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NihilCredo comments on Simpson's Paradox - Less Wrong
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Hmmm. This makes me think of something.
You know that example that Eliezer gives in the Fun Theory sequence; about how solving a rubik's cube will be fun a few times, and then you might move onto to solving the general formula for a rubik's cube of nxnxn... and once you've solved that formula, then solving a specific rubik's cube will be boring.
Perhaps learning follows a similar pattern, in that retention is improved by first learning a specific solution to a specific problem, and then finding the general solution to the problem set.
Although of course actual observation of humans seems to disagree. People move on to practising for speed, competing and solving the cube blindfolded after making a brief glance.
Sure, but you're getting a different, mostly unrelated kind of fun out of it. Solving a Rubik's cube is a challenge in puzzle-solving and a little math; speed-solving and blind-solving are challenges in manual dexterity and spatial memorisation. In many ways you're playing two different games, just using the same tool.
It's like winning at Civilization versus recreating as accurate a copy of a given historical empire as possible.