguments until someone asked his opinion. Even if you got something wrong he wouldn't correct you unless he knew it would help you. He didn't lord shallow facts over people like many others do and his knowledge went deeper than you could explore with mere discussion. After knowing someone like this It has forever changed how I evaluate people's intelligence. Some intelligent people are not at all concerned about winning arguments and it's extremely refreshing.
> his knowledge went deeper than you could explore with mere discussion.
Another principle of mine: There are no oracles. There is no individual, past, present, or future, who cannot be surpassed. No one is a knowledge god. If I learned everything Justin knew, and that wouldn't be too difficult, I imagine, then I, too, could gain a level of knowledge that goes deeper than one could explore with mere discussion, according to you.
No one is doing that. I'm trying to explain to you that you might get more milage (learning more) by using a different approach and then giving you an example from my life. If that doesn't work for you that's fine. Have a great day and good luck.
Even if you had unlimited time it’s unlikely you’d become an expert in many things, even if many only means 3-5.
I know this isn’t very scientific, but as someone who’s struggled with this same question I would suggest just diving into any one of the things that you’re interested in. From there let your instincts and intuition naturally decide what you continue doing and what you abandon.
I’ve learned that it’s hard to force continued work in any area that feels like a slog. Our personalities are tuned to prefer certain activities or fields of study over others.
If new things to be expert in proliferate faster than you can become an expert then life-span extension will not work. You would need to duplicate yourself each time there is a new thing you want to pursue. One you would be a concert violinist and the other you could cure the common cold.
> "you would need to duplicate yourself each time there is a new thing you want to pursue"
Much easier than inventing a duplicator is to imagine you have done this already, and the duplicates are all the other people in the world, busy being concert violinists and working on cold vaccines. What a relief to find that you no longer have to bother with such things.
Immortality isn't happening, but you can significantly increase your health-span, to give you more time to keep learning cool fascinating stuff. There are steps you can take now to delay aging, based on well-run clinical trials, including supplementation with metformin (the TAME trial). Other measures are looking hopeful but are still being researched, including use of rapamycin (PEARL trial). Here's a good resource: a podcast by Dr. Peter Attia, also good for nerding out on lots of interesting topics. https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/
Are there any experts in life-span extension? Or, maybe what you meant was longevity extension - are there any experts in longevity extension? (Life-span extension means avoiding early death, longevity means being able to live longer than any humans have ever lived, say, 200 years or whatever.)
I’ve read a bunch of pseudo-science and heard about so-called “experts” claiming it’s possible and coming, but the field seems to attract charlatans promising immortality…
I follow needs and desires... For needs well, priority is needed... For desires since I have no specific time goal I can follow momentary willingness, stop and restart as much as I like.
I used to get this with books until I came across the Japanese concept of Tsundoku which helped identify and calm the anxiety. Tsundoku (積ん読) is the acquisition of reading materials and letting them pile up without reading them.
I’m curious about a lot of things, and always eager to learn something new, but at no point have the desire to become an expert. I’m hardly an expert in my every day job. I’m content with exploring. I can fix my bicycle if it’s broken, but I can’t fix any bicycle. I can also fix my plumbing up to a point, or make general home fixes like paint a room, or maintain the wooden shutters, but I can’t compete with a professional painter. I just don’t see the point of investing the extra time to go in all the way. It’s not like I’ll change career any time soon.
A lot of people here are going to talk negatives and prioritization and purpose, but I personally also want to be practically omniscient, and you should strive for it too. You need strategies if you want to know a lot. Certainly focused things like classes and intensive study are necessary from time to time (and especially early in life), but we can't do that our whole lives, nor do we want to.
What we need is to develop habits of constant learning.
Here is one essential thing you can do to start learning a lot:
Fill your home with dual-language books, and keep opening them. Put a stack on your toilet.
By dual-language books, I mean books with the original language on one side, and your native language on the other. You'll find that the entirely of the classical pantheon, as well as much great literature and philosophy from many cultures is available in this form.
Spreading math books around your house helps too, of course, along with those on the other topics you want to master.
Keep opening them. Life is long, each day you can learn a bit more.
"Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves."
Back in college, I wanted this too. I triple majored in CS, biology, and chemistry. But when I looked at the impact I wanted to have and the resources I wanted at my disposal and compared them to an academic lifestyle, I saw a pretty glaring disparity.
The best way to actually command subjects is to work on them. Spend some time at companies doing the things you want - preferably in high paying jobs - and then start something on your own where you have to wear all the hats and submerge yourself in the technical details.
It's not as deep as academia, but it's certainly broad. This tactic might be what you're looking for.
And if you get exceedingly lucky, you might wind up with the capital and stumble upon the kind of unexplored areas ripe for growth that Elon Musk did. That's probably the ideal scenario - you get to work on incredibly interesting subject matters through hiring the best talent in the world. Use your team as a high level search and filter algorithm, and be present to learn and enjoy the process.
I'm nowhere near as successful but have employed people to do exactly that. It's not a bad alternative.
Do you want to be "book smart" and only know a lot about what someone else thinks and tells you, or actually learn something yourself and gain the intuition and detailed understanding that you get from forming your own knowledge?
You can read books till the cows come home, but don't expect to become an expert from reading alone. I can't imagine anyone on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time reading on the toilet Vs actually practicing a skill.
I'm a software engineer posting on Hacker news. I know how to learn a skill.
This is something else, that you can have, if you read lots of books and learn more languages.
Becoming smart is, in part, about being exposed to lots of others thoughts, and lots of facts, and discussing those things and thinking through them yourself.
Every time I hear someone bring up the “book smart” versus “street smart” false dichotomy it often comes off as someone trying to justify their own inadequacies.
What’s another good label for these types of knowledge so that we can avoid the cliche?
Is it as simple as having information and experience?
I have read everything on being a carpenter but I have never practiced, so therefore I am “book smart” when it comes to carpentry?
I guess this doesn’t really cut it because when someone claims their “steet smart” as a way to combat feeling inferior to someone else they have credited as “book smart” what they’re really trying to say is that they have knowledge that’s more useful in different situations? Or more practical situations?
The more I think about this the more it seems like claiming to be “street smart” is just saying “hey, I’m smart too, just in a different way” when you’re feeling a bit less than someone.
There's an obvious example in programming: one might read a lot about machine learning, without becoming a practitioner. Without actually doing some work, one's opinions about building AIs wouldn't be worth much.
What breaks down is thinking this dichotomy captures the state of play wrt knowing lots of things. One of course has to practice knowledge, if that knowledge involves practicable skills, if one wants mastery.
If one wants to know history, or philosophy, or... many of the actual large bodies of knowledge that exist... one needs to get comfortable very regularly opening books. That doesn't mean it's all that's required!
I only used "book smart" as it is an Americanism and this site has a large American and/or people who learnt to speak en-US. I don't think anyone else would use that term.
Then the pages of the books will become dusty and humid, for sure deteriorated. Let alone the other beings living in the house will also somehow interact with the books in other ways than the romantic fantasy setup you proposed.
Try to leave a book open on the kitchen a couple of weeks, and another on the bathroom/shower. Then come back and post. And if you happen to not live alone, the same. IF the book is large enough/hard cover to remain open by the page you were reading.
Those are not places I suggested leaving books, because I'm not stupid. I suggested: by the toilet. So you can learn something every time you poop. Then there's these other things called shelves... I own a few.
I had the same problem, and I rephrased the "problem". If everyday I do things that make me feel I get better at becoming an expert in things that interest me, and I do that consistently my whole life, then that will be a life well-lived. Doing that gives me purpose and satisfaction every single day.
"Expertise" is not something that exists per se, so as a goal, it is unreachable. In fact, the more I have put this approach to use, the more I realize how many things exist that I will never become an expert on. It also makes me realize that whatever I have the most actual expertise on is but a tiny tiny grain in the vast sea of knowledge in that one specific field!
Believe in a religion that postulates an infinite life after the current one. If you're right, big win: you're going to have all the time you want; of not, by the time you know you don't care any more.
I let my natural curiosity guide me. I used to beat myself up about not being one of those people who have a singular purpose, someone who focuses deeply in one area, but found solace in Susan Fowler's blog post:
"All of the really great people of the past and of the present always have some singular destiny. Somehow they know exactly what they love, they find it when they're young, and they spend their entire lives doing that one thing. Their destiny, their singular passion becomes their entire life, and they love every minute of it. It's their calling, it's what they were born to do, and it's beautiful."
...
"People tell me I can't do all the things I want to do, and they are of course wrong, because I can and I do and I will. But I still can't ever reach my greatest, deepest, most secret goal, the goal I left off that list: to have a singular passion. Maybe that's ok. Maybe my life will always be about running toward that unattainable goal, trying and loving everything I find along the way. And maybe at the end, when I have to give an account of my life, I'll say that I never was anything, but I was everything."
If subject A's and subject B's synthesis created a new thing C,
wouldn't he then be considered an expert in C, solely because there's no-one else doing what he's doing? In this way you could be an expert in many things you yourself pioneered... Or you could just create a new game and be expert at that.
Four Thousand Weeks is a good book that touches on this. It begins with the premise that most people have infinite desires, and all people have finite time, and it's unlikely you will accomplish even 1% of all of your dreams in your finite life. It then talks about how that's okay, because what we choose to spend our time and attention on is what makes us unique and interesting, and explores some ways to prioritize the things that are most important to youm so that you actually do those things.
At the same time, if we lived longer, our achievements can grow non-linearly as we compound skills and insight.
We don't talk seriously about increasing human longevity, primarily because science has been frustrated by the effort and it's a bit taboo because the assumption people have is that longevity will be reserved for the rich.
At least for me it's not a matter of "ok" or "not ok". It's just deciding what's best to do! Either Jack of all trades (my current approach) or master of one.
221 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 238 ms ] threadAfter having family, what benefits them may reasonably be the higher priority.
Not the OP, but here's my answer. I want to be able to win arguments. If I debate the merits of an economic proposal with you, and you say, "Sure, and what are your qualifications, exactly? Do you have a PhD in economics?", I want to be able to say, "Yes, I do have a PhD in economics, actually", or "I have read over 490 books about economics, including graduate-level texts. What are YOUR qualifications?". I want to be able to stand my ground with credentialed experts without necessarily having the same degrees.
The easier route to this is to talk loudly and confidently until the other person gives up.
Learn instead to recognize expertise.
Arguing with most people is like mud-wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it.
EDIT: to expand on this, the smartest person I ever knew (the late Justin Corwin. Maybe someone here also knew him) would sit quietly during arguments until someone asked his opinion. Even if you got something wrong he wouldn't correct you unless he knew it would help you. He didn't lord shallow facts over people like many others do and his knowledge went deeper than you could explore with mere discussion. After knowing someone like this It has forever changed how I evaluate people's intelligence. Some intelligent people are not at all concerned about winning arguments and it's extremely refreshing.
Another principle of mine: There are no oracles. There is no individual, past, present, or future, who cannot be surpassed. No one is a knowledge god. If I learned everything Justin knew, and that wouldn't be too difficult, I imagine, then I, too, could gain a level of knowledge that goes deeper than one could explore with mere discussion, according to you.
Yes, you could. Your point is?
Great athletes, great artists, sure.
You just need to master rhetoric. No need to be a master of a specific subject to be able to twist arguments in your favor.
> If you are this kind, how do you decide which things to work on?
First step:
- You need to be an expert in prioritisation!
I know this isn’t very scientific, but as someone who’s struggled with this same question I would suggest just diving into any one of the things that you’re interested in. From there let your instincts and intuition naturally decide what you continue doing and what you abandon.
I’ve learned that it’s hard to force continued work in any area that feels like a slog. Our personalities are tuned to prefer certain activities or fields of study over others.
Find what feels natural and go, go, go.
Also good ideas aren’t vague, “I want to be an expert in many things” is too vague for an attainable goal.
That's what I was thinking.
For an interesting approach, pick things which are unusual in the way you can clearly see that the established experts are wrong.
Then you would be misguided if you tried to do it like they do anyway.
Much easier than inventing a duplicator is to imagine you have done this already, and the duplicates are all the other people in the world, busy being concert violinists and working on cold vaccines. What a relief to find that you no longer have to bother with such things.
I’ve read a bunch of pseudo-science and heard about so-called “experts” claiming it’s possible and coming, but the field seems to attract charlatans promising immortality…
my heuristic: does this work serve others? do i have to struggle at wanting to do it or do i struggle to stop working?
[1] https://sive.rs/donkey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antilibrary
What we need is to develop habits of constant learning.
Here is one essential thing you can do to start learning a lot:
Fill your home with dual-language books, and keep opening them. Put a stack on your toilet.
By dual-language books, I mean books with the original language on one side, and your native language on the other. You'll find that the entirely of the classical pantheon, as well as much great literature and philosophy from many cultures is available in this form.
Spreading math books around your house helps too, of course, along with those on the other topics you want to master.
Keep opening them. Life is long, each day you can learn a bit more.
"Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves."
The best way to actually command subjects is to work on them. Spend some time at companies doing the things you want - preferably in high paying jobs - and then start something on your own where you have to wear all the hats and submerge yourself in the technical details.
It's not as deep as academia, but it's certainly broad. This tactic might be what you're looking for.
And if you get exceedingly lucky, you might wind up with the capital and stumble upon the kind of unexplored areas ripe for growth that Elon Musk did. That's probably the ideal scenario - you get to work on incredibly interesting subject matters through hiring the best talent in the world. Use your team as a high level search and filter algorithm, and be present to learn and enjoy the process.
I'm nowhere near as successful but have employed people to do exactly that. It's not a bad alternative.
I am talking about how you fit in learning the real knowledge of our collective culture over a lifetime, no matter what else you do.
You can read books till the cows come home, but don't expect to become an expert from reading alone. I can't imagine anyone on their deathbed wishing they'd spent more time reading on the toilet Vs actually practicing a skill.
I'm a software engineer posting on Hacker news. I know how to learn a skill.
This is something else, that you can have, if you read lots of books and learn more languages.
Becoming smart is, in part, about being exposed to lots of others thoughts, and lots of facts, and discussing those things and thinking through them yourself.
One does not beget the other.
I am not calling out the previous reply.
Is it as simple as having information and experience?
I have read everything on being a carpenter but I have never practiced, so therefore I am “book smart” when it comes to carpentry?
I guess this doesn’t really cut it because when someone claims their “steet smart” as a way to combat feeling inferior to someone else they have credited as “book smart” what they’re really trying to say is that they have knowledge that’s more useful in different situations? Or more practical situations?
The more I think about this the more it seems like claiming to be “street smart” is just saying “hey, I’m smart too, just in a different way” when you’re feeling a bit less than someone.
What breaks down is thinking this dichotomy captures the state of play wrt knowing lots of things. One of course has to practice knowledge, if that knowledge involves practicable skills, if one wants mastery.
If one wants to know history, or philosophy, or... many of the actual large bodies of knowledge that exist... one needs to get comfortable very regularly opening books. That doesn't mean it's all that's required!
I only used "book smart" as it is an Americanism and this site has a large American and/or people who learnt to speak en-US. I don't think anyone else would use that term.
For that I value it.
Basically I am calling BS for what it is.
"Expertise" is not something that exists per se, so as a goal, it is unreachable. In fact, the more I have put this approach to use, the more I realize how many things exist that I will never become an expert on. It also makes me realize that whatever I have the most actual expertise on is but a tiny tiny grain in the vast sea of knowledge in that one specific field!
"All of the really great people of the past and of the present always have some singular destiny. Somehow they know exactly what they love, they find it when they're young, and they spend their entire lives doing that one thing. Their destiny, their singular passion becomes their entire life, and they love every minute of it. It's their calling, it's what they were born to do, and it's beautiful."
...
"People tell me I can't do all the things I want to do, and they are of course wrong, because I can and I do and I will. But I still can't ever reach my greatest, deepest, most secret goal, the goal I left off that list: to have a singular passion. Maybe that's ok. Maybe my life will always be about running toward that unattainable goal, trying and loving everything I find along the way. And maybe at the end, when I have to give an account of my life, I'll say that I never was anything, but I was everything."
Source: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/5/21/life-without-a-d...
Be an expert in one thing + know a little of more other things
We don't talk seriously about increasing human longevity, primarily because science has been frustrated by the effort and it's a bit taboo because the assumption people have is that longevity will be reserved for the rich.