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John_Maxwell_IV comments on Public Service Announcement Collection - Less Wrong Discussion

37 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 27 June 2013 05:20PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 29 June 2013 05:51:33PM 3 points [-]

In other words, if you look at a page of Python code and don't get a subjective feeling that it makes sense, that does not place you in a population of "not natural computer programmers".

Yep, it might even be the opposite--if you can look at a page of Python code without any previous programming experience and tell yourself that you understand it, you are way too much of a rationalizer to ever be any good at programming :P

http://lesswrong.com/lw/2vb/vanity_and_ambition_in_mathematics/2scr

Comment author: fubarobfusco 29 June 2013 09:27:19PM 1 point [-]

Hah. In discussing the methodology of the "camel has two humps" study with a friend who's an okay programmer, the idea came up that what they might have been measuring was overconfidence. People who are ignorant but overconfident would exhibit a consistent (but possibly wrong) model, whereas people who are ignorant and know it might hedge their bets by not answering consistently. Some courses and instructors (but not all) certainly do favor the overconfident student.

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