[jama211]

I think this is one of those statements that sounds reasonable on the surface but if you read it over a few times it doesn’t say anything concrete enough to pin down anything that could be refuted, even though I think the vibe is off.

So in return I’ll share my vibe, which is that my point was a small amount of struggle can be good once people are already determined to learn something, perhaps because they have found a spark for it. But before they’ve found their spark, all it does is turn people off. And in general, I don’t think struggle is essential at all. In fact I’ve learned a great many things successfully without struggling.

[saulpw]

You must have a different brain than mine. I'm finding (and increasingly as I age), that the act of learning feels inherently uncomfortable. Like my brain really wants to use its existing toolset instead of learning something new, and is saying so quite loudly. A similar discomfort happens with exercise. If there's zero struggle to lift the weight, then your muscles aren't really developing. I think this is pretty well-known and well-documented.

So how do you learn without struggle? Are you being spoonfed the material on a learning happy path so you happen to never make a mistake and thereby have to redo your work? Do you not experience effort and mistakes and frustration as 'struggle'? After you're "done" learning a particular skill without struggle, what happens when you have to apply that skill at a higher level than you learned it at? Is it just joy and rainbows all the time?

[jama211]

When you read a novel, you’re learning the plot, the intricate relationships between the characters, forming opinions about the current and future state of the fictional world, that sort of thing. Does this feel like a struggle to you? It’s still learning, but I don’t find it a struggle, mostly because I’m enjoying the process and the experience.

A great many things can be learned in this way. Not everything I’ll grant you, I haven’t found a way to learn a language or complex mathematical topics without struggle yet. But even in my software development work if something is a joy to learn I still learn it, no struggle required.

Kids learn a lot through play, and play isn’t a struggle for kids.

Lots of examples.

[godelski]

I don't think it's just age, and I think the comparison to working out is apt. To gain muscle you need to get tired. To restate my previous comment in this framework: to gain muscle you need to struggle; you can go too far and injure yourself but neither is there exercise that is effortless.

I'm not sure how the gp even reasons like they do. What does effortlessly learning a new skill look like? You're just instantly good at it? The logical conclusion here is that either: 1) they're so galaxy brain that nothing is hard or 2) they're incrementing so minutely that the progress is so smooth sailing that they are able to fool themselves into not believing there ever was a struggle.

If the first option we have to consider their morals as they could save countless lives and thrust humanity generations ahead technologically, due to their ability to solve problems us mere mortals struggle with.

Personally I'm much more believing of option 2 as it makes the most sense if we consider the computational requirements for increasing precision along with our current understanding of human psychology to create these types of mental defenses as remembering the struggle can deter us from doing it again. But mostly I'm sold on option 2 because if they were so galaxy brained they'd be cognizant of the fact that the rest of us aren't and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

But hey, maybe I'm the one fooling myself here. Maybe the gp is just god. They could just be omnipotent and not omniscient. Which in that case we've answered the AGI super intelligent problem.

[jama211]

Effotless and without struggle are two very different things. Walking a kilometre or two to the shops isn’t a struggle, but it’s not effortless either. It takes effort but it’s pleasant and not a struggle at all. Running would be a struggle. Effortless would be having someone drive you there. See what I mean?