Re: LOGO-L> Re: Why is accurate thinking so unpopular?

[Bob Gorman <bgorman@kncell.org>]

Graham,

At 05:29 PM 12/28/98 -0800, you wrote:

>

>Wow what esoteric stuff. First of all let's not forget that we all think,

>all of the time. That part of the thinking process called conscious thought is

>just one small bit.

I agree we all think, and in many different ways and modalities. A few years

ago I had counted up over 40 different ways of "thinking". Also, I agree

that most everyone has one or a few areas in which they "think" very

carefully and accurately. Listen to a group of sports fans exchange not only

facts and statistics, but hunches, strategic reasoning, etc. Or some chefs,

professional or amateur, talk about recipes, freshness of foods, etc. Indeed

listen to almost anyone talk about their hobbies, their passions, and you

will find precision, accuracy, wholeness, tradition and adventure!

When I talk about the unpopularity of accurate thinking, I am referring more

to the areas of education, government, politics, religion, etc. I have heard

people argue eloquently about their favorite sport for hours, making fine

distinctions, weighted judgements, etc. and then when asked about education,

my primary interest, or several of the others listed above, they snap into a

black-white, all-nothing, good-bad, right-wrong way of thinking, which I

would, from my own biased perspective, call non-thinking.

>Do programming languages help you think? Do some programming

>languages help you think better than others?

In general, I believe most programming languages encourage accurate thinking

because they force you to be specific. In software, vague generalities have

a new name - bugs!

>I live in Japan and when I began learning Japanese I read in many

>introducions to

>Japanese courses that said Japanese was more ambiguous than English. This is

>complete nonsence! The confusion arises because the languages differ in

>what each

>considers important. In a similar way computer programming languages differ.

I certainly agree, easy-difficult, ambiguous-clear, etc. are individual and

cultural issues.

When a subject is broken down into hierarchies and sequences of ideas and

then presented in multiple learning modalities to students who want to learn

them, orders of magnitude improvements can be achieved!

I have overcome, not hidden or compensated for, several learning

"challenges" (they are only disabilities if you do nothing about them, and

that is a choice!). I learned Trigonometry in 3 days, and have taught it in a

week not 6 months. If the computer industry can turn out processors that are

twice as powerful and 1/2 the price every 18 months, why can't education!!!

(They must follow the software model!)

Let me re-phrase that why won't education!!!

Of course the opposite is also true! Start with motivation; tell the student

"this is going to be very important" but never tell them why. Then, to use

Piagetian terminology, Start a topic out of the blue, with no frame of

reference, and assimilation is impossible. Then set the tone that all that is

really important is already known, and accommodation, creating new

categories, will be met with not enthusiasm by ridicule, time-outs,

detention, and if all that doesn't kill curiosity, expulsion!

Sorry, for the soap box but this topic is my hottest hot button!!!

>Being a hobbyist programmer means I have the privilige of using several

>languages:

>Forth, Logo, Prolog and Eiffel. Most of the thinking goes towards

>understing the

>problem domain. To do thst I use all kinds of techniques. Sometimes I will

>write

>about what I think the problem is about. This is especially true if the problem

>domain is unfamiliar. I jus want tio get a few handles on the problem. At other

>times I will use diagrams. Semantic nets are good for understanding the

>relationships that exst between entities. Sometimes I will continue and

>tansform

>nets into VDM or use an object oriented analysis method to hone in on specific

>parts of the problem.

>

>Eventually a kind of critical mass is reached and I can begin to consider what

>language I shall use. As my understanding grows I begin to think more about the

>targert language I will use.  Otherwise I will think about Forth and

>Eiffel. For

>speed and compactness I use Forth but for bigger applications I use Eiffel.

>

I love your description of problem solving as wandering around, playing with

the problem, trying alternatives and finally picking a suitable language to

solve it with. That's what all learning was until profession education tried

to kill it.

Enough for a Tuesday morning!

Bob

P.S. Another FORTH lover, I love it! I also find forth elegant, if not also

cryptic. I use Tom Zimmer's F-PC forth and his TCOM target compiler. I can

fit the Interpreter, Compiler, integrated editor, assembler, trace and debug

tools, help system etc. all on 1 3.5" floppy (1.4 meg). Let's see Microsoft

do that! They may argue that you can fit their VB, C, C++ environments on a

diskette also. But beware, in their hair-splitting, jargon, they mean a

ZIP-diskette (100 meg!).

Enjoy the holidays!

"To get NEW
Answers, you
must ask NEW
Questions!"
- Bob
Gorman