= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Vladimir_Nesov comments on Open Thread: January 2010 - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (725)
Why would you retain a skill you don't use? Conversely, if you use the skill, you don't need "problem of the day".
[Parent at -2.] Is the advice to not waste time and effort on stuff you don't need really that bad? (Hypothetical, under the assumption that you really don't need it; if you do need it occasionally, in the majority of cases it'll be enough to relearn directly on demand, rather than supporting for perfection's sake.)
You wrote
But suppose that you use a skill only occasionally. Then you still need the skill. But to retain a skill, you might need to use it frequently. Therefore, you might need to inflate artificially how often you use it, so that you retain it. That is how it can be that you use a skill and yet still need a "problem of the day".
Agreed. Best is if you can learn something well enough that even if you don't remember it, you can rederive it; but usually good enough is learning something well enough that you can do it if you've got a textbook to remind you.
In this instance, if I needed an answer to this question I'd use Maxima.
Yes, it's a mind projection fallacy. Reality doesn't need anything from us; there is no needfulness apart from what people want to do.
Humbug. What you are actually saying is that wanting to know can be a terminal value, so why won't you just say that?
And of course, I know that, but there is just too much stuff out there to learn, so it's a necessity that the things you do choose to learn are in some sense better than the rest (otherwise you lose something), more beautiful or more useful. Just saying that one would learn X because "learning in general" is fun isn't enough.
I didn't read Vladimir as supposing that there was any other kind.
Yeah, but then why privilege "I need calculus for my job" over "I want to know, I want to know, though the Earth burns and the stars are torn apart for computronium, I WILL UNDERSTAND"?
A. I expect to need to use it in the fall when I go to college. B. I want to know how to do calculus.