Cyan comments on You don't need Kant - Less Wrong

21 Post author: Andrew 01 April 2009 06:09PM

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Comment author: MichaelVassar 02 April 2009 12:05:49AM 9 points [-]

I actually think that math teaching might work better if people spent time learning who though what as a result of asking what questions and how they first conceptualized their insights by building on what else.

Memorizing anything anywhere ever except as practice for understanding how memory works is always an indication that something has gone wrong however.

Comment author: Cyan 02 April 2009 03:00:13AM *  5 points [-]

I take it you've never studied biochemistry at the senior undergrad level. Evolution doesn't produce easily systematizable components down at the level of proteins and other macromolecules of like size. I can't think of a workable alternative to giving things more-or-less arbitrary names and requiring people to memorize them so as to have a common language.