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The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

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Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#251

Post by godelski »

hirvi74 wrote: post #237
godelski wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to interpret this comment, it could easily be read in multiple ways. (Depends on priors) Regardless, it's a shockingly common occurrence. I'd agree it's not the right way, but it is also a common way. That perspective might define those priors

When growing up, I'm sure my fellow students and I were not the only ones get responses to questions like "Why can't one divide by zero?" or "Why is Pi necessary to compute to area of a circle?" answered like "because that's just how things work" or "because it just is." I'm not going to sit here and act like I was a star student or anything. I was more of a class clown type. I absolutely hate math and all things mat…

This reminds me of a lot of what I see in grad school and academia. Something akin to what Tom Wolf talks about here[0]

  > I’ve always been a straight-A student.
  > if something was not written in a book I could not invent it unless it was a rather useless variation of a known theory. More annoyingly, I found it very hard to challenge the status-quo, to question what I had learned.
I don't think this part is isolated to math, but there's a lot of acceptance for "because" being an answer. Being in an authoritative position and being challenged can be frustrating, but I think a lot of that frustration is self-generated. We stifle creativity when young and it should be no surprise that frequently when people challenge, they don't have the tools to do so (or be receptive) effectively. Truthfully, "I don't know"[1] still shuts down the conversation.

But I think people themselves are uncomfortable with not knowing. I know I am! But that isn't a feeling of shame, it is a feeling that creates drive.

[0] https://thomwolf.io/blog/scientific-ai.html

[1] Alternatively, variations like: "That's a good question, I don't know" or "Great question, but we don't have the tools to address that yet". The last one need not undermine your authority either. Truthfully, the common responses resulted in me becoming strongly anti-authoritarian. Which, also has greatly benefited my career as a researcher. So, thanks lol

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#252

Post by godelski »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #217
godelski wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to interpret this comment, it could easily be read in multiple ways. (Depends on priors) Regardless, it's a shockingly common occurrence. I'd agree it's not the right way, but it is also a common way. That perspective might define those priors

No, it is "very weird". Without knowing that a matrix represents a system of equations, Gaussian elimination would be pointless.

I think we're all in agreement. No need to fight.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#253

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

I'd posit that this is part of why Pascal lost. Making and/or the same precedence as */+ only appeals to mathematicians and gets in the way of ordinary uses for Boolean expressions where you want them lower than the sub-expressions they concatenate in a language-like manner.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#254

Post by godelski »

Nevermark wrote: post #188
godelski wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, certainly we'd need to adapt classes to match their level, but we've tried before[0]. While it "failed" it also seemed pretty successful, especially in France and the USSR. I mean is it any surprise kids get bored in math? They spend years learning the same thing. You spend years learning addition and multiplication (subtraction and division are the same operators). I sure as hell hated math as a kid. Especiall…

> I mean is it any surprise kids get bored in math? Indeed. Kids did not evolve to learn things because they would be useful years down the road. But they did evolve to inhale knowledge at very high rates wherever it extends their capabilities in the moment. My take on this is that math should be tied to kids crafting, experimenting, and learned directly in the context of its fun and creative uses. Geometry screams o…

In general I agree but

  > Indeed. Kids did not evolve to learn things because they would be useful years down the road. But they did evolve to inhale knowledge at very high rates wherever it extends their capabilities in the moment.
I strongly disagree with this. Children play. Most animals play. It is not hard to see how the skills learned through play lead to future utility despite potentially none at the time. We invent new games, new rules, and constantly imagine new worlds. The skills gained from these often have no utility beyond that that is self-constructed. Though many do have future rewards. I think we often miss those though because that path is through generalization. Learning how to throw a ball can help with learning physics, writing, driving, and much more. They don't perfectly transfer but it'd be naive to conclude that there aren't overlaps.

I think the truth is that as long as we are unable to predict the future, we really can't predict what skills will be useful and what specific knowledge should be pursued. We can do this in a more abstract sense as we can better predict the near future than far but that also means we should learn creativity and abstraction, as these allow us to adapt to changes. And that is why I believe we evolved these methods, and why you see things like play in most creatures.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#255

Post by vendiddy »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #217
godelski wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to interpret this comment, it could easily be read in multiple ways. (Depends on priors) Regardless, it's a shockingly common occurrence. I'd agree it's not the right way, but it is also a common way. That perspective might define those priors

No, it is "very weird". Without knowing that a matrix represents a system of equations, Gaussian elimination would be pointless.

I may not have been clear, but it was given to us as a definition in class. As in we saw the matrix and the corresponding equation.

But nobody even told us why! And at that time I never thought to ask.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#256

Post by vendiddy »

bee_rider wrote: post #209
godelski wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to interpret this comment, it could easily be read in multiple ways. (Depends on priors) Regardless, it's a shockingly common occurrence. I'd agree it's not the right way, but it is also a common way. That perspective might define those priors

Yeah, I was worried it might come off as sarcastic or something. Hopefully the original commenter doesn’t take it that way, or reads this follow up. Unfortunately, adding stuff like “honestly” often makes a comment look even more sarcastic. It is a real pain. But yes, I am expressing honest admiration—it was a bad move on the part of the teacher I think, which the poster seems to have overcome!

No worries I did not take it that way!

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#257

Post by godelski »

seadan83 wrote: post #201
godelski wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood it. > The conclusion of the study was that linguistic aptitude seemed to be more correlated with programming aptitude than mathematical aptitude And this is what I'm pushing back against and where I think you've misinterpreted. > They found that how well students learned Python was mostly explained by general cognitive abilities (problem solving and working memory), while how quickly they learned was exp…

> Math is a language. Language is not math, therefore math is not language.

Logic doesn't follow.

There is no problem with A -> B ∧ B -/-> A

Here's an example. "I live in San Francisco" would imply "I live in the US". But "I live in the US" does not mean "I live in San Francisco".

Here's a more formal representation of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bijection,_injection_and_surje...

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#258

Post by twodave »

In my experience, language skill may or may not matter for programming, but it certainly matters for understanding a problem space. You can be a great programmer, building the wrong thing because you didn’t understand the requirements or see the gap in them and know to ask the right clarifying question, etc.

Lately I’ve also felt language skills matter when writing concise, specific AI prompts. This has become a useful part of my programming workflow in, I suppose, the last year or so. Before that it was knowing “how to Google” well, but that’s less language-dependent in my opinion.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#259

Post by godelski »

apeescape wrote: post #165
godelski wrote: post #113

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…

Finland tried teaching maths to children using Group Theory in the 70s [1], but the results weren't that good; it proved to be too abstract for young kids. Ultimately, I believe basic algebra and geometry are the most important takeaways from math classes for most people. [1]: https://www.hs.fi/tiede/art-2000004823594.html (sorry, it's in Finnish and behind a paywall)

  > the results weren't that good; it proved to be too abstract for young kids
You cannot make that conclusion as a result of the evidence. Yes, the evidence might support that conclusion, but there are many others that also could. For example, they could have just been really bad at teaching. This even seems like a likely one as it is difficult to perform such a reformulation and to do so broadly and quickly.

The other reason I'm willing to accept alternative conclusions is that France and the USSR had far more success than Finland (or even America). Their success contradicts a claim that "[it is] too abstract for young kids". You'd need to constrain it to something like "[it is] too abstract for Finish kids" which I think both of us would doubt such a claim.

Re: The language brain matters more for programming than the math brain? (2020)

#260

Post by radlad »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #141
reverendsteveii wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dyscalculia, dysgraphia and dyslexia can all present independent of one another, heavily implying that different processes govern math, reading and writing. To call them "language brain" and "math brain" is simply a useful fiction, whether they're actually separate piles of meat is irrelevant.

math != calculation. It's an actively stupid fiction for people who don't understand what math is.

> It's an actively stupid fiction for people who don't understand what math is.

This comes off quite judgmental, and doesn't help me understand your actual point. Could you elaborate on the differences, as you see them?

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