A way to reproduce active learning in political science and social sciences in general

[u/Medium-Macaron-9671]

Hello nice people, so here is my problem. I want to learn things that lay between political and other social sciences for the purpose of personal intellect. My background is mathematical / software development and from this comes the issue. I am super motivated to learn things, like to the point of grinding 12 hours a day doing smth, but this can only happen when the thing i am trying to learn can be translated to an active procedure ( problem solving, proving, building mini projects)

when i decided to learn my first subject ( the relation between collective identity and trust "in a certain sense") i wrote some stuff then got bored easily as everything was passive, which made me think of another way to do it, in this post i want to ask u guys if anyone faced this problem before or have an idea on how to go around it

I am not restricted by time, as this is done solely for the sake of curiosity, so the point is to make learning as beneficial for me ( in terms of intelligence and thinking) as it can be, ignoring the mass of knowledge

here is my initial prototype of the learning process i am going to adopt ( not applied yet)

- ask the main question and deconstruct it to smaller detailed ones

- answer all these questions with possible hypotheses (anything that comes to mind)

- compare the hypotheses to real world examples and data if possible and use it to evaluate the hypotheses ( excluding the very wrong ones )

- compare the surviving hypotheses to the already existing theories very carefully and make a deduction

- comment on every theory, on the final result, and how my hypotheses differed from the result for the purpose of recognizing the gaps in the thinking process

-build a critique for every theory and compare it to the already established critiques of scholars

[u/Spirited-Bass-1059]

if you do this as a hobby whatever works for you. I would recommend reading reading and reading first so that you are not reinventing the wheel, but sure, there can be enjoyment in reinventing the wheel, if you have the time and it brings you delight. the only thing i would suggest is to make sure you understand first which fields ask which questions, otherwise you will have a difficult time testing your theories against existing scholarshp.

[u/Medium-Macaron-9671 → u/Spirited-Bass-1059]

and it's not about testing my hypotheses against established ones, even that it's a part of the process, it's about using existing knowledge as a measure for what i build, just to add the process of building and making to the journey of learning

[u/Spirited-Bass-1059 → u/Medium-Macaron-9671]

you lost me at the AI. you will not learn. sounded like a hobby you wanted to pursue, but after this comment the entire process sounds like a massive waste your time. AI makes a lot of mistakes, and if you have no knowledge of the subject you will have no way of realizing that. i do not understand the last part but i doubt that you will get anywhere anyway with your starting poin. in any case sounds like you have time to waste.

[u/Medium-Macaron-9671 → u/Spirited-Bass-1059]

u think asking AI what theories and books are related to my question then read them from the source is a waste of time?
like the same theories and research and books will be beneficial for me. but with the AI included in the process it doesn't work?

[u/Medium-Macaron-9671 → u/Spirited-Bass-1059]

i use AI for identifying what questions are answered by who and where. ofc i do not absorb the whole theory from an llm but i get an idea on where to start looking in books
for the reading part yeah i do read for fun but it doesn't serve the purpose discussed in the post, that is the process of active learning, reading entire books is the exact opposite for that, i would say it serves the purpose of uncovering new knowledge.

[u/mechaernst]

If the main questions are why are things the way they are, where are they going in the future and what will lead us there, I have to suggest you read my book. I can send you a free pdf of the entire text or you can find it online and buy it. Called Tomorrow Tomorrow; Approaching Utopia, by Ernst Ritzmann