3 ms·

True. But even with the best teachers for every field, math or sport will filter out people way more harshly, and sooner, than any other field. You can smooth

True. But even with the best teachers for every field, math or sport will filter out people way more harshly, and sooner, than any other field. You can smooth things out with quality teaching, but there is a human hardware limit, and you reach it sooner with those two. Many people don't like to hear it because their ego is bruised or because it goes against the idea that "everybody can do anything". This is wrong. Birds fly, fishes swim. There is nothing bad about either.

CodeSgt 3y ago
> This is wrong. Birds fly, fishes swim. There is nothing bad about either. I have a hard time with this mentality. I would have agreed a few years ago perhaps, and do still agree that we all have our own aptitudes, but the level of absolution in a statement like this just isn’t really quite as applicable to humans in my opinion. There are things I never thought I’d be capable of that I’ve recently begun to excel at. What I thought was a hardware limit turned out to just bug in my psycho-software that needed a patch. Obviously at the extreme end’s of the spectrum, the human hardware limit is very real. But for most (healthy) people, engaging in most activities, I believe that any perceived immutable barriers or obstacles are almost entirely psychological.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  > I believe that any perceived immutable barriers or obstacles are almost entirely psychological. Laws of physics are laws of physics. And biology is applied physics. People in sport have known that for a long time. You can train as much as Usain Bolt, he still has a huge advantage. Thinking the other human characteristics are not affected by this is weird. You will never be Von Neumann, no matter how much you spend in the class room. It's not that training has no effect, it does, a lot. Yet this doesn't remove the fact we have a variability between individual. And there is not a tipping point, it's a spectrum for each characteristic. It turns out math exhibit some early barrier in that spectrum. There is nothing wrong with that.
  - jameshart 3y ago
    Nobody is claiming that 100% of people can be trained to run a 100m in 9.58s. But there is some number of seconds which 90% of people can be trained to run 100m below. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a much lower number than you think. Likewise not 100% of people can develop the mathematical horsepower of Von Neumann. But 90% of people can attain some level of proficiency in higher mathematical concepts… how high a level would that be? Higher than most high schools aim I would suspect.
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      I don't disagree with any of this, I'm just stating math is a topic that shows the limits of people quicker in the curriculum than other fields.
  - greatwave1 3y ago
    There's a big difference between edge cases like Usain Bolt and Von Neumann, and the barriers that most people actually run into. The vast majority of people are not biologically incapable of making it through high-school level math, or even becoming a very capable mathematician with enough high-quality teaching and dedication.
    - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
      Just using the extremum to show there is a difference. The difference is not limited to the extremes. Why would it be? Hence spectrum. And math meet people early in the spectrum. EDIT: thread limit reached, so I can't answer down there. But in short, it's a HN comment, not a study. But I've been in 11 schools in my life. Some private ones with their own church inside, some for special kids, some for poor kids with a higher degree of violence. I saw it again and again. The average math teacher is not worse than any other teachers. But the first field kids have a hard time is more often math than other fields. In fact, kids that are good at math usually can do ok in any other, even if not great. The reverse is not necessarily true. At this point I'm just repeating the argument in the other comments.
jameshart 3y ago
Different humans (in the 90th percentile at least, to eliminate the extreme outliers) are not equipped so vastly differently for mathematics or athletic activity as fish and birds. Thinking that some people can fly and some can swim and that’s just that seems very reductive.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  Indeed. After all, this is an HN comment, not a white paper. It comes with the usual caveat.
sublinear 3y ago
I wasn't the best math student in school and there was a lot I didn't fully understand back then, but I eventually learned it all and more as I got older. I know I'm not the only one. It seems more like a function of time and effort than a "human hardware limit".
TeMPOraL 3y ago
> You can smooth things out with quality teaching, but there is a human hardware limit, and you reach it sooner with those two. Shmaybe. But I doubt many people ever approach it. What they hit is, instead, a "software lockout" - a limit of the kind that some hardware vendors (such as those making oscilloscopes or farming machines) put in their products, where the hardware is already there, but its capability is restricted in software, and you need to pay to have the restrictions lifted. If you'd seen me as a kid, you'd say I am one of those people with rather low "hardware limit" when it comes to math. But then, when I was around 13, that limit suddenly shot up so high and so fast, it may as well have disappeared. What happened? I started to learn to code, with an intent to make videgames. Eventually I reached the point when I was trying to figure out how to rotate some sprites, and made a mental connection between what I want (understanding how to implement rotating images) and what I was taught at school (trigonometry). Immediately, math switched from being something I had to learn, and became something I wanted to learn. So, what you'd think was a severe hardware limit, was actually a purely software one - and it went away the moment I found the magic unlock code (which, in my case, was "find something that makes math seem relevant and exciting, instead of a bullshit chore"). And yes, I'll admit that I do have a hardware limit relevant here - most kids do well at math without having to find a motivational "cheat code", but people like me, with impaired executive functions, can't naturally power through bullshit, and need workarounds to keep up. But this is a different kind of limit. It's also one we're getting increasingly good at understanding, recognizing and overcoming, and it teaches us that what you see as hardware skill limit, may just be a software limit induced by another problem. Or, in short, if someone told the twelve year old me the things you wrote here today, it would have derailed my life. Fortunately, nobody did, and this lazy and dumb-ish kid ended up handling undergrad-level math perfectly fine.

CodeSgt 3y ago

> This is wrong. Birds fly, fishes swim. There is nothing bad about either. I have a hard time with this mentality. I would have agreed a few years ago perhaps, and do still agree that we all have our own aptitudes, but the level of absolution in a statement like this just isn’t really quite as applicable to humans in my opinion. There are things I never thought I’d be capable of that I’ve recently begun to excel at. What I thought was a hardware limit turned out to just bug in my psycho-software that needed a patch. Obviously at the extreme end’s of the spectrum, the human hardware limit is very real. But for most (healthy) people, engaging in most activities, I believe that any perceived immutable barriers or obstacles are almost entirely psychological.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
> I believe that any perceived immutable barriers or obstacles are almost entirely psychological. Laws of physics are laws of physics. And biology is applied physics. People in sport have known that for a long time. You can train as much as Usain Bolt, he still has a huge advantage. Thinking the other human characteristics are not affected by this is weird. You will never be Von Neumann, no matter how much you spend in the class room. It's not that training has no effect, it does, a lot. Yet this doesn't remove the fact we have a variability between individual. And there is not a tipping point, it's a spectrum for each characteristic. It turns out math exhibit some early barrier in that spectrum. There is nothing wrong with that.
- jameshart 3y ago
  Nobody is claiming that 100% of people can be trained to run a 100m in 9.58s. But there is some number of seconds which 90% of people can be trained to run 100m below. And it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a much lower number than you think. Likewise not 100% of people can develop the mathematical horsepower of Von Neumann. But 90% of people can attain some level of proficiency in higher mathematical concepts… how high a level would that be? Higher than most high schools aim I would suspect.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    I don't disagree with any of this, I'm just stating math is a topic that shows the limits of people quicker in the curriculum than other fields.
- greatwave1 3y ago
  There's a big difference between edge cases like Usain Bolt and Von Neumann, and the barriers that most people actually run into. The vast majority of people are not biologically incapable of making it through high-school level math, or even becoming a very capable mathematician with enough high-quality teaching and dedication.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    Just using the extremum to show there is a difference. The difference is not limited to the extremes. Why would it be? Hence spectrum. And math meet people early in the spectrum. EDIT: thread limit reached, so I can't answer down there. But in short, it's a HN comment, not a study. But I've been in 11 schools in my life. Some private ones with their own church inside, some for special kids, some for poor kids with a higher degree of violence. I saw it again and again. The average math teacher is not worse than any other teachers. But the first field kids have a hard time is more often math than other fields. In fact, kids that are good at math usually can do ok in any other, even if not great. The reverse is not necessarily true. At this point I'm just repeating the argument in the other comments.

jameshart 3y ago

Different humans (in the 90th percentile at least, to eliminate the extreme outliers) are not equipped so vastly differently for mathematics or athletic activity as fish and birds. Thinking that some people can fly and some can swim and that’s just that seems very reductive.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
Indeed. After all, this is an HN comment, not a white paper. It comes with the usual caveat.

sublinear 3y ago

I wasn't the best math student in school and there was a lot I didn't fully understand back then, but I eventually learned it all and more as I got older. I know I'm not the only one. It seems more like a function of time and effort than a "human hardware limit".

TeMPOraL 3y ago

> You can smooth things out with quality teaching, but there is a human hardware limit, and you reach it sooner with those two. Shmaybe. But I doubt many people ever approach it. What they hit is, instead, a "software lockout" - a limit of the kind that some hardware vendors (such as those making oscilloscopes or farming machines) put in their products, where the hardware is already there, but its capability is restricted in software, and you need to pay to have the restrictions lifted. If you'd seen me as a kid, you'd say I am one of those people with rather low "hardware limit" when it comes to math. But then, when I was around 13, that limit suddenly shot up so high and so fast, it may as well have disappeared. What happened? I started to learn to code, with an intent to make videgames. Eventually I reached the point when I was trying to figure out how to rotate some sprites, and made a mental connection between what I want (understanding how to implement rotating images) and what I was taught at school (trigonometry). Immediately, math switched from being something I had to learn, and became something I wanted to learn. So, what you'd think was a severe hardware limit, was actually a purely software one - and it went away the moment I found the magic unlock code (which, in my case, was "find something that makes math seem relevant and exciting, instead of a bullshit chore"). And yes, I'll admit that I do have a hardware limit relevant here - most kids do well at math without having to find a motivational "cheat code", but people like me, with impaired executive functions, can't naturally power through bullshit, and need workarounds to keep up. But this is a different kind of limit. It's also one we're getting increasingly good at understanding, recognizing and overcoming, and it teaches us that what you see as hardware skill limit, may just be a software limit induced by another problem. Or, in short, if someone told the twelve year old me the things you wrote here today, it would have derailed my life. Fortunately, nobody did, and this lazy and dumb-ish kid ended up handling undergrad-level math perfectly fine.