Mathematics is a language. We want scientists to be able to read it, speak it, and write it. But we are are not training them to be grammarians.
Herbert SimonRead
Learning is any change in a system that produces a more or less permanent change in its capacity for adapting to its environment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Learning involves changes that enhance a system's ability to adapt to its surroundings.
Herbert Simon's quote emphasizes that learning is not just about acquiring knowledge but represents a critical transformation within a system that enables it to adapt to new challenges and environments. This perspective highlights the dynamic nature of learning, wherein enduring changes enhance one's capabilities and adaptability over time.
Themes
LearningAdaptationChangeEducationSystem
In practice
Example use cases
In a keynote speech about continuous improvement in organizations.
More from Herbert Simon
All quotes βHuman knowledge has been changing from the word go and people in certain respects behave more rationally than they did when they didn't have it. They spend less time doing rain dances and more time seeding clouds.
Herbert SimonRead
The proper study of mankind is the science of design.
Herbert SimonRead
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
Herbert SimonRead
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I do not write for this generation. I am writing for other ages. If this could read me, they would burn my books, the work of my whole life. On the other hand, the generation which interprets these writings will be an educated generation; they will understand me and say: 'Not all were asleep in the nighttime of our grandparents.'
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No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, don't confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.
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It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you always use it on other people. It's different when there are other people involved.
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