Is the Autodidact an extinct species?

[Mike 03]

Do any you just become obsessed with some topic you want to learn everything you can possibly learn about, regardless of whether you have a professor or not?

Do you ever just buy textbooks and devour them for the sheer pleasure of learning about something you don't have a formal degree in?

I just need to know, for my personal sanity, how strange this is.

Everyone always wants to know what credentials one has to express an opinion. (Even though nowadays you can just Google on studies and find the latest credible double-blind studies on nearly everything). Besides, plenty of people have opinions on all sorts of things they have no clue whatsoever about.

Is it demented to aspire to learn something on your own by reading and studying respected texts? Or is a habit of a bygone era from Chaucerian documentations, when there was actually a profession called just being a Scholar, and someone paid you simply to learn?

Anybody out there just study for the sheer joy of studying? Or do I need a therapist?

[rug]

1. Don't get me started on bees.

[hootinholler]

30. Or Will Pitt n/t

[Muttocracy]

2. My problem is being extremely interested in MANY topics! polyautodidact?

and no, you don't need a therapist for that unless your other life functions are stopping (eating, hygiene, etc.) We probably all need a therapist for something :crazy:

[Mike 03]

13. Polyautodidact... Yes, I love this. This is me, to a precise pinpoint. NT

[Cronus Protagonist]

34. Yeah, I'm a GIFTED polyautodidact - is it wrong to hide it?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[BlooInBloo]

3. (shrug) America is a very stupid country. knowledge, however gained, is a rarity.

[barbtries]

4. you're in good company:

me. i do it via the internet these days.

[cliffordu]

5. I started reading about LINUX in 1995....

IN 2000 I went to work at IBM in the Linux Technology Center in Austin, helping IBM plan adopting LINUX company wide....

I have had no formal computer education.

I learned to make my own black and white film developer in 1983 when I was taking large format photographs..

no formal photographic training.

Everthing I know I have learned by living in libraries and bookstores...

[catnhatnh]

26. Cool

How large a format and what kind of camera or exposure mechanism? Why would you develope your own chemistry?

[cliffordu]

28. I had an old 8X10 view camera.. I wanted to make my own developer so I could

approximate the kinds of materials the giants of black and white photography were using in the 30's, '40s and '50's...
Ansel Adams Ruth Bernhardt, Edward Weston.....etc, etc.....

Never made any money at it but the science was fun and being able to get desired results from the entire photographic process was most excellent....

[catnhatnh]

29. Absolutely superb...

I shot up to medium format but never so well as to merit my negative size. That said I did a little newspaper work shooting in Illford monochromatic C-41 since we had no lab, and learned to do half-tone screens. I love film and old graphics stuff but started learning it just when it started to die.

[terisan]

6. You do not need a therapist. I think the age of the autodidact and independent

scholar is returning.

In the age of Kindle, online access to information and knowledge, and ability to interact at a distance, everything is changing.

[BlooInBloo]

22. (facepalm)

Kindle.

BWAHAHAAHAAHAAAA!!!!

[geckosfeet]

7. I think, that the only thing you ever truly own, is your experience and what you know.

Knowledge is the true currency of mankind. So I would say that you are saner than Wall Street by a country mile.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Birthmark]

9. You're just fine.

Trust me. I'm an autodidact. :)

Keep up the good, but uncredited, work.

[NYC_SKP]

10. Ask me anything.

Just kidding, I'm a polymath.

[Lionel Mandrake]

11. No, yes, and yes, respectively.

Depending on what you want to study, library access can be a problem. Most public libraries do not have esoteric or scholarly books, nor do they subscribe to learned journals. In many libraries, hard copies of journals are being replaced by electronic versions. Some electronic data bases are free, but others require a subscription. College and university libraries subscribe on behalf of their students and faculty, but these resources are not available to the general public. It's an uphill battle for an independent scholar.

I read and study for the sheer joy of studying. I don't need a therapist, and neither do you.

[Tuvok Obama]

12. You don't need a therapist. Just buy some psychology textbooks

and psychoanalyze yourself.

[Aviation Pro]

14. No says the man with a house full of tomes....

.....

[Mike 03]

15. The honorable thing for me to do would be to reply to every one of your posts.

thank you so much.

I am so happy that so many people here know what I'm talking about or appreciate learning.

Honestly, I was worried I was losing my mind.

[MADem]

16. Hell, no. I've been doing it since I was three years old.

Of course, in our household, the Encyclopedias were in the crapper....why? It's the perfect place to multitask!

I have more degrees than I'll ever need, too. AND...I love to beat a subject to death. It's not strange at all.

Some of our nation's best lawyers never set foot in a law school--they apprenticed.

There is no "right" way to learn. And anytime anyone tells you that there is, tell them that Alberto Fucking Gonzales graduated from Harvard Law!!!

[InkAddict]

17. Books have always been my friends.

Sometimes, I feel like a great sponge, sopping up tidbits of understanding here and there...it's the quick-witted regurgitation and automatic conversational synthesis that doesn't kick in on time...always too little too late, my learning seems to be behind the curve of usefulness sometimes. I'd sure like to learn how to use a crystal ball to advantage. Can I get back to you on those answers?

[csziggy]

18. The day I stop learning on my own, I can be declared dead

Early in my school career I realized that it is more valuable to know how to find information and learn independently than to memorize and regurgitate the limited subjects they teach in classrooms. And I always felt sorry for my classmates that thought learning was a boring chore and avoided knowledge as much as possible.

Good for you to want to study!

[Hekate]

19. It's fair to say that you have a lot of company here, Mike. Fun, isn't it?

:hi:

Hekate

[HeresyLives]

20. You are in excellent company!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autodidacticism

[tavalon]

21. A touch of Asperger's never hurt anyone

It's the geek "disease".

I would say most of here do a lot of self teaching. I learned how to get through school but it was after school that I learned to love learning for it's own sake.

[Odin2005]

23. I do that stuff all the time.

Having Asperger's Syndrome helps, I'll get interested in something and be obsessed with it for months, if not years. :rofl:

The Powers-that-Be don't like us Renaissance Men, we can connect dots and see through their BS. "Multi-Disciplinary" is my middle name.

I'm currently trying to teach myself Spanish and Latin. Ancient Greek would be nice, too.

I'm 100% self-taught in:
Philosophy
Linguistics
History of the Classical World
Medieval European History
Various Cyclical Historical Models (Toynbee, Spengler, Quigley, Strauss & Howe, etc)
Geology
Paleontology
Psychology
HTML & XML programming languages
Climatology
Mythology

[hootinholler]

32. Except

XML and HTML are not programming languages, they are Markup Languages, thus the ML in the name. To be a programming language, it needs to be able to do math. ;)

Another autodidact checking in.

-Hoot

[Odin2005]

33. Doh, thanks for correcting me!

[kestrel91316]

24. After taking a post-vet school breather from "learning" for about 5 years, lol,

I plunged headlong into devouring nonfiction books over 20 years ago and haven't stopped. I also read some fiction, but it's much harder for somebody to convince me a fiction book is worth my time than nonfiction.

I am particularly fond of learning about home food production and processing, and practical crafts, but I have a lot of other interests, too. Interestingly, I read few political or current events books, probably because I rely on traditional media and now DU for a lot of that information.

[Iterate]

25. Not extinct yet, and not so strange,

though I have found it to be a sure path to poverty. Involved but not employable. After three months worth of British history, I'll switch either to AI software, because I should, or Italian cuisine, because a particular cookbook has been calling me. And there is that nagging geology gap. And just how evil was John Winthrop? Or maybe Moorish architecture again, because I didn't really get it the first time.

Keep your head, it's the only one you'll get.

[Kitty Herder]

27. No, you don't need a therapist.

And I don't think curiosity and love of learning will ever die out. They're part of human nature and they're what drive the autodidact.

Some people do think it's strange. The town librarian thinks I'm a little nuts because of the obscure books I order through interlibrary loan, but the library only buys what is popular and judging by the content of our library, few people in town read anything but trashy novels. :eyes: I happen to think reading nothing by trashy novels is strange.

[Godhumor]

31. I've been obsessed with quantum physics for about five years now

It is as close to scientific magic as you can get--endlessly fascinating and truly bizarre.

[Igel]

35. Lots of them out there.

The problem is, they often have trouble using their knowledge. No credits, no certificates, no degrees.

Take FDR. He started to study law, dropped out and passed the bar. He was an attorney, but without the law degree. Try that these days and see how many clients you get.

[rucky]

36. Does switching careers every 3 years count?

I've read my share of textbooks, but dig the on the job training, too.

Sucks for your income level though. Even though I use most of the skills I've picked up, they're just not valued the same way when you're new to an industry - or I'm not marketing myself properly.