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All of Данило Глинський's Comments + Replies

Numeracy neglect - A personal postmortem
Данило Глинський30

We're humans, maths is hard for everyone

 

This is false, there are a few genius mathematician who early in childhood proved it is easy for some humans.

I think the whole thing revolves around mental models

Exactly! There is even more specific concept in programming psychology, it is called "notional machines". Small little machines in your head which can interpret using rules. 

I think those also can transfer to math learning, as after rule-based machines concept is grasped, all the algorithmic, iterative, replacable and transitive concepts from math start making sense.

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1Dale Udall
  Some outliers are hypernumerate. I'm hyperlexic, so attuned to words that I was able to teach myself to read before my childhood amnesia kicked in, so I never had to learn phonics. This doesn't mean the vast majority of humans aren't congenitally literate or numerate. OP's statement may be nominally false, but the exception proves the rule. As for teaching the aesthetic beauty of math, I would give each student their own blank copy of the 10x10 multiplication table (with a zeros row and column, making it 11x11) at the start of grade 2, and teach them how to fill it in themselves. After that, they can use it in any math class that semester, but they have to make a new one at the start of each semester after that. The inherent laziness of humanity will drive them to "cheat" by copying from lines above: filling in half the 4's from the 2's, half the 8's from the 4's, half the 6's from the 3's, and so on. And while they're doing that, they're learning in an indelible way.
Numeracy neglect - A personal postmortem
Данило Глинський30

Good stuff, though I'd like to point on some of your reflections.

> Part of it was due to laziness. I was a fast reader and had an excellent memory. This allowed me to excel in most subjects without much work. In contrast, numerate subjects required more dedication and systematic study.

It is important you say "laziness". Usually laziness is about taking less energy-demanding activity across lots of choices. So it looks like "solving problems" was energy-demanding for you, but other activities were not. Whenever you had to solve problems, it felt "tough",... (read more)

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2vlad.proex
Thank you for your questions, they're proving very useful. I'm not sure this is the case. We're humans, maths is hard for everyone. I imagine it's more about developing an ethics of work early on and being willing to delay gratification and experience unpleasant sensations for the purpose of learning something valuable. Though of course it takes a basic level of intelligence to find motivation in intellectual work. And there needs to be some specific motivation as well, i.e. math is beautiful, or math is useful. As for the other questions... You may be getting closer than me at hitting the target here. I think the comparison between GPT-3 talk, where nothing is wrong, and "manipulation", is central. I think the whole thing revolves around mental models. Programming "clicks" when the stuff that you do with the code suddenly turns into a coherent mental model, so that you can even predict the result of an operation that you haven't tried before. I became better at programming after watching a few theoretical computer science classes, because I was more proficient at building mental models of how the different systems worked. Likewise, maths clicks when you move from applying syntactical rules to building mental models of mathematical objects. It's easier to build mental models with programming, because the models that you're working with are instantiated on a physical support that you can interact with. And because it's harder to fool yourself and easier to get feedback. If you screw up, the computer will stop working and tell you. If you screw up with pen and paper, you might not even realize it. This is not the whole story, but it's a bit closer to what I meant to say.
Puzzle Games
Данило Глинський30

One of latest games I am really-really fond of, is QED (though it was just me, my friend didn't enjoy it). From OPs list I've played Portal and Braid, and while those are visually interesting, they weren't enough hard to make me happy. But QED had.

> Who developed it/What other things they developed
It was written by Terrence Tao, a brilliant modern mathematician, exactly to explain math logic to layman.

> What platforms it is on/When it came out
Purely web-based, completely free.

> If there are (good) Sequels/Prequels/DLC
It had one sequel (FOL and pre... (read more)

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1[comment deleted]
Is Rationalist Self-Improvement Real?
Данило Глинський20

I’d say, it is very strange how different people understand same words differently. Originally I thought that those 2 activities are in same category, but now that I read your explanations, shouldn’t I adjust my “categorization” heuristics? Who’s wrong here?

This issue seems small compared to original topic, but how can we improve anything, if we don’t speak same language and don’t know what’s right and who’s wrong?

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Your intuitions are not magic
Данило Глинський10
Yet in general, if people are asked about the relative number of restaurants in various fast-food chains, their estimates generally bear a close relation to the truth.

The link is broken. Is it this article https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-18641-001 ?

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