Re:Can progressives be convinced that genetics matters?
by imtringued on Tuesday September 07, 2021 @04:52AM
(#28442514)
>Math notation is very consistent and it’s optimized for convenience.
Hard disagree. The most important thing I learned is that it is all made up on the spot to the point that the lecture material explicitly says that books have used 6 different forms of notation for the exact same concept. When you understand that you drop any pretense of "design" in the notation. That helps you abandon foolish ideas that it is "consistent" and that the only thing it is optimized for is the author. When you understand that then it's just a meaningless barrier to overcome but it also becomes easy to overcome precisely because it is that trivial. You just get used to it and e.g. learn the alphabets of the dozen languages (including klingon because the lecturer had to make that joke) from which the variable names where sourced from. Once you did the meaningless grind the barriers are gone.
> People who complain about notation usually actually have problem with the substance, and the complaints about notation is just a coping mechanism, to deny hurtful reality that one can’t understand something hard, blaming external factors instead.
No it is quite simple. You can't understand an easy or hard concept if you can't read it. I still remember how I understood nothing in the first semester. Then when I was preparing for the exam everything was extremely easy because the notation was understood by that point.
>If you have some concrete suggestions about mathematical notation, ways it could be improved in more than superficial manner, I (and the rest of mathematical community) is very much open to hear them.
As I already said that is meaningless because there is no universal notation. "The mathematical community" will adopt a fraction of proposals and further splinter into separate "factions".
Hard disagree. The most important thing I learned is that it is all made up on the spot to the point that the lecture material explicitly says that books have used 6 different forms of notation for the exact same concept. When you understand that you drop any pretense of "design" in the notation. That helps you abandon foolish ideas that it is "consistent" and that the only thing it is optimized for is the author. When you understand that then it's just a meaningless barrier to overcome but it also becomes easy to overcome precisely because it is that trivial. You just get used to it and e.g. learn the alphabets of the dozen languages (including klingon because the lecturer had to make that joke) from which the variable names where sourced from. Once you did the meaningless grind the barriers are gone.
> People who complain about notation usually actually have problem with the substance, and the complaints about notation is just a coping mechanism, to deny hurtful reality that one can’t understand something hard, blaming external factors instead.
No it is quite simple. You can't understand an easy or hard concept if you can't read it. I still remember how I understood nothing in the first semester. Then when I was preparing for the exam everything was extremely easy because the notation was understood by that point.
>If you have some concrete suggestions about mathematical notation, ways it could be improved in more than superficial manner, I (and the rest of mathematical community) is very much open to hear them.
As I already said that is meaningless because there is no universal notation. "The mathematical community" will adopt a fraction of proposals and further splinter into separate "factions".