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persephonehazard comments on What bothers you about Less Wrong? - Less Wrong
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I think this is a largely overestimated concept, especially on LW. I doubt most people here are "smarter" than average Joe. A lot of it is due to education, a difference of interest, and a little more ease when it comes to symbol manipulation. Surely there are many more factors, like the ability to concentrate, not getting bored too quickly, being told as a child that one can learn anything if one tries hard enough etc., but little has to do with insurmountable hardware limitations.
Eliezer Yudkowsky recently wrote:
I haven't heard of any evidence that would suggest that there are human beings who can't understand linear algebra. I myself have not yet arrived at linear algebra, because I didn't bother to learn any math when I was a teenager, but I doubt that it is something only superhuman beings can understand. I would go as far as to bet that you could teach it to someone with down syndrome.
Take for example the number 3^^^^3. Can I hold a model of 3^^^^3 objects in my memory? No. Can I visualize 3^^^^3? No. Does that mean that I am unable to fathom some of its important properties, e.g. its scope? No.
Someone who has no legs can't run faster than you. Similar differences are true about different brains, but we don't know enough about brains, or what it means to understand linear algebra, to indiscriminately claim that someone is "smarter"...
I'm not convinced anybody could teach me to understand linear algebra. Or maybe what I mean by that is that I'm not convinced of my own ability to understand linear algebra, which may be a different thing.
I have trouble with maths. More specifically, I have trouble with numbers. What I experience when faced with lots of numbers is akin to how people with dyslexia often describe trying to parse lots of written text - they swim and shift beneath my eyes, and dissolve into a mass of meaningless gobbledegook that I can't pick any sense from. And then after a while, even if I've ploughed through some of this, I start to get what I can only describe as "number fatigue" and things that previously I'd almost started to comprehend seem to slip out from my grasp.
And, when asked to do simple maths, I panic and fly into what is pretty much an anxiety attack. Which, of course, means that I'm not thinking clearly enough to untangle it all and try to start making sense of it.
Maths feels utterly, utterly impenetrable to me. Half the time I can't even work out what the necessary sum is - recent examples include my having no notion of the calculations required for aspect ratio or 10% of a weight in stones and pounds, but this also applies to much simpler things, like the time I couldn't figure out how to calculate the potential eventual fundraising total from the time elapsed, the time remaining and the money so far achieved.
I realise that in a community like this I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb, mind you ;-)
This all sounds less like a lack of innate ability and more like a barrier of fear. Not to say that can't be just as disabling.
It could be a case of discalculia.
That's certainly entirely plausible, and something my mother (a primary school teacher of a quarter-century's experience, who's known a lot of children well) has always suspected. I've never had it checked out, though. Maybe I should.
ETA - particularly as I've just had a look at the wikipedia article and every single thing in the symptoms list applies to me to some degree. I'm even a pretty good writer. Good grief.
Certainly some of it is. The anxiety and fluster and horrible panic feeling is certainly emotional, and the "number blindness" thing is probably related too. It's much, much worse if there's anyone else around - the only thing more embarrassing than knowing I've failed simple arithmetic is failing simple arithmetic when other people who might assume I'm moronically stupid can see me doing it.
And of course that makes me a nightmare to teach, because I'm horribly resistant to learning maths because I know I'll fail and look stupid and whoever it is will think I'm thick. You of all people have encountered that in me!
Struggling to parse strings of numbers, though, can happen no matter how calm and unpressured and private I am. I've emailed myself things like my debit card number so that I can just cut and paste them when I buy things, because I can't always reliably type them in by looking at the card.
Check the following links, here is my homepage from when I was 18 and this is another page from that year. Looks more like something made by a 14 year old, doesn't it? And since Desrtopa mentioned discalculia, your case might be stronger, but it took me 3 attempts to figure out how old I was in 2002 :-)
There do exist neurological deficits that prevent people from acquiring certain skills, understand some concepts and reach certain performance levels, but I wouldn't jump to a conclusion in your case. A lot of it might very well has to do with what you believe to be the case, rather than what is actual. I haven't hit any barrier yet. And I only learnt to read analog clocks when I was around 14.
I admit that I can't put myself in your position, so maybe I am wrong and you should stop worrying about mathematics. I am only saying that you might as well stop caring, but not give up. In other words, do not panic, just try it and don't expect to succeed. Start small, think about the most basic problem for as long as necessary, without feeling coerced to understand it. Use objects and drawings to approach the problem. Read up on various different sources explaining the same problem. Do not stop reading, or listening to explanations when you feel that you can't follow anymore, just read it over and over again. Then stop for a few hours or days and think about it again. And remember not to push yourself to understand it, you just do it in your spare-time, for fun. If you feel overwhelmed, just forget about it and get back to it later. Write it down, print it out and plaster the walls in your bedroom with it so that you don't need any willpower to approach the problem, the problem will approach you. You have all the time you need, even if it takes decades to understand that one simple problem.
It also helps to remember that almost everyone knows someone who is much better at something. Many people learn to play a musical instrument and never expect to become a professional musician. People play golf or soccer, just for fun or because of the challenge. Almost nobody turns out to be good at what they are doing. Personally I like to play an online racing game called Trackmania. I play it since 2007 and only managed to reach the world rank 34795. And I still play it, even though I almost never win. If you have trouble doing basic arithmetic, well then, try to enjoy the challenge, don't worry, don't panic!