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It's funny because the students at the competitive schools work their ass off for the entire semester/ quarter to learn this material. If you use the weakest possible definition for "learn," then you can claim you have learned anything you want. But that doesn't mean your skill will be comparable to someone who spent 3-5 months practicing non-stop.
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Why do you say (3)?
Functional programming is a leaky abstraction?
Great.
The question in philosophy is "how does consciousness arise from the physical?" While you can claim it's due to some complex interaction in our brains, and while we have significant evidence that this is the case, I don't think that answers the question. Philosophers want to know the mechanism which produces the experience. Arguing that consciousness (or experience) is physical is a tough thing to do from first principles because of our own intuitive sense of it.
For example, how is it that the electrical signals in our brains produce "us" while electrical signals in other things don't produce conscious things? How are they different? What would it take to make a circuit "conscious"?
I can't give you good definitions for consciousness or experience and I can't even say that the question(s) make(s) sense. I'm just trying to give you give you a picture of what some people think.
I've lost a significant amount of weight twice (> 80lbs) and, externally, I seem to have also changed my behavior in a substantial way. I am a much better student than I was before in part because of my own motivation and determination. As determined as I am though, I still run into academic problems. Is it because of my own work ethic? I don't think so.
I don't perceive losing weight to be a herculean feat, but that's because I have shown myself that it's something I can overcome. Changing how my mind works? Is that a herculean feat? I don't know, but I seem to have difficulties with it which I cannot immediately work around with a "little repetition."
Please give me a time in your life when you've been able to make a significant intellectual change from just "a little repetition" and "making sure that you're not repeating bad habits."
Why aren't we teaching our scientists and engineers in a similar fashion then?
I'm not making generalizations about the college experience. His claim seemed all encompassing to me.
"Getting an A is as easy as doing everything, it doesn't require any real intelligence or understanding. This is really what college is all about."
You don't have a representative experience. Try going to a top 5 school in science/ engineering/ math.