pure-awesome
84
20
pure-awesome has not written any posts yet.
pure-awesome has not written any posts yet.
I find that what helps for me is re-writing maths as I'm learning it.
When I glance at an equation or formula (especially an unfamiliar one), I usually can't take it in because my mind is trying to glance it all at once. I have to force myself to scan it slowly, either by re-writing it, writing out its definition, or by (holding a ruler under it) and scanning one symbol at a time.
Then again, I'm currently studying a postgraduate degree in maths and I'm not someone who's ever considered themselves 'bad at math'.
This comment resonates with me. I am also a Christian-turned-Atheist.
When something bad happens, or I feel in danger, or I don't know what to do, usually I want to send up a prayer. Then I have to catch myself and remember that yeah, that's not going to help.
last paragraph teaches false lesson on cleverness
What exactly do you believe the false lesson to be and why do you think it's false?
I interpreted it as meaning one should take into account your prior for whether someone with a gambling machine is telling the truth about how the machine works.
So much for "the map is not the territory", I guess.
That's a useful template and in some cases the advice...
This may vary somewhat with the audience and I believe the claim...
Note, that I did notice the change. I do think that to facilitate proper understanding of a sentence, 'but' should be used slightly differently from 'and', even if both are technically correct.
So, Viliam_Bur, do I understand correctly?
You are saying the major tradeoff isn't between:
It is between:
(The costs-benefit calculation is a long-term one performed over all potential situations, not a short-term one performed over each specific situation)
I agree; this makes sense to me.
In certain cases, bluntness can be useful. However, by this I mean it can be useful if you are able to let people be blunt to you. See Crocker's Rules and the related article on Radical Honesty.
If everyone in a certain social context operate on such a system (whether explicitly or implicitly), then there is some benefit to these people in terms of saving time and cognitive effort in the short term, and in the long term if they haven't yet spent time on developing 'politeness'.
I also recall reading 'and', if not in that book then in one on a similar topic.
I believe the basic format for using 'and' is: "I believe X is good, and it could be even better if you did Y".
Contrast:
(Note: The one with 'yet' sounds a bit awkward to me, I'm not sure I know how... (read more)
I'm not sure Twelve Virtues of Rationality is the best place to start. To be honest, I was a bit confused reading it the first time, and it only made sense to me after I had spent some time on lesswrong getting used to Eliezer's writing-style.
For myself (as I know it was for many others), I got here via Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. I'd say it's a great place to start many people off, but perhaps not the majority. Along with that, what got me convinced to start reading lesswrong was my interest in biases and importantly being convinced that I, myself, am biased.
Thus I would propose one starts... (read more)
Relevant to this topic: Keith Johnstone's 'Masks'. It would be better to read the relevant section in his book "Impro" for the whole story (I got it at my university library) but this collection of quotes followed by this video should give enough of an introduction.
The idea is that while the people wear these masks, they are able to become a character with a personality different from the actor's original. The actor doesn't feel as if they are controlling the character. That being said, it doesn't happen immediately: It can take a few sessions for the actor to get the feel for the thing. The other thing is that the Masks usually have to learn to talk (albeit at an advanced pace) eventually taking on the vocabulary of their host. It's very interesting reading, to say the least.
My masters degree involved a good bit of category theory. Personally, I don't see how it has any use outside of mathematics. (Note 'maths' includes 'mathematical logic' - so it's still a broad field of applicability).
I am highly motivated to be persuaded otherwise, and hence will be watching this series of posts with keen interest.
---
<disclaimer>
I am not a working mathematician, and have not published any papers. My masters thesis involved a lot of category theory - but only relatively simple category-theoretic concepts (it was an application of category theory to a subfield of mathematical logic).
Limits, free objects, adjunctions, natural transformations etc. but not higher-order categories, topoi/toposes or... (read more)