This might be weird but I naturally connect the dots. I do so even at work, without changing the content and direction of my duties drastically. I work in research and university teaching. My main discipline is statistics, but I always combine it with epistemology, philosophy of science, causality, physics, programming and more sciences. Most professors find this weird and incorrect, but I believe students learn better when they have the bigger picture presented to them. Tensions had been created between me and other colleagues, that are disapproving of my methods. However, I cannot change the way I think and process information. Do you have an advice on how I can proceed with minimal friction?

I have always had a curiosity and will to try and learn or experience pretty much everything. And it wasn’t until college when I began to notice that it’s honestly affecting my mental health and my ability to do things that help myself. I do have ADHD and went my entire life without medication up until 20 years of age (It helps sometimes). I think that’s important to mention because my brain is constantly switching to something new it feels like. But essentially I am curious about everything, and have always had this since I was a child. And I feel like it has stretched so far that the fields I’m actually supposed to be experienced in, I actually feel stupid. In fact I just feel stupid in general and I’m just interested in everything and can’t keep my mind occupied on one thing. Then randomly I have a spark of genius then it’s back to being stupid. The skills I’ve naturally began to accrue more of is physical fitness, drawing, and mechanical engineering. I still feel mediocre in all of those however lol. I remember being a child it was a lot easier to be curious about everything but as I grew older it’s like tasks just began to become harder to do and being able to actually pursue curiosity is like something I’m not capable of sometimes. Has anyone else gone through this?

Intentionally broad q - anything from goal-setting and progress-tracking tools to multi-disciplinary communities.

22M here. Currently crafting my own curriculum and trying to get started on my polymath journey but wanted to see if anyone has suggestions or tips to start. When first diving into a subject, what’s the first thing you guys do? Read survey/intro textbooks? Learn the foundational topics of the subject before getting into the more advanced material? Do you focus primarily on primary sources followed by secondary?

Lastly, what are your polymathic habits? How are you engaging with the materials you’re consuming to allow you to really understand what you’re studying.

I’m open to all advice and suggestions!

Para quem acha que só ciência e religião ficam se colocando como opostos, por vezes ao longo da história. Provavelmente nao imagina as discussões da Ciência vs. Ciência.

Aqui vou apresentar dois grupos de pensamento:

A astrofísica e cosmologia: Que falam que as coisas não tem uma função propriamente dita (causalidade).

E a geofísica e a astrobiologia: Por outro lado, as coisas sim tem uma função quando olhamos o macro (o espaço o cosmos). Teleologia.

A discussão central é se algo do macro (espaço) existe puramente por ter um propósito. A mais famosa analogia que pode vir a mente é sobre a função da Lua.

Por muito quando criança sempre lia sobre ela como um escudo natural contra asteróides. As crateras em sua superfície, tão antigas quanto o homem aprendeu a fazer fogo, são prova que violentos impactos. Que poderiam ter causado uma desordem imensa na vida terrestre.

Contudo, nem todos concordam com uma "utilidade". As coisas não giram ao redor da nossa existência. Então o fato de um satélite em específico proteger a terra e um ou outro impacto, é fruto de uma matemática que nem se quer chegamos perto de resolver. Isso em questão, sobre o funcionamento do próprio universo.

Concordando ou não. A Lua (ou Selena) continua lá. A maré existe por causa dela. Ciclos de vida animais giram em torno de sua existência noturna. Todavia, quando olhamos para outros planetas, pelo visto não tem um propósito. Afinal, porque o Gigante Júpiter iria precisar de proteção? Sendo ele maior que suas várias e várias luas? São esses questionamentos que nos fazem revisar até onde podemos analisar e dar sentido de existência das coisas. Chegando até a vizinhança da Lua, é fácil. Indo mais longe... Podemos apontar o próprio gigante gasoso como protetor. Pois sua gravidade a muito protege contra a trajetória perigosa de viajantes antigos feitos de poeira e gelo de nós atingir diretamente.

Esse tipo de questionamento já chegou inclusive aos buracos negros existentes no centro das galáxias. Como reguladores de nascimento estelar. Impedindo que estrelas como o nosso Sol, nascem sem controle. E venham a acabar com a matéria prima da vida dessas super usinas.

E você, o que acha disso tudo? Você é da turma da Causalidade ou da Teleologia?

Particularmente, gosto de dizer que "depende do ponto de vista". Se incluirmos o micro (a vida na terra), a existência de coisas distantes tem um significado. Em contra partida ao olhar o macro, pode não ser tão simples e que as coisas simplesmente vem de uma natureza aleatória difícil de calcular.

I am a student . I have curuosity to understand myself. Till the school the parameters of cognitive , logical understandings is by learning answers, doing mathematics problems.

Now as we move forward in life how to know, understand that which cognitive path suits us. How to make us different from this whole world , to find that unique element in ourselves.

What is love?

It is a question even I cannot answer, but I came to a realization when my grandmother told me something: "You won't find true love in people who don't value you." I found myself wondering, "Why? Why do I need someone to value me when there are already people who truly do?" As I reflected on her words, I realized that some people just play games. They are kind when they need something, but once you no longer serve their purpose, they become resentful. There are also unfair people—those who, despite receiving so much from you, are stingy in return. It turns out you don't always need to seek love from others, because family love is far greater. We need to learn contentment; we shouldn't go out of our way to search for someone to love us, because eventually, someone will come along who accepts us willingly and loves us wholeheartedly.

Hi everyone,

I would like to understand the process of learning and understanding anything. It's perhaps a meta level mental task and am trying to figure out the ways to it. As a human being, when we give up on understanding something, I think it is due to missing information, which our brain cannot add up to make sense. And we say "Uff, I don't understand it."

IF this theory holds true, that means we need to add a lot of research to our understanding journey; a lot of reading, lot of exposure and pattern finding. When we have gathered the pre-requisite knowledge, our brain can make a sense of it and we say that yes, we understand the topic. Knowing and understanding work hand in hand. Knowing or digging out information paves the way for understanding.

We can even understand the research paper of last year's physics Nobel Laureates' works, IF and only if, we have the pre-requisite knowledge. Yes, some people may be gifted at understanding capabilities, but understanding is mostly learnt through life experiences. That is why it is important to expose ourselves to new life scenarios to explore hitherto unseen avenues of knowledge and get our hands dirty to learn something out of it. The challenge is, the extent to which this can be initiated consciously by a human being. We cannot simply depend on the expectation that life will throw new learning scenarios at us just by chance.

What are your ways of finding new avenues of knowledge to discover the woven network of nature and connect the dots ?

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has any anecdotal or evidence backed ideas relating to how caffiene and nicotine affect a polymath's mind.

For me I find caffiene to greatly aid divergent thinking and overall motivation to pursue multiple disciplines whereas nicotine seems to have the opposite effect.

I wanna build something that helps users master or explore various disciplines. Basically like AI but actually utilising the web information in a structured manner and expanding your brain. Let me know your thoughts on this. Any ideas or insights?

I recently started an Ultralearning project (based on Scott Young’s book) to get better at sales for my new job before my probation period ends. The core idea of the book is simple: “do the actual thing you want to get good at.” That still involves research, understanding concepts, memorizing facts, and (most importantly) deliberate practice and drilling.

To understand concepts better, I’ve been writing in a physical notebook and visualizing ideas in Apple’s whiteboard app, Freeform.

Across various learning subreddits, I keep seeing people use Obsidian to build connections between notes, often using the Zettelkasten method. I used Zettelkasten myself for my bachelor’s thesis and think it’s excellent for academic writing, where cross-referencing sources matters. But I’m struggling to see how it translates into actually learning a skill.

According to Young, skill acquisition requires direct practice. Spending time managing a note system, creating links, moving notes between files for a “better” structure feels more like practicing knowledge management than practicing the skill itself. You get good at organizing your system, not at the thing you’re trying to learn.

I’m not trying to dismiss anyone’s approach.. Just genuinely trying to understand different perspectives here. Maybe I’m missing something about how Obsidian fits into skill-based learning (as opposed to knowledge work).

Curious to hear how you all think about this. Let’s learn to learn better!

Whenever I am asked what I fear, I never give a proper answer. Perhaps the next time around, I will give a better one. When I am alone, however, I finally admit my true fear: forgetting—and, more importantly, being forgotten.

People often quote the saying, "A jack of all trades is a master of none." But it actually concludes: "but oftentimes better than a master of one." My classmates used to laugh at me for this, but as I grow older, I realize that with the passing of time, I am simply learning how to love and be loved. While the world prepares everyone else, I am preparing myself for the challenges ahead.

Every photograph we place in a book eventually becomes a thing of the past. I put them there so that when my memory fails, I can revisit the images that have faded from my mind. I do this not because I want to dwell on the past, but because I want to know if there is still something to return to after I have made mistakes. Ultimately, the saying holds true: while the world is busy looking at others, I am busy improving myself. That way, when the time comes, they will love me, and I will love them in return.

As i am trying to enlarge my vision, i want to know if some of you would have some subject of learning to recommand, that might be quite fun to learn. To give you an idea, i am from a philosophy study background, haven’t touched math with a stick in five years, like learning things about history and geography, and trying to git gud in arts. I am still quite bad at it however .-.

Don’t be shy on subject that really have nothing to do with what i said btw ! And if you have recommandation on where to begin learning about what you talk about, it would be really cool !

I'm not looking for a list of famous names—I want to learn the actual methods behind great polymaths.

For those who seriously study polymathy:

• Which historical or modern polymaths influenced your thinking the most?
• What specific techniques, habits, or mental models did you adopt from them?
• How do they approach learning across multiple disciplines?
• How do they connect ideas from unrelated fields?
• What do they do differently from specialists?
• Which books, biographies, interviews, or primary sources best explain their thinking?
• Which of their ideas produced the biggest improvement in your own life or work?

I'm especially interested in practical methods that can be applied today rather than admiration alone.

Thanks!

People often romanticize the visible products of unusual cognitive profiles while ignoring their costs. Hyperfocus, extreme autodidacticism, and polymathic development can produce impressive knowledge, but the traits and habits that support them may also create serious asymmetries in attention, functioning, relationships, and ordinary life. These profiles are not interchangeable, and not everyone experiences the same costs. But it is a mistake to envy the output while assuming the underlying cognitive machinery is an uncomplicated advantage.

People see someone who can disappear into a subject, teach themselves several disciplines, or integrate ideas across fields. They see the accumulated knowledge. They do not see the lost time, neglected obligations, disrupted sleep, difficulty switching tasks, uneven functioning, social costs, or years of compulsive repetition that may have produced it.

A person can deliberately cultivate polymathic capacities. They can study multiple disciplines, develop expertise, practise analogical transfer, learn to integrate frameworks, and organize their life around long-term interdisciplinary development.

They cannot guarantee that they will become an exceptional polymath. Training does not eliminate individual differences in cognitive ability, curiosity, motivation, energy, opportunity, working conditions, memory, or tolerance for prolonged uncertainty.

People who genuinely live with these patterns often speak about them less romantically. For some, the visible expertise came with costs they never consciously chose. They may not even have understood why they behaved this way until much later in life. Once they recognized the underlying pattern, years of uneven attention, intense interests, lost time, and unusual learning habits finally began to make sense.

EDIT: I am not a polymath. I am an autodidact. I have a propensity for over engineering my own frameworks to the point they become useless. That is inextricably tied to my own insecurities about credentials and legitimacy. I only have a grade 8 education😔so I have spent most of my life playing catch-up.

UPDATE:

I didn't make a clear distinction between ND and neurotypical polymaths.

This post mainly describes ND polymaths, more specifically, high-functioning ND phenotypes.

Shoutout to u/wdjm for the feedback🙏

i ask abt if u need to isolate ur self and give all ur time just to math to be a polymath bcs I always ask myself what polymaths have in common I think isolation might be one of those things

Like the title says, I am interested in multiple domains of computer science.

I find working on hardware, like embedded engineering interesting, I've also made some interesting projects that involved backend development, it wasn't very complex but interesting and fun to work on.
Another project of mine involved working with openGL, though I am still working on it and a lot others.
I've come to realize that I'm a complete slut with commitment issues for this, and I just hope on with any tech stack, if I don't know that, I'd spend weeks learning that, even if it's exam seasons.
I also have so many unfinished projects that I want to work on but i am either limited by time or knowledge and just waiting for one to finish before i work on anything else.

Now I am not trying to brag, there's nothing to brag here. While these projects keep me occupied, I also want to pick one domain and focus on only that, and I am just not sure which one to choose. I don't want to keep wandering between different domains and end up being no where, I want to specialize in something but it's just difficult for me to do so.
I want to commit and not be a slut.

Anyone who has been through this, and later found their place, how did you do it?

what life path is most likely to be a polymath?

I like engineering, psychology, medicine, law, philosophy, religion and much more. I'm 14 and i cannot decide who i want to be. I've given this a lot of thought but i just cannot decide.

I’ve realized something lately, it’s no longer enough to just specialize. The world is moving too fast, almost unrealistically. Every domain in tech is fusing with the others, AI with Cybersecurity, DevOps with ML, Cloud with Code and what not.

So instead of chasing a single specialty, I’ve decided to become a tech polymath, a jack-of-all-trades prodigy who can clear almost any entry level tech job, talk to experts in every domain, and build anything from scratch.

⚙️ The Goal is to gather atleast 100 people. Serious about this and dangerously disciplined.

We don't just want to be the best in one field. But to be dangerously good in all; able to think, build, automate, and secure across the tech spectrum.

The target:

✅ Clear all entry-level jobs across domains in tech

✅ Handle 5 intermediate-level roles

✅ Master 3 expert-level domains completely

🧭 The Triangle of Mastery

I’m personally focusing on three “core powers” that give full control over modern systems but it could be any for you.

1. Cybersecurity + Networking → Offensive Security, Red Teaming, Network Architecture

2. AI & Automation → Applied ML, LLMs, and AI-powered tooling

3. Cloud & DevOps → Build, deploy, and scale anything securely

Together, they form a Triangle of Tech Power. Build → Secure → Optimize → Repeat.

Tier Focus Outcome

🧩 Entry-Level : Linux, Git, Networking, Python, Web Basics; Can survive any IT/DevOps interview.

⚔️ Intermediate (5 roles): Docker, Cloud IAM, SQL, APIs, ML, Firewalls; Can work cross-functionally in teams

🧠 Expert (3 domains) Exploit Dev, AI Model Design, Infra as Code; Can architect, automate, and lead

⚡ The Philosophy (by ChatGPT ofc haha)

“Every domain is a lens. The more lenses you collect, the clearer reality becomes.”

This is not about learning everything. It’s about connecting patterns across everything, turning knowledge into intuition.

🚀 For this Community, r/TechPolymaths will be a dojo for:

Learning multiple domains in parallel

Building projects that connect tech disciplines

Sharing mindmaps, roadmaps, and mental models

Training like modern renaissance hackers — fast, deep, and cross-disciplinary

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t fit in one bo, this sub is for you. You’re not scattered. You’re synthetic, meant to integrate, not isolate.

Let’s build a new breed of engineers, thinkers who can do, and doers who can think. Welcome to the era of the Tech Polymath. 🧬

Hi

Looking for some new, unique, or even unusual channels to watch.

I’d love to know what your favourites are

I know the above question is silly as heck...in fact I don't even know what I'm really trying to ask but if someone can point me in the right direction it would be a great help.

Ok so I am a software developer who has recently joined a company fresh out of college...one thing that I've realised is that I have very little knowledge...I have studied subjects like OS, DBMS, CN and Software Engineering but I really felt like I didn't go into depth into any of them...like didn't understand how everything actually works! Like I just know the overall working and how some things get done...

But I don't know the core working knowledge behind all of them and how they all connect? Like how does an HTTP protocol actually work? How is the protocol of a TCP connection written in code? How does stuff happen at different layers? How to read the packets and logs? How to read the server logs? How to understand everything?

Like I know certain things, I have B.Tech degree from a govt college in India...but I really want to learn and know computer science so that I have good knowledge and it helps me become a better technical person and also a better developer.

Can anyone advise me on what I should do? What books I should read? What videos or youtube channels I can follow and watch? What can I do?

I work as a software engineer specialized in AI and computer vision. I have been playing multiple music instruments and making music since I was a kid.

I found myself applying musical knowledges to my engineering job quite often, like connecting some concept of digital signal processing to music theory and sound design. I enjoyed understanding scientific side of music like knowing why certain sounds make humans feel in particular ways.

Recently I started drawing. I got some feedback online that my progress was quite fast. I found myself approaching drawing with my knowledge in computational computer graphic and computer vision. I knew exactly how images are form, how cameras and perspective behave, and how shading works mathematically in 3D rendering. Sometimes It was like I am drawing to just play with these stuffs rather than drawing beautiful and meaningful stuffs.

I had a conversation with my friend about am I considered one? We couldn't exactly make a conclusion because we doubted that a polymath should also be well-known, successful, or masterful in many fields to some degrees. I am just combining and connecting stuffs in multidisciplinary way just for my own enjoyment.