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mwengler comments on Rationality Quotes July 2014 - Less Wrong
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-- William Edwards Deming, The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education
This is false. It is false in theory and it is false in practice. Learning can occur without theory. I spent years researching and developing systems to do just that. And on the practical side (actually human psychology) learning frequently---even predominately---occurs without theory. Abstract theoretical reasoning is a special case of 'learning' and one that is comparatively recent and under-developed in the observed universe.
Theory is still present. Just because it is not explicitly stated does not mean there is no theory. Abstract theoretical reasoning is learning. The distinction that you are drawing, is just between well stated theory and non-stated implicit theory. (Actually, I suppose it could be viewed as more of a sliding scale depending on how well its explained, how obvious the inferences are etc.,)
Dogs and humans both learn to walk, run, and jump well through experience, by doing them. To me it is implausible that a one year old human has a theory of walking, running, and jumping which she is using to gain expertise from the experience.
But as unlikely as it seems to me that a one year old human has a theory, it seems even less likely that a few-weeks old puppy dog has a theory that she is using to gain expertise from experience.
I think there is a kind of learning which needs a theory to happen, but I think that is just one kind of learning.
At this point you have to ask what you mean by "theory" and "learning".
The original method of learning was "those that did it right didn't die" - i.e. natural selection. Those that didn't die have a pattern of behavior (thanks to a random mutation) that didn't exist in previous generations, which makes them more successful gene spreaders, which passes that information on to future generations.
There is nothing in there that requires one to ask any questions at all. However, considering that there is information gained based on past experience, I think the definition of learning could be stretched to cover it. Obviously there is no individual learning, but there is definitely species learning going on there.
Since the vast majority of creatures that use this method of learning as their primary method of learning don't even have brains, it seems obvious that there is no theory there. However, if we stretch the definition of theory to include any pattern of information that attempts to reflect reality (regardless of how well it does that job), well then even the lowliest bacteria have theories about how their world is supposed to work, and act accordingly.
That same broader definition of "theory" would cover wedrifid's theoryless algorithms as well, as all you care about are patterns of information attempting to reflect reality, and they certainly have those.
All that said, the point of the quote is that in order for you as an individual to learn, then you as an individual must have an underlying theory of how things are supposed to be that can be challenged when faced with reality, in order to learn.
I have no idea if it's actually true, I'm no psychologist or human learning expert or anything even remotely related, but it sounds like it has to be true even under the strict sense. It seems like it's practically a tautology to me. Even wedfrid's algorithms have a starting framework that attempts to reflect reality, however simplistic it may be. The algorithm itself is the theory there; it didn't come from nothing.
Which makes it a practically useless observation, doesn't it?
Pretty much.