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Interesting. I'm surprised to hear people can effectively think about code in a language at all. Code is an abstraction of an essentially physical process (the

Interesting. I'm surprised to hear people can effectively think about code in a language at all. Code is an abstraction of an essentially physical process (the computer doing things) so it seems rather odd to think about the problem at one level removed. I don't think in language generally unless I am intending to speak to someone. I tend to think in terms of motion through a physical space. Imagine yourself playing tennis and feeling your motion across the court. The algorithms in my head work the same way. All the pieces are sort of thrown on a table and I feel the paths between them, the 'forces' of contention and flow. The closest I've seen to describing it is when really advanced chess players talk about how they see the chess board as lines of force and weight.

justin_vanw 17y ago
Aha, someone else. I would describe it as sortof pressure and stuff in there, like I'm feeling my way through a dark room and 'seeing' as I work the problem around in my head. All these people who say 'english' or something like that, how do you live? I would go insane after a day of that, it would be so slow and imprecise and completely misleading. Here is another thing, tell me if this is true of you: I can't understand anything about how to solve a problem if I don't know completely 'understand' the context. In other words, I took several years of experimental physics at University, but it was totally bewildering to me. I understood the experiments perfectly (I mean, they aren't anything complex at that level), I understood the apparatus, I understood the mathematics and so on and on. At some point in every experiment, however, you had to decide whether your data supported or did not support the hypothesis. This is usually pretty obvious, but you were supposed to support it using chi-squared calculations and other statistical measurements of how well the data fits the hypothesis. I hadn't taken any statistics courses, so it seemed totally opaque and impossible to me to do this. I could never figure out what equation to use, or how to do it. I could follow step by step in the workbook and if I did so I would get a fine grade, but I was literally looking at the equations every 3 seconds as I worked the problem out. Anyway, I looked up the stuff in a statistics text, read the proofs and explanations of all the things I needed to understand, and suddenly it all made sense at once and I never had to refer back to anything. Once it 'clicks' everything is clear, like someone turned the light on in a dark room, before it 'clicks' I feel like I am suffocating.
- eldenbishop 17y ago
  I do feel something similar in that I can't really apply a bunch of rules to something. One of the disadvantages of not thinking in language is that I think it is very difficult to just apply a rule or formula to your thought process when you don't fundamentally understand what the formula is doing at a deeper level. If your models are not being stored in your head as language abstractions, you can't really apply a language abstracted formula to it. Another related problem is that I essentially have no memory for the things other people memorize with ease. I memorize concepts, motions and relationships but I cannot memorize 'labels' at all. I do not know my own phone number for example (2 years with my current one). So yes, I think trivial understanding is difficult with this model because you cannot just catalog a bunch of stock responses and rules for dealing with a certain topic, but deep understanding is far easier because you are not abstracting the underlying principals in a layer of obfuscation, the mental model is a simulation of the system rather than a description. I was useless in calculus until I started visualizing everything in terms of momentum and volume changing over time. Then it started to work. When it was memorize and record, I was useless. But once you have an actual model in your mind instead of a bunch of rules you can just derive the algorithms yourself (or at least get close enough to remember the right one)
  - justin_vanw 17y ago
    As far as I can tell we have the same thing going on in our heads. Anecdote: In physics class (I was a physics major for awhile, so it was a 'real' physics class) there was what I guess was a very complex problem. The professor posed the problem and asked 'how do we solve this', and I raised my hand and told him the integral. It took me about 10 seconds or so f talking to say the entire equation. It blew everyone's mind, but it was really obvious if you could see it. I don't mean to brag, but if I was trying to think it through like socrates in a dialog I would have taken a week.

justin_vanw 17y ago

Aha, someone else. I would describe it as sortof pressure and stuff in there, like I'm feeling my way through a dark room and 'seeing' as I work the problem around in my head. All these people who say 'english' or something like that, how do you live? I would go insane after a day of that, it would be so slow and imprecise and completely misleading. Here is another thing, tell me if this is true of you: I can't understand anything about how to solve a problem if I don't know completely 'understand' the context. In other words, I took several years of experimental physics at University, but it was totally bewildering to me. I understood the experiments perfectly (I mean, they aren't anything complex at that level), I understood the apparatus, I understood the mathematics and so on and on. At some point in every experiment, however, you had to decide whether your data supported or did not support the hypothesis. This is usually pretty obvious, but you were supposed to support it using chi-squared calculations and other statistical measurements of how well the data fits the hypothesis. I hadn't taken any statistics courses, so it seemed totally opaque and impossible to me to do this. I could never figure out what equation to use, or how to do it. I could follow step by step in the workbook and if I did so I would get a fine grade, but I was literally looking at the equations every 3 seconds as I worked the problem out. Anyway, I looked up the stuff in a statistics text, read the proofs and explanations of all the things I needed to understand, and suddenly it all made sense at once and I never had to refer back to anything. Once it 'clicks' everything is clear, like someone turned the light on in a dark room, before it 'clicks' I feel like I am suffocating.

eldenbishop 17y ago
I do feel something similar in that I can't really apply a bunch of rules to something. One of the disadvantages of not thinking in language is that I think it is very difficult to just apply a rule or formula to your thought process when you don't fundamentally understand what the formula is doing at a deeper level. If your models are not being stored in your head as language abstractions, you can't really apply a language abstracted formula to it. Another related problem is that I essentially have no memory for the things other people memorize with ease. I memorize concepts, motions and relationships but I cannot memorize 'labels' at all. I do not know my own phone number for example (2 years with my current one). So yes, I think trivial understanding is difficult with this model because you cannot just catalog a bunch of stock responses and rules for dealing with a certain topic, but deep understanding is far easier because you are not abstracting the underlying principals in a layer of obfuscation, the mental model is a simulation of the system rather than a description. I was useless in calculus until I started visualizing everything in terms of momentum and volume changing over time. Then it started to work. When it was memorize and record, I was useless. But once you have an actual model in your mind instead of a bunch of rules you can just derive the algorithms yourself (or at least get close enough to remember the right one)
- justin_vanw 17y ago
  As far as I can tell we have the same thing going on in our heads. Anecdote: In physics class (I was a physics major for awhile, so it was a 'real' physics class) there was what I guess was a very complex problem. The professor posed the problem and asked 'how do we solve this', and I raised my hand and told him the integral. It took me about 10 seconds or so f talking to say the entire equation. It blew everyone's mind, but it was really obvious if you could see it. I don't mean to brag, but if I was trying to think it through like socrates in a dialog I would have taken a week.