Learning as a God

By Forrest Zeng ‘26

Disclaimer: The following Op-Ed is in the style of a Dialogue, a style that was often used by the Greek philosopher Plato. All quotes attributed to students in this piece are fictitious. They may not accurately reflect the opinions of the speakers. 

Student 1: Ought we go to Weth or Elm?

Student 2: Elm is superior, there is no choice.

Student 1: That is incorrect, Weth has no competition. 

Student 2: We seem to be at an impasse.

Student 1: Weth will be gone soon, we should spend time there for the sake of memory.

Student 2: Alright, for one day then. 

The students wait in the Weth line.

Student 1: You mentioned earlier a discussion you participated in while in Agora. Was I not invited? 

Student 2: No, it seemed, it started spontaneously. And I didn’t participate myself, I heard only from our friend Tristan.

Student 1: Well, since it seems we have nothing to do except wait, it would be kind if you relayed what he said.

Student 2: Alright, but take this with a grain of salt—Tristan told me months ago, and I surely have forgotten much. But I remember the most important points, so I will try my best. 

Student 1: Proceed.

Student 2: Well, I was returning from a writer’s meeting for The Exonian, when I encountered Tristan on the path next to the music building, sipping what appeared to be a Coca-Cola. He was walking slowly, his eyes gazing at nothing in particular. When he saw me, I waved, and his absent face turned into something different. A strange look on his face, I couldn’t quite discern from a distance. He rushed to me at a jog. 

“You have to hear this. I was listening to an outrageous discussion on learning.”

So I implored him to tell me, and it went like this:

He was sitting in the chairs in Agora when he heard a familiar commotion at the Tan Lane doors. The doors swung open, and in walked Jinmin, Forrest, and Andrew. He knew these individuals to be both philosophers and Harkness warriors, but they had wildly different characteristics. He knew Forrest as a musician and a writer, Andrew to be a rationalist who seemed to be an unintentional populist, and Jinmin as the skeptic and existentialist of the three.

Student 1: And did he say what they were speaking of when they entered?

Student 2: He recalled them talking about some sort of veil. Tristan said to me that they switched topics quickly when they sat down. At this point, Tristan and I had walked across Front Street and had settled upon dining together at Elm. He tapped his head and said to me:

“After sitting down in a chair, Andrew asked them both, ‘I have been meaning to ask you what you think of Harkness.’ 

After a few moments, Jinmin replied, ‘For classes such as Math, it seems to me that we make discussions on the process of deriving the correct answer. There is no ambiguity in the answer, but only in the method of deriving. In classes such as English, there is ambiguity in the art, which we must discuss. It seems then that Harkness intends to resolve ambiguity and to come to a compromise of sorts.’

Andrew responded, ‘But what makes Harkness so optimal for learning? We have only come up with another perspective, one that is filtered and inclusive—yet there is nothing inherently different about the usefulness of the conclusion.’

‘What do you believe learning to be? And what do you believe understanding to be?’ asked Forrest.

Andrew fidgeted for a second, and responded, ‘Learning, I think, must be a sort of internalization. Perhaps simply knowing the facets of a piece of information or an opinion. Understanding, I suppose, is the knowledge of what this information means and how it might be applied.’

Forrest said, ‘Well, let me inquire then: do you think that we use what we learn as adults to live?’

‘Certainly,’ Andrew responded.

‘And must we also have the understanding to use what we have learned?’

‘Absolutely, they must come together.’

‘So then our schooling will grow our understanding and our knowledge, the aggregation of things that were learned, in our jobs and lives as adults,’ Forrest said.

‘Yes.’

‘As adults, we are motivated to support ourselves and our families. You and I must agree then that we support ourselves and our families by interacting with others appropriately. Let me phrase it this way: we are both proponents of social contract theory. That is, we as humans, decided to form a contract of sorts with other humans, where we decided that we would keep the peace, as would other humans. And in this way, as adults, we will follow this social contract, and interact with others by the laws of this contract?’

‘Yes, you and I both agree upon this.’

‘So to what ends will we settle the details of this contract?’

‘The needs and health of the people, by some government.’

‘Surely the needs and health of the people are determined by their surroundings and backgrounds? And that these backgrounds are different and diverse. So when we determine the laws of this contract, we must take into consideration the needs of these diverse, different people. And education and learning form the basis of our choices. So then, while learning, we must consider the needs of all people and opinions of all people. And Harkness, the diversity of opinions and absorbing of perspectives, is beneficial towards our lives and others.’

At this point, Nathi interrupted. Before this, I had seen Nathi enter the room. He stood there for a second, searching the chairs, and finding Andrew, had headed towards him. He said, ‘I am sorry to interrupt, but I was listening and I could not help but jump in. I will say to your open arms that I agree with Andrew, and with his definition, it would be a waste, then, to teach children what is useless in their lives. For, we all agree that we learn to prepare for our lives as adults, which involves working in specialized positions. Then, there is no purpose to learn math if we choose to be a writer, nor to learn U.S. History if we are to be a musician. You might argue that all sciences and arts are intertwined, to which I respond that there is no need to learn them if we can easily access them with a simple search on the internet. We cannot find any justification in the process of learning and understanding subjects outside our specializations. I challenge you to refute that.’ He sat down with a grin.

Jinmin said, ‘I admire your dedication towards ensuring the objects of our actions are to be applied thus. Let us explore this topic further, in an attempt to define the importance of learning for our own skill, and whether we ought to learn and understand as much as we may.’

‘Try, but you might fail,’ Nathi replied.

‘Thank you. We have established that we use what we learn and what we understand in our lives as adults.’

‘Yes, that is what is universal.’

‘What do we face as adults?’

‘We will face whatever is the subject of our specialization.’

‘Can we always predict what we will face in our specialization?’

‘Not always, but confidently for most. In the ones that require a wider range of subjects to learn, it seems that they require things that might need improvisation of sorts.’

‘What are some examples?’

‘A soldier, perhaps, as he must be able to react appropriately on the battlefield. Or perhaps a leader, who must be able to process what he receives.’

‘And these jobs require a great amount of skill, and are thus laudable, to which we should strive. So if we are to try and achieve skill through education, then we should also understand situations and what their implications are without having to learn every single possibility. In other words, we must have decision-making skills.’

It took Nathi some time to think before he reluctantly conceded.

‘How do we extrapolate our understanding then?’

‘It seems that it is impossible to do so for all subjects, for we cannot learn everything.’

‘But certainly, just as a musician practices to be able to play any piece on sight, or that a doctor practices on hundreds of patients to be able to recognize any illness on sight, we can train our minds on understanding information until we can understand any new information that might face us. We should therefore try our best to learn and understand as much as we can.”

‘I suppose. Then it seems that my thought did not consider this necessity.’

The discussion had gone on for a fair amount of time, and I decided to jump in. 

I said to Jinmin, ‘Your perspective on this subject is very much supportable—but you have left out a topic that we have yet to hear about. You have not told us why it should be good to practice learning and understanding opinions.’

Jinmin responded, ‘Well, hasn’t Forrest demonstrated that we ought to absorb opinions?”

I replied, “Forrest has demonstrated why we ought to absorb opinions and information for the better of society, at least, a diverse society with a social contract. However, we have not seen why learning and understanding a diverse number of opinions is good for our own skills. We understand now why, in order to be skillful, we should learn as much information as we can, but as of now, I do not think anyone has shown why we should do the same with opinions.”

“In fact, I was hoping to address that but was not sure whether anyone would bring it up” Jinmin added. He turned to look at me. “I would suppose, Tristan, that we would make a similar argument.”

I replied, ‘Well, demonstrate to us.’

‘Do you think it to be true that being skillful includes being able to support one’s own opinion?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, of course, one’s own opinion must be supported with arguments and refutations.’

‘Certainly. To know how to do that is part of being skillful.’

‘If we hear at Exeter only opinions congruent to ours, we have no need to support our opinions, and so we don’t need to know how to. So in this sense, we must face a conflict of sorts in order to know how to defend our opinions. Even if our opinions are destroyed and changed, do we understand how our opinions interact with other opinions?’

‘Yes, it has given us experience.’

‘Just as we desire to practice our processing of information. We also desire to practice our ability to perceive, defend, and process opinions. It is difficult to argue for an opinion that is not your own. But difficulty often leads to growth. And we are at school to face difficulty. So if we also decide to implant ourselves in the shoes of the opinions we are not familiar with or disagree with, we will face difficulty, but also grow in our understanding of how opinions interact with each other. And thus, we have seen why we ought to understand as many opinions as we may, just as we ought to understand as much information as we can.’

‘Agreed.’

‘To do this, is there a better way than to converse with others about their opinions? And to be respectful of their perspectives for the sake of intellectual humility?’

‘You have described Harkness, it seems.’

‘That is my intention. Striving for this ability to extrapolate our understanding is like looking upon any information and any opinion as a god—that is, to have a sort of god-sight over the interactions between opinions and the processing of information.’

‘We ought to do just this.’”

This is the entirety of the discussion which Tristan told me.

Student 1: A fascinating discourse. Let us enjoy our lunch knowing these things.

Ava Zhao / The Exonian via Midjourney