011011100

I truly hate media that trivializes serious philosophical positions.

The boombox isn't just as intelligent as the dog, but it may be indistinguishable sound-wise from the dog. If you can make a computer perform an "intelligent" task, then I don't care what's going on underneath. I would still call it intelligent.

No one reads anything with 100% comprehension, and the assertion that such a thing as perfect understanding exists is absurd. Real meaning of words is fleeting and there certainly isn't any universal truth to every written work.

"meaning of words is fleeting"

Maybe over long periods of time words change their meaning. That doesn't mean you can't fully comprehend SOME writing had you slowed down.

ya, let's have some software gather data about every single detail of your life. Nobody is going to take advantage of that information, right?

I don't know about you, but the way I understand more about my life is by reflecting and thinking, not by knowing how many steps I climbed or tracks of music I played.

I'm stupid and completely ignored that bit.

Are you trying to tell me that if a person begins to exercise more, with everything else being constant (calories), that there would be no weight loss?

How a person "[processes] on the fly" seems to be a measurement very related to intelligence. So they don't care about IQ, but they do care about mental quickness.

I'm not rich or successful, but gosh dangit, I think I'll do just fine in this world. And it's OK guys, it really is. Remember all those times people said mean things to you just because you were part of the middle class? They're wrong!!!!

Hey, you have an interesting story. I was wondering if we could chat in private?

ta011011100@gmail

Yes, I like porn.

There are a lot people on this forum who seem to think they're absolutely right about some convention or way of life and that they're entitled to attention (ie they believe their take is actually insightful). This describes the "I did or think X, and you should also think or do X" threads.

"Anyone operating in a template-driven manner is not reasoning by first principles."

I'm saying that when you want to solve a problem, you don't use a checklist of which "reasoning from first principles" is an item. "reasoning from first principles" would be the template. It's an approach that someone spoonfed you. There is no contradiction here because we're speaking about the type of approach, not the particular sequence of steps you use to arrive at the solution. Of course you can be creative with these steps once you know the type of approach you're taking.

"I'm not sure what legs your argument has, we might as well say that speaking an existing language like English, French, or German makes us robots by forcing us to communicate within a well-defined and rigorous communication structure."

Natural language is well-defined and rigorous? That's not true.

"The fallacy of an individual with regards to reasoning is not a function of the fact that methods of reasoning are identified"

I don't care that it's labeled, per se, as long as people are discouraged to act like I mentioned. If the act of identifying and labeling thought patterns promotes laziness, then I am justified in being against it. But anyway, that's an empirical claim and you haven't provided any real reason for why you think it's false.

Because it formalizes thought and encourages people to use templates rather than actually thinking about it themselves. If you're "solving problems" by always referring to your sheet of "problem solving approaches", then you're doing it wrong. You might still be successful in solving a problem, but you've effectively turned yourself into a robot.

Did you really have to come up with a name for it: "reasoning from first principles"? Does it not bother anyone else that this is just "thinking"? I mean, if you can deal with the cost of re-engineering the battery, then why not? Is this not common sense?

She's practicing number crunching and maybe some other cognitive tasks that probably can't be related to mathematical thought, unless you squint really hard. I can identify at least one cognitive task: holding configurations in your head (I have played Fire Emblem). From my experience, I would say that this has nothing to do with the type of thought that goes into mathematics. Like I said in my first post: good chess players can do this well. Does that mean good chess players are also good at some part of math?

And, you know, one would have to show that there is some "mathematical thought" that can be trained to begin with. I'm not entirely sure there is.

I don't disagree that "practice makes perfect". I disagree with the statement "practice in fire emblem makes perfect in math (not number crunching)".

People want to share stories. I get it. But if we're not being rigorous about it, then we're just fooling ourselves. And then the conversation devolves into a circlejerk where everyone thinks they're brilliant.

There are a lot of feel good nonsense posts in this thread. The parent gave no indication he was referring to motivation. It sounded like he was saying his wife suddenly became better at whatever he considers math to be by just playing a video game. That's basically claiming that brain training works. I may have a slightly different definition of "brain training", but it doesn't really matter because it's just as unscientific. There is no evidence to support the idea that playing video games somehow makes you better at "math" (where "math" is referring to those activities that require deductive thought and understanding of mathematical structures, not number crunching).

Some people are very good at chess. Similar idea. Are these people also good at math?

"One thing that worked well for my wife was a series of games from Nintendo called Fire Emblem."

So are you trying to make a scientific claim? This is starting to seem like an anecdote supporting brain training games.

Except... just because you haven't observed it doesn't mean it isn't true. And just because you believe you're gifted doesn't mean you are. It's really easy to be a big fish in a small pond. It's also possible to think you're a big fish in a big pond when you swim in a pack with smaller fish.

edit: I just realized you said high school.

I get the impression that the priority, among a large crowd here, is to say profound things rather than true things.

So does the author deny the existence of any sort of domain where these paradigms would be "right"? Or are they universally "wrong"? Also, he states a view or philosophy: "everything is an object" and then he says "this is wrong because I disagree. functions are not objects". Wow. If you remove the commentary about scala and python, which is irrelevant to his philosophical thesis, then what is his argument? And why is it not a matter of just having a different definition?

The message in the book, based on my understanding from online reviews and summaries, resonates with me. I usually have a hard time with school and I've found that if I study on my own, under my own control, and that I get an opportunity to figure things out when I need or want to, I will usually do well when the material is formally taught. University doesn't really offer this for me because there's always a necessity to progress.

Depends on how motivated she is to learn (or how good of a teacher you are). If you expose too much complexity in the very beginning, you may risk her not liking it from an early age.

I can come up with one idea which would have been super fun for me as a kid (game AI with python, look at Berkeley CS188). But I would have needed a lot of direction. And maybe that idea is overrrkilll.

There are also some flash games which let you do things like programming. But it may not be fun and it exposes no complexity.

There's also this sort of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scratch_(programming_language)

I have no experience with it and I can't say whether a kid would find it fun.

Who cares? Why does this matter at all? Are you seriously that confused over the abbreviation?

Think about the consequences. In the example conversation, they were simply describing the progress of another employee. Is this person telling you to do something? Not really. Is this person telling you how to think about something technical? Not really.

Dude, look the example conversation in the article. Really look at it. There is an obvious difference between somebody nitpicking the language you use in a social situation (the example conversation in the article) and somebody being thorough and rigorous with technical details (you, your examples). I'm almost positive that nobody, including the author, would be dismissive the latter behavior. And I'm almost positive that even you would be dismissive of former.

"What, like statistical evidence? No. I don't have statistical evidence that my car is parked outside either, but I'll still take a chance on it by walking to the spot where I left it earlier."

No, but you do have evidence by just being able to go outside and observe your car. You're not operating without reason when you go back to where you left it earlier.

Your reply is written in a very condescending way. You should know that.

"See already you're off base. Someone's individual expectation is not at all necessarily a "reasonable expectation". There are lots of gamblers in Vegas who expect to win big tonight... doesn't mean their expectations are reasonable."

How should people make decisions if they can't trust their own judgment? You're going to one extreme and saying "lots of people are unreasonable". Ok, great. Lots of people are also very reasonable.

"See already you're off base."

That's just a fancy way of starting off the conversation by saying "you're wrong". No, he probably just doesn't agree with you. You should stop trying to frame everything in this objective manner. It's actually really obnoxious.

We have a fetish for measuring and ordering people. Imagine what would happen if that professor couldn't "find" that one person who scored an 8. We would never be able to find brilliant thinkers.

Thank you Harvard.

"If the purpose of taking the exam is to demonstrate you know the material"

Well, the parent doesn't actually agree that that's the point of the exam:

"The exams were not to demonstrate you are certified in a subject, but rather to show your ability and limits."

But yeah, I think jcampbell1 is exaggerating and a little too proud.

Who says it's a conspiracy? It's more a matter of culture. I have seen it happen: there's a trend in the class where the homework grades, on average, are high, but the exam grades are low, even though the material is mostly the same. This happens at reputable schools and at "low tier" schools.

I always thought part of the reason was that students in the US basically spend 2 years in their undergraduate degree taking general courses. So US graduate students spend the first few years taking graduate courses rather jumping straight into research. There's lag. That's just my own speculation though.