2 ms·

If you're like me, of average intelligence and not an abstract thinker, I don't believe any maths book can replace a human until you have a pretty solid experie

If you're like me, of average intelligence and not an abstract thinker, I don't believe any maths book can replace a human until you have a pretty solid experience & background established. There's too many ways to misinterpret what's being said, or just not 'get' it. One needs another mind. IME anyway.

mindcrime 4y ago
If you're like me, of average intelligence and not an abstract thinker, I don't believe any maths book can replace a human I don't disagree, but what's the alternative if one doesn't have a human instructor available? Reading books and asking questions on the Internet is one of the few remaining options. About the only option I can think of is to seek out recorded video lectures of a human lecturer teaching. The downside is that it's not interactive and you can't ask questions for further clarification, but at least you get to hear somebody explaining the material. The good news is, vis-a-vis recorded lectures, between Khan Academy, Youtube, etc., there's a TON of material out there, and quite a bit of it is pretty high quality.
- zasdffaa 4y ago
  > but what's the alternative if one doesn't have a human instructor available? My point is, there isn't one. Modelling the student's thought processes is essential. Maybe GPT could be trained to emulate such? But there are some solutions such as book publishers not uncritically accepting an author's braindump as being the last word, but putting it in front of people to see what how they interpret it and where they get lost etc and feeding that back into the writing process, a few rounds of that and it'll be much better. I really wish they did that, the quality of so many maths books make them little better than lecture notes.
  - mindcrime 4y ago
    My point is, there isn't one. So a person who's interested in math but doesn't have a teacher handy should just give up?
    - zasdffaa 4y ago
      The universe won't bend to what a person needs and deliver it. Many people truly deserve better than they have but never get it. Maybe you can find an answer, I can't.
      - mindcrime 4y ago
        It is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself Maybe if the universe won't bend and deliver us we want/deserve, we need to bend and accept a form of satisficing[1]. Eg, if I want an instructor to learn math (optimal case) but one is not available, then I go buy a stack of books, find some relevant Youtube videos, and find a reddit forum or something similar to ask questions, and dive in and do my best. Is that "as good"? No. But is it "good enough"? Well, maybe. That's obviously a personal choice, but my argument is only that for some people the answer is "yes, teaching yourself from books and other resources is a satisficing choice given the absence of other preferred choices." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

mindcrime 4y ago

If you're like me, of average intelligence and not an abstract thinker, I don't believe any maths book can replace a human I don't disagree, but what's the alternative if one doesn't have a human instructor available? Reading books and asking questions on the Internet is one of the few remaining options. About the only option I can think of is to seek out recorded video lectures of a human lecturer teaching. The downside is that it's not interactive and you can't ask questions for further clarification, but at least you get to hear somebody explaining the material. The good news is, vis-a-vis recorded lectures, between Khan Academy, Youtube, etc., there's a TON of material out there, and quite a bit of it is pretty high quality.

zasdffaa 4y ago
> but what's the alternative if one doesn't have a human instructor available? My point is, there isn't one. Modelling the student's thought processes is essential. Maybe GPT could be trained to emulate such? But there are some solutions such as book publishers not uncritically accepting an author's braindump as being the last word, but putting it in front of people to see what how they interpret it and where they get lost etc and feeding that back into the writing process, a few rounds of that and it'll be much better. I really wish they did that, the quality of so many maths books make them little better than lecture notes.
- mindcrime 4y ago
  My point is, there isn't one. So a person who's interested in math but doesn't have a teacher handy should just give up?
  - zasdffaa 4y ago
    The universe won't bend to what a person needs and deliver it. Many people truly deserve better than they have but never get it. Maybe you can find an answer, I can't.
    - mindcrime 4y ago
      It is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself Maybe if the universe won't bend and deliver us we want/deserve, we need to bend and accept a form of satisficing[1]. Eg, if I want an instructor to learn math (optimal case) but one is not available, then I go buy a stack of books, find some relevant Youtube videos, and find a reddit forum or something similar to ask questions, and dive in and do my best. Is that "as good"? No. But is it "good enough"? Well, maybe. That's obviously a personal choice, but my argument is only that for some people the answer is "yes, teaching yourself from books and other resources is a satisficing choice given the absence of other preferred choices." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing