[ExI] Not very bright (was: Belief in maths)

[Ben Zaiboc]

Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> enquired:

> On 7/14/2010 2:34 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote:
> 
> > am very familiar with the sheer pain of frustration at
> not understanding something (not helped by not being very
> bright!).
> 
> What makes you say that, Ben? Do you mean "bright but not
> *very* 
> bright"--which probably applies to most of us here--or
> "rather ordinary, 
> not bright" which seems from your posts to be untrue.


Ha, well.  I suppose it would be trite to say "not as bright as I'd like to be", because that's probably true of everyone.

Some kinds of thinking are like juggling. You're just about ok with 3 balls, but then someone chucks 5 at you, and you go "WTF!?", and they fly all over the place.  Maybe it's a short-term memory thing, I don't know, but imagine you know that juggling 5, 7, 19 balls is a REALLY USEFUL skill, but you can barely cope with 3.  Sooo frustrating, and you start to suspect everyone else has 3 arms (Anders once tried to explain complex numbers to me, but only succeeded in making me cross-eyed.  Square root of minus 2?? what the hell does that even mean? I have NO idea, and can't see how anyone does. It might as well be the velocity of pastry).  Just hope you never have to rely on me to work out the breaking strain of your diamondoid skyhook, because I'll give you 5 answers, all of them wrong.

Other kinds of thinking are like swimming in clear water.  You wonder why so many people put on goggles with cardboard lenses before they get in, then complain about crashing into things.

Verily, life is weird and wonderful, baffling and beautiful.

Ben Zaiboc