{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://rednafi.com/zephyr/einstellung-effect/",
  "description": "Why accumulated knowledge can prevent learning new paradigms, and how past expertise becomes the barrier to future growth.",
  "path": "/zephyr/einstellung-effect/",
  "publishedAt": "2024-02-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:fgtm2c26vfcj74rfmeggbyqj/site.standard.publication/3mnl6f7ob462z",
  "tags": [
    "Essay"
  ],
  "textContent": "In 9th grade, when I first learned about [Lenz's law] in Physics class, I was fascinated by\nits implications. It states:\n\n> The direction of an induced current will always oppose the motion causing it.\n\nIn simpler terms, imagine you have a hoop and a magnet. If you move the magnet close to the\nhoop, the hoop generates a magnetic field that pushes the magnet away. Conversely, if you\npull the magnet away, the hoop creates a magnetic field that pulls it back. This occurs\nbecause the hoop aims to prevent any change in the surrounding magnetic field. That's Lenz's\nLaw: the hoop consistently acts to maintain the magnetic field's status quo, reacting\nagainst the motion that's the cause of the existence of the magnetic flux in the first\nplace. Generators leverage this principle to convert mechanical motion into electrical\nenergy.\n\nIn my experience, knowledge works like this as well. The very thing that made you good at\nwhat you do often prevents you from getting better.\n\nThe first decent program I ever wrote was a simulation in MATLAB during my sophomore year.\nSince then, I've switched career gears a few times and picked up a few programming languages\nalong the way. The weird thing is, over the years, learning new paradigms hasn't become any\neasier than I thought it'd be. I only got better at grokking technologies that are woefully\nsimilar to what I already know.\n\nSure, picking up a new tool or library in a familiar language has become second nature, but\nso has the tendency to keep doing the same thing I'm somewhat good at, slightly differently,\nand falling into the false lull of growth. This can be perilous in the sense that, unless\nyou actively fight it, after a decade, you might find yourself in a situation where you\nactually have only a year's worth of experience repeated ten times.\n\nI've been looking for a phrase to label the dilemma where the curse of knowledge,\naccumulated over time, prevents you from acquiring new knowledge and adopting new ways of\nthinking. Turns out, there's one for that - the [Einstellung effect]. Einstellung is a\nGerman word for \"attitude\" or \"setting.\" It describes a situation where we stick to a\nfamiliar way of thinking or solving problems, which can stop us from seeing or seeking\neasier or better solutions. This only gets worse as we start growing older or becoming more\nexperienced in a narrow slice of a highly specialized domain.\n\nTo put it more concretely, when I learned my first proper programming language, Python, it\nwas much easier for me to pick up the syntax, semantics, and culture around it since all\nthat knowledge was basically getting dumped into an empty slate. When I had to pick up some\nJavaScript for work, it was still relatively easy since I started to compare the features of\nthe language with the one I knew and worked my way up. However, the time it took for me to\nget comfortable in the JS world wasn't that short since I was begrudgingly resisting\nlearning about the warts of the language and complaining about how nice Python's type system\nwas compared to this mess!\n\nIt was only when I started to learn Go that I became aware of the warts of Python and when\nit just wasn't the right tool to solve the problem at hand. Despite Go's fame for being\nsimple, I had to read a few books, solve a few koans, and build a few tools before I got\nconfident in solving problems with it. One reason why it took longer is because I was trying\nto emulate Python idioms inside Go while at the same time bashing people who'd write Go like\nJava, remaining blissfully unaware of my own stance. In each of these instances, my\naccumulated experience and acquired predispositions actively resisted adopting different\nways of solving problems.\n\nIt's natural for us to acquire new skills by mapping them with what we already know, and\nthat's true for any skill - whether it's learning to cook a new dish or writing in an\nunfamiliar programming language. But at the same time, as we grow older, we actively need to\nstrain against the tide to learn to learn like kids. Because without it, we are nothing but\n[simulacra acting as conscious exotica], spellbound by the allure of mimicry!\n\n\n\n\n[lenz's law]:\n    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwUq8xM_8bY\n\n[einstellung effect]:\n    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstellung_effect\n\n[simulacra acting as conscious exotica]:\n    https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.12422",
  "title": "Einstellung effect"
}