Recent content by phusicist

For those of you who don't know, "Formulas and Theorems" is basically a compilation of thousands of math theorems, 6000+ formulas, with a summary of their proofs, covering most of what was known in the late 18th century. What I'm looking for is a comprehensive reference book with worked...

This seems to be cognitive psychologists' main distinction. Procedural knowledge is mainly subconscious, nearly impossible to articulate and there is evidence that it works in a different part of the brain than declarative or propositional knowledge. I'm not a psych student, but I'm interested...

I'm having a bit of trouble distinguishing between procedural knowledge and propositional knowledge. Particularly in problem solving. Generally the difference between them is knowing how and knowing what, respectively. Propositional knowledge is composed of four parts, syntactic (learning...

Try being smart about being smart. Use strategies and logistics to monitor your thinking and to improve it i.e. active reading, memory and elaborative strategies for reading. Also, if you want to improve your overall thinking I suggest taking a good course in analytic philosophy. You'll learn...

I write notes prolifically for some some subjects, not math or philosophy though. Putting your thoughts down sentence by sentence, in a logical manner, is a great way for clarifying and organizing any half-remembered, half-understood ones. I also make a comprehensive one-page outline for the...

Ah... the politics of race. I'm very sleepy right now but I'll try to cobble something together. This is true but misleading. Substitute genetic variety with other types of classifications like age. "There is more variety in age between individuals of the same age group than there is between...

Thanks. Very informative. DropMyRights might be unnecessary if you use zonealarm, it prevents any registry changes while you surf. But I think I'll try it out anyway. And I hear that Virtual OS can themselves be weak against exploits, is this true? And I plan on using bank accounts/credit cards...

Hey there, so I just finished reading this newyork times articles on Bot Nets: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/technology/07net.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=79cc489d42f00bc8&ex=1168318800&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1168193055-/Md4/0S5iz1xLjldK+u7Mw" and it got me thinking. I have no firewall or antivirus...

If you want to learn a bit about g and it's correlations/practicality then check out: http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/ She has published LOTS of articles on the topic; I didn't even know that there was a sub-score that measured creativity until I read some of her articles...

What's wrong with that? If it's granted that there are those individuals who are naturally better at certain things, faster, stronger, smarter (I'm sure we'll both agree that neither you nor I have the same mathematical expertise as Albert Einstein or the same critical thinking ability as...

The scientists that research general intelligence normally define it as reasoning and novel problem solving ability. This is true, a person can probably memorize an entire dictionary using memory devices like mnemonics but this doesn't really demonstrate complex thought. Higher thinking...

That is a red herring! Okay, "there is more variation found within certain "races"" may be true (even though those figures were based on BLOOD TYPE TESTING by Richard Lewontin in the 70s), but no single category can account for all the ways in which humans differ from one another. Try Replacing...

No purpose in reality? Isn't that a simpler explanation than attributing your personality to a spiritual entity which you cannot prove exists? We are ourselves as our brain perceives us which is largely dependant on our genetic make-up. I can't speak for your experiences but I certainly can't...

What makes you think we have souls in the first place? What happens if you suffer from a debilitating accident which damages your brain and thus your memory and personality? Or how about Alzheimers, would this affect your soul? I think we are the sum total of our genetics, experiences and the...

Hello there, I'm by no means a philosophy student but I plan on majoring it in college :rolleyes:. Anyway, I was killing some time, waiting for my introductory books to arrive, by playing with my 8 year old little sister. Well, she asked me this very interesting question. "Phusicist, when a...