I can share my personal experience, but I'm an outlier on many axes.

I identify strongly with a lot of the things you wrote about liking tests.

I studied for and took the LSAT in the mid-2000s. I scored either a 166 or a 168 (can't remember) on my first practice exam, which I took cold. Nearly all of the points I lost were on the games section.

Incidentally, this was a pretty emotionally difficult experience for me, because I had never done this poorly on a 200-800 (120-180) scored standardized test before. This one felt especially like an IQ test, so not being able to crack the 700 (170) barrier was very threatening to my self-esteem.

Your guess that most LSAT prep focuses on developing written systems for the games section is correct. Powerscore was the most highly regarded producer of LSAT prep materials for high scorers when I took the LSAT, and their reputation was larlgey due to their succeess in teaching people how to create accurate and efficient diagrams for the games. I think they also produced fairly well-regarded materials for the other sections too, but I didn't investigate those because my deficiency was the games section.

My preparation consisted of working through the Powerscore games materials and taking lots of practice tests. LSAC published old LSATs in books of ten tests each, and three such books had been published at the time I was studying, so I bought them all and just took those 30 LSATs with a stopwatch. I ran out of old LSATs prior to the test, so I went online and found a torrent of dubiously legal low-quality scans of more recent LSATs, though I only had time to take one of those before the exam because the school year started.

On the logical reasoning and reading comprehension sections, I would guess that my mean missed questions per section prior to studying was about 3, with a standard deviation of about 1. After studying, it was probably about a mean of 2 with a standard deviation of maybe 0.7. I typically missed questions because I would read too quickly and miss something subtle and important. I did not improve significantly at this, even though I did a lot of practice. I did not use symbolic logic or any other systematized written system to answer any logical reasoning or reading comprehension questions; it's possible that this would have helped.

On the games sections, my pre-studying mean missed questions per section was probably about 10, with a standard deviation of 3. After studying, the mean was probably 1 with a standard deviation of 1. Games went from being my weakest to my strongest section once I learned how to make and use good diagrams, and it became a fairly regular occurrence for me to finish the entire section with time to spare and complete certainty in the correctness of all of my answers.

Doing some of the older tests before I mastered the technique for the games, I scored as low as, IIRC, 158. This resulted in much hyperventilating and cruel self-talk. As I improved at the games and worked my way up through more recent tests, my scores improved to the point where I was consistently in the 170s, and achieved a few 180s. That one torrented practice test that I took the week before the actual test was the last practice test I took, and I got a 169 on it somehow, which was, of course, terrible for my confidence going into the exam.

I scored a 175 on the actual test.

The entire reason the LSAT is hard is the time pressure. I think that, given enough time, any 150s-scorer could arrive at the right answer to any LSAT question. I agree with ThisSpaceAvailable that the games section is very much a "can-you-follow-instructions-under-time-pressure" test, and my experience was like ioshva's in that my missed logical reasoning questions were due to lapses in focus while reading under time pressure rather than inability to grasp the logic.

I do not believe the process of studying for the LSAT inculcated any rationalist habits of mind in me. For me, because of my strengths and weaknesses, the process of studying for the LSAT was largely the process of learning how to complete contrived little puzzles that are isomorphic to sudoku. I suppose there might be some Lumosity-type minor positive effect on working memory, but I doubt the LSAT is much better for that than any other mentally engaging task. The research you cited in the OP just makes me want a control group of people playing Lumosity games. I can imagine that, for someone whose weakness was the logical reasoning section and who was missing lots of logical reasoning questions because of a deficit in understanding of the basic mechanics of logic, studying for the LSAT would be one way to correct that deficiency. But I suspect that ioshva is correct in that just learning logic directly would be a more effective way of achieving the same result.

I do not believe the process of studying for the LSAT helped me in law school. I think the correlation between LSAT score and first-year law school GPA exists largely because high-IQ and high-conscientiousness people tend to do well on both. I performed abysmally in law school despite my relatively high LSAT score because of pathologically low conscientiousness. I was only able to overcome low conscientiousness during the LSAT preparation process because I was living with my parents at the time and they put considerable pressure on me to study hard.

LSAT score is certainly a huge factor in law school admissions, and I was admitted to a moderately prestigious law school solely on the strength of my LSAT score and in spite of a truly awful undergraduate GPA. In general, LSAT score, undergraduate GPA, and underrepresented racial minority status are really the only meaningful factors in the law school admission process. This holds except in weird edge cases where people have distinguished themselves in exceptional ways, like former pro athletes or people who have founded successful businesses or nonprofits. Things like recommendation letters and essays can potentially keep you out if they're bad, but will not get you in except, again, in weird edge cases like having a Supreme Court justice write you a recommendation insisting that you're the brightest mind of your generation.

Incidentally, on the "think like a lawyer" point raised by MaximumLiberty - in my experience, this usually refers to a couple of specific analytic skills that lawyers are trained to develop: (1) reasoning by analogy and distinction, as with case law analysis, and (2) thinking strategically about the way systems of rules constrain or fail to constrain the behavior of agents within them, as with advising a client on how to avoid punishment. I'm not sure that this sort of software specialization would be reflected in the hardware imaged by an fMRI.

According to the 2013 survey, only 2.2% of you are in law-related professions, but I was wondering (1) if anyone has personal experience studying for this exam, (2) if they felt like it improved their logical reasoning skills, and (3) if they felt that these effects were long-lasting. Studying for this test seems to have the potential to inculcate rationalist habits-of-mind; I know it's just self-report, but for those who went on to law school, did you feel like you benefited from the experience studying for the LSAT?

(1) Yes, but I'm an outlier. I started in the 99th percentile and "improved" 6 points through self-study.

(2) Honestly? Not really. For me, most of the difference in performance from test to test was not due to logical misapprehension, but because I skimmed a question or misjudged the time limit. If you have taken an undergrad logic course and have a grasp on conjunction/disjunction, sufficient/necessary, etc., then your experience will likely be similar. For instance, you said this about the games:

I'd guess that most LSAT test prep is about strategies for dumping this burden into some kind of written scheme that makes it all more manageable.

This is true, but it's also true of the args, too. I've taught for two of the major test prep companies and the courses are mostly just an undergrad logic course bolted onto their own proprietary shorthand and systematic categorization so students can recognize types of questions and diagram them accordingly. When I tutored independently, I just used regular old symbolic logic.

P1: AW↑ ==> Right
P2: AW↓ <=> Wrong
P3: ____________
C: ~AW↑ & ~AW↓ ==> Right

The only tricky part about teaching that question (which I can't recall teaching specifically) would be that most novices will diagram AW– or something similarly distinct from the premise elements for neutral welfare. So you have to teach them to diagram conclusions in the form of premises whenever possible.

(3) Well, I already had most of these skills, but I would say I definitely got a lot out of teaching. It's a fun test compared to, say, the MCAT. I don't think it would be all that great as a self-improvement tool, though. Without a tutor you won't always understand where you're screwing up, and some of the questions are sometimes tricky for the sake of being tricky. For instance, there may be a version of that question where the answer turns not on logic, but on one of the premises subtly leaving out the word "reasonably." Additionally, there really aren't that many different kinds of questions. Once you start looking at more than a few tests you will start to recognize lots of questions that are logical repeats with different subject matter, or maybe a reversed answer condition (which of the following is NOT implied versus which of the following IS). If all you want is to improve your logical reasoning personally, I'd just take the undergraduate logic courses.

Would you consider schedule C,

(C) Jamaica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Trinidad

to fail due to the following requirement?

Guadeloupe will be its destination in the week preceding any voyage it makes to Jamaica.

The language seems slightly ambiguous in the case where the trip to Jamaica is in the first week, but my guess is that they intended to rule that out.

Scott has some useful, if sobering, thoughts about this on his blog and I think I agree with him. He ends up positing that intrinsic motivation is more or less fixed and describes the whole process as a fascination lottery: there are certain things we find inherently interesting and motivating, and other things we could never really be interested in, even if we really really wanted to.

And my attempts to hack intrinsic motivation, which would be like a instant win condition for everything if I could achieve it, have been mostly unsuccessful and left me with severe doubt it is even possible. So I have pretty much given up on math.

...

But the thing is, I couldn’t choose to be interested in sports any more than I could choose to be interested in math or a huge sports fan could choose to be interested in psychology or a gay person could choose to be interested in women. I mean, there’s probably some wiggle room, maybe if I put a lot of effort into finding the most interesting sports and learning everything about them I could appreciate them a little. But would I have comparative advantage over the kid who memorized the stats of every pitcher in both leagues when he was 8? Barring getting hit by some kinda cosmic rays or something, I don’t think that’ll everhappen.

That being said, it seems a little defeatist. Perhaps there's some way to really choose your fascinations...

Hello. My name is Alex. I am the 10-year-old son of LessWrong user James_Miller.

I am very good at math for my age. I have read several of the books on rationality that my dad owns, and he convinced me to join this community. I like the idea of everyone in a community being honest because I often get into trouble at school for saying honest things that people don't like and talking back to adults(which seems like it's defined as not doing exactly what you're told.)

My favorite subject in school is math. At home, my interests are playing the video game Minecraft and doing origami, but I also like to read and play soccer.

I have much to learn in the art of rationality, such as finding more ways to be in flow. My dad tells me that there are a lot of people on this site who were like me as children, and I would love advice on how to be less bored in school, controlling my emotions, and finding ways to improve myself in general.

My name is Avi, and I'm 19.

I was similiar in some aspects to you when I was a kid, in particular being good at math (did calculus and programming at 12-13), getting in trouble, being bored in school, reading a lot, having trouble with emotions.

I hadn't had an explicitly rational upbringing, and only recently (9 months or so) got into it after a chance encounter with HPMOR.

I'll try to give advice on the things you asked. Bear in mind that I didn't actually try any of this when I was in school, it's mostly what I would advise my younger self if I had to do it over.

So, you mention being bored in school. There are at least three possible scenarios for that, which should be solved differently:

1. You have trouble concentrating or generating the will to concentrate on material that you don't know, but think is important.
2. You think the material being taught is unimportant and therefore don't care about paying attention.
3. You already know all or some of the material that is being taught.

I don't really have anything for 1 aside from the standard "force yourself to pay attention", maybe others can help.

For 3, you could consider asking (or having your parents ask) to be skipped a class, or ask to be allowed off, if you really know everything that is being taught. (I haven't taken any real math classes since sometime around 7th grade. I'd take out books from the library and just go through them. Also someone gave me a bunch of old Martin Gardner books about math, which are quite interesting if you can find them.)

If you absolutely must be in a class where you already know what's being taught, try finding math questions to think about that you can memorize, so you can work on them without looking like you're doing something else. Try http://brilliant.org/ , and find your level. You should be able to easily memorize a few questions each day, and work them out mentally throughout the day, perhaps writing down the answers during recess or something. I've done this myself sometimes, when I had to wait for a bus and it would be awkward to read something while waiting.

For 2, you should carefully consider how likely it is that you already know, at 10, what kinds of things are likely to be important, better than whoever planned your curriculum. If you really feel that way, respond and I'll come up with something for that, but I do think it's unlikely.

As an effect of action, time would be more like temperature, than space. Time is to temperature, what frequency is to amplitude. It is just that while amplitudes en mass expresses as temperature, frequency en mass expresses as noise and thus from a physicist's point of view, chaos and disorder. Therefore to measure time, only one oscillation is isolated and its frequency measured. Yet the overall effect of change is still cumulative, like temperature. It is potential, to actual, to residual. With time as an effect of action, we don't have to reject the present as a state of simultaneity, nor dismiss its inherent asymmetry, since the inertia of action is not bipolar. As action, a faster clock will simply use up its available energy faster and so fall into the past faster, or require more energy to sustain it. The tortoise is still plodding along, long after the hare has died.

Keep in mind that narrative and causal logic are based on this sequencing effect and therefore history and civilization. Yet it is not sequence of form which is causal, but transmission of energy. Yesterday doesn't cause today. The sun shining on a spinning planet creates this effect we who exist at one point on this planet experience as days. Thus we tend to rationalize narrative connections between events that are not always as clear as we think.

There are various philosophical debates around this issue, such as free will vs. determinism, yet if we look at it as future becoming past, it makes more sense, as probability precedes actuality. There is the classical deterministic argument that the laws of nature will provide only one course of action, determined by the eternal laws of nature, therefore the future must ultimately be as determined as the past, or the quantum Everrittian argument that the past remains as probabilistic as the future and so must branch out into multiworlds with every possibility. As for the first, while the laws might be fully deterministic, since information can only travel at a finite speed, the input into any event only arrives with the occurrence of that event and so cannot be fully known prior to it, therefore the outcome cannot be fully determined prior to the event. As for the Everritt view, while the wave doesn’t fully collapse, the past does not physically exist anyway and that energy is just being transmitted onto other events in the physical present and the connections that are made, simply divert the energy in other directions. Essentially the future is being woven from strands pulled from the past, in cosmic feedback loops.

To will is to determine. We put our intellectual capacities into distinguishing between alternatives and that process decides our actions. To simply randomly chose would be a complete lack of expression of will. We affect our external world, as it affects us. If that feedback didn’t exist, we would have no connection, or effect on our world. We are part of the process. Both cause and effect. It is these feedback loops which really power the process. Consider that in the factory, the creation of profits and jobs can be more important to some than the actual product. Reality is not fundamentally linear, as it is that tapestry being woven from strands pulled out of what been woven. It is energy, not form, which determines the future. Energy is cause, form is effect.

While western thought tends to objectivize and thus atomize every aspect, eastern thought tends to be more contextual, so while we in the west pride ourselves in being individualistic and eastern beliefs as more conformist, this quantification works to separate entities from context and so lose broader meaning. As a singular object, a brick is interchangeable with any other, but in context, it is unique in its place in the universe and supports the wall around it, giving meaning to it.

The wave also goes to the function of our brain. It is divided into two hemispheres, with the left being the linear rational/rationalizing side, while the right is the emotional, intuitive, non-linear, essentially scalar function. Think heat or pressure and how these concepts are often applied to our emotions. One side is a clock and the other is a thermostat. So one side reacts cumulatively with our environment, while the other side necessarily plots a course through it. This navigational function translates to narrative and explains why plants don't need that sequential strobe light of cognition and operate thermodynamically.

Basically I see reality is the dichotomy of energy and form. Energy manifests form and form defines energy. For instance, waves are an expression of energy whose primary descriptive properties are frequency and amplitude. We have evolved a central nervous system to process information, divided into those two hemispheres to process these two attributes and the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems to process the energy to thermally grow and dynamically move us.

Then at the universal level, there are galaxies, in which structure forms out of energy and falls inward, becoming ever more dense and radiating out enormous amounts of energy, which feeds back into more structure. It is a convection cycle of expanding energy and collapsing mass.

Meanwhile if space is stripped of all physical attributes, it simply retains the non-physical properties of infinity and equilibrium and so doesn't need a causal explanation. It is the absolute and the infinite.

None of which really explains the essential nature of awareness, so possibly we can accept it as an elemental axiom of nature, with thought and organisms as the form it manifests. Thus life constantly radiates onward, as the forms it manifests are born, live and die.

Admittedly I'm a bit cautious posting this, since I've covered a lot of topics in a short space and am mostly used to dealing with questions to only parts of this, so I suspect the immediate reaction, at least from my experience, is that it will be automatically rejected, as the tendency is to go into short circuit mode from tmi. But this site does promote logic over models, so here goes...

Ach! comment too long. Even the program doesn't like tmi. Try cutting it in half.

Regards, John Merryman

Thanks for the writeup, and an excellent article. Note that the students do still live together, in quasi-dorms - a smart move for motivation and for network-building. I believe the students are supposed to spend a significant amount of time in the other locations Minerva is opening around the world: a year here, a year there, and so on.

I find Minerva an exciting experiment. Law schools have a similar, if much lower-tech, philosophy about classes. In law school, ideally classes focus less on covering content (which you must do prior to class) and more on questioning and debating. This "Socratic method" often works less well in practice than in theory, but when done right it's far more exciting and stimulating than most undergraduate classes.

I got a 710 on the GMAT.

I went through an entire evening outing and did not drop the ball once socially- in every event, I successfully carried out all the steps of social interaction, from perfectly(or so I'd like to think) mimicking empathy, adopting correct facial expressions and words. I'd like to think that this is a huge step forward in my social training. One of the people that I went on an outing with even commented that he thought my social skills were improving greatly.