The Problem of Linearity in Instruction

The real world is an interconnected mess, with multiple parallel events interacting with each other. Humans can perceive only a very small portion of that mess. Books / courses need to be linear as that is how our attention works: We can only understand well what is communicated one portion at the time. Then, after we absorbed that knowledge, our brains can create a more non-linear representation of that knowledge, in a format that approximates how the real world works, but that takes time and practice with the learned material. Between the non-linear world and the non-linear knowledge representation in the brain, we have a linear “human perception bottleneck”.

🪐 real world → 👀 human perception through senses → ፨ knowledge representation in the brain

In summary: Take non-linear knowledge, represent it linearly so that people can (1) digest it easier and (2) eventually create non-linear models in their brains that better represent how the world works.