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wedrifid comments on Open Thread: March 2010, part 3 - Less Wrong
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If they disagree with me and I (eventually?) agree with them, three times in a row. Applies more to questions of logic than questions of knowledge.
I'm not sure about the "three" or the "applies more to questions of logic than questions of knowledge", but yeah, pretty much. Smarts gets you to better answers faster.
I'm not sure about the throwaway 'three' either but the 'crystal vs fluid' is something that is true if I am considering "demonstrate to me..." I find that this varies a lot based on personality. What people know doesn't impress me nearly as much as seeing how they respond to new information, including how they update their understanding in response.
That makes sense. Those two bit are probably fairly good approximations to correct, but I can smell a possibility of better accuracy. (For example: "logic" is probably overspecific, and experience sounds like it should land on the "knowledge" side of the equation but drawing the correct conclusions from experience is an unambiguous sign of intelligence.)
I generally agree, I'm merely less-than-confident in the wording.
Definitely.
Ditto.
Absolutely.
So am I. Improve it for me?
I would quickly start believing someone was smart if they repeatedly drew conclusions that looked wrong, but which I would later discover are correct. I would believe they were smarter than me if, as a rule, whenever they and I are presented with a problem, they reach important milestones in the solution or dissolution of the problem quicker than I can, even without prior knowledge of the problem.
Concrete example: xkcd #356 includes a simple but difficult physics problem. After a long time (tens of minutes) beating my head against it, letting it stew (for months, at least), and beating my head against it again (tens of minutes), I'd gotten as far as getting a wrong answer and the first part of a method. Using nothing but a verbal description of the problem statement from me, my dad pulled out the same method, noting the problem with that method which I had missed finding my wrong answer, within five minutes or so. While driving.
(I've made no progress past that insight - rot13: juvpu vf gung lbh pna (gel gb) fbyir sbe gur pheerag svryq sebz n "fbhepr" be "fvax" bs pheerag, naq gura chg n fbhepr-fvax cnve vagb gur argjbex naq nqq Buz'f-ynj ibygntrf gb trg gur erfvfgnapr - since the last time I beat my head against that problem, by the way.)
Bah. I was hoping your dad gave the actual answer. That's as far as I got too. :)
He suggested fbyivat n frevrf grez-ol-grez zvtug or arprffnel but I didn't know precisely what he meant or how to do it.
The canonical method is to nggnpu n pheerag qevire gb rirel abqr. Jevgr qbja gur Xvepubss'f ynj ynj rirel abqr va grezf bs gur vawrpgrq pheerag, gur ibygntr ng gung ybpngvba, naq gur ibygntr ng rnpu nqwnprag cbvag. Erjevgr gur nqwnprag ibygntrf va grezf bs genafyngvba bcrengbef, gura qb n (frzv-qvfpergr) Sbhevre genafsbez (gur qbznva vf vagrtref, pbqbznva obhaqrq serdhrapvrf, fb vg'f gur bccbfvgr bs n Sbhevre frevrf), chg va gur pbaqvgvbaf sbe n havg zntavghqr fbhepr naq fvax, naq vaireg vg, juvpu jvyy tvir lbh gur ibygntrf rireljurer. Gur qvssreraprf va ibygntrf orgjrra gur fbhepr naq fvax vf gur erfvfgnapr, orpnhfr gurer vf havg pheerag sybjvat npebff gurz.
Buggrit. Build a grid of resistors a few meters square and pull out the multimeter.
I know little about it, but if I knew how to compute equivalent resistances beyond the basics of resistors in parallel and in series, I'd fbyir n ohapu bs rire-ynetre svavgr tevqf, fbeg bhg gur trareny rkcerffvba sbe na A-ol-Z tevq jvgu gur gnetrg abqrf nyjnlf ng gur pragre, naq gura gnxr gur yvzvg nf A naq Z tb gb vasvavgl.
You can try Xvepubss'f pvephvg ynjf, but at the moment I'm thinking of nffhzvat gung nyy pheeragf sybj njnl sebz zl fbhepr naq qrgrezvavat ybjre naq hccre yvzvgf ba gur pheeragf V arrq onfrq ba gubfr vardhnyvgvrf.