Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules:
- Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be voted up/down separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
- Do not quote yourself
- Do not quote comments/posts on LW/OB
- No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.
Yeah, a good compression algorithm--a dictionary that has short words for the important stuff--is vital to learning just about anything. I've noticed that in the martial arts; there's no way to learn a parry, entry, and takedown without a somatic vocabulary for the subparts of that; and the definitions of your "words" affects both the ease of learning and the effectiveness of its execution.
Also, wouldn't it be better to call it a hash table or a lookup-table rather than a compression algorithm. The key is swift and appropriate recall. Example: Compare a long-time practicing theoretical physicist with a physics grad student. Both know most of basic quantum mechanics. But the experienced physicist would know when to whip out which equation in which situation. So, the knowledge content is not necessarily compressed (I'm sure there is some compression) as much as the usability of the knowledge is much greater.