School

[lydy]

So I've finished my first week of school and am embarking on my second. It's rather surreal. At least some of it is like riding a bicycle, it comes back even though I haven't been in a formal class room for more than ten years and the last time I was a serious student it was 1980.

What isn't coming as easily is the rote memorization. My psychology and biology texts are full of three of this and a four of that and seventeen of the other. I don't know how the tests will be structured, so I don't know how thoroughly I need to memorize the various lists. And there really are too many of them, I genuinely think that I cannot memorize all of them. All I can hope for are multiple choice tests. If I'm asked to list the seven characteristics of life, cold, gods know which ones I'll remember. Generally, I remember five, although not the same five from moment to moment. It doesn't help that at least one of the characteristics, that of having an evolutionary history, seems to me to be completely arbitrary. There was a first living molecule somewhere, and it didn't have an evolutionary history, so that by definition makes it not alive, and that cascades...

I am not happy with my psychology professor at the moment, either. Today in class he said that because people have free will, they don't have instincts, but that animals do have instincts. People have reflexes. Since he didn't define free will, and his definition of instincts and reflexes were remarkably similar, I don't think he carried his point at all. But I was a good student and didn't argue.

Unsurprisingly, the class I like and am doing best in is Intro Algebra. I did a bunch of prep work, trying to test out of this class. I didn't manage to test out, but most of the information is dead familiar. One of the classes I took ten years ago was Algebra, and I did very well in it. Besides, math isn't based on rote memorization, really. Except for the arithmetic part of it. The rest of it builds up logically, at least, at this level. Somewhere around calculus I'm given to understand it starts doing the wacky, but early algebra it's as well behaved as ever can be. I like my math teacher well enough, as well, so that works out.

So that's the big thing in my life and will continue to be so unless I screw up real bad. I guess I should go do some homework, now.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

there was a first living molecule somewhere, and it didn't have an evolutionary history, so that by definition makes it not alive, and that cascades...

The more we learn about this the blurrier it looks; if the first long-chain organic molecules formed by catalysis of component parts on the surface of a clay with a regular crystal structure capable of patterned growth, which side of that process do we want to deem alive and which not ?

My take on calculus is that differential is intuitive and integral isn;t, but people do seem to vary very widely on this.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

None of calculus was intuitive for me. After years of getting an A on every math course, I hit the wall.

ps to my above: In Art History, I drew a sketch of every work of art, and made a flash card from it. Worked like a charm, or maybe I would have done well in it anyway... but it felt like that wouldn't have happened without the work.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

It doesn't matter what you define as the original life; whatever it was, it had no evolutionary history.

Differential calculus is easier because you just apply rules mechanically and get the answer. Integral requires problem-solving; there are heuristics but no algorithms (in general).

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

While they have "definitions" of life, they aren't satisfactory. Until we have a satisfactory one, well. Anyway, they didn't say the "evolutionary history" must include only *living* things, did they? So it goes back through all those non-living precursor molecules.

Math goes by pairs of operations; in each pair the first is strictly mechanical, the second requires some creativity. The second is always much harder to learn to do than the first (and the teach methods are poorer I think). Addition and subtraction, then multiplication and division, then differentiation and integration.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

It was alive when it got its first junk mail.

For the record, it said "You May Already Have Evolved! See Inside For Details!"

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I am fortunately not going to have to go onto calculus. I can get by with just Intro to Algebra, I don't even have to take Algebra. Algebra'd be fun, I had a blast when I took it 10 years ago, but every class costs $$$ and takes time. I want to be out of this as expeditiously as possible. I hate to treat school as a business, I was always a bit shocked by people who did so, but here I am. Get me in, get me out, with as little strife as possible. Huh. Worm: turned.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

For me, the best thing about calculus was that it gave meaning to all the math that I took in high school -- especially the stuff I didn't particularly enjoy.

Go Lydy, go!