/ag/ - Autodidact General - Meme List Edition

Greetings Veeky Forumserati, it’s that time again. Grab a book, paper, and pen, and let's get a /comfy/ thread going while we talk about something to better us all.

Last Thread: warosu.org/lit/thread/9714228

About a week ago, I saw a meme list circulating around for autodidacts, which was both inspiring but also irritating. While the list contained many good books, I felt it was presented in a haphazard way, with poor reading orders and extraneous works that would do a beginner no good without outside help. I promised an user that I would make my own suggestions while maintaining the spirit of the all, which was to establish a core curriculum for autodidacts. I am not interested in circlejerking books; instead, I am interested in providing a concise but reasonably complete intellectual foundation that is accessible to anybody with at least the average high school background. It is my hope that, by completing this list, I would be able to pass on the good word and help passionate and determined autodidacts find a substitute for the liberal arts education they deserve but never received.

I will be posting my own version of the meme list and the accompanied reasoning shortly. Also on the docket are various “Renaissance Men” discussions: where to continue in literature, the humanities, and the sciences after the /autodidact/ core is completed; what type of lifestyle changes ought to be made for the pursuit of learning; how do artistic and practical skills fit into /autodidact/ general; do we have the resources to a build a community for this purpose, complete with compiling resources on Google Drive, fostering discussion on Discord, etc. Once again, I wish to thank all of the encouraging and productive posts from the last thread, and I hope we can continue the spirit of camaraderie here again.

Pic-Related: the flags of the Baltic nations, minus the 9gag watermark (thanks user!)

Other urls found in this thread:

dropbox.com/sh/nzrzylohf6vg1ml/AABbd5ie1Rp3d4SYmGH8nFLDa?dl=0
dropbox.com/sh/1urouba1pfk8ujk/AAChqwjMWAE2kcXP4KWJjSg5a?dl=0
drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9QDHej9UGAdcDhWVEllMzJBSEk
docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub
66.147.242.192/~operinan/8/2/205.html
coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
krismadden.squarespace.com/learn-to-speed-read-book/
Veeky
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

>/autodidact/ Core Curriculum
/autodidact/ Core Curriculum

-- --

>The Basics of Reading: Nonfiction & Fiction
How to Read a Book – Mortimer Adler
The Art of Fiction – David Lodge

>The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning
Creative & Critical Thinking – W. Edgar Moore
Thinking, Fast & Slow – Daniel Kahneman
The New Oxford Guide to Writing – Thomas Kane
A Mind for Numbers – Barbara Oakley

>Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum
The Trivium – Sister Miriam Joseph
Pre-Calculus – Carl Stitz & Jeff Zeager
Atlas of World History – Patrick O’Brien
Western Philosophy: An Anthology – John Cottingham

-- --

Total: 10 books covering a vast amount of foundational topics. You should be ready to tackle any sort of literature, philosophy, social science, science, etc., with relative ease once you've finished this list. Liberal arts in a nutshell.

>The Basics of Reading: Nonfiction & Fiction
The Basics of Reading: Nonfiction & Fiction

-- --

>How to Read a Book - Mortimer Adler
Your autodidact journey needs to start somewhere, and since you’re going to be doing a lot of reading, you might as well start here. You'll learn to skim, analyze, and compare all different kinds of texts while squashing bad reading habits and improving concentration. I recommend that you do whatever it takes to thoroughly digest this book, even if it means working up to spending 30 minutes per day reading and practicing annotating while reading. Once you've finished the book and put its advice into practice, you've learned how to effectively read non-fiction, both in analyzing single books and synoptical comparisons between books.

>The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
This is a good place to start before you start reading fiction seriously, so you learn to appreciate the basic language of literature and point them out during your autodidact journey. It provides examples of literary devices and analyzes why they are effective by exposing you to snippets from relevant literature. Combined with “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler, this book will enhance any dilettante’s reading skills and make them well-equipped to tackle literature on their own. Anthology-style books are a theme of this book list, since they serve as eclectic sources of exemplars, which are both effective for teaching and for future reference.

-- --

>The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning
The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning

-- --

>Creative & Critical Thinking - W. Edgar Moore
Most critical thinking textbooks are mass-produced garbage designed not to sharpen the mind but to dull it. As an old-fashioned and comprehensive account of the various methods of thinking, this book is not one of them. It takes a general approach to thinking, taking from history, philosophy, psychology, logic, and some mathematics in order to reframe common problems and make them easier to solve while avoiding typical pitfalls. Unfortunately, this is one of the two books on this list that are hard to find online, so you may need to visit a university library or buy a used copy, or perhaps check out The Art of Reasoning by David Kelley as a substitute. For convenience, I’ve uploaded some sample excerpts and table of contents to inform your decision: dropbox.com/sh/nzrzylohf6vg1ml/AABbd5ie1Rp3d4SYmGH8nFLDa?dl=0

>Thinking, Fast & Slow - Daniel Kahneman
This book is a continuation of the “cognitive psychology” behind critical thinking, which forces you to ask what you are doing when you are thinking. The brain comes equipped with various “heuristics”, or shortcuts in thinking that were not evolutionarily designed for the modern world. As you might imagine, this leads us to make poor decisions when we’re not aware of how make decisions. Absorbing this book thoroughly would be enormously helpful to cultivating the sort of self-awareness that makes us better thinkers.

-- --

to be continued (part 1)

>The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning
The Basics of Critical Thinking, Writing, and Learning

-- --

>The New Oxford Guide to Writing - Thomas Kane
To write is to think, which makes it crucial that we improve our writing skills, especially when we need to communicate our newfound understanding. Aided by countless excerpts of cherished writing, Kane stacks this book to the hilt with a vast amount of practical, thoughtful, yet incisive information that allows individuals to see the multitude of possibilities available, while still leaving the reader with the versatility to focus and employ their own style in their writing repertoire. Just like “The Art of Fiction” by David Lodge, this is an anthology, which makes it valuable as a reference long after it has been read.

>A Mind for Numbers - Barbara Oakley
While it is important to adopt the obsessive desire to learn, without having the proper tools, you will struggle with the more challenging material. The subtitle “How to Excel at Math and Science” is a misnomer, because this book is a light, but useful read on how to conquer any academic subject. Drawing from basic concepts from psychology and practical experience, this book gives you tips and tricks to enhance productivity, like chunking, interleaving, space repetition, memory palaces and more. If you already have a well-established system and some grit to boot, then you don’t need to read this book, but many struggling autodidacts will find this an invaluable resource. Barbara Oakley also has a free MOOC called “Learning How to Learn” on Coursera for those interested, which covers the same topics.

-- --

(part 2)

>Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum
Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum

-- --

>Pre-Calculus – Carl Stitz & Jeff Zeager
Stitz & Zeager decided to write this book after getting irritated with mass-produced textbooks that scammed students with new editions every year without actually preparing them for college. It’s harder than your pre-calculus textbook in high school, so it will require some grit at first, but you will be thankful that you took the time to strengthen your foundations before going further into mathematics or the sciences. If an impressionable autodidact leaves with an understanding of the difference between functions and curves, good quantitative problem-solving skills, and the know-how to tackle advanced applications later on in calculus, then I'm satisfied.

>The Trivium – Sister Miriam Joseph
This book covers “the Trivium”, which consists of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, the foundations of a classical liberal arts education. Consider this the rigorous extension of Creative & Critical Thinking, where you will be immersed into the nitty-gritty of grammar and Aristotelian logic. A word of advice, this book is remarkably dry, but the information and exercises contained will make you a sharper thinker in all of your future endeavors. What makes the trivium appealing is its proposition that there exists a natural chain connecting the nature of reality, the rules of thought, the structure of language, and the art of persuasion. Once you’ve struggled through this book, you’ll grow to appreciate this sentiment. If you chose The Art of Reasoning by David Kelley instead, consider only doing the grammar section. There is some overlap with The Art of Fiction by David Lodge, but I don’t think it is significant.

-- --

to be continued (part 1)

>Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum
Liberal Arts: The Theoretical Minimum

-- --

>Atlas of World History – Patrick O’ Brien
This was one of my favorite books to read while growing up, and it served me well for acing my AP history classes in high school. “Atlas of World History” by Patrick O’Brien is a solid textbook on world history, from prehistory to close to the modern day, around the 1990s. Lots of informative graphs, expositions, etc., lots of coverage about economics and culture, and no region of the world goes untouched. It's a solid introduction to somebody who wants to figure out a general sense of "what happened". I had the Philip’s version, but I think any publisher will do.

>Western Philosophy: An Anthology - John Cottingham
I don’t think there is a better compiled anthology out there with such well-chosen selections. This is a textbook containing primarily edited, condensed, and referenced pieces of philosophy, organized by category and chronological order. Each piece of philosophy is prefaced with context and stakes, and the end of every major section has several philosophical prompts that allow you to strengthen your understanding and practice philosophical writing. While as an anthology, it does not do proper justice to any particular philosopher, it is very good at introducing one to the basic questions of philosophy in general and how the great thinkers of history approached them. Unfortunately, this book is hard to find online, so if you’re looking for an alternative introduction, I recommend A New History of Western Philosophy by Anthony Kenny. I have personally gotten a lot of mileage out of this book, so I taken the liberty to upload a table of contents to better inform your decision: dropbox.com/sh/1urouba1pfk8ujk/AAChqwjMWAE2kcXP4KWJjSg5a?dl=0

-- --

(part 2)

Here are some additional pursuits you can take after finishing the autodidact core curriculum:

>OPTIONAL: Starting Arts
The Story of Art - E.H. Gombrich
Meaning in the Visual Arts - Erwin Panofsky
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Betty Edwards
ABCs of Reading - Ezra Pound
Music In Theory And Practice - Bruce Benward

>OPTIONAL: Starting Social Skills
Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler
What Every BODY Is Saying - Joe Navarro
The Games People Play - Eric Berne
No More Mr. Nice Guy - Robert Glover
The UCBC Improvisation Manual - Matt Bessmer

>OPTIONAL: Starting Science
Fundamentals of Physics - David Halliday
Principles of Modern Chemistry: D. W. Oxtoby et al.
Campbell Biology - Various Authors
Learning Statistics with R - Daniel Navarro

>OPTIONAL: Starting Chemistry
Organic Chemistry - Jonathan Clayden et al.
Physical Chemistry - D. A. McQuarrie & J. D. Simon
Inorganic Chemistry - G. L. Miessler
Materials Science and Engineering - William Callister

>OPTIONAL: Starting Molecular Biology
The Machinery of Life - David Goodsell
Essential Cell Biology - David Alberts et al.
Principles of Biochemistry - A. L. Lehninger et al.
Neuroscience - Dale Purves et al.

>OPTIONAL: Starting Law
Philosophy of Law - Kaufmann, Arthur
Introduction to Legal Thought - Engisch, Karl
Introduction to Philosophy of Law and to the Theory of Contemporary Law - Kaufmann, Arthur
Methodology of the Science of Law, Larenz, Karl
The Concept of Law, Hart, H.L.A.

>OPTIONAL: Foreign Languages of All Kinds
drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9QDHej9UGAdcDhWVEllMzJBSEk

>OPTIONAL: Full Philosophy Track
docs.google.com/document/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

>OPTIONAL: Full Mathematics Track
OPTIONAL: Full Mathematics Track

-- --

Here's a list to learning advanced mathematics, starting from around high school. This list is comprehensive, but the books don’t have to be done in order if you are looking for specific goals. For example, if you want to do real analysis, you could probably just do Knisley > Velleman > Apostol (optional) > Tao. But if you want to be systematic, I think this is the way to do it by mirroring a typical math curriculum.

— —

>0. Khan Academy
This is not where you start. This is where you go if you're stuck. Where you go if you're struggling due to poor high school education, a lack of concentration skills, mathematical immaturity, or lapse of grit. Should be considered training wheels and fully abandoned somewhere within category 1, maybe category 2.

>1. Foundations of University Mathematics
Pre-Calculus - Carl Stitz & Jeff Zeager
Calculus: A Modern Approach - Jeff Knisley & Kevin Shirley
The Art and Craft of Problem Solving - Paul Zeitz

>2. Introduction to University Mathematics
Linear Algebra and Its Applications - David C. Lay
Calculus of Several Variables - Serge Lang
Differential Equations - Shepley Ross

>3. Introduction to Proofing and Survey of Higher-level Mathematics
How to Think Like a Mathematician - Kevin Houston
How to Prove It - D. J. Velleman
Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning - A.D. Aleksandrov, A.N. Kolmogorov, & M.A. Lavrent'ev

>4. Bringing It All Together: The First Test of Pure Mathematics
Calculus Vol. I & II - T. M. Apostol
Principles of Topology - Fred H. Croom
Analysis I & II - Terence Tao

>5. Further Reading in Pure Mathematics: Introductions
Linear Algebra - K. M. Hoffman & Ray Kunze
A Book of Abstract Algebra - C. C. Pinter
An Introduction to Formal Logic - Peter Smith
Concrete Mathematics - R. L. Graham, D. E. Knuth, & Oren Patashnik
Introduction to Graph Theory - R. J. Trudeau
Introduction to Probability - D. P. Bertsekas & J. N. Tsitsiklis
Applied Partial Differential Equations - J. D. Logan
Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos - S. H. Strogatz
Foundations of Applied Mathematics - M. D. Greenberg

>>/autodidact/ Core Curriculum
>/autodidact/ Core Curriculum

Forgot to mention that Creative & Critical Thinking can be replaced by The Art of Reasoning by David Kelley and that Western Philosophy: An Anthology can be replaced by A New History of Philosophy by Anthony Kenny.

-- --

Well, that's all I have for now. Quick reminder about the other topics for discussion:
>on the docket are various “Renaissance Men” discussions: where to continue in literature, the humanities, and the sciences after the /autodidact/ core is completed; what type of lifestyle changes ought to be made for the pursuit of learning; how do artistic and practical skills fit into /autodidact/ general; do we have the resources to a build a community for this purpose, complete with compiling resources on Google Drive, fostering discussion on Discord, etc.
Happy learning!

>my handwriting sucks dick! How do I fix it?
66.147.242.192/~operinan/8/2/205.html

I've been working on this all summer, while my handwriting isn't the best, it used to be completely illegible. Now it's consistent and much easier to read. I also learned that I had been using my fingers to draw the shapes instead of using my whole arm with the elbow as the fulcrum. That fact, mixed with the PDF I linked basically had be relearn how I write. I've gone through about 6 legal pads and I'm finally making visual process. My handwriting was even worse when I started fixing it, but its so much easier to write and so much easier to read.

If you hate making notes because you hate your handwriting I would suggest this.

As far as general self improvement things go to make one a more effective learner/person I've watched youtube videos and read articles, but not necessarily entire books. I've started journaling a page a day to reflect on my day, keep a record, have an excuse to practice handwriting, and write something other than work. Dreams, thoughts, feelings, activities, etc.

I also started doing 5-10 minutes of mindfulness meditation every day. Again, I read articles and watched youtube videos about it, but no specific book. I have felt my ability to focus and the ability to detach myself from negative feelings improve dramatically. Both of these things helping me get into the flow of studying or working much more effectively. If anyone has a book about this without all the mysticism horse shit, I would be thankful.

Of course go read the Veeky Forums sticky and start working out, it improves learning. I never read it, but watched summaries of it, but the book Spark covers the topic. Starting strength, SL 5x5, etc.

Bump plz

reminder that without mentor-guided research in a dedicated field all you will ever learn is how to defend your own beliefs without questioning them and to assmilate contradictory information to that belief system

This is a slow board dude. Either participate/ask questions/ or start a discussion.
What's your point? I mean as far as it relates to self teaching?

That is a dumb claim. Whether you think critically of what you learn is dependent on your own skills, not what environment you learn in.

your rebuttal concerning "environments" has nothing to do with my claim about mentor-guided research so nice critical thinking you've sculpted for yourself there

Not a rebuttal.

I've met a few autodidacts while in college. They're great to talk to and exchange ideas with, especially regarding lit, music, films, etc. But the irony of the ones I've met revolves around their love for learning and their believe that you can actually read and discover how to love irl/ casually interact with people on a normal level. One even mentioned that they stopped watching porn because it wasn't intellectually stimulating in the way other mediums of "entertainment" satisfy them.
~inb4 good will hunting memes~

>you hate making notes because you hate your handwriting I would suggest this.
I didn't realize how necessary it was for me to practice handwriting until you came along. I hate my notes because my handwriting sucks. Thank you for bringing a solution into my awareness.

E. D. Hirsch's idea of "cultural literacy" can be useful if you're American. The ToC from his New Dictionary:
>The Bible -- Mythology and folklore -- Proverbs -- Idioms -- World literature, philosophy, and religion -- Literature in English -- Conventions of written English -- Fine arts -- World history to 1550 -- World history since 1550 -- American history to 1865 -- American history since 1865 -- World politics -- World geography -- American geography -- Anthropology, psychology, and sociology -- Business and economics -- Physical sciences and mathematics -- Earth sciences -- Life sciences -- Medicine and health -- Technology

...

Good idea. I think this is up there with Adler's and Bloom's canons, alongside the various charts Veeky Forums has to offer. I was originally going to make the Bible the 11th book, only to realize that the only explanation I could give is "this needs no introduction or explanation", and there are so many books like that that it would defeat the purpose of a barebones list.

coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

Learning how to learn course on coursera

I think I will include the link next time as a shortcut. Thanks user!

I didn't see that you already talked about the MOOC, I'm the one who posted

>>OPTIONAL: Starting Social Skills
>Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler
>What Every BODY Is Saying - Joe Navarro
>The Games People Play - Eric Berne
>No More Mr. Nice Guy - Robert Glover
>The UCBC Improvisation Manual - Matt Bessmer

I would also add a CBT handbook for those with social anxiety of any kind. I personally liked "Be Your Own CBT Therapist" by Windy Dryden, but I imagine any decently rated and "serious" book would do.

God bless you, OP
Sadly I can't contribute with anything yet (I've just started my journey of bettering myself) but in time, I will.

Anybody can contribute. We have a lot of material right now that can keep most of us busy for a long time. Adding more to those lists would have some kind of diminishing returns compared to some of the other topics we can talk about. After all, we need to figure out what an autodidact is, what kinds of autodidacts are out there, what the method of the autodidact should be, and what should be the endgame of autodidacts.

Remember:
>Also on the docket are various “Renaissance Men” discussions: where to continue in literature, the humanities, and the sciences after the /autodidact/ core is completed; what type of lifestyle changes ought to be made for the pursuit of learning; how do artistic and practical skills fit into /autodidact/ general; do we have the resources to a build a community for this purpose, complete with compiling resources on Google Drive, fostering discussion on Discord, etc. Once again, I wish to thank all of the encouraging and productive posts from the last thread, and I hope we can continue the spirit of camaraderie here again.

Anybody can contribute, whether it'd be forming lists, making charts/mindmaps, brainstorming, having a conversation, asking questions, etc.

Spivak has to be the most fun I ever had with a calculus book. You should mention Apostol has some lineal algebra too.

You could replace Apostol with Spivak or skip both of them entirely, depending on what kind of math student you are. A lot of people say that you don't have to do Apostol or Spivak after learning regular calculus, but I think that's a shame given that Spivak will look alien compared to your Larson/Stewart textbook if you're inexperienced with proofs. It's good training wheels.

>what topic are you currently studying?
>what do you like about the topic?
>what are you struggling with?
>what topic are you excited to start studying?
>what is your favorite learning technique?
>what is your favorite memorization technique?
>what one thing outside of studying has helped your studying the most? (eg. meditation, working out, eating right, scheduling your time)
>how much time do you spend on your studies compared to the rest of your daily life?
>what benefits have you seen from your personal studies?

>what topic are you currently studying?
Molecular biology via the molecular biology track mentioned earlier. Started on the Essential Cell Biology to get a head start this semester.

>what do you like about the topic?
There's a mix of having quantitative/reductionist mechanisms combined with the fact that the entire body is run off of thousands of unique biochemical pathways. There's always a mystery to solve about the way the current body works, let alone what we could do to alter it.

>what are you struggling with?
Clarity and coherence of ideas, visualizing how everything works together in the big picture. There's just a lot of intuition to build, but it gets richer the more exposure I have and the more integrated science I learn (physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, statistics, etc.).

>what topic are you excited to start studying?
Organic chemistry later this year in school.

>what is your favorite learning technique?
I have a reading/note-taking system that I'm fond of, that I developed over a long period of time. I can fit the procedure onto a page, though I no longer need to reference it since I "get" it intuitively. Might share it one day.

>what is your favorite memorization technique?
Spaced repetition incorporated into my calendar by checking Anki every day. If I learn a topic on Monday, I'll enter in a card on that topic, reminding me to test myself and review later on. For instance, I may review the next day, 3 days later, a week later, two weeks later, a month later, two months later, and then probably review the topic one more time during the finals period.

>what one thing outside of studying has helped your studying the most? (eg. meditation, working out, eating right, scheduling your time)
Keeping an organized journal and developing a little chart with "all of the possible areas or occupations" that I could be investing my time into, such as academics, recreation, exercise, etc. Every day, I check my chart to see what I have been doing/could be doing, make decisions to continue or to change, and then plan my day accordingly in my journal. In the evening, I write how the day went, any interesting thoughts or reactions, and then briefly think about what I may do the next day. I could have said all of the above, but if you don't have a system that makes doing all of the above easy for you, then you're going to struggle to do it.

>how much time do you spend on your studies compared to the rest of your daily life?
It's the summer, so easily 4+ hours.

>what benefits have you seen from your personal studies?
I'm more "woke", but in the cognitive sense, and I don't feel dull like I used to when I let myself shitpost on Veeky Forums all day. I still like Veeky Forums, but I never realized how much poor internet hygiene I had, and how easily my days can blend into a pattern of irrelevant nothingness with nothing worth recalling.

Anything on astronomy?

yikes

>claims that you need mentor-guided research to think critically
>other person responds that critical thinking can happen outside of mentor-guided research
>original person gets butthurt
really got me thinking about becoming a universitycuck, since they're clearly the only ones doing the critical thinking

>what topics are you currently studying?
Distributed Systems, Chinese Language

>what do you like about the topics?
It requires a lot of thought to the classification of different streams of data, and how to store it in a reliable and audible way. I like that lot of open source software (Kafka, RabbitMQ, ZeroMQ) has already made tools, and I only need to worry about the implementation right now. Also, linux is (so far) fun to develop for compared to the windows environment I dealt with before.

As for Chinese, it's great being able to chat with people that don't speak english. There's so much different with other cultures' people, but so much in common. I love it so much it probably annoys people.

>what are you struggling with?
DS: I don't like typing or staring at a screen. Work is so abstract, since I'm writing code, digging through logs, watching debug consoles, and fiddling with configuration. Things are very complicated and it's hard grappling with so much complexity.

Chinese: I'll never be a native speaker. It's hard keeping up with the routine of at least 30 minutes of study.

>what topic are you excited to start studying?
Mathematics for a Computer Science degree.

>what is your favorite learning technique?
DS: Solving problems for the organization I'm working for.
Chinese: Reading books in Chinese, watching shitty TV dramas and interesting movies.

>what is your favorite memorization technique?
Chinese: Pleco has flash cards built into it which I try to go through frequently. I'll add cards to the deck if I recently discovered them.

>what one thing outside of studying has helped your studying the most?
Stopping smoking weed. Eating healthy. Drinking tea instead of other beverages. Scheduling time in a notebook.

>how much time do you spend on your studies compared to the rest of your daily life?
About half and half since I'm trying to enjoy the summer while I'm young, but my free time will drastically decrease after summer.

>what benefits have you seen from your personal studies?
Having interesting conversations with smart people, conversation topics, being able to read Chinese all over the place, a better understanding of information infrastructure. Honestly though, it's more isolating since I'm having a hard time finding people to connect with and am considering moving to a bigger city.

Can you take a picture of your note-taking or scheduling scheme? Pic attached is mine. I have a small journal in which each page is a daily timeline going down the page. I have a companion steno pad for sketching out ideas, taking notes, or whatever. Notebooks pages are references by hexadecimal indexes. Pictured is the 1-04, which is notebook 1 page 04. I can write those codes in my journal as a reference.

Also, what decisions improved your "internet hygiene"? I've been having a hard time not spending too much downtime on a loop of Veeky Forums --> leddit --> hackernews --> youtube --> etc.

How long have you been studying chinese for? Was it tough getting into it?

>Can you take a picture of your note-taking or scheduling scheme? Pic attached is mine. I have a small journal in which each page is a daily timeline going down the page. I have a companion steno pad for sketching out ideas, taking notes, or whatever. Notebooks pages are references by hexadecimal indexes. Pictured is the 1-04, which is notebook 1 page 04. I can write those codes in my journal as a reference.
I can take some screenshots tomorrow, I wrote a page of reference material for both how I read and how I take notes. My scheduling scheme is planning ahead by journal, learning new topics as they're thrown at me in university, or literally putting topic cards into Anki and reviewing if they show up in my daily check. I don't have any complicated way of having a map of notebooks like you do, I'd just keep an excel document of the notebooks, and use a normal table of contents within those notebooks.

>Also, what decisions improved your "internet hygiene"? I've been having a hard time not spending too much downtime on a loop of Veeky Forums --> leddit --> hackernews --> youtube --> etc.
Mindfulness. Take 5 seconds to think about what you want to do as soon as you feel an impulse. Get invested into how you spend your time and the consequences of your actions.

I don't think spending time on the Internet is a bad thing, but you need to be ruthless with what platforms you choose to interact with alongside the quality of the material. I will either commit to something or throw it away entirely. I also have multiple email addresses for all sorts of purposes (personal life, work, offers, gaming, junk) and do my best to keep them clean and on-topic by being careful about when and how I subscribe to new websites or make new accounts. A bit unrelated, but I also scrubbed my history off of as many websites as possible by deleting posts, accounts, etc., and also abandoned old email accounts from before I started being careful about how I spent my time on the internet and how I gave out information.

>Essentials
Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler


>Advanced
What Every BODY Is Saying - Joe Navarro
The Games People Play - Eric Berne
Nonviolent Communication - Marshall Rosenberg


>Troubleshooting
Be Your Own CBT Therapist - Windy Dryden
No More Mr. Nice Guy - Robert Glover
Improvise - Mick Napier
Pre-Suasion - Robert Cialdini

It's a literature board, so reading is important and part of teaching yourself how to socialize. Actual application and testing yourself on what you learn is something that should be discussed, but it would be difficult to show those things as impirically as with a book.

Been studying since high school, on my 4th year or so now.

Yes it's tough. There's little to no cultural crossover here in middle America so it is all about self study and self immersion. But it's been worth it so far.

Not sure what you mean. Could you explain yourself more clearly?

I was on my phone at the time, sorry for the lack of clarity.

Learning something, anything, is a multi-step process. Social interaction is not any different. When people tell you to just go out and try it, they are skipping steps. Some people are more adapt to learning as they go, but testing yourself on material is simply another step in learning. Not everyone learns on the fly, and not all people are inherently good at socializing.

For example, lets take the social situation of wanting to leave a conversation. What are the goals? You want to leave, but you don't want to be rude. Leaving will take more than simply walking away, unless youre in a social setting where that is okay. But imagine you are at work or on campus in a conversation with another person you have no opinion of, but know will be seen a lot in the future, you don't want to upset him. You can't just walk away, and you can't just say "I think what you have to say is boring and its upsetting me, I'm walking away." What could you do in this situation? Well the easiest way is to come up with a good excuse.
>I have to get back to work
>I have to go to a thing
>I need to water my dog
But it is not just the excuse that makes the other feel comfortable around you as you purposely leave their boring conversation, its the delivery up to that point. Waiting for a pause in their explanation. Wrapping up any points you didn't finish so they don't tell it to you the next time you see them. Setting up your exit non verbally with glances away, wrist watch or phone checking. Pretending you just realized the thing your excuse is about. Showing a genuine interest, informing them in an explicit, but not too detailed way of the thing that you have to go do. Shaking their hand firmly. Not too soft, not to hard, allowing them to let go first. Waiving goodbye. The set up, delivery, and exit are all key points to this seemingly simple social interaction.

How are you expected to know all of this if your parents or someone else hadn't informed you of the ways of etiquette? If you were an antisocial schoolboy, you wouldn't have enough quality social interactions to have garnered all this information through action. You first have to know about the issue at hand, the ways to tackle the problem, and only then can you really benefit from real world practice. Just as with anything else you learn. I wouldn't go straight into a Texas Criminal Procedure exam without having read the code, cases relating to the code, supplemental reading, studied these things thoroughly, applied it to hypotheticals, and taken practice tests.

These last two points, hypos and practice tests, are somewhat a real world application, but they are not under the same constraints as, say taking the BAR exam, or in our previous example, speaking with real world people that effect your daily life.

Brilliantly put. This is the primary reason why you can't read your way to social success alone (unless you keep writing and they keep reading). You have to be able to cultivate an aware mindset, and books can only give you general ideas, since the real world gives you the problems and the tools to fix it, which can often be too subtle to be relevant in any other situation BUT that particular moment.

Great thread op.

>how do you archive your notes so that everything you learn is easily accessible later on?

I've been using a program called connected text for storing notes on basically everything I do. I've used a whole bunch of systems over the last few years (emacs org mode, zettelkasten method, notebooks only, Evernote, one note) but this one is my favourite. It's like building your own Wikipedia, and I think for me the whole process of watching your notes grow and interconnect helps engrain what I'm learning. It's kind of hard to get started, but there's a free trial at least.

Wow I've never heard of that! Thanks for mentioning this program and its alternatives.

Anybody know what are some good citation/research tools? I know of Zotero but that's it.

>write post
>realize it's too good to just give away for free on Veeky Forums
>save it as memo to yourself

What was the point of this post? To tease? To show indirect superiority?
A shallow antempt to troll? Either way, poor show.

just sincerity, why so hostile bro

A lot of this thread was too good to share, but I felt like doing it anyway because a more informed and organized society is a better one. Anyway, thanks for bumping the thread.

Connected Text seems like a great idea. Tool looks sort of obsolete now, though.

One might have harbor bias against Microsoft and I won't judge them for that. But OneNote is a real neat tool, with a modern UI and great power. I can only recommend it.

Maybe because your so-called sincerity looks like shitheadedness since the whole point of your post was to brag. That sort of sincerity you pretend to employ here only works after a question or accusation.

If you're right you already know the information and don't need to save it. If you are wrong you need others to review it because you didn't catch the error. Either way you're being a jerk by gloating about whatever secret knowledge you have in the one thread that's had anons genuinely helping each other instead of shitting on them because they don't understand Plato or think dfw loves weed or some other meme.

This is probably the best thing to come out of lit in a long time. Kudos OP. Is there a discord I can join?

OP here, not yet. I plan on making a Discord sometime in the next week as we go beyond exploring the basics and towards building some kind of standards in these generals. In addition to the reading material, I really like some of the suggestions people have made like here: . I want to get a sense for what kinds of autodidacts are out there, why people do it, how do we best fulfill our goals in the general and specific senses, etc., so we can usher in newcomers regardless of whether they've been self-studying for a long time or have been looking to start learning something on their own.

You should make a discord anyway now. Some people may be too shy and scared of being shit on to post here. I think you may get a more active discussion there too.

I was the admin of a similar discord for a while (focused on STEM subjects). The one thing you want to avoid is devolving into having only non-serious discussion. I recommend having some kind of entry test (e.g any kind of contribution, whether that be a resource, a method, or even analysis of a text) for anything beyond guest membership.

It may sound pretentious, but it'll help you weed out the more experienced and serious autodidacts from the newbies--without actually alienating them (since you can control permissions for specific channels).

Forums like Value Investing Club have a similar system which words quite well.

Also this: It's much easier to talk on discord

I've never ran a Discord sever, so I'd have to do some research and play around with the controls so it works well. Are there any good guides or templates out there?

>It may sound pretentious, but it'll help you weed out the more experienced and serious autodidacts from the newbies--without actually alienating them (since you can control permissions for specific channels).

This is a good suggestion IMO.

Honestly it's pretty intuitive and straightforward. The discord docs are also quite comprehensive if you need help doing advanced stuff.

Everybody in this thread might be very interested and benefit from giving

*mind maps (note taking)
*pomodoro technique (time management)
*Feynman technique (learning process)

a serious fucking go.

>pomodoro technique

The only reason I do anything besides stare at the internet all day.

Here'is my contribution to this thread; it's small but hopefully helps:

First, Axler's Precalculus is a good alternative to OP's precalc book. It's not free (unless you know where to look) but it is cheap and it is very, very good. I recommend it even if you've already taken Precalc.

Second, a good alternative for notetaking in wiki-style is to use vimwiki. For those that know how to use vim, this will be the only notetaking software you will ever need. It allows you generate complete, linked, HTML documents with a single command (a useful feature if you want to share information) and comes with a built in journal function.

Third, applying a systems/gestalt approach to learning (and your life in general) will result in much bigger and more permanent changes (though those changes can unfortunately go both ways, good and bad) than a more staccato approach

Finally (and this can be considered speculation if you like) I'm convinced that many of the processes/systems that govern human health and fitness (including that of the mind) are what Taleb would call "anti-fragile", i.e they get stronger from acute, periodic stress. A good example in the realm of learning is the concept of spaced repetition. I'm certain there are others.

Once again, I commend you on your efforts OP.

>applying a systems/gestalt approach
what is it? I'm not so sure.

Eeeeh, pseud life is difficult!

>mind maps
Those are really good for a broad understanding of EVERY TOPIC EVER in a course. I would use these constantly to make sure I could walk through all the sub-subjects in a particular field of law. Like, constitutional law has 6 major areas, those areas each have 4 major tests, each test has 4 elements, each element has 2 exceptions etc.

This was also useful if you put it into a mind palace. Mind palaces were pretty useful for memorizing lists and elements, but the finer points of analysis and articulation were lost on me because I haven't used it very much. I can get a room with the list of say the 12 criminal defenses. But the elements of those defenses within those objects and crazy objects linking those objects to the thing I needed to remember became more difficult the more i tried to fit into it. Do I space this out? Is there a way to do this? Do I add strange details to the object and connect those to the sub points? I know I asked last thread, but does anyone have experience using memory palaces and either have advice or a book rec?

>pom pom method
This was really useful before I started meditating, now I just practice mindfulness when I need to get work done.

>feynman technique
I self test a lot, but I haven't ever sat down and tried the
>write down as much as you can remember
>rewrite it in a simpler form

Or maybe I don't know the feynman technique very well.


Also a great resource where I learned about these type of things was the youtube channel collegeinfogeek. He's only a little reddit-tier but he makes great content, both on his website and in his videos linking to all his sources.

>First, Axler's Precalculus is a good alternative to OP's precalc book. It's not free (unless you know where to look) but it is cheap and it is very, very good. I recommend it even if you've already taken Precalc.

I'm familiar with Axler, and I don't disagree. Axler and Stitz will both give you the precalculus education you should have had in high school. I won't argue about it though, because that will derail the thread and its purpose. But if you're short on cash, don't think you're missing out.

I hope that in the future, I can come up with a more robust basic system that acknowledges different possibilities but without creating clutter like you would in a Veeky Forums thread. There's no "canon" and there shouldn't be for any reason but functional purposes.

-- --

I think we should come to a greater understand of how to build systems for ourselves, too. But desu, it's a complex balancing of desires and capabilities, so I don't know if it can be anything more than a personal journey informed by examples and tips. All in good time though. Great tips on antifragility, though!

It's something I can talk at length about, but the general idea is to address changes in your life in such a way that they synergize. Seek solutions that solve multiple problems and compound.

For instance, suppose your goals are mental and physical fitness. One solution to this problem is to live closer to your place of employment, ideally within walking or biking distance. It seems like a non-sequitur, but let's think about it. This lets you wake up later (and therefore get more sleep, promoting memory consolidation, mental well-being, and even fat loss), allows you to walk or bike to work (promoting physical fitness through exercise, which in turns improves mood and mental clarity), gives you more time in the morning (for better personal hygiene, a good breakfast, meditation etc.) saves you money and stress (don't have to pay for gas or bus fare, don't have to worry about traffic or missing the bus/train), allows you to come home whenever you want (so you can cook your own meals instead of eating out for lunch). Obviously a solution like this is easier said then done, (and some of these may seem like a stretch) but if you're willing to pay a little extra, it can be done. And you might find that the little extra you pay is compensated for in other areas (e.g reduced transportation costs)

In system dynamics you'd consider the group of goals you're trying to achieve as the "stocks" (e.g the stocks of money, mental fitness, physical fitness, knowledge etc.) and the activities you engage in to achieve those goals as the "flows". As anyone whose studied any dynamic system (like biochemical pathways in the body) can tell you, even a few stocks and flows can generate very complicated and very robust systems. The idea here is to try and construct a system which basically "snowballs" or compounds towards the goals you want and which is robust (or even better: anti-fragile)

tl;dr, The whole is other than the sum of its parts

personal systems cheat sheet coming through

I've had some experience using memory palaces to memorize detailed information.

In the end, I think it's only suitable for "medium-term memories", things which are one-off. Using a link or story system combined with repeated testing through space repetition software is the way to go for anything long term and permanent. This is the system I now use for learning everything. I only use the method of loci for speeches/presentations and remembering things I encounter in daily life (phone numbers, names, grocery lists, etc.).

If you're still intent on using the method of loci for detailed information though, here's the system I used:

First off, you want to "pre-encode" things which repeat often in your material. Especially things like codes. For mathematics for example, I would pre-encode an image for each mathematical operation and some of the common symbols/functions in the text. N.B You cannot use the link method with any image that is repeated, otherwise you'll get confused.

Second, and this is the real secret: create loci within loci. There are two ways to do this: embedding an entire palace within a single loci (by putting the "entrance" of the palace in the loci) or, alternatively, breaking the loci down into parts and then memorizing images onto those parts. The second method is the one I used.

Finally, to address your points on fatigue and memory loss. This is natural and it's one of the reasons (the main one actually) that I moved from the method of loci to spaced repetition. If you want to remember the information for the long term, you *have* to review it and you *will* have to re-encode some of it. That's just way the brain works.

Hope this helps.

feynman technique is role playing a professor from the get go of starting to learn a topic and constantly pretend to explain it to yourself in your own words.

Nobody is going to believe that post is any good if you don't post it.

Also kudos to OP for a great thread!

This thread pleases me. Here are my contributions:

For mental health, I recommend The Feeling Good Handbook, by Dr. David D. Burns, a Stanford psych scholar. The book was recommended to me last year by my then-therapist. It worked wonders for me. I recommend it to anyone who suffers from mild depression/anxiety/loneliness/bad memories from their youth...I know there are many here who have them. The book revolves around a few basic techniques where you examine your negative thoughts and identify the flawed thought patterns in them. Slowly you train yourself to avoid having illogical, self-loathing thoughts that bog you down.

I also recommend an interesting book titled King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by Robert Moore. Moore is a Jungian psychoanalyst and the book summarizes his idea of the four archetypes of the mature masculine mind as well as their opposites, the shadow archetypes. It seems like pseudoscience, but the book explains it well and its an interesting framework.

Finally, learn to meditate. I started on calm.com, and there is also headspace. They both have free sections--you definitely shouldn't pay for their overpriced subscriptions unless you're rich. The free sections of these apps/websites will teach you the technique, it just takes discipline to apply.

These two books and mindfulness should give a good foundation for mental stability if they are lacking. Good luck everyone.

One thing I've always wondered about meditation is how much time you're supposed to commit. I know it's a daily practice, but how much time per session? What's the minimum dose? At point do you get diminishing returns (is there such a point?)

The app sessions usually last about ten minutes. That's about how long I set the timer for during my own personal unguided sessions. I'd say the bare minimum is 5 minutes since it takes about 2 minutes to get settled into your breathing rhythm. However, I have had good results from micro-meditations when I'm waiting for something. For example, I might be waiting for a class to start in a couple minutes, so I'll start meditating.

Not sure about a maximum/diminishing returns. The meditation isn't really about the meditation itself, but rather about the mindset it lends to your daily life--the mindset of being aware of yourself and letting negative emotions and ideas go. I'd say if you get to a point where you simply can't keep focusing you should stop. As you get better, that point may not even come. I could probably meditate for two hours straight at this point.

But generally 8-15 minutes is the sweet spot.

There's no upper limit. And I guess 5-10 minutes in a good environment is the minimum you should strive for. If you can't even do that, well, you'll help yourself wonders by building up the concentration to get to the point where meditation begins reaping its own benefits, so don't worry about initial difficulties.

bawmp

Why did you post an IP-Adress instead of operina.com?

thanks for this, very interesting

I recommend
>The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness
It gives you a clear roadmap with many achievable goals, ways to measure your progress and is not just pseudo-science bullshit, he actually quotes studies, but also buddhist wisdom.

I just realized that I always wonder at the end of the day were my time went.
Can you expand on your method of time management and especially how you control your "internet hygiene"?

>Free book to learn how to speed read without lowering comprehension
krismadden.squarespace.com/learn-to-speed-read-book/

Already went over this earlier but I think it's good to have a repeat.
>Also, what decisions improved your "internet hygiene"? I've been having a hard time not spending too much downtime on a loop of Veeky Forums --> leddit --> hackernews --> youtube --> etc.
Mindfulness. Take 5 seconds to think about what you want to do as soon as you feel an impulse. Get invested into how you spend your time and the consequences of your actions.

I don't think spending time on the Internet is a bad thing, but you need to be ruthless with what platforms you choose to interact with alongside the quality of the material. I will either commit to something or throw it away entirely. I also have multiple email addresses for all sorts of purposes (personal life, work, offers, gaming, junk) and do my best to keep them clean and on-topic by being careful about when and how I subscribe to new websites or make new accounts.

A bit unrelated, but I also scrubbed my history off of as many websites as possible by deleting posts, accounts, etc., and also abandoned old email accounts from before I started being careful about how I spent my time on the internet and how I gave out information. It's crazy how quickly we can become invested into all sorts of websites and leave mark for posterity. You just need to start having a mental habit about these things.

-- --

What should be the goal of speedreading when reading more intermediate-level books without losing comprehension? 500 wpm?

>The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide
Thanks for this user, this is exactly the kind of book I was looking for.

This list could use significant improvements according to Veeky Forums. A lot of stuff is just supplementary, like The Art and Craft, How to Think Like a Mathematician, How to Prove It, Mathematics: Its Content, Methods, and Meaning, etc. Also, a lot of meandering involved and perhaps not the best pace for quickly getting into pure mathematics or offering tracks that allow somebody to just "get the calculation basics", "get the pure math basics", or go for a mixed approach. Finally, the further readings are a bit esoteric and also have some glaring omissions, such as no advanced ODEs, no complex analysis, geometry, or number theory.

Try to get some advice on Veeky Forums, or maybe stick to like an "intro math" list or a "fast track to real analysis" list.

If you and your Veeky Forums buddies know better then post your own list.

>>Veeky Forums-science.wikia.com/wiki/Mathematics

The Veeky Forums-wiki is an excellent resource for any autodidact interested in STEM subjects. It is sort of pointless to build your own lists in this thread.

It's kinda bad in the beginning, suggesting starting off with Apostol without suggesting some sort of proofing book first. People forget that most people don't do honors calculus without doing calculus in one point of their life and without some experience in proofs (and this is getting harder to come by with declining education standards). Also, missing a lot of good precalculus texts like Lang, Axler, and Stitz while recommending basic bitch texts.

Do autodidacts pick up hobbies or sports?

I mean you have to learn how to play the guitar. You have to learn how to shoot pool. You have to learn how to crush people at Settlers of Catan.

If you are actively trying to cultivate a knowledge base for yourself by yourself when you are learning a thing then you are an autodidact.

I think the real duality between someone just doing something and an autodidact is the example of Veeky Forums and car culture.

There are people who drive cars from point A to point B. They use it as a tool and if it breaks down they have someone else fix it because they don't care.

Then there are people who spend all of their time, money, and effort into their car. Cars. Multiple. They know how to take the the engine apart and put it back together. They know how to drive the fastest and most efficiently around their local racing spots. They go to car meets. They learn the history about cars. They do all that shit that regular-normie-Joe doesn't know anything about.

So how do we choose the RIGHT things to be interested in? Obviously everyone can't invest tonnes of time into becoming an expert on everything, so what should be focus on?

Well that's getting philosophical. We are all the results of how we were raised, our environment, and our hereditary predispositions. What things do you enjoy now? What things have you always wanted to know about?

Good question, I suppose I'll reflect on it. It's just so terrifying to make a commitment because there is so much out there. For example, if you spend an hour a day for five years to learn French, that's 1,820 hours you'll never get back to spend on learning about cars, or dancing, or playing the piano. Life is so short.

>", he exclaimed while spending hours on a chinese calligraphy forum."

So hows the discord going along? Really interested, i think it has the potential to be a great community.

I would say the goal of speed reading is as fast as you can without losing comprehension, and that is going to be a different speed for everyone

This shit is inspiring.

So I just finished reading Plato's Republic for the second time, and this time I wrote an outline as I read, with some notes of interpretation on the side. Just wanted to know if there's a more effective way to do this, or if it's even worth doing at all. I'll remember the structure of the Republic better, but so what? Should I just focus on what I consider most important and 'discard' the rest? Should I even trust myself to make that call?

seconding this. How do you read literature in the most effective way (that you learn the most)?

The problem with that train of thought is that you become passable/average/mediocre at something in a much shorter time. You can get the game of pool down pretty well to beat any new person in 20 hours. You can learn how to play a generic 4 chord song perfectly in 20 hours, you can learn to change oil flawlessly in 20 hours, you can learn the basics of a field, the 101 course so to say in 20 hours. None of these things give a mastery. There is no 20,000 hours here. But you can try a hobby and figure out how to be okay at it and then just stop. You can continue if you enjoy what you're learning. Try the things that spark your interest for a while and either keep it up or don't. Either you become average at something you didn't know before, or you love it and become an expert and you work on it.

Read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler.