151–160 of 465 posts
I'm very curious what this math pretest looked like, whether it was "proper" high level math or, like, computing some trig problems. Folks who have aptitude with algebra or number theory or topology, I'd expect that to be correlated, but not to rote computational math.
It think this is silly on multiple accounts. I'll claim that there's not real thing such as a "language brain" or "math brain." I'll also claim that most people don't know what math is, and that their evidence supports a "math brain". Math isn't about calculations/computations, it is about patterns. You get to algebra and think "what are these letters doing in my math" but once you get further you think "what are the…
It took me a long time to realize math consisted of abstractions. I was never told, for example, that matrices are a useful abstraction (shorthand?) for representing linear equations. Or that imaginary numbers were an invented abstraction that made certain calculations easier. It would have been nice to learn it from the perspective of how those abstractions came into being and why they're useful.
The patterns of repetitions of single things, repetitions over different things, repetitions between different things, repetitions over repetitions, ...
Natural/counting numbers are just the simplest patterns of repetition.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cute, but do you have a serious answer?
If you define recursion as a symbol referencing itself, either directly or indirectly, and if you define language as a system of relating symbols to each other, recursion is a linguistic concept, it is a concept that describes a relationship between symbols. There are good reasons to define each concept differently, but if you identify recursion empirically, recursion won't "actually" exist outside of the description…
But that isn't what we mean with recursive function. We don't call this recursive:
x = x + 1
It think this is silly on multiple accounts. I'll claim that there's not real thing such as a "language brain" or "math brain." I'll also claim that most people don't know what math is, and that their evidence supports a "math brain". Math isn't about calculations/computations, it is about patterns. You get to algebra and think "what are these letters doing in my math" but once you get further you think "what are the…
I am willing to bet good money that teaching pure mathematics like group theory, abstract algebra, or stuff like big Oh and combinatronics will do our kids a lot more good and advance them far more than calculus or geometry as taught in schools will. I have the same experience as you did, in that studying by myself abstract algebra accelerated my learning and reasoning skills.
I don't think this experience is uncommon (among people who get to these levels). Which is why it is really sad. Especially given how linear algebra and abstract algebra are in a lot of ways easier than calculus. I also think they should be taught earlier purely due to the fact that they teach abstraction and reasoning.
"Coding largely involves the 'logical part' of your brain. It tends to not include the 'language part' of your brain.
This is one reason why comments you add to code are so useful: they force you to engage both parts of your brain and therefore get better results.
This is also why when you go to explain a problem to a colleague, you often have a flash of brilliance and solve the problem: you are reframing the problem using a different part of your brain and the different part of your brain helps solve the problem."
I'm sure some readers here will say this is preposterous and there is no such thing as having "two parts of your brain".
To them I suggest watching:
1. "You are are two" (about people with their corpus callosum being severed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8
2. "Conscious Ants and Human Hives" by Peter Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4uwaw_5Q3I
It think this is silly on multiple accounts. I'll claim that there's not real thing such as a "language brain" or "math brain." I'll also claim that most people don't know what math is, and that their evidence supports a "math brain". Math isn't about calculations/computations, it is about patterns. You get to algebra and think "what are these letters doing in my math" but once you get further you think "what are the…
It took me a long time to realize math consisted of abstractions. I was never told, for example, that matrices are a useful abstraction (shorthand?) for representing linear equations. Or that imaginary numbers were an invented abstraction that made certain calculations easier. It would have been nice to learn it from the perspective of how those abstractions came into being and why they're useful.
It think this is silly on multiple accounts. I'll claim that there's not real thing such as a "language brain" or "math brain." I'll also claim that most people don't know what math is, and that their evidence supports a "math brain". Math isn't about calculations/computations, it is about patterns. You get to algebra and think "what are these letters doing in my math" but once you get further you think "what are the…
The conclusion of the study was that linguistic aptitude seemed to be more correlated with programming aptitude than mathematical aptitude, which seems fairly interesting, and also fairly unconcerned with which specific physical regions in the brain might happen to be involved.
It think this is silly on multiple accounts. I'll claim that there's not real thing such as a "language brain" or "math brain." I'll also claim that most people don't know what math is, and that their evidence supports a "math brain". Math isn't about calculations/computations, it is about patterns. You get to algebra and think "what are these letters doing in my math" but once you get further you think "what are the…
Math is about form and traditionally the science of quantity. It is called a formal science for this reason. Language also concerns form. Grammar has form. Concepts are forms. Math is language. 'Everything' is language. Language is the image of reality. In the beginning was the Logos...
> Math is language.
> Language is the image of reality.
It wasn’t until high school, when I tested-into the highest math class that the school offered, that I began to unlock (with some initial struggle) more logical and procedural reasoning specific to mathematics that I had always done well in, but never explicitly went above-and-beyond in, despite hints of such in arithmetic competitions that my school would hold and that sort of thing. I just think my brain works well for both the linguistic aspects of programming (more naturally) and the computational problem-solving aspects of programming. Certainly there are individuals who have strengths in both cognitive aspects, despite being more naturally-attuned to one versus the other, at least presumably.
Perhaps this shows a cognitive profile that has natural strengths in both "brains", or maybe this highlights limitations of the article's potentially narrow definitions of "language" and "math", implying a more complex intellectual landscape.
Interesting findings nonetheless.