Feynman wasn’t really wrong, he just failed to mention that if you want to remember anything about a certain bird that you observed you will have to invent a name for it, because ‘the traveler hath no memory’. Original names are OK if you only want the knowledge for yourself.
I’m reminded of another Feynman anecdote: when he invented his own mathematical notion in middle school. It made more sense to him, but he soon realized that it was no good for communicating ideas to others.
Feynman wasn’t really wrong, he just failed to mention that if you want to remember anything about a certain bird that you observed you will have to invent a name for it, because ‘the traveler hath no memory’. Original names are OK if you only want the knowledge for yourself.
I’m reminded of another Feynman anecdote: when he invented his own mathematical notion in middle school. It made more sense to him, but he soon realized that it was no good for communicating ideas to others.
Every time I try to learn to sight-sing I get sidetracked by trying to invent better notation for music.
After many repeats of this process I’ve decided that music notation is pretty good, given the constraints under which it used to operate.
Now I’m trying to just force myself to learn to sight-sing, already.