= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
Peter_de_Blanc comments on Some rationality tweets - 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 (75)
Real analysis is the first thing that comes to mind. Linear algebra is the second thing.
Lately I've been thinking about if and how learning math can improve one's thinking in seemingly unrelated areas. I should be able to report on my findings in a year or two.
This seems like a classic example of the standard fallacious defense of undirected research (that it might and sometimes does create serendipitous results)?
Yes, learning something useless/nonexistent might help you learn useful things about stuff that exists, but it seems awfully implausible that it helps you learn more useful things about existence than studying the useful and the existing. Doing the latter will also improve your thinking in seemingly unrelated areas...while having the benefit of not being useless.
If instead of learning the clever tricks of combinatorics as an undergraduate, I had learned useful math like statistics or algorithms, I think I would have had just as much mental exercise benefit and gotten a lot more value.