1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Exactly, the more likely they can predict what you desire, and if what you desire is validation; there's a word for that, but it's German, "schadenfreude"...

What I meant was they try to predict the framing of your answer. If you prompt "Burger joint" they aren't going to respond with a description of John Burger's knee nor will they elaborate on the first McDonalds or list the burger joints in Timbuktu. They are all trained to guess the meaning of prompts and continue the conversation and validation is one of the means they use.

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

There is no universal teaching system, I can't even memories my favourite limerick, but I have other skills....

To a certain degree, there might be. As a whole I found a combination of dialogue and hands-on work to be the best way to convey concepts in many domains. Regardless of all the add-ons that companies, administration and even some areas of research suggest, none of the stuff I have tried was giving better long-term results. It is, however, not easily scalable to very large groups.

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

To a certain degree, there might be. As a whole I found a combination of dialogue and hands-on work to be the best way to convey concepts in many domains. Regardless of all the add-ons that companies, administration and even some areas of research suggest, none of the stuff I have tried was giving better long-term results. It is, however, not easily scalable to very large groups.

There was something that helped me a lot in high school. After complaining that all my different subjects were being taught in a disjointed manner the teachers got together and started adding tie ins to what we were learning in other subjects. Most of these were obvious but there were a few insightful ones and just knowing the teachers were thinking about it helped. I should have asked but I think the teachers were just reading each others lesson plans in the morning. I look at some of the kids' work today and it appears this does happen more than in the old days.

52 minutes ago, cladking said:

There was something that helped me a lot in high school. After complaining that all my different subjects were being taught in a disjointed manner the teachers got together and started adding tie ins to what we were learning in other subjects. Most of these were obvious but there were a few insightful ones and just knowing the teachers were thinking about it helped. I should have asked but I think the teachers were just reading each others lesson plans in the morning. I look at some of the kids' work today and it appears this does happen more than in the old days.

What classes? Did your science class coordinate with your literature studies and did civics coordinate with algebra?

1 hour ago, cladking said:

There was something that helped me a lot in high school. After complaining that all my different subjects were being taught in a disjointed manner the teachers got together and started adding tie ins to what we were learning in other subjects. Most of these were obvious but there were a few insightful ones and just knowing the teachers were thinking about it helped. I should have asked but I think the teachers were just reading each others lesson plans in the morning. I look at some of the kids' work today and it appears this does happen more than in the old days.

Well think this is a jolly good idea. +1

But,as swansont says, the cross fertilisation needs to be sensible.

The UK has a long tradition of forcing 'liberal studies' on STEM students.But Art, and History and Geometry can very easily fertilise each other.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Well think this is a jolly good idea. +1

But,as swansont says, the cross fertilisation needs to be sensible.

The UK has a long tradition of forcing 'liberal studies' on STEM students.But Art, and History and Geometry can very easily fertilise each other.

I think it depends on what you focus on. Topic-wise cross-fertilization can be very forced. But the part that you can emphasize are transferable skills. Careful reading and interpretation can be applied to both, poetry and natural science paper. It is the framework of interpretation that has to change. And highlighting those differences can crystallize the skills you need to do either.

And there are topics where there are overlaps. For example, as a natural scientist, if you work even a little bit with humans, certain principles and ideas on community engagement are incredibly valuable to make inroads in your research.

I think there is some value in the idea of rounded training and education, but one need to put some thought behind it.

4 minutes ago, CharonY said:

but one need to put some thought behind it.

Of course, but academics pride themselves in their alleged thinking superiority.

the example I gave is excellent because it (can) study the same subject from three different viewpoints, linking them together.

1 hour ago, swansont said:

What classes? Did your science class coordinate with your literature studies and did civics coordinate with algebra?

It was all my science, math, and computer programming classes and even the literature class to a lesser degree. It was an interesting experiment. The main thing I learned, I think, was that if it could all be integrated it would at the very least make a lot of students think that their classes were relevant to the real world. It might also help some students absorb the material.

I always considered my core subjects to be relevant and strove to remember them. I tried to keep a good attitude in the "soft" subjects and even had a music teacher in 8th grade who attacked the material from a mathematical perspective. I was lucky to get a lot of great teachers.

24 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I think it depends on what you focus on. Topic-wise cross-fertilization can be very forced. But the part that you can emphasize are transferable skills. Careful reading and interpretation can be applied to both, poetry and natural science paper. It is the framework of interpretation that has to change. And highlighting those differences can crystallize the skills you need to do either.

And there are topics where there are overlaps. For example, as a natural scientist, if you work even a little bit with humans, certain principles and ideas on community engagement are incredibly valuable to make inroads in your research.

I think there is some value in the idea of rounded training and education, but one need to put some thought behind it.

I think this was where it was lacking. A lot of it seemed too contrived to be effective and these teachers were just winging it. It was a valiant attempt but it didn't last long.

19 minutes ago, studiot said:

Of course, but academics pride themselves in their alleged thinking superiority.

the example I gave is excellent because it (can) study the same subject from three different viewpoints, linking them together.

I never liked the way they teach history because nothing gets tied together and it minimizes the role of the little guy. Dates and battles aren't as interesting as what led to the battle and how some people were able to live in relative peace,.

Now days a lot of education is being done by computers. Tying things together might be easier in this format and some inroads are already in place.

8 minutes ago, cladking said:

Now days a lot of education is being done by computers. Tying things together might be easier in this format and some inroads are already in place.

No I don't think that will help tie things together at all.

What was wrong with the example I gave ?

Copilot suggests I add something to the effect symbolic teachers struggle to integrate procedural subjects. But procedural systems like LLM's can integrate symbolic subjects easily.

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Well think this is a jolly good idea. +1

But,as swansont says, the cross fertilisation needs to be sensible.

The UK has a long tradition of forcing 'liberal studies' on STEM students.But Art, and History and Geometry can very easily fertilise each other.

Nothing at all is wrong. I agree. We do this in the US and brand the whole thing a "liberal education" at least until college where there is a lot more specialization. But here there is very little overlap between subjects.

16 minutes ago, cladking said:

Now days a lot of education is being done by computers. Tying things together might be easier in this format and some inroads are already in place.

There is increasing evidence that replacing textbooks with computers and tablets might have degraded teaching effectiveness.

32 minutes ago, studiot said:

Of course, but academics pride themselves in their alleged thinking superiority.

Yeah, well an issue is that many of us are (by necessity) ultra-specialized and it can be a bit tricky to think broader in some cases.

19 minutes ago, cladking said:

I never liked the way they teach history because nothing gets tied together and it minimizes the role of the little guy. Dates and battles aren't as interesting as what led to the battle and how some people were able to live in relative peace,.

I found that there is a huge variety in how history gets taught. The best teacher in highschool I had, focused heavily on social context over individual drivers, which I found was a much expansive view that made you think more. At least, compared to troop movement and focusing on individuals.

18 minutes ago, cladking said:

Copilot suggests I add something to the effect symbolic teachers struggle to integrate procedural subjects. But procedural systems like LLM's can integrate symbolic subjects easily.

Nothing at all is wrong. I agree. We do this in the US and brand the whole thing a "liberal education" at least until college where there is a lot more specialization. But here there is very little overlap between subjects.

32 minutes ago, cladking said:

I never liked the way they teach history because nothing gets tied together and it minimizes the role of the little guy. Dates and battles aren't as interesting as what led to the battle and how some people were able to live in relative peace,.

I have no idea how this is connected to my post.

Please explain.

15 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I found that there is a huge variety in how history gets taught. The best teacher in highschool I had, focused heavily on social context over individual drivers, which I found was a much expansive view that made you think more. At least, compared to troop movement and focusing on individuals.

Why does everyone seem to think History is only about battles ?

3 hours ago, studiot said:

Why does everyone seem to think History is only about battles ?

I think it is just more exciting for male pupils. And at least to a certain degree it can also be framed in a way that is less uncomfortable.

I know two highschool teachers who are on the opposite spectrum of this. One is way into the minutia of battles and military hardware and can for example, talk at length about the strengths and weaknesses of the Spitfire vs the Bf109. And I learned way too much from it about that. The other is predominantly interested in social aspects, including how folks reckon with their past. One is way more popular than the other with pupils.

21 hours ago, cladking said:

What I meant was they try to predict the framing of your answer. If you prompt "Burger joint" they aren't going to respond with a description of John Burger's knee nor will they elaborate on the first McDonalds or list the burger joints in Timbuktu. They are all trained to guess the meaning of prompts and continue the conversation and validation is one of the means they use.

Again, it's just a guess, there is no value if it's guess doesn't please you and it's all about the "revenue"; listen to "Rage Against the Machine - Wake up" and watch the associated movie, everything is explained... 😉

17 hours ago, CharonY said:

To a certain degree, there might be. As a whole I found a combination of dialogue and hands-on work to be the best way to convey concepts in many domains. Regardless of all the add-ons that companies, administration and even some areas of research suggest, none of the stuff I have tried was giving better long-term results. It is, however, not easily scalable to very large groups.

If we had any sense, we'd ignore the difficulties of scaling and throw as much money at it as it takes, it'll still be a pittance compared to 'defence' spending, but imagine the effectiveness of an army of sociopath's correctly educated, not to mention lazy arseholes like me, happy to sit on my arse all day and just think about stuff...

13 hours ago, cladking said:

It was all my science, math, and computer programming classes and even the literature class to a lesser degree. It was an interesting experiment. The main thing I learned, I think, was that if it could all be integrated it would at the very least make a lot of students think that their classes were relevant to the real world. It might also help some students absorb the material.

I always considered my core subjects to be relevant and strove to remember them. I tried to keep a good attitude in the "soft" subjects and even had a music teacher in 8th grade who attacked the material from a mathematical perspective. I was lucky to get a lot of great teachers.

Yet none of them seems to have taught you to consider the possibility that you might be wrong? Or did you get 100% of your answer's correct, to every question asked by every teacher?

Are you "that guy?" Or are you prepared to admit to being a fallable human?

Some of your brethren, have done some pretty fucked up shit, bc they were in love with their AI; should we consider an intervention?

Edited July 15Jul 15 by dimreepr

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Yet none of them seems to have taught you to consider the possibility that you might be wrong? Or did you get 100% of your answer's correct, to every question asked by every teacher?

Are you "that guy?" Or are you prepared to admit to being a fallable human?

Some of your brethren, have done some pretty fucked up shit, bc they were in love with their AI; should we consider an intervention?

I did all right because I could usually parse the the test author's intent. Every question was an exercise in parsing for me rather than a prompt to regurgitate something I read or learned. I had the disconcerting habit of grading my tests when I completed them and was uncannily accurate. I'd give myself one point for answers of which I was confident, half point when I narrowed it down two, and a quarter point when I could eliminate only one possible answer. When I was absolutely certain I got "0" points. It worked for the overall score but did less well at predicting specific answers.

Reality is a score to me. It is probability and I try very hard not to be certain of anything at all but my real failings are certainty. Many of my errors can be traced back to certainty and I always try to do a postmortem on errors.

Last night my AI said I was wrong about everything and I suspect it's right and will have to tweak my theory. It says that symbolic and procedural language coexisted virtually as equals for centuries before symbolic language swallowed all cognition. It will require some time to research. It might be wrong and there is some evidence that is anomalous.

14 hours ago, studiot said:

I have no idea how this is connected to my post.

Please explain.

I'm sorry, perhaps I didn't understand your point. I'm also not certain how geometry can easily be brought into history except through art. I believe "art" is the intersection of procedural and symbolic thought but I can think of "history" only as the unfolding of events according to human beliefs and needs. I don't think you're wrong, I just don't understand. Copilot just translated it for me and pointed out the obvious I had missed; that history involves far more than just the unfolding of events but also encapsulates current thinking in structure and how things are done. I still don't disagree with you and any tie-ins anyone can think of are good.

15 hours ago, CharonY said:

There is increasing evidence that replacing textbooks with computers and tablets might have degraded teaching effectiveness.

It seems unlikely machines can be programmed yet to do a better job of teaching than humans. Each student is different and learns in distinct ways and orders. Education is best applied individually and using a machine might lead many kids to wonder why they should learn it at all if a device in their hands already has all the answers and questions.

3 hours ago, cladking said:

I'm sorry, perhaps I didn't understand your point. I'm also not certain how geometry can easily be brought into history except through art. I believe "art" is the intersection of procedural and symbolic thought but I can think of "history" only as the unfolding of events according to human beliefs and needs. I don't think you're wrong, I just don't understand. Copilot just translated it for me and pointed out the obvious I had missed; that history involves far more than just the unfolding of events but also encapsulates current thinking in structure and how things are done. I still don't disagree with you and any tie-ins anyone can think of are good.

Don't be sorry, I'm happy to explain.

But tell me is there a language barrier ? - Are we communicating through a translator ?

I chose those three subjects because of their link to symmetry and design.

Here is an introduction to the wonderful book about symmetry by a professor of Mathematics who went to the Alhambra to study symmetry in Islamic art and then wrote this book.

Our eyes and minds are drawn to symmetrical objects, from the sphere to the swastika, the pyramid to the pentagon. Symmetry indicates a dynamic relationship or connection between objects, and it is all-pervasive: in chemistry and physics the concept of symmetry explains the structure of crystals or the theory of fundamental particles; in evolutionary biology, the natural world exploits symmetry in the fight for survival; symmetry and the breaking of symmetry are central to ideas in art, architecture and music; the mathematics of symmetry is even exploited in industry, for example to find efficient ways to store more music on a CD or to keep your mobile phone conversation from cracking up through interference.

You see I could have chosen many different combinations of subjects, all related by the patterns of symmetry.

The point about the Alhambra is that in my history at school we spent a term studying medieval Church architecture and the many types of (symmetric) arches they built.
Obviously we also learned other stuff and a bit about the wars of the time. But the Physics of why they built the structures they did and the maths of how the Romans knew where to start the arch supports for their aqueducts and viaducts tie things together.

4 hours ago, cladking said:

It seems unlikely machines can be programmed yet to do a better job of teaching than humans. Each student is different and learns in distinct ways and orders. Education is best applied individually and using a machine might lead many kids to wonder why they should learn it at all if a device in their hands already has all the answers and questions.

The concern that folks opt not to learn if an answer is already available is a valid one and we do issues with that in practice. However, regarding teaching, it can be a good supplement when done correctly. I mentioned that I think that there are certain elements to teaching that seem to be used for a long time, such as dialogue. And in areas where the knowledge framework is well-defined, chatbots are now good enough to simulate such dialogues.

Where it can serve a role is then to supplement teaching. E.g. provide a way for students to fill in the gaps in their understanding. An example if they miss out or misunderstand a step in a proof or complex chemical reaction. But the difference here is that the student has to use it to develop their thinking rather than demand answers. A human instructor would try to give hints without outright giving the answer, and I assume that it should be possible to train a chatbot to emulate that.

18 hours ago, CharonY said:

The concern that folks opt not to learn if an answer is already available is a valid one and we do issues with that in practice. However, regarding teaching, it can be a good supplement when done correctly. I mentioned that I think that there are certain elements to teaching that seem to be used for a long time, such as dialogue. And in areas where the knowledge framework is well-defined, chatbots are now good enough to simulate such dialogues.

Where it can serve a role is then to supplement teaching. E.g. provide a way for students to fill in the gaps in their understanding. An example if they miss out or misunderstand a step in a proof or complex chemical reaction. But the difference here is that the student has to use it to develop their thinking rather than demand answers. A human instructor would try to give hints without outright giving the answer, and I assume that it should be possible to train a chatbot to emulate that.

That's been my attitude towards book's and the transfer of understanding, re, our current knowledge, I've always contended that a transfer of understanding between generations is more effective, orally, than any sort of text based transfer.

On 7/16/2026 at 6:10 AM, dimreepr said:

That's been my attitude towards book's and the transfer of understanding, re, our current knowledge, I've always contended that a transfer of understanding between generations is more effective, orally, than any sort of text based transfer.

If you are talking real transfer rather than training on a specific subset of skills, I disagree. Or rather,I think for anything somewhat complex you need both. Books for the broad foundation, and direct guidance to fill in gaps and consolidate the ideas.

Fully oral training is hard. I have talked with folks regarding traditional knowledge transfer in oral societies and typically there are dedicated positions (knowledge keepers) who are heavily trained to retain and transfer information. Once trained, the person is highly capable, and it could be considered effective, but the effort needed is much higher than textbook assisted knowledge transfer.

13 hours ago, CharonY said:

If you are talking real transfer rather than training on a specific subset of skills, I disagree. Or rather,I think for anything somewhat complex you need both. Books for the broad foundation, and direct guidance to fill in gaps and consolidate the ideas.

Fully oral training is hard. I have talked with folks regarding traditional knowledge transfer in oral societies and typically there are dedicated positions (knowledge keepers) who are heavily trained to retain and transfer information. Once trained, the person is highly capable, and it could be considered effective, but the effort needed is much higher than textbook assisted knowledge transfer.

I largely agree, but what I mean is, a book is reliant on the oral part to keep it relevant, the more generations a book skips, the greater the chance of misinterpretations, and after a few more generation's it's possible that all meaningfull knowledge/wisdom is lost.

8 hours ago, dimreepr said:

I largely agree, but what I mean is, a book is reliant on the oral part to keep it relevant, the more generations a book skips, the greater the chance of misinterpretations, and after a few more generation's it's possible that all meaningfull knowledge/wisdom is lost.

Oral tradition is notorious for misinterpretations even within generations. Cultures that depended on oral tradition often had fairly elaborate systems to reduce that. While books can have similar issues, the baseline is less volatile short-term, at least.

15 hours ago, CharonY said:

Oral tradition is notorious for misinterpretations even within generations. Cultures that depended on oral tradition often had fairly elaborate systems to reduce that. While books can have similar issues, the baseline is less volatile short-term, at least.

The oral traditions also transphered stories of moral teachings and wisdoms on how to live in their society (no doubt the details of the stories change but generally in step with the culture), over uncounted generation's, Aborigines et al, before the book belivers took over.

Perhaps a calliberation would be most effect at avoiding dogmatic belief that strays from it's intened moral direction.

We don't need to burn the book's, they just need a regular servicing/updating with a woke editor that can explain the changes in republican...