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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

#41

Post by robbrown451 »

avip wrote: post #7

Nice website. I like it. Please don't use it with your kids (of 2 to 4!!). There are more than enough actual objects scuttered in your house.

Actual objects don't teach this sort of thing. They may well teach other things.

I encourage you to parent your own children. HN users are typically adults and can make their own decisions on whether some screen time for their kids is ok, and what sort of screen time. Doing a logic puzzle is not, in my opinion, the same as going from video to video of squeaky voiced ladies with brightly colored nails opening toy eggs on YouTube.

Is it ok if my daughter videochats with relatives? Or is that screen time and therefore bad?

Is it ok is she draws with crayons? Crayons and paper may be "actual objects", but the images she creates are no more "actual" than the pixels on a screen.

The world is a lot more complex and subtle than just dividing things into "screen time" and "real world".

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

#42

Post by tom_mellior »

tom_mellior wrote: post #16

I think the digits should be arranged 0 to 9, not 1 to 9 followed by 0. Because 0 is less than 1. Also, when the correct answer is revealed, it would be great to somehow highlight the cats that are actually described by the formula. Yes, this is hard for 0. Also, the animations feel too fast to me. I find they make the whole thing stressful, somehow. ALSO, when a wrong answer is given, the question disappears! That's…

Thinking about this some more, I think the UI should really be more about marking the selected cats than counting them. Then there could be nice diagnostics saying "you missed these ones", or "you marked this one which is X but not Y".

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

#43

Post by stakhanov »

popnroll wrote: post #31
stakhanov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What about "none" instead of zero?

...doesn't help either.

The problem is that when you ask "How many blue cats are bouncing?" you are stating that blue cats are in existence. So there'd have to be some, not none. There'd have to be a number strictly greater than zero. So zero/none can't be the answer, or you're somehow breaking the rules of the game of logic, or how the computer game is set up.

If, however, you say "How many cats are blue and bouncing?" then the presupposition would only extend so far as to state that cats are in existence, which is reflected on-screen. In that case, it may well be the case that there are zero/no cats that are blue and bouncing.

Let me crossindex something I linked in the other thread:

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

When Aristotle describes his logic (All men are mortal...) he never fathoms the possibility that one of these sets that he talks about could be empty. (Empty sets, in that sense, don't belong in the realm of science, as far as he is concerned, but in the realm of fiction and so forth).

So, to get back to the original post: If I were doing this for a 2-4 year old, then zero is a can of worms I would try to avoid opening altogether. Or I would make sure that the presupposition-part of any question that is asked is in line with the evidence on screen.

If, instead of following Aristotle, you follow the embedding of the syllogism into modern predicate calculus and modern predicate calculus into propositional logic, then you end up with outcomes that will be mindbogglingly counter-intuitive to a 4 year old (but to any person, really).

Example: "All flying horses are three-legged." would become a true statement.

Since there are no flying horses, this is always an empty set. Ex falso quodlibet. Therefore always true. A valid statement.

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

#44

Post by robbrown451 »

stuartc842 wrote: post #40
avip wrote: post #7

Nice website. I like it. Please don't use it with your kids (of 2 to 4!!). There are more than enough actual objects scuttered in your house.

agreed. this tool seems to optimize practicing logic more than enjoying logic. i think kids will find greater success in life with logic if they're taught to enjoy it before they're taught to master it. why do i think this? my dad wrote a "computer game" in 4th Dimension in the late 80s that was just randomized arithmetic problems. i had to get a certain score before i could play outside etc. i got really good at ans…

This might be true if the idea of this app was something you were supposed to put your kid in front of for a few hours a day.

To me it is just one thing, one of many, many things a kid will encounter, that help them understand concepts. It's not that different from the typical ad hoc "games" I play with my daughter, often while in the car. From "I spy with my little eye" to "what's the opposite of X" to "I'm thinking of a movie where there is a...." to "how many points on a star? how many wheels on a bicycle?" and so on.

I'm not sure what sort of "enjoying logic" you are expecting from a 2-4 year old. Solving little puzzles actually seems pretty enjoyable to them, from my experience. This is not to suggest that it should come at the expense of more "natural" ways of learning logical concepts.

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

#45

Post by mosseater »

tom_mellior wrote: post #16

I think the digits should be arranged 0 to 9, not 1 to 9 followed by 0. Because 0 is less than 1. Also, when the correct answer is revealed, it would be great to somehow highlight the cats that are actually described by the formula. Yes, this is hard for 0. Also, the animations feel too fast to me. I find they make the whole thing stressful, somehow. ALSO, when a wrong answer is given, the question disappears! That's…

I disagree with the number arrangement bit. I'd imagine kids are learning to use the keyboard whilst using a computer's browse. 0 placement is on point with what's in front of them.

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

#46

Post by gus_massa »

stakhanov wrote: post #30
gus_massa wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think it's perfectly fine to ask "How many bottles of milk are in the fridge?" even if there is no milk. I admit that most sane people will not answer "Zero".

If someone ask "How many elephants are in the fridge?" it would be weird.

I don't think that it is unnatural to answer "zero" in the first question, it is probably a social convention. For the second question I agree that is unnatural.

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

#48

Post by robbrown451 »

tom_mellior wrote: post #42
tom_mellior wrote: post #16

I think the digits should be arranged 0 to 9, not 1 to 9 followed by 0. Because 0 is less than 1. Also, when the correct answer is revealed, it would be great to somehow highlight the cats that are actually described by the formula. Yes, this is hard for 0. Also, the animations feel too fast to me. I find they make the whole thing stressful, somehow. ALSO, when a wrong answer is given, the question disappears! That's…

Thinking about this some more, I think the UI should really be more about marking the selected cats than counting them. Then there could be nice diagnostics saying "you missed these ones", or "you marked this one which is X but not Y".

I think that would be a different game (or puzzle, or whatever you call this), and a dumbed down one. Maybe better referred to as "one that is aimed at younger kids."

Taking away the counting is reducing the thinking they have to do. If that's your goal, ok, but I personally think the counting, while mixed in with the "set logic" part, is an important component.

I could agree that you could have two modes, where that is one of them.

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

#49

Post by stakhanov »

gus_massa wrote: post #46
stakhanov wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think it's perfectly fine to ask " How many bottles of milk are in the fridge? " even if there is no milk. I admit that most sane people will not answer "Zero". If someone ask " How many elephants are in the fridge? " it would be weird. I don't think that it is unnatural to answer "zero" in the first question, it is probably a social convention. For the second question I agree that is unnatural.

You reflected the example wrong though. Asking "How many blue cats are bouncing?" makes the presupposition that blue cats exist. "How many bottles of milk are in the fridge?" makes no presupposition of any kind. To demonstrate my point using your example: You ask: "How many of the milk bottles in the fridge are rancid?" I go to the fridge and see that there is no milk in the fridge. I now can't answer with any number at all, not even zero. Because if I say "None!" or "Zero!" then I will just have said: "I confirm that there is milk in the fridge, and state that none of it is rancid." which contradicts what I have just learned to be the truth.

This is not po-tay-to po-tah-to, people. It's a real thing.

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

#50

Post by robbrown451 »

mosseater wrote: post #45
tom_mellior wrote: post #16

I think the digits should be arranged 0 to 9, not 1 to 9 followed by 0. Because 0 is less than 1. Also, when the correct answer is revealed, it would be great to somehow highlight the cats that are actually described by the formula. Yes, this is hard for 0. Also, the animations feel too fast to me. I find they make the whole thing stressful, somehow. ALSO, when a wrong answer is given, the question disappears! That's…

I disagree with the number arrangement bit. I'd imagine kids are learning to use the keyboard whilst using a computer's browse. 0 placement is on point with what's in front of them.

That's an interesting point. I still prefer zero on the right (and remember, they'll see them laid out that way in lots of other contexts, such as preschool worksheets).

I was going to suggest they add a feature to make it accept numbers entered via the the keyboard, but I figured I should check first if they've already done so. They did. :)

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