but if your goal is to teach humility, I suspect there are better ways
I don’t think humility is what Jonah is trying to teach—rather, it’s something more like the habit of working really hard at understanding things. (Though I worry that there’s a roughly opposite error: thinking that skill in other domains is like skill in pure mathematics and requires the same kind of intellectual work. The same amount, maybe—though actually I suspect it varies—but not necessarily the same kind.)
(Though I worry that there’s a roughly opposite error: thinking that skill in other domains is like skill in pure mathematics and requires the same kind of intellectual work. The same amount, maybe—though actually I suspect it varies—but not necessarily the same kind.)
I was addressing the specific skill of reading carefully and not making assumptions that the author hasn’t stated, which is highly relevant to learning in general. I agree that the work that goes into understanding things outside of pure math isn’t necessarily of the same type as within pure math.
I don’t think humility is what Jonah is trying to teach—rather, it’s something more like the habit of working really hard at understanding things. (Though I worry that there’s a roughly opposite error: thinking that skill in other domains is like skill in pure mathematics and requires the same kind of intellectual work. The same amount, maybe—though actually I suspect it varies—but not necessarily the same kind.)
I was addressing the specific skill of reading carefully and not making assumptions that the author hasn’t stated, which is highly relevant to learning in general. I agree that the work that goes into understanding things outside of pure math isn’t necessarily of the same type as within pure math.