What Secondary School Maths and Science Taught Me
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Still waiting for your reply. Do you want to be friendly moving forward? Yes or no. I prefer yes. It's up to you. Silence=no.
Yeah, I think that should be more of a focus. I'm definitely not against students learning about physics and Shakespeare, I think those things are awesome for students who are interested in them. Reading Othello at 17 had a huge impact on me and I wouldn't have known how to read it if I hadn't been reading Shakespeare for years already. As a bookseller one of my most profoundly sad moments was teaching a gentleman of about 70 how to use annotations to understand the text in scholarly editions of Shakespeare, he had been desperately trying to obtain "No Fear" editions of texts he wanted to read that had never even been printed because he truly did not know how to approach annotations.
Sorry, I'm rambling. But yeah. Considering that I went through all that crap of which I hated absolutely every moment it's shocking how little knowledge I actually obtained. I was taught that it was me who was failing, but in a lot of ways it was the system failing me. Maybe more emphasis needed on learning to learn, less emphasis on getting actual knowledge.
Still no reply. Have it your way. We can agree to disagree if you do not want to put our drama behind us. But I will not engage with you moving forward. So if you continue to troll, you will be doing it for your own entertainment. Good bye.
... and that the wine tasted funny.
Maths and science taught me about the reality of the world/universe we live in. It's a pretty awesome place, worth studying.
Also, they dispel the notion that one can 'magic' solutions, but one can work at them in fields of engineering, medicine, chemistry, physics, etc. etc.
If it weren't for maths and science, we would be living caves. Even wooden huts require an understanding of geometry.
I learned from Secondary math, that you should feel inadequate in general, if can't do math problems with excellent precision. It's all about the right answer. My math teachers were usually very strict and had ridiculously high expectations. Embarrassing someone trying to solve a math problem when called to the board and pushed to get it right and show their working was common.
I learned from secondary science, that all you need is the basics of bio and chemistry to get along functionally well. You don't need to know every element on the periodic table to survive.
In other words, there was a poor understanding in teaching these subjects, that what was functionally required in terms of basic knowledge was not the same as what should be required if you're planning to specialize in the field. They seemed to expect everyone to operate at an advanced level.
I excelled in reading and literature. . . . I think.
But those weren't taken so seriously.
I learned from secondary science, that all you need is the basics of bio and chemistry to get along functionally well. You don't need to know every element on the periodic table to survive.
In other words, there was a poor understanding in teaching these subjects, that what was functionally required in terms of basic knowledge was not the same as what should be required if you're planning to specialize in the field. They seemed to expect everyone to operate at an advanced level.
I excelled in reading and literature. . . . I think.
But those weren't taken so seriously.
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Some people just don't want to learn. Am I one of them? No, I don't think so. I don't think that maths and science are unworthy of study. I don't think I'm out of touch with reality and believe that problems can be magiced away, either.
I'm very cautious about words like "reality". Usually when people talk about "reality" or "truth" what they're talking about is going through a process of excluding alternative realities and truths and preferring one very particular perspective on reality or truth. But rather, perspective is being lost. Other potential truths are disregarded, disrespected, especially the fuzzy wuzzy human elements, such as those sometimes called "subjectivity", that really can't be dealt with by sciences. But there have been plenty of evil scientists who have really fucked things up for humans because they refused to look outside the results they produced, which were correct but not right. Left to its own devices, science does not necessarily direct its efforts constructively. It's not inherently good. It's not the whole picture of truth or reality, just a part.
Truth is technically unobtainable in science. That's why a significant scientific outcome is not "hypothesis proven", but "hypothesis not disproven". Science does not actually purport to get at truth. But people forget that for some reason. They put science on a pedestal, they worship it as a sort of deity. In an exaggerated form, it goes like this: "As God is the source of Truth, so Science is God." That's not right.
Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein" is an early robot text, about the ethics of robotics. In cinema, so far as I have seen (adaptations of this work do not interest me) Frankenstein's creation is portrayed as a slow, lumbering, stupid sort of thing. The cultural representation of the creation arising from this is as a sort of walking corpse stitched together out of body parts. That's not what the novel is about at all and it has nothing remotely to do with that particular ethical dilemma. But unfortunately Frankenstein is just a work of art. It's denigrated by relation to science, dismissed as unworthy of study or even of reading, an object of pure leisure, because it is art. Meanwhile computer science proceeds rapidly. Robots keep on popping out, and whether people want to recognise it or not they're showing characteristics of thought. Science doesn't concern itself with that; just with making better robots.
No one needs to stick up for Science. It's doing just fine all on its own. What people need to do is interrogate science. Science doesn't mind. Science loves interrogation. So, for that matter, do other fields of academic study. Dismissing a field of study as magical, delusional, untruthful, a hobby or whatever is not interrogation. It's just dismissal.
I'm very cautious about words like "reality". Usually when people talk about "reality" or "truth" what they're talking about is going through a process of excluding alternative realities and truths and preferring one very particular perspective on reality or truth. But rather, perspective is being lost. Other potential truths are disregarded, disrespected, especially the fuzzy wuzzy human elements, such as those sometimes called "subjectivity", that really can't be dealt with by sciences. But there have been plenty of evil scientists who have really fucked things up for humans because they refused to look outside the results they produced, which were correct but not right. Left to its own devices, science does not necessarily direct its efforts constructively. It's not inherently good. It's not the whole picture of truth or reality, just a part.
Truth is technically unobtainable in science. That's why a significant scientific outcome is not "hypothesis proven", but "hypothesis not disproven". Science does not actually purport to get at truth. But people forget that for some reason. They put science on a pedestal, they worship it as a sort of deity. In an exaggerated form, it goes like this: "As God is the source of Truth, so Science is God." That's not right.
Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein" is an early robot text, about the ethics of robotics. In cinema, so far as I have seen (adaptations of this work do not interest me) Frankenstein's creation is portrayed as a slow, lumbering, stupid sort of thing. The cultural representation of the creation arising from this is as a sort of walking corpse stitched together out of body parts. That's not what the novel is about at all and it has nothing remotely to do with that particular ethical dilemma. But unfortunately Frankenstein is just a work of art. It's denigrated by relation to science, dismissed as unworthy of study or even of reading, an object of pure leisure, because it is art. Meanwhile computer science proceeds rapidly. Robots keep on popping out, and whether people want to recognise it or not they're showing characteristics of thought. Science doesn't concern itself with that; just with making better robots.
No one needs to stick up for Science. It's doing just fine all on its own. What people need to do is interrogate science. Science doesn't mind. Science loves interrogation. So, for that matter, do other fields of academic study. Dismissing a field of study as magical, delusional, untruthful, a hobby or whatever is not interrogation. It's just dismissal.
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Funny you mention this. The other day I re-taught myself to do the sort of maths that any older baby boomer would surely know how to do: long division, long multiplication, long addition, long subtraction. I think I've forgotten already...
I had such a phobia of math and sciences that I evaded at all costs. I was triumphant in my linear course through the humanities. Even smug. Then I felt a little regret. Then I felt truly embarrassed by my lack of knowledge. Then I realized I felt left out. Now I am all over that shit.
Get a large magnifying glass, go outside and focus the sunlight to a point on any part of your body that has sensation. If you do this, when the Sun is clearly visible, and closer to being directly overhead, than at the horizon, it will hurt, and/or burn,regardless of your ideas about the Sun and about light. Poetry and philosophy cannot change this reality.
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You must think I'm very silly not to know that I would hurt myself that way! I'm not hurt by the possibility of you thinking that about me however, because I understand that you are not able to apprehend my mind.
What you are describing is not a test for the existence of "reality", but a test of the actions of a particular phenomena in the world that is observable to humans.
"Reality" is more of a philosophical concept. Whether or not it's "there" and what it "consists of" can't be scientifically tested. Therefore science can't make claims about it that are able to satisfy scientific requirements of validation.
Agreed. I try to discuss metaphysics in the merkabeh thread. There is a bunch of cool stuff there. Check it out.
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Perhaps someone ought to try meditation or psychedelics instead of using a magnifying glass in order to learn about reality.
Some dead guy said one just needs to be aware of all the things one don't know (or something like that).