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Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

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Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#21

Post by jeswin »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #19
colechristensen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Many people have these "screen time" opinions. I'm not saying I disagree, but why do you think zero screen time is the correct amount?

2 to 4 is still early in the development of physical attributes, focus, hand eye coordination, balance and what have you. Zero intentional and structured screen time seems entirely appropriate. Let them develop a physical world and interact with it before encouraging screen addicted couch potato. That will come despite best efforts later...

Do you have studies to prove that zero screen time is beneficial? I have a two year old who has learnt plenty from his screen time - between 15m to 30m per day.

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#22

Post by cbanek »

Arnavion wrote: post #6

Nice. The source is also very readable so I imagine it would also be useful to teach an older child about programming. I hit a bug though - level 7 generated a "how many cats are spinning" question whose answer is 10, but there's no "10" button and trying to type "1" "0" fails at the first "1". But I see `cats_for_level` allows there to be `level + 5` cats, so is there some way to input an answer greater than 9? Also…

I also hit a question on the highest level where I think the answer was 11, but there was no way to input a 2 digit number.

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#23

Post by stakhanov »

Ancient wrote: post #18
SkyPuncher wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand your argument, I think there's value in the ambiguity. 1. Clarifying ambiguity and extrapolating are important logic skills. 2. "How many blue cats are not bouncing" is how people actually talk.

I concur.

It's not ambiguous at all. The statement is perfectly clear. The statement is a contingency, i.e. a statement that is neither valid nor unsatisfiable. (Proof-theoretically: neither p nor not-p is provable. Model-theoretically: some assignment of truth values to p will make it true but not all of them).

It would be a far more valuable lesson to teach children that talking about something doesn't will it into existence so that you can start making meaningful statements about it, like how many of them there were.

It's like tampering with witness testimony: "Witness: Somebody stole my handbag. Police: Do you remember anything about him? Can you describe him?" All of a sudden the witness remembers that the suspect was male, not female, when the witness may not have seen such a thing at all.

...or like a show I recently saw on History Channel about the zombie apocalypse. Harvard Professor on TV: "Well, scientifically speaking, there is nothing to suggest that a zombie apocalypse would be a scenario we will likely ever be facing. But if there were such a thing as a zombie apocalypse then one of the most important things would be hygiene, so as to minimize the risk of infection, which is a fascinating topic that I have published about quite extensively." Reporter: "Oh, really? Tell me more about the hygiene precautions that we need to use in the event of a zombie apocalypse." Harvard professor: Spends the next 10 minutes of screentime talking about zombie hygiene. Dumb idiot in front of TV: "Honey! Come down here! They're talking about the zombie apocalypse on TV! They have a professor from Harvard and everything!" All of a sudden: The zombie apocalypse is a thing.

Conversely: The fact that you can't see something doesn't mean it doesn't exist... (like atoms)! "How many blue cats are there? -> zero." Might sound okay, but "How many atoms are there? -> zero" is quite wrong, since the cats are presumably composed of more than zero atoms but we can't really count them etc etc

So when these kinds of presupposition violations come up, then you should teach your little daughter to go "Huh? What the? I can't answer that!" Because "Huh? What the? I can't answer that!" is actually the right answer!

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#24

Post by avip »

turtlebits wrote: post #13

Controversial opinion, but I don't think kids ages 2 to 4 should be having screen time, let alone an activity that is better presented with real objects.

I don't think that's controversial at all. I'm not aware of any kid of age It's usually the first/second issue discussed when sending kids to friends homes.

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#25

Post by colechristensen »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #19
colechristensen wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Many people have these "screen time" opinions. I'm not saying I disagree, but why do you think zero screen time is the correct amount?

2 to 4 is still early in the development of physical attributes, focus, hand eye coordination, balance and what have you. Zero intentional and structured screen time seems entirely appropriate. Let them develop a physical world and interact with it before encouraging screen addicted couch potato. That will come despite best efforts later...

But why do you believe this? Encouraging physical world interaction before screen interaction (I'm taking away the value judgements) – what makes you think that this is beneficial? What are the benefits? How would changing this change the outcome of the child's life?

One theory I have found pieces of and put together is that a primary pillar of mental health is how your life experience as an adult matches your life experience as a child. If most of us are going to spend a significant amount of our lives glued to screens in order to be productive members of society, at least introducing that early might make the matching experience more tolerable.

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#27

Post by gus_massa »

stakhanov wrote: post #12

So, I am older than 4 and have a PhD in a logic-related field. BUT. I have to admit that I had trouble answering some of those questions. For example: "How many blue cats are not bouncing" when there are no blue cats on the screen. The game seems to assume that the right answer is zero, but I'm not sure I concur. There is a presupposition there about blue cats being in existence and if there are none on screen, the r…

As a PhD in Math, my opinion is that 0 is a number. Most language have special words to use when the amount is 0. For example, instead of "Five persons want to eat cake." you usually say "*No one wants no eat cake".

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#28

Post by [deleted] »

jeswin wrote: post #21
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 to 4 is still early in the development of physical attributes, focus, hand eye coordination, balance and what have you. Zero intentional and structured screen time seems entirely appropriate. Let them develop a physical world and interact with it before encouraging screen addicted couch potato. That will come despite best efforts later...

Do you have studies to prove that zero screen time is beneficial? I have a two year old who has learnt plenty from his screen time - between 15m to 30m per day.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#29

Post by NeedMoreTea »

colechristensen wrote: post #25
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 to 4 is still early in the development of physical attributes, focus, hand eye coordination, balance and what have you. Zero intentional and structured screen time seems entirely appropriate. Let them develop a physical world and interact with it before encouraging screen addicted couch potato. That will come despite best efforts later...

But why do you believe this? Encouraging physical world interaction before screen interaction (I'm taking away the value judgements) – what makes you think that this is beneficial? What are the benefits? How would changing this change the outcome of the child's life? One theory I have found pieces of and put together is that a primary pillar of mental health is how your life experience as an adult matches your life e…

Simple. The schools when our kids were young encouraged plenty of screen time, from age 5 on -- we both wanted a more balanced mix. Plenty of time for life as viewer and visual consumer later. Playing out, football, swimming and forests as well as viewer to be data mined to death. We both chose to put the screens aside when the kids were toddlers. T'was pre smartphone and tablet anyway.

It's not like they had any chance of lacking screen time through their childhood with schools as they are. Nor were they deprived access, or lacked natural ability come 5 and 6 on... Or lacked inclination to become addicted to WoW come 13 or 14.

I'm not sure what you mean with your point about "life experience as an adult matches your life experience as a child". Maybe I'm completely missing it. For any of us born before the home computer revolution of the 1980s, childhood and work are likely dramatically different things. I'd rather the kids get a chance to be children than start preparing them for a life of work at age 2 or 4...

Re: Show HN: Made this with my daughter to help kids ages 2 to 4 learn logic

#30

Post by stakhanov »

gus_massa wrote: post #27
stakhanov wrote: post #12

So, I am older than 4 and have a PhD in a logic-related field. BUT. I have to admit that I had trouble answering some of those questions. For example: "How many blue cats are not bouncing" when there are no blue cats on the screen. The game seems to assume that the right answer is zero, but I'm not sure I concur. There is a presupposition there about blue cats being in existence and if there are none on screen, the r…

As a PhD in Math, my opinion is that 0 is a number. Most language have special words to use when the amount is 0. For example, instead of " Five persons want to eat cake. " you usually say "*No one wants no eat cake".

I have done my PhD in computational linguistics, specializing in semantics, with my thesis containing a fair chunk of work on mathematical logic, and I can assure you that presupposition is a thing!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presupposition

It's also a thing in mathematics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllogism#Existential_import

The statement "How many blue cats are bouncing" makes the presupposition that blue cats exist. That's just how language works.

It's one of those things where a formal education in mathematics will teach you to think about a thing in a way that is actually unnatural to most human beings.

The standard example that linguists use is "Do you still beat your wife?" to which you can answer neither "Yes" nor "No". Answering "Yes" means you admit that you used to beat your wife and that you are still doing it. Answering "No" means you admit that you used to beat your wife but claim that you are no longer doing it. You can only answer by escaping to the meta-level and attacking the presupposition as in "I am not currently beating my wife, nor have I ever beaten my wife". If you're a politician, then even that will get you in trouble. (Not thinking of a pink elephant, and all that, ...)

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