Not enough material to construct an understanding.

The Intellectual Production of Engineers, 3rd ed. p. 25

If you can't gather information in broad strokes, you have to do it from one end of the spectrum to the other. If you are unable to get a general overview of the situation, you lack the material to construct an understanding. If you can't get an image in your mind after reading a general description, then you lack the knowledge to form an image in the first place.

It is common for people to step back and think, "What is the most efficient way to learn? However, at first we do not even have the materials to determine "what is efficient to learn from". So we need to get the materials first, without stepping on toes there.

Image" is an undefined word. When I was writing in my native language, Japanese, I felt like I understood it somehow, but when I tried to translate it into English, I realized that it was ambiguous.

The table of contents is already quite abstract (1). The state of being able to accept that abstract description, and whether or not there is a "box" to support it, will have an impact.

https://gyazo.com/50a8500095d6ef391f2b41d74b78fb05

Fig: Table of contents are abstract.

1: To understand the table of contents, you need supporting information.

2: Compared to detailed understanding, rough understanding requires less information.

3: When you do not have enough information, you can not understand the table of contents.

If you can't gather information in broad strokes, you have to do it from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Sometimes, when you read the table of contents in an attempt to get a general overview, you may not understand anything. This phenomenon often occurs when learning something new. This is caused by not having enough material to build an understanding.

Often the words in the table of contents are already an abstraction. If you do not have the knowledge to support the concept of that abstraction, then reading the table of contents will not help you understand it.

We often think about what is the most efficient way to learn. However, it is a waste of time to try to figure that out when we do not even have the materials to determine what would be efficient to learn from. We need to get the materials first.

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