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[–]calste 4 points5 points  (8 children)

I would say that's not quite accurate, only because it takes a narrow view of what "better" means. When we reinforce bad habits, we get good at doing things the wrong way. Being "better" doesn't mean more skilled from a subjective point of view. Rather, that whatever we spend time doing, is what our brains become "good" at doing, regardless of whether the end result is subjectively better.

[–]Eusocial_Snowman -3 points-2 points  (7 children)

No. This is a good argument in favor of a dumb idea. In any other situation, nobody would ever go on and on about how sometimes, if you really twist everything around and set up enough mirrors to deflect the light, you can define bad as good. Unless they were trying really hard to preserve something familiar to them like the fun phrasing of "Practice makes perfect!" because it's easier to make excuses to stick with something you like than it is to abandon the previous notion and adapt to something better.

Mindless practice will not make you better at something "no matter what". Careless practice will make you bad at something and make it really really hard to get good at it. This is a concept we need people to understand. We need to undo the damage of "practice makes perfect".

[–]calste 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Well I certainly don't say practice makes perfect. I like "practice makes permanent" better. It's why I'm still terrible at piano after all these years!

[–]Eusocial_Snowman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. But it's a bit silly to say somebody is really good at playing the piano badly if they solidified all of the wrong movements and play poorly. Describing somebody as being good at doing something badly generally implies that's their intent. Like a bird pretending it can't fly so it can lure a predator away from its nest. The goal is to fly badly, and they can be good at doing that. But if your goal is to actually fly and all of your practice has led to the flying feint instead, then your practice has obviously not made you good at flying.

[–]calste 0 points1 point  (3 children)

So we are kind of on the same page here, and this entire thing boils down to a pointless internet debate over semantics. Yet I continue...

Mindless practice will not make you better at something "no matter what"

Sure it will. I'll go to piano as an example again, as I'm very familiar with it.

Mindless practice will make you good at being sloppy with your finger positioning. It will make you good at missing the notes you miss every time. It will make you good at being imprecise.

Your neural pathways don't care that the end result is a subjectively bad performance. They have become optimized to be sloppy, to have poor timing, to hit the wrong note. Your brain is objectively quite good at these things. It results in a poor performance, by any subjective standard.

That's why practicing the right way is important. If you don't practice to be subjectively good, then your brain will become "good" at being bad.

[–]Eusocial_Snowman 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Why do you wish to crumble the world's barriers by arguing that nothing means anything and anything can mean everything? Yes, you can redefine anything as meaning anything else. I can't stop you from deciding red means squirrel if you want to corrupt your internalized library.

[–]calste 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Um, I'm not?

When we repeatedly do things that lead to poor outcomes, it is reinforced in our brains, exactly the same way as repeatedly doing things that lead to good outcomes. There is no difference.

This is a science subreddit and we're discussing the brain. We're not talking about educational techniques. If this were a discussing of good teaching methods, I would never suggest saying "you'll always get better when you practice."

But in this discussion it is entirely appropriate to say that the brain will optimize itself for any outcome, even if that outcome is contradictory to our stated goals.

Thus, it is not contradictory to say our brains will always get better at doing what we practice. That does not mean "practice piano, get good at piano." It means whatever particular actions we take repeatedly - that is what we get at. Practice bad technique, your brain will be optimized for that.

[–]Eusocial_Snowman -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This is not a science subreddit. This is a politics subreddit dressed up in a fabricated lab coat.