Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is not the definition of insanity. It's the definition of practice.
Take that (not) Einstein!
No.
You're either doing the thing right, and expecting the same result, or you're doing it wrong and then adjusting. Either way, you're not doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
You are doing the same thing (e.g. practising a specific piece of music on a specific instrument). If you are doing it poorly or on world-class level, it is still the same thing. It's not identical actions within the task of practising that song, but no matter how good you are, it would be still called the same thing ("practising to play song X on instrument Y").
You reworded my comment.
edit. You've lost your keys. You look in your pants pocket 500 times. Insanity, because you're doing the same thing and expecting that this time the keys will show up, even though they weren't there the first 499 times.
You play "O, Canada" on the steel drums 500 times. Sometimes you play it through perfectly and occasionally you make a mistake. You note the mistakes. When you play it right you're getting the result you expect, and if you make a mistake, you adjust.
I mean how much do you want to generalize? Practicing now means doing the same thing over and over, ignoring the adjustments you make? Ignoring the fact that someone who never practiced vs a 10 year practiced will sound different, but she did the same thing for 10 years, it should sound the same if nothing changed. Then the next 10 years will sound the same since they perfected it. But they will practice. So practice sometimes means you change but sometimes means you don't? See how things get complicated when they are overgeneralized.
If you’re expecting the same result (and getting a different result) you’re doing scientific research.
If you're practicing the exact same way over and over you're doing something wrong.
That's not always true. Finding the optimal way to do something is only one potential aspect of practice. Another is getting to a level where you can do it consistently and on demand, over and over and over, without missing a beat.
And even once you've reached that level, that skill can be lost or degrade over time if you dont keep at it, so repeatedly performing the same motions in the exact same way becomes pretty much necessary in order to maintain your skill level.
If you were looking for consistency, that is by definition you looking for the same result, which is not covered in the definition of insanity.
Finding? How are you going to find it? Since you're arguing to never change what you're doing in practice the very first attempt at practice must be the thing you always repeat right?
No. Practice isn't doing the same thing over and over again.
Practice is an iterative process where each time you fail, you learn something new and add it to the process until eventually you find a result that is different.
You're practicing your golf swing because you keep shanking the ball to the right. You don't keep making the same shot over and over agin. You adjust your stance. You adjust your leg positioning. You adjust a hundred little things until you find the combination that gives you the results you want. THAT'S Practice...not just repeating the same action.
When I get a movement right, I keep repeating it over and over until it's committed to memory. You're saying I could've stopped at the first success? Why did no one tell me earlier?
But do you expect different results when doing that? I think the point of that would be to get the same result every time.
Same is not identical.
"I am going to get a drink." - "I'm gonna do the same."
Will the second person now do identical movements to the first one? Will the second person use identical words to order an identical drink?
Or will both of them walk up to the bar and each of them will get some drink they like?
"I'm going to practice golf this weekend." - "Yeah, I'm going to do the same."
Will the second person immitate every movement of the first one? Or are both of them just going to practice golf, one of them maybe on a golf course and the other one on a drive range?
Ehh, I get what you’re saying but..that’s iteration, improvement, development
Practice is rehearsing the same move over and over, the phrase “practice like you play” exists for that reason. It is by definition, repetition.
Anyone else kind of hate this "definition"? I've been hearing that shit my entire life, and I just can't help but roll my eyes every time.
It's terrible, wrong, and out of context. Einstein was talking about quantum mechanics not mental health. He really didn't like that at the quantum level results are random but follow a very spefic probability curve.
He thought quantum mechanics would be able to achive classical physics like results. Where the only uncertainty was because of measurement error.
quantum uncertainty is the most experimentaly proven theory in physics. So even in the context Einstein made the statement he was wrong.
Putting aside the fact that you cannot "experimentally prove" anything as proof is for mathematics, claiming you can experimentally demonstrate fundamental uncertainty is, to put it bluntly, incoherent. Uncertainty is a negative, it is a statement that there is no underlying cause for something. You cannot empirically demonstrate the absence of an unknown cause.
If you believe in fundamental uncertainty, it would be appropriate to argue in favor of this using something like the principle of parsimony, pointing out the fact that we have no evidence for an underlying cause so we shouldn't believe in one. Claiming that you have "proven" there is no underlying cause is backwards logic. It is like saying you have proven there is no god as opposed to simply saying you lack belief in one. Whatever "proof" you come up with to rule out a particular god, someone could change the definition of that god to get around your "proof."
Einstein, of course, was fully aware of such arguments and acknowledged such a possibility that there may be no cause, but he put forwards his own arguments as to why it leads to logical absurdities to treat the randomness of quantum mechanics as fundamental; it's not merely a problem of randomness, but he showed with a thought experiment involving atomic decay that it forces you to have to reject the very existence of a perspective-independent reality.
There is no academic consensus on how to address Einstein's arguments, and so to claim he's been "proven wrong" is quite a wild claim to make.
"[W]hat is proved by impossibility proofs is lack of imagination." (John Bell)
Einstein wasn't talking about anything at all, since it's a misattribution. Einstein never said that. Someone just stuck Einstein's name in front of their own stupid garbage quote to make it sound smarter.
Idk about that...
When you practice something, you're actively changing your technique to elicit better results. You're not making huge changes, but rather a series of miniscule ones that add up.
For instance, I could sit down with a flute and a piece of music, and play it decently. It wouldn't be great, but it wouldn't be terrible. If I play it the same way every time, it's always going to sound decent - but it's always going to have the same wrong notes, the same rushed passages, the same intonation issues... If I practice it, I can make changes over time that fix those things. I can fix my fingerings, even out the rushed bits, adjust my intonation... But then I wouldn't be doing the same thing anymore, I'd be doing something slightly different.
Did Einstein actually say that? Even if he did, he wasn't a psychologist. Plus, scientists recreate experiments all the time, literally doing as close to the same thing as possible and often getting different results.
So No. I also was always very irritated by this quote, because from a scientific point of view this is rather incorrect, as (like you said) experiments need to be repeated, to verify the results.
No, Einstein did not say that. But it's often misattributed to him, that's why I put it as "(not) Einstein".
Gotcha, thanks!
"The same". In a literal sense. Not figuratively like in practice, where you're repeating things to aim for better performance/outcomes. Every repeat is different, or at least should be otherwise there is this great qoute... something about repeating the same thing and expecting different results....
Oh doing something over and over and over again cause you want to get the diminishing returns milked for all its worth is absolutely insane.
It just also happens to be useful insanity.
Its what pushes humanity at its fringes is the insane going for more and trying to get the little they can. Most of the "sane" people arent much worth talking about.
How do you get proficient at anything? Practice it well past the first 10 minutes where you have the highest returns.
A idiotic comments trying to argue that its different, dont understand that the AIM stays the same. And yes after each iteration you get closer with practice.
The execution might look a bit different but the aim is still at the exact same after each iteration.
Thanks!
I'd argue it's all but impossible to do the exact same execution every single time, even if you aren't practising.
I feel like some people (and on the internet maybe even most people) need to disagree to everything that is said. I had that so often that I agree with someone, and offer another point arguing in the same direction, only for the other person to misunderstand my support of their point as an attack and starting to argue against my supporting point.
I hate contrarians.
We have (at least) two fundamentally different types of knowledge—there’s our intuitive world model that does improve with repetition learning (much like a neural network) and does change with practice; and there’s rule-based knowledge that improves by eliminating possible rules/theories via observation.
My interpretation of Einstein’s quip is that insanity consists in confusing the two—thinking that rule-based knowledge can improve by performing the same tests over and over until the results match our theories, instead of modifying our theories to reflect the results.
It's not an Einstein quote. It's a common misattribution to make a stupid quote sound smart.
Q. How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
A. You get on a plane
Difference of practice vs insanity is directly related to something within your control vs outside of your control.
This was one guys opinion and everyone took it to heart. For example, If we listened to and did everything Neil degrass Tyson said then we'd all be closed minded condescending assholes
And we don't even know who that one guy was apart from that it wasn't Einstein.
even if you agreed with this (definitely not einstein) quote it would be an example not a definition !!
The difference is that when one is practicing something one knows that "the result" can be achieved or improved.
Yeah, no. You should be adjusting each cycle when you practice, until you start getting the desired results.
No matter whether you are awful or great, if you are practising skateboard tricks it's called "practising skateboard tricks". Because you are doing the same thing. You aren't doing identical actions while practising skateboard tricks, but you are doing the same overall task.
Imagine you are practicing basketball free throws. The goal of the practice is to get the ball through the hoop.
To be clear the key word is goal, which can be defined as an achievable end result. In this example the ball goes through the hoop or it doesn’t.
If you throw the ball away from the hoop in such a way that it doesn’t even come close to going through the hoop, a reasonable person would say you need to change your actions to get a different result.
However, if you do not change your actions yet you expect the ball to go through the hoop, this is unreasonable and could broadly be seen as “insanity” as a sort of pejorative for a person who may be suffering from mental illness or is simply being unreasonable.
Practice by definition is synonymous with iteration, which is repeating an activity while making changes to affect the result or outcome of that activity.
The statement is about the individual goal not the general activity you’re practicing.
In repetition you expect improvements in your movement and memory after each time. Maybe even improved speed and fluidity.
It depends on what you are practicing. If it involves things out of your control, for instance poker, you definitely shouldn't adjust after every result. In the poker case that leads to not playing well just because you lost one time.
Even in less random things you have to be absolutely sure you found the problem before adjusting.