The brighter you are, the more you have to learn.
—Don Herold
I don’t know the context of this, I came across it as a quote, but I can see two totally different interpretations, both true.
ADDED: Make that five interpretations.
The two I had in mind were:
Epistemic responsibility—you have an ethical obligation to learn because you can.
The more you have to learn—I don’t know about you, but I am about as likely to stop learning as to stop breathing—I’m not likely to do either voluntarily.
Why? I can see why there is a greater marginal value to putting more time into learning if you are bright, but why is there a higher marginal value of learning more if you are bright especially if, like almost everything else, there is eventually diminishing marginal returns to learning and bright people know more than not bright people.
Bright people have more unanswered questions, maybe? You can’t be pondering the Gibbs paradox without knowing much more about thermodynamics than I currently do.
The brighter you are, the more you have to learn. —Don Herold
I don’t know the context of this, I came across it as a quote, but I can see two totally different interpretations, both true.
ADDED: Make that five interpretations.
The two I had in mind were:
Epistemic responsibility—you have an ethical obligation to learn because you can.
The more you have to learn—I don’t know about you, but I am about as likely to stop learning as to stop breathing—I’m not likely to do either voluntarily.
Why? I can see why there is a greater marginal value to putting more time into learning if you are bright, but why is there a higher marginal value of learning more if you are bright especially if, like almost everything else, there is eventually diminishing marginal returns to learning and bright people know more than not bright people.
Bright people have more unanswered questions, maybe? You can’t be pondering the Gibbs paradox without knowing much more about thermodynamics than I currently do.
Three interpretations.
The brighter you are, the more there is for you to learn.
The brighter you are, the more there is that you need to learn.
The brighter you are, the more need there is for you to learn.
(I hadn’t noticed #3 until I read James Miller’s comment.)