
Computers are Brain Amplifiers - alltakendamned
http://jacquesmattheij.com/computers-are-brain-amplifiers
======
danso
> _A computer allows you to amplify the power of your brain considerably by
> trading understanding for extreme speed of execution. This allows a person
> that is not well versed in math for instance to arrive at the correct
> answers for math problems either by trying a bunch of solutions in a row
> (called ‘brute forcing’) or by using the computer to figure out a rough
> approximation to the answer which then leads to the crucial insight required
> to get an exact answer._

Yes exactly. Which is why I consistently disagree with people who don't think
that programming is a new kind of literacy...either they have an incredible
faith that computers will continue to be better beholden to their
computationally-ignorant users, or they just don't understand that programming
(or "coding") does not mean, "Teach everyone how to deploy a Rails bootstrap
app on Heroku".

Is traditional literacy -- reading and writing -- any more than an amplifier?
It's possible to be able to communicate without reading or writing, but the
ability to transcribe your thoughts in a durable format (even in this age of
unlimited digital video) and to interpret the transcribings of others...that
ability greatly amplifies your ability to communicate and interact with
society.

Computers obviously are another such amplifier...so why shouldn't programming
be seen as a worthwhile kind of literacy?

~~~
Double_Cast
I'm skeptical. Reading & writing is a skill necessary enough in modern society
that illiteracy is practically crippling. I imagine an illiterate would have
to ask someone else to read to them every half-hour at best. E.g. "I'm trying
to google 'how to tie a necktie', how do I spell 'necktie'?"

My intuition says basic programming-literacy by contrast is (while a powerful
skill) unnecessary for the average Joe's quotidian life. He might frequently
need GUI's, but he won't need to understand the guts. Can you come up a
situation that programming could accomplish in a way that a well-designed GUI
couldn't?

If anything should become the new literacy, I'd expect it to be discrete math
based on its generality and source of analogies.

~~~
groby_b
You presuppose there'll always be a GUI. That's similar to the assumption that
I don't need reading skills since there'll always be an audio version. True
for many cases, but the more you approach one-off, the more you'll find there
is no audio version. Or no GUI.

The question is, are there examples where the cost of acquiring and applying
the skill is worth the savings? In individual instances, doubtful. Done
habitually, probably - the case for reading is fairly well established.

The case for computational literacy might be hampered by the very spotty
availability of data. Once you can obtain data sets, it definitely becomes
worth it.

Silly overprivileged example: When I was looking for a place to live, I was
evaluating the location to choose based on a heat map generated from 20+
different metrics. As a result, I found a place that * Was well below what you
usually pay * Was pretty unique for the area I'm in * Makes me happy every day
* Only cost me a 15 minute increase in commute time. (This is L.A., so
consider that an achievement of epic proportions ;)

Was that one instance worth spending time learning how to work with computers?
No. But it's one single neat payoff. And if the data hadn't required custom
scrapers, it would've required only minutes of my time.

~~~
Double_Cast
Correction: I presuppose there'll always be a GUI _for the cases where the
average Joe has a show-stopping problem frequent enough to warrant someone
else to build a GUI solution_. Literacy is needed because (a) people need it
on a daily-basis at least and (b) it's a meta-skill since it's impractical for
people to learn other subjects without it.

Contrast literacy with programming. I don't expect that programming will be as
frequent or spontaneous except in a future where either (a) brain emulations
exist or (b) citizens interface with reality exclusively through emacs. Nor do
I consider programming a meta-skill in the sense that refusing to learn it
will impede you from accessing every other area of human knowledge.

(But I'm glad you're enjoying L.A.)

------
s_q_b
"I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is
that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of
locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy
to move a kilometer.

And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the
way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation.
So, that didn’t look so good.

But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the
efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a
human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the
charts.

 _And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the
most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of
a bicycle for our minds._ ”

~ Steve Jobs

~~~
txu
First thing came to my mind as well, hasn't Steve Jobs already said the same
thing in 1990? It's too obvious in today's world.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmuP8gsgWb8)

~~~
mariodiana
1980.

[http://fortune.com/2011/12/14/video-steve-jobs-in-1980-on-
pc...](http://fortune.com/2011/12/14/video-steve-jobs-in-1980-on-pcs-as-
bicycles-for-the-mind/)

I'll go further and point out that his is the better saying, since it captures
the concept in one simple and universal, non-technical image. That's how you
talk to people -- bicycles, not amplifiers. (Though a guitarist might like the
amplifiers image.)

------
TeMPOraL
Reminds me of a time I was tasked to do operate lights on an amdram
performance. I had a 6-channel programmable mixer to control a bunch of
lights, and created something like 12-20 different light scenes for various
parts of the performance. I wrote myself a table of light values in all
scenes.

I quickly realized though, that manually changing power of lights will take a
few seconds, and it's easy to make an error. The mixer itself was programmable
however, which meant that I could assign a particular preset of all lights to
a single channel, which would then serve to interpolate this preset from no
power to full power. So I coded myself a Lisp program that took all my 12-20
scenes and reduced them to 6 channels at different power settings. So instead
of changing 6 different lights between scenes, all I had to do to kill one
channel and move another to a power level my program computed. For each scene
now I just had a note like "Channel 2 - 50%", or "Channel 5 - 66%", etc.

It was somewhat brutish and inelegant approach, but solved my particular
problem.

------
effdee
I think I've heard this before...

"I believe the computer is the most significant tool invented, as it is unique
in mechanizing part of the process of learning and understanding, or at least
giving us that potential. All other tools have been extensions of muscles and
limbs, whereas the computer is an extension of the brain, and it is that which
we make of it." \-- Erik Naggum, 1996-02-06
([http://naggum.no/erik/knowledge.html](http://naggum.no/erik/knowledge.html))

------
gdubs
Famously, Apple coined the term "Bicycle for the Mind".

    
    
       I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is 
       that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of 
       locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least 
       energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive 
       showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a 
       showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then 
       somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of 
       locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a 
       bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.
    
       - Steve Jobs
    

That's one of the reasons I've always loved Hypercard. [1] It made ordinary
computer users programmers -- heck, it was even used to create the hit game
Myst. In the video linked below, check out the used car salesman who creates a
tool for matching cars with his customers. In the nineteen eighties no less!

As computers have become more consumer oriented, the ordinary user doesn't
_need_ to know how to program. There are plenty of apps for individual
purposes. But I often wonder how different things would be if our operating
system were more like Hypercard. Need a calculator app? Build one. Okay,
perhaps a waste of time you'd say. But let's say the ordinary user could build
a calculator app -- those skills could be extended to piece together ever more
sophisticated tools.

A lot of people argue that ordinary folks don't want to program. Or don't have
the time... Recently I saw a tweet that turned the Bicycle for the Mind phrase
into a dystopian one: A Treadmill for the Mind. Perhaps we have more time than
we think, but we burn it on computers doing pointless things.

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3624149](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3624149)

~~~
nosuchthing
Treadmills do provide exercise, although at the expense of limited interaction
with the natural environment.

There does seem to be a huge time/energy loss with the way we use computers
for mindnumbing entertainment, rather than exercise.

------
lutusp
"The lever, the transistor, the vacuum tube and the computer all have
something in common. They’re amplifiers, they allow a relatively small change
or capability in a domain to have a much larger effect."

The article's premise unfortunately relies on a conflating of two or more
distinct meanings for "amplify". A vacuum tube or transistor increases a pre-
existing voltage or current level, but the thing being increased stays the
same -- it's a change of scale. A computer amplifies a multidimensional
capability like the ability to model reality using mathematics -- it's a
change of scope.

A computer isn't just a faster or stronger version of biological processing,
although that happens to be true. Consistency, precision and scope come into
the equation also. But "amplification" really doesn't describe what the
computer does, any more than it describes what we do.

------
bhouston
Might as well go to the source of Intelligence Amplification:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_amplification](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_amplification)

------
brudgers
For a simple machine, I like the inclined plane, because it occurs naturally
at the human scale [humans don't just walk up cliffs -- or walk down them for
that matter] and thus the tradeoffs are also obvious at a human scale.

Computers are great, but there are tradeoffs related to the supporting
infrastructure [e.g. a military industrial complex]; the costs in learning to
use them; and their potential to distract us from more important matters.
TANSAAFL.

------
LordKano
For several years I have described mine as extensions of my mind.

They're where I do the math that would be too slow to calculate with my brain.
They're where I edit and store the words that I want to share with others.
They're where I visualize things that are beyond the capability of my
imagination.

I think I like "Mind Amplifier". I may stick with that.

------
convexfunction
Shameless plug for a (much longer and broader) thing I wrote on sort of the
same subject:

[http://convexfunction.com/blog/2015/01/11/cognitive-
behavior...](http://convexfunction.com/blog/2015/01/11/cognitive-behavioral-
prosthetics/)

------
mrfusion
I got stuck on what the 7 is supposed to be??

~~~
gort
The number of chips. So if there are 3 defects in 7 chips...

    
    
      Some specific chip has the first defect.
      The odds that it has the 2nd defect are 1 in 7
      The odds that it also has the 3rd defect are 1 in 7 squared.
    

Which equals 0.020408....

