[freefaler]

For serious lectures (not story telling like history or other humanities) you can't be doing anything on the side if you want to understand. Try listening to a math lecture, or chemistry lecture while doing dishes :)

I found the same to be true with audiobooks, nothing serious can't be "just listened to". I've tried to "listen" to a good biology non-fiction on how live evolved from the primordial soup. Shit, in the first chapters there were covalency chemistry and other stuff that I needed to sit down and write to understand.

Too stupid to do it while doing chores I guess...

[mmooss]

I agree about serious lectures, but ...

> not story telling like history or other humanities

Those are not serious humanities lectures. The serious ones are not storytelling, but serious examination of the evidence or of its analysis. There are far more factors, complexity, and uncertainty in an historical event or process than in a petri dish, and the event can't even be reproduced. It's impossible to use the same kind of scientific method and obtain the same kind of certainty, and requires far more critical thinking, judgment, and analysis.

What caused Andrew Jackson to be elected? There's a relatively simple story told, but the reality is enormously complex and uncertain.

[MangoToupe]

Referring to "math" as serious just makes me want to discount your opinion entirely. Lectures (or indeed any linear encoding) are a bad medium for discussing formal languages. This has nothing to do with how much you care about a topic or whatever "serious" is supposed to imply here.

Regardless, listening to something intently and doing mechanical actions are not exclusive.

[freefaler]

Well try to listen to a group theory lecture (for example on cohomology of groups) while doing chores :) But the lecture was indeed useful if you stop and rewind and see how the lecturer was explaining (there were some interesting graphs).

Your brain can't hold the context long enough to go to the required level of abstraction, while you're multitasking (may be walking or something deeply automated doesn't count.

[mmooss]

> listening to something intently and doing mechanical actions are not exclusive

If it's 'serious' and worthwhile, I often don't even have the bandwidth to keep up with the lecture or book. Why spend my time on anything less?