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Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

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Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#11

Post by pjmorris »

beebmam wrote: post #2

>In Christian churches I am least impressed by a sermon that talks about how marvelous heaven is going to be at the end. To me that's not the message of Christianity. The message is about how to live now, not that we should live in some particular way because there's going to be pie in the sky some day. The end means almost nothing to me. I am glad it's there, but I don't see it as much of a motivating force, if any.…

I can say that I know of communities (and am part of one) of Christians in the US who view the journey here and now as vital. If you're interested, consider the book 'We Make the Road by Walking', McLaren, or the BEMA Discipleship podcast, being sure to start with episode 0.

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#12

Post by [deleted] »

bowsamic wrote: post #3

> One day, when I realized how hard it was to find any reason for my current unhappiness, I thought, "Wait a minute. I bet this unhappiness is really something chemical, not actually caused by circumstances.*" I began to speculate that my body was programmed to be unhappy a certain percentage of the time, and that hormones or something were the real reason behind moments of mild depression." This is exactly what happ…

[deleted]

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#14

Post by svachalek »

nnoitra wrote: post #5

>That's quite different from a bachelor's degree or a master's degree; those degrees are awarded for a mastery of existing knowledge I didn't know a BsC was a sign of mastery of a field.

How did you get from "mastery of knowledge" to "mastery of a field"?

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#15

Post by Hasz »

mooneater wrote: post #9

> they haven’t learned the fundamental ideas of algebra I'd very much love to know exactly what Knuth considers the "fundamental ideas of algebra"!

Perhaps the eponymous fundamental theorem of algebra is a good place to start.

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

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#16

Post by thomasahle »

Hasz wrote: post #15
mooneater wrote: post #9

> they haven’t learned the fundamental ideas of algebra I'd very much love to know exactly what Knuth considers the "fundamental ideas of algebra"!

Perhaps the eponymous fundamental theorem of algebra is a good place to start. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_theorem_of_algebra

From the same page: "the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra is neither fundamental, nor a theorem of algebra"

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#17

Post by dhosek »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #10
beebmam wrote: post #2

>In Christian churches I am least impressed by a sermon that talks about how marvelous heaven is going to be at the end. To me that's not the message of Christianity. The message is about how to live now, not that we should live in some particular way because there's going to be pie in the sky some day. The end means almost nothing to me. I am glad it's there, but I don't see it as much of a motivating force, if any.…

> The end, either heaven or hell (or purgatory), is everything to Christianity in the US Yes, unfortunately this is the case in the dominant US expression of Christianity, Evangelicalism. But I think it's changing in some quarters. I've heard several sermons lately about how "eternal life" starts right here on earth. Check out The Bible Project's video on the meaning of Eternal Life [1] I think The Bible Project is k…

In evangelical Christianity, there is also the Red Letter Christians movement https://www.redletterchristians.org which is very much a minority movement, but that I would hope is growing.¹

⸻

1. I say this, though as an outsider, being a Catholic. We Catholics have our own battles between those who would make Catholicism all about sex and those who think that maybe it should be concerned with a bit more than that.

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#18

Post by orzig »

zerop wrote: post #4

I admire Donald Knuth for his contribution on algorithms and CS stuff. He is one of greatest computer scientist of our time. But would his every advice outside CS fields will be great? I am not sure about this.

Moreover: "Is his advice outside CS great _for me_?"

He's exceptional, in a very literal sense, so your prior would have be be 'no'

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#19

Post by mooneater »

> trying to work the concepts out in my own mind and to anticipate what the authors are going to say before turning each page. I usually fail to guess what the next page holds, but the fact that I've tried and failed makes me more ready to understand why the authors chose the paths that they did

TIL Donald Knuth operates a bit like GPT-3 but for research paper narrative.

Re: Donald Knuth on work habits, problem solving, and happiness (2020)

#20

Post by hammock »

christophilus wrote: post #8
beebmam wrote: post #2

>In Christian churches I am least impressed by a sermon that talks about how marvelous heaven is going to be at the end. To me that's not the message of Christianity. The message is about how to live now, not that we should live in some particular way because there's going to be pie in the sky some day. The end means almost nothing to me. I am glad it's there, but I don't see it as much of a motivating force, if any.…

Depends on what flavor of Christianity you adhere to. I follow the Catholic mystical tradition which doesn't really focus on pie in the sky, but rather on the purpose of being, which is to become one with the divine-- a purpose which doesn't have to wait for the afterlife.

Came here to say this. One of the goals of a Christian life is to manifest heaven on Earth.
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