# Scattered Experience Can Become Cognitive Scaffolding by Bryant McGill > “Experience that looks scattered from the outside often becomes a scaffolding on the inside. Each skill, subject, or adventure adds a node to the mind’s web of associations, and new information that fits an existing schema is learned faster and remembered longer, the way a physician’s Latin vocabulary can make French or Spanish suddenly partly legible. The person accused of being all over the place may be building the connective structure from which unusual competence later emerges.” > **— Bryant McGill**, *Acting With Purpose Before Certainty Arrives - Livestream (Feb 2017)* ## Sources and Context - **Source:** [[livestreams/Acting With Purpose Before Certainty Arrives - Livestream|Acting With Purpose Before Certainty Arrives - Livestream]] — exact quotation from the developed livestream document. - **Conceptual context:** New information is easier to organize when it can attach to existing schemas and associations. Diverse experiences can therefore become a connected substrate for later competence even when they first appear scattered. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Article:** [[articles/Analog Cognition and the Architecture of Continuity|Analog Cognition and the Architecture of Continuity]] - **Article:** [[articles/Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter!|Thank You for Your Attention to This Matter!]] - **Livestream:** [[livestreams/Acting With Purpose Before Certainty Arrives - Livestream|Acting With Purpose Before Certainty Arrives - Livestream]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/Cognitive Scaffolding|Cognitive Scaffolding]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “Experience that looks scattered from the outside often becomes a scaffolding on the inside. Each skill, subject, or adventure adds a node to the mind’s web of associations, and new information that fits an existing schema is learned faster and remembered longer, the way a physician’s Latin vocabulary can make French or Spanish suddenly partly legible. The person accused of being all over the place may be building the connective structure from which unusual competence later emerges.” — Bryant McGill, Acting With Purpose Before Certainty Arrives - Livestream (Feb 2017) https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-bryant-mcgill-scattered-experience-cognitive-scaffolding ```