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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Calculators and Understanding
Message-ID: <383@hplabsc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 30-Jun-86 20:19:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.383
Posted: Mon Jun 30 20:19:51 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Jul-86 18:38:59 EDT
Reply-To: hplabs!hpfcla!ihnp4!rayssd!gmp
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories
Lines: 22
Approved: taylor@hplabs

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This article is from ihnp4!rayssd!gmp (Gregory M. Paris)
 and was received on Mon Jun 23 05:31:07 1986
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Discourages understanding?  How does memorizing the multiplication tables
from 1 to 13 encourage understanding of multiplication?  How does doing
endless addition of 4 digit numbers encourage understanding of addition?
These are things that children are forced to do in elementary school, and
I contend that these things are counter to understanding.  I fail to see
how adding tedium to a child's education, or to any task in general, can
aid understanding.  This is seems even more apparent when dealing with
complex engineering or scientific matters, where complex mathematical
tasks are carried out by computers, leaving humans to do the interpretation
and understanding of the results.  Computers and calculators have *freed*
people to concentrate their mental abilities on understanding the problem
at hand.   In the vernacular above, this is a good thing.

[An interesting point...it seems we need to really define what 'knowledge'
 is.  A similar problem exists in the AI community - what exactly IS 
 intelligence?  Does the Turing test still exist as the bottom line??  If
 not, what IS the criterion for intelligence?  -- Dave]