epicurus comments on Is Scott Alexander bad at math? - LessWrong

31 Post author: JonahSinick 04 May 2015 05:11AM

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Comment author: JonahSinick 04 May 2015 03:43:20PM 4 points [-]

I say everything I'm about to say as a person who is more certain than not that you have something valuable to contribute through this sequence, and who eagerly awaits more. All of your posts in this sequence have purportedly been written to motivate your main thesis, but it's not clear to me what that is. I think you should stop motivating and very clearly reveal your Big Secret.

I very much appreciate your interest. I'm sympathetic to the points that you raise. The trouble is that it's hard to even state my main thesis without presenting a lot of background information (!!). It's as though someone wanted to know about monstrous moonshine, and I started explaining what a modular function is, and the person said "ok, rather than giving so much motivation, I'd prefer it if you just told me what monstrous moonshine is." Then I state the theorem, and the person says "wait, what's the modular j-function?"

But it's much easier to speak to an individual's situation than it is to speak to the general question of how people can get better at math. What's your background and what are your goals? I may not be able to respond at length individually, but I'll try to offer quick thoughts at least, and your comments will inform what I write about subsequently.

Comment author: epicurus 04 May 2015 04:20:08PM 0 points [-]

I am a bachelor's in mathematics and estimate my current knowledge to be around a second year graduate student's if my mathematical knowledge is useful. I am interested in getting better at doing math as well as teaching it.

Note: I am not the person you replied to.