This “definition of insanity” is nothing but a meme. It has no grounds wrt neurological or psychiatric science, and also isn’t directly related to any actual symptoms of insanity.
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is actually the definition of training…
I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer was universally considered insane and he didn’t “do the same thing over and over and expect different results”. He just killed and ate people over and over and expected them to taste good.
Idk, if you’re doing the same thing after your training that you were doing before, you either didn’t need training or you weren’t successfully trained.
It’s an idiom, it’s not meant to be a clinical diagnosis. Like, yeah if you’re psychiatrist says it to you qnd tries to have you institutionalized, that’s obviously a problem. But I highly doubt that’s ever happened, certainly not in the modern age.
Ultimately, it’s actually the same exact idea as “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” but in less politically correct terms.
Absolutely not. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” is actually correct. It’s an intelligent thing to say.
On the other hand, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, is both incorrect and harmful. It’s also, very dumb.
Lemme elaborate:
When you train, you are actually doing the same thing. What changes isn’t what you are doing, but how you are doing it. And you can change that, because what you are doing it with, changes. Your muscles get more mass, tone, endurance, speed, etc. Your brain creates new connections, etc.
The definition of insanity is actually: “the loss of the ability to differentiate between facts, that can be empirically verified, and fiction, which cannot.”. It’s no mystery as to why the access of the masses to the Internet is causing worrying increases in the insanity the of average person. People are losing contact with reality. Literally.
Doing the same thing over and over, without an appreciable difference in results, while obsessing over it, can be tangentially related to insanity, since a sane person would be able to recognize the lack of progress, but that is conflating causation and correlation, and is harmful enough in itself to be called “dumb”.
Actually when you create a hypothesis and test it and prove it out, it is meant to be 100% repeatable by anyone following the metgod. Otherwise your method or hypothesis is wrong.
Right, but the reason you run the experiment repeatedly is to test the validity of the hypothesis. You’re looking for something different to happen. That’s the point behind rerunning the tests.
Right, but if you find a difference you alter the method or hypothesis, to get repearbility. An insane person (not neccessarily crazy person, but one that doesn’t follow sane rationalizarion) will keep repeating exact same thing.
But also if you keep running the compiler without changing any of the code hoping for the errors to be magically gone, you are insane. So there’s the same logic being applied to insanity in computer science
Not to mention it’s always attributed to Albert Einstein which is not something he said and not something he would ever have said. Doesn’t stop people from continuing to invoke this “definition of insanity” as if its a smart thing to say.
This “definition of insanity” is nothing but a meme. It has no grounds wrt neurological or psychiatric science, and also isn’t directly related to any actual symptoms of insanity.
“Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” is actually the definition of training…
I mean, Jeffrey Dahmer was universally considered insane and he didn’t “do the same thing over and over and expect different results”. He just killed and ate people over and over and expected them to taste good.
So they tasted good? If not, where’s the difference?
☝️ 🤓
the original commenter was who downvoted this
Who, me? Nope. I didn’t spend enough time on reddit to be irritated by this 😉
I too hate this quote for that reason, thank you for your service o7
Relevant xkcd
Yeah but Vaas is iconic and absolutely arresting in every scene he’s in.
Idk, if you’re doing the same thing after your training that you were doing before, you either didn’t need training or you weren’t successfully trained.
It’s an idiom, it’s not meant to be a clinical diagnosis. Like, yeah if you’re psychiatrist says it to you qnd tries to have you institutionalized, that’s obviously a problem. But I highly doubt that’s ever happened, certainly not in the modern age.
Ultimately, it’s actually the same exact idea as “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” but in less politically correct terms.
Absolutely not. “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” is actually correct. It’s an intelligent thing to say.
On the other hand, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”, is both incorrect and harmful. It’s also, very dumb.
Lemme elaborate:
For the training, I’d argue that you’re not trying to get different results.
Each time, the result is minor growth in whatever your goal is, be it strength, muscle mass, or endurance, etc.
Doing the same thing over and over with an expectation to see differing results is also science.
Actually when you create a hypothesis and test it and prove it out, it is meant to be 100% repeatable by anyone following the metgod. Otherwise your method or hypothesis is wrong.
Right, but the reason you run the experiment repeatedly is to test the validity of the hypothesis. You’re looking for something different to happen. That’s the point behind rerunning the tests.
Right, but if you find a difference you alter the method or hypothesis, to get repearbility. An insane person (not neccessarily crazy person, but one that doesn’t follow sane rationalizarion) will keep repeating exact same thing.
While I’m at it, it’s the very logic at the basis of “monitoring” in computer science.
But also if you keep running the compiler without changing any of the code hoping for the errors to be magically gone, you are insane. So there’s the same logic being applied to insanity in computer science
Not to mention it’s always attributed to Albert Einstein which is not something he said and not something he would ever have said. Doesn’t stop people from continuing to invoke this “definition of insanity” as if its a smart thing to say.
You’re also in a meme community, commenting on a meme, so while technically correct, it’s not super relevant.
If you’re getting different results it’s because you’re adjusting something. That’s training.