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Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is not the definition of insanity. It's the definition of practice. (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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Take that (not) Einstein!

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[–] [S] -1 points 1 year ago (6 children)

It's impossible to do the identical thing twice. Try it. Try to throw a ball absolutely identically twice. That's not possible. Each time the ball will end up flying slightly different. So obviously "doing the same thing over and over again" cannot mean "doing an identical action over and over again".

Because that would be equivalent to "the definition of insanity is performing an impossible action". That's nonsensical.

Thus "the same thing" must refer to that the overarching action is the same, not that every detail is identical. And that's what you do when you practice: You e.g. play the same song on the same instrument over and over again. Crappy at first, proficient in the end.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    How do you define the phrase "the same thing"?

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago* (4 children)

    Repeat a task in a way that if you'd describe the task with a few words you would use the same words for both tasks. E.g. "Throw a baseball at the target".

    It's physically impossible to identically repeat any action. If you e.g. throw a ball twice, no matter how hard you try, neither your movement nor the travel of the ball will be identical. Even someone with perfect ball throwing skills will e.g. not be able to hit the same exact spot on a target with sub-nanometer accuracy. So it would be kinda pointless to claim that "do the same thing multiple times" means "do an absolutely identical string of absolute identical actions multiple times".

    So obviously it's a bit more bird's eye view: If you throw a ball twice at the same target, you have done the same thing twice. Even if you don't manage to hit exactly the same spot and your motion wasn't exactly identical.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You're arguing that human error doesn't allow for the same results which I agree with. But if you want to achieve the goal of being better at something through practice, you have to rely on more than just hoping that by chance, your error will achieve a better result than the last time you tried. That does not contribute towards learning to be better at a task. You must make conscious decisions to correct mistakes. If said decision changes something you did last time, I wouldn't call that "doing the same thing".

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Two points:

    Back in school, it took my teacher maybe a minute to explain the theory behind shooting a three-pointer in basket ball. It's super easy to know the correct theory and do all the cognitive decision making to do it right. But then it takes dozens of hours, or even hundreds of hours, to actually getting it right. Even though there's no concious change or decision, it's just pure practice.

    Second point: "I'm going to get a drink." - "I'm gonna do the same."

    Is the second person going to imitate every single motion of the first one identically? Or is the second person just also going to get a drink, maybe not even the same drink?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    First point I disagree with completely. As I already said, when practicing something like shooting three pointers, you are making conscious decisions on what you need to fix and work on to get better. If you shoot the first time and get an air ball because the ball came up short, you will have to make the decision to put more power into your shot to make the ball go further. If your ball goes too far left, next time you consciously aim more to the right. Practice isn't the magical ability to be good at something because you did it a lot. It takes more effort than simply doing the bare minimum.

    As for your second point, that is a slang use of the word. It is not meant to be taken literally. Where I think we fundamentally disagree is that I and many of the other users here seem to take the original quote you posted as being more literal than you take it. I interpret the original quote to mean that no outside factors manipulate the expected results. Human error is negligible.

    Imagine you are holding a ball. You want to observe what happens if you suddenly let go of it. Will it fall down? Will it float in the air before you? Will it fly off in some random direction? You let go and it obviously falls down. You do that a million times because you hope that eventually it will stop falling down. This is an example of what I think the original quote is implying. No amount of practicing dropping a ball will change the results of gravity having a predictable effect on it.

    All of your examples assume that the phrase "the same thing" is taken to be figuratively. That there is some element of "but not exactly the same" attached to the each example.

    I'll be honest here, I really don't know the origins of the quote is or what the context was. But I do feel that you are in the minority when it comes to believing that the part that says "the same thing" isn't meant to be taken literally. But that doesn't necessarily make you wrong either. I quite enjoyed where this debate went even if neither of us was convincing to the other, I can still respect your argument. I said I felt you were trolling at first, but I can see how it can be left to interpretation.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago

    All of your examples assume that the phrase “the same thing” is taken to be figuratively. That there is some element of “but not exactly the same” attached to the each example.

    Show me a single thing, just one single thing that can be repeated absolutely identical, without the "but not exactly the same" attached to it in the real world.

    Just one.

    Throw a ball twice, so that it hits the same spot with sub-nanometer accuracy. Drop a ball twice in exactly the identical way.

    If that's not possible, then it's not possible to do the same exact thing twice.

    If that's your premise for the quote, then it becomes "Doing something impossible is the definition of insanity".

    The whole quote just disappears into thin air, since it loses all it's meaning.

    Hence the "but not exactly the same" is necessary for the quote to even exist.

    That's why "doing the same way" never means to do something absolutely identical, because that definition is impossible to ever fulfil. And that's why that definition of "the same" isn't slang but literally in the Cambridge Dictionary

    Here are the examples given there:

    My twin sister and I have the same nose.

    Both noses are identical, down to the atom. Right?

    She was wearing exactly the same dress as I was.

    Not a single thread is different on the dresses. Down to the atom identical. Cannot be distinguished. Luckily, both of the wearers seem to be of the exact same size as well, right?

    Hilary's the same age as me.

    Born in the same nanosecond.

    She brought up her children in just (= exactly) the same way her mother did.

    Not once did she say a different word than her mother said. The education was perfectly memorized and executed absolutely exactly the same way without a single difference. Every word timed to the same millisecond.

    Literally exactly the same does not exist outside of mathematics.

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