Rationality Quotes April 2012

Oscar_Cunningham

Rationality Quotes April 2012 — LessWrong

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I would imagine that he can be taught matrix calculus, given sufficient desire (on his and the teachers' parts), teaching skill, and time. I'm not sure if in practice it is possible to muster enough desire or time to do it, but I do think that understanding is something that can theoretically be taught to anyone who can perform the mechanical calculations.

DanArmak14y00

I can't imagine how hard it is to learn to program if you don't instinctively know how. Yet I know it is that hard for many people. Some succeed in learning, some don't. Those who do still have big differences in ability, and ability at a young age seems to be a pretty good predictor of lifetime ability.

I realize I must have learned the basics at some point, although I don't remember it. And I remember learning many more advanced concepts during the many years since. But for both the basics and the advanced subjects, I never experienced anything I can comp... (read more)

10David_Gerard14y

I fear you're committing the typical mind fallacy. The dyscalculic could simulate a Turing machine, but all of mathematics, including basic arithmetic, is whaargarbl to them. They're often highly intelligent (though of course the diagnosis is "intelligent elsewhere, unintelligent at maths"), good at words and social things, but literally unable to calculate 17+17 more accurately than "somewhere in the twenties or thirties" or "I have no idea" without machine assistance. I didn't believe it either until I saw it.

16Eliezer Yudkowsky14y

Have you ever tried to teach math to anyone who is not good at math? In my youth I once tutored a woman who was poor, but motivated enough to pay $40/session. A major obstacle was teaching her how to calculate (a^b)^c and getting her to reliably notice that minus times minus equals plus. Despite my attempts at creative physical demonstrations of the notion of a balanced scale, I couldn't get her to really understand the notion of doing the same things to both sides of a mathematical equation. I don't think she would ever understand what was going on in matrix calculus, period, barring "teaching methods" that involve neural reprogramming or gain of additional hardware.

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