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Proof you can do hard things

blog.nateliason.com

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Re: Proof you can do hard things

#251

Post by robertlagrant »

paulcole wrote: post #200
constantcrying wrote: post #179

I really despise all the "why you should care about math" takes. The question is never asked about any other school subject and only mathematics has to justify itself that way. I had to learn about categories of plants and animals, interpret 20th century literature, learn about events from a thousand years ago, I did presentations on the demographics of European countries, how certain chemicals react and much, much m…

> The question is never asked about any other school subject Are you kidding? Every tech-bro on the planet makes their disdain for literature, philosophy, etc. extremely well known.

It's hard to make out your actual point given it's couched in stereotype.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#252

Post by BiteCode_dev »

trinovantes wrote: post #220
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because math is harder for most people. There is no difference between learning a name in history or in biology, or some workflow. But math reasoning really filters out people in a way nothing else does. All other topics just require memory and basic reasoning. Even physics mostly is hard because of math. And philosophy, mostly because of jargon and references. Otherwise, if you break it down, it's not that co…

Math as a field of study might be hard but in my experience math pre grad-school is just memorization as much as any other subject. I studied for my exams by simply doing countless exercises and memorizing every problem pattern to the point where I'm just plugging numbers into a series of formulas, even if I don't fully know why I'm doing so.

There is truth in this, but even then, to apply the formulas to many problems, you need to have seriously strong pattern recognition abilities, and the capacity and flexibility to adapt what you know to the given situation. Then piping the right thing into the other right things requires a deeper understanding, not always of what the thing very nature, but at least what it does, and what's it compatible with.

This means loading the entire problem space in your head.

And this is hard.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#253

Post by kamaal »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #186
constantcrying wrote: post #179

I really despise all the "why you should care about math" takes. The question is never asked about any other school subject and only mathematics has to justify itself that way. I had to learn about categories of plants and animals, interpret 20th century literature, learn about events from a thousand years ago, I did presentations on the demographics of European countries, how certain chemicals react and much, much m…

That's because math is harder for most people. There is no difference between learning a name in history or in biology, or some workflow. But math reasoning really filters out people in a way nothing else does. All other topics just require memory and basic reasoning. Even physics mostly is hard because of math. And philosophy, mostly because of jargon and references. Otherwise, if you break it down, it's not that co…

>>But math reasoning really filters out people in a way nothing else does.

Learning Math is just like learning a language, the issue is the script/alphabet/symbols used to communicate, its dictionary, its grammar are all complicated its hard for common people to get a grip on it.

Almost all people can follow logical sequence of arguments provided they understand the language in which they are described.

This language so far is the greatest barrier to bringing Math to public. Probably a new teaching method is needed.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#254

Post by jameshart »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #248
CodeSgt wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is wrong. Birds fly, fishes swim. There is nothing bad about either. I have a hard time with this mentality. I would have agreed a few years ago perhaps, and do still agree that we all have our own aptitudes, but the level of absolution in a statement like this just isn’t really quite as applicable to humans in my opinion. There are things I never thought I’d be capable of that I’ve recently begun to excel at.…

> I believe that any perceived immutable barriers or obstacles are almost entirely psychological. Laws of physics are laws of physics. And biology is applied physics. People in sport have known that for a long time. You can train as much as Usain Bolt, he still has a huge advantage. Thinking the other human characteristics are not affected by this is weird. You will never be Von Neumann, no matter how much you spend…

Nobody is claiming that 100% of people can be trained to run a 100m in 9.58s.

But there is some number of seconds which 90% of people can be trained to run 100m below.

And it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a much lower number than you think.

Likewise not 100% of people can develop the mathematical horsepower of Von Neumann. But 90% of people can attain some level of proficiency in higher mathematical concepts… how high a level would that be? Higher than most high schools aim I would suspect.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#255

Post by carapace »

It's better to avoid waste, waste of time, waste of calories. Most of the things that most people want you to do are wasteful, pointless, better to not be done. A very valuable skill is to be able to discern bullshit, and decline it.

(As an aside, the idea that calculus is hard is a pedagogical failure. Calculus is easy to learn if it's taught well. Most of our education systems actually make learning much more difficult than it is.)

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#256

Post by lolinder »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #186
constantcrying wrote: post #179

I really despise all the "why you should care about math" takes. The question is never asked about any other school subject and only mathematics has to justify itself that way. I had to learn about categories of plants and animals, interpret 20th century literature, learn about events from a thousand years ago, I did presentations on the demographics of European countries, how certain chemicals react and much, much m…

That's because math is harder for most people. There is no difference between learning a name in history or in biology, or some workflow. But math reasoning really filters out people in a way nothing else does. All other topics just require memory and basic reasoning. Even physics mostly is hard because of math. And philosophy, mostly because of jargon and references. Otherwise, if you break it down, it's not that co…

There's a major chicken and egg problem here—is math hard and therefore it has to justify itself, or is it hard because people don't think it's relevant and so they care less to try?

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#257

Post by greatwave1 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #248
CodeSgt wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is wrong. Birds fly, fishes swim. There is nothing bad about either. I have a hard time with this mentality. I would have agreed a few years ago perhaps, and do still agree that we all have our own aptitudes, but the level of absolution in a statement like this just isn’t really quite as applicable to humans in my opinion. There are things I never thought I’d be capable of that I’ve recently begun to excel at.…

> I believe that any perceived immutable barriers or obstacles are almost entirely psychological. Laws of physics are laws of physics. And biology is applied physics. People in sport have known that for a long time. You can train as much as Usain Bolt, he still has a huge advantage. Thinking the other human characteristics are not affected by this is weird. You will never be Von Neumann, no matter how much you spend…

There's a big difference between edge cases like Usain Bolt and Von Neumann, and the barriers that most people actually run into.

The vast majority of people are not biologically incapable of making it through high-school level math, or even becoming a very capable mathematician with enough high-quality teaching and dedication.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#258

Post by kamaal »

toyg wrote: post #196
hardware2win wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didnt understand my message. Math is not about calculators or computers. It is about modeling (e.g real world) It is useful whenever non-standard, already modeled in your calculator problem apprears.

Which is basically never, if you're not a developer or statistician.

Actually everybody needs it, they just outsource it to somebody who can do it better than them.

The real problem is you can cannot find a language which you don't speak, useful.

The only reason why things like Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division come easily even to people without any education is because it has to become a part of their everyday vocabulary if you have to as little as start a lemonade stand. If Im not wrong Arabs arrived at algebra trying to workout inheritance laws from the Quran. Want to build a home, you can only brute force that much, eventually you are likely to invent the Pythagoras theorem, measurement techniques, myriad other geometrical methods.

All this is possible because if you have to do a thing, anything at all, well, you have to arrive at the most logically consistent formulation of the problem. That helps you to not only do it well, but do it right.

The real question there fore is introducing Math in a way it becomes a part of people vocabulary and general language.

Re: Proof you can do hard things

#259

Post by constantcrying »

robertlagrant wrote: post #243
constantcrying wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My guess is that answering "what am I ever going to use this for" is easier for other subjects, sometimes almost intuitive. How so? What am I ever going to use my skills in analysing 20th century literature for. What am I ever going to use my knowledge about Roman history for? What am I ever going to use my knowledge about the structure of our government for? Certainly no employeer of mine ever cared, my University…

> What am I ever going to use my skills in analysing 20th century literature for. You can use the same skills to spot when a news article is trying to manipulate you. > What am I ever going to use my knowledge about Roman history for? You can see how empires fall, and vote against those things. > What am I ever going to use my knowledge about the structure of our government for? Understanding why things happen around…

You are completely missing the point here. If you know "why empires fall" (nobody does) then you could just teach that, the historical context would be almost irrelevant and even the premise of a cyclical history, which can be broken by voting, seems completely insane.

>Thankfully you did all those things, so now you can write a well-written letter to the correct person in government, citing the parallel problems with the current education system and the fall of Rome, and stop children being taught this stuff (-:

Okay, that was funny.

I think what you are trying to articulate is education as a hollistic system, not with the goal of expertese, but with the goal of offering some moral foundation and grounding in the world and society. But if you believe in that the utilitarian stance of education immediately becomes irrelevant and "when am I ever going to use this" becomes a non-sensical question, which misses the point.

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