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Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

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Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#441

Post by kennedywm »

naikrovek wrote: post #33
kennedywm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn’t fully ban them. We just prescribe them to anyone a doctor decides has ADHD.

Not quite, but if one does not have ADHD or something similar, things like adderall have a very different effect than they do to someone who has ADHD. Your apparent disbelief in ADHD doesn’t make it imaginary, by the way. Consider yourself lucky that you do not have it; I am unemployable without medication.

I have ADHD. It doesn’t change the fact that people feign ADHD in order to get access to amphetamines.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#442

Post by wruza »

freilanzer wrote: post #424
wruza wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I follow the explanation. And apologies cause I’m not that familiar with these texts, but afaik it talks about “soul” here, not information? Words like Brahman, Atman come to mind. In case I mistook it, ignore the above. All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind Doesn’t it come from the mind’s interaction with the world? I don’t think that any important knowledge comes from doing not…

>> All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind > Doesn’t it come from the mind’s interaction with the world? There is no difference between these concepts, is there? In both cases knowledge comes from the mind. Also, you can come up with ideas without interacting with the outside world, can you not? This feels like nitpicking.

The mind quickly falls apart when interaction-deprived (at least human one). This whole “comes from the mind” is just a metaphor, because the mind is also the arriving point, so it’s like “knowledge is defined by and comes from where it arrives to, on itself”. This semantic no-op nonsense originates in taking this metaphor literally, which one should not do.

What physically happens is that a mind accumulates and (sometimes) systematizes information from outside, and knowledge is the result of this concentration process. Akin to a puddle collecting water from higher grounds. But it doesn’t synthesize water by simply being concave.

Blowing ideas out of poor metaphors is a regular thing in religious texts, so be careful with that if you want to build some practical world view.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#443

Post by moribunda »

sourcepluck wrote: post #306

This thread is a good example of one of the perhaps overlooked reasons it can be hard to discuss education in our societies - any attempt at making a general point, or a meta-observation of some kind, quickly gets swallowed in a massive influx of personal anecdotes about things that happened to people during their education. Maybe there are other topics where the same phemonen exists. I'm not sure if off the top of m…

From: https://medium.com/eedi/how-i-wish-id-taught-maths-8ec9b0578...

[...]the day I started reading educational research was the day my life changed.

It all began with Daniel Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School, which led me onto his ridiculously good series of Ask the Cognitive Scientist articles for the American Federation of Teachers and the associated research papers he quoted. I devoured them all with eyes wide open and jaw firmly on the floor. Next came Cognitive Load Theory, which I was introduced to via the incredible blog of Greg Ashman and our subsequent conversation on my podcast. I was familiar with the work of Dylan Wiliam through the development of my Diagnostic Questions website, but I read and re-read everything I could get my hands on from the great man. I didn’t think life could get any better — and then I came across the work of Robert and Elizabeth Bjork. Good God.

One thing led to another, and before I knew it I had read well over 200 hundreds books and research papers. I would wake up in the middle of the night, my head buzzing with ideas[...]

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#444

Post by nnain »

gen_greyface wrote: post #258
kumarm wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to understand how human potential was wasted in old world, Ramanujan belongs to a caste in India that is only caste that is supposed to be educated (Representing probably Ramanujan short life itself is a loss to the world, Imagine how many Ramanujan's were ignored where there is no G.H. Hardy and what about Ramanujans in the other 95%?

caste system in india is an evil that persists even today, and is a complex topic. majority of the indian-origin users on hackernews or people in the IT community are very likely upper castes. see [1] If you are interested to learn more about the caste system in india it is recommended to get your facts from multiple sources. start from [2] [1] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674987883 [2] https://en.wikipedia.…

Unfortunately, India's poorest still don't get govt benefits due for them: A few gobble up all the caste-based reservation from the govt. I have seen many people who have made a career out of talking about caste all the time.

I know more than 3 people in the US, who talk about caste all the time (as in that's their job now) but grew up in very privileged families.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#445

Post by zozbot234 »

nnain wrote: post #444
gen_greyface wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

caste system in india is an evil that persists even today, and is a complex topic. majority of the indian-origin users on hackernews or people in the IT community are very likely upper castes. see [1] If you are interested to learn more about the caste system in india it is recommended to get your facts from multiple sources. start from [2] [1] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674987883 [2] https://en.wikipedia.…

Unfortunately, India's poorest still don't get govt benefits due for them: A few gobble up all the caste-based reservation from the govt. I have seen many people who have made a career out of talking about caste all the time. I know more than 3 people in the US, who talk about caste all the time (as in that's their job now) but grew up in very privileged families.

Many Indians who talk about caste all the time, do it in ways that aren't immediately obvious. "What part of India are you from?" and "What's your surname?" are not just innocent questions.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#446

Post by db48x »

angled wrote: post #96
db48x wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specialization does begin earlier than that. Most high schools in the US have advanced classes that students can opt in to, and there is the AP program. Personally I think that we could do better by tailoring every student’s education to their abilities. Put in simplest possible terms, we could arrange classes by complexity rather than by year. Have one class for addition and subtraction, another for multiplication a…

One such school: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AME_School The kids that went there … some succeeded, some really struggled to adjust to other schools and environments.

> In 1992, there was a proposal to fully integrate the AME school with the ACT Government school system. However the idea floundered after the ACT Teachers Union amongst other things, knocked the idea on the head, due to compatibility issues. It felt the idea of having a school principal having selection over teaching staff was outside the scope of the Unions control. It came out fighting against the proposal.

Now there’s a depressing thing to read. Teacher’s unions are the worst.

Re: Math is still catching up to the genius of Ramanujan

#447

Post by freilanzer »

wruza wrote: post #442
freilanzer wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> All knowledge that the world has ever received comes from the mind > Doesn’t it come from the mind’s interaction with the world? There is no difference between these concepts, is there? In both cases knowledge comes from the mind. Also, you can come up with ideas without interacting with the outside world, can you not? This feels like nitpicking.

The mind quickly falls apart when interaction-deprived (at least human one). This whole “comes from the mind” is just a metaphor, because the mind is also the arriving point, so it’s like “knowledge is defined by and comes from where it arrives to, on itself”. This semantic no-op nonsense originates in taking this metaphor literally, which one should not do. What physically happens is that a mind accumulates and (som…

I think you're too hung up on the mind part. I don't understand this as saying the mind synthesizes knowledge from nothing. That's why I said, there is no fundamental difference for me - whether the mind conceives of something new, or synthesizes knowledge from outside information is not very interesting a difference, since a mind is required to grasp this knowledge.

Maybe a better term would be information vs. knowledge.

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