I was going to go through quote by quote, but I realized I would be quoting the entire thing.
Basically:
A) You imply that you have enough brainpower to consider yourself to be approaching Jaynes’s level. (approaching alluded to in several instances)
B) You were surprised to discover you were not the smartest person Marcello knew. (or if you consider surprised too strong a word, compare your reaction to that of the merely very smart people I know, who would certainly not respond with “Darn”).
C) Upon hearing someone was smarter than you, the first thing you thought of was how to demonstrate that you were smarter than them.
D) You say that not being a genius like Jaynes and Conway is a “possibility” you must “confess” to.
E) You frame in equally probable terms the possibility that the only thing separating you from genius is that you didn’t study quite enough math as a kid.
So basically, yes, you don’t explicitly say “I am a mathematical genius”, but you certainly positions yourself as hanging out on the fringes of this “genius” concept. Maybe I’ll say “Schrodinger’s Genius”.
Please ignore that this is my first post and it seems hostile. I am a moderate-time lurker and this is the first time that I felt I had relevant information that was not already mentioned.
Here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ua/the_level_above_mine/
I was going to go through quote by quote, but I realized I would be quoting the entire thing.
Basically:
A) You imply that you have enough brainpower to consider yourself to be approaching Jaynes’s level. (approaching alluded to in several instances) B) You were surprised to discover you were not the smartest person Marcello knew. (or if you consider surprised too strong a word, compare your reaction to that of the merely very smart people I know, who would certainly not respond with “Darn”). C) Upon hearing someone was smarter than you, the first thing you thought of was how to demonstrate that you were smarter than them. D) You say that not being a genius like Jaynes and Conway is a “possibility” you must “confess” to. E) You frame in equally probable terms the possibility that the only thing separating you from genius is that you didn’t study quite enough math as a kid.
So basically, yes, you don’t explicitly say “I am a mathematical genius”, but you certainly positions yourself as hanging out on the fringes of this “genius” concept. Maybe I’ll say “Schrodinger’s Genius”.
Please ignore that this is my first post and it seems hostile. I am a moderate-time lurker and this is the first time that I felt I had relevant information that was not already mentioned.