Hello! I’m Oliver, as my username should make evident. I’m 17 years old, and this site was recommended to me by a friend, whose LW username I observe is ‘Larks’. I drift over to Overcoming Bias occasionally, and have RSS feeds to Richard Dawkins’ site and (the regrettably sensationalist) NewScientist magazine. As far as I can see past my biases, I aspire to advance my understanding of the kinds of things I’ve seen discussed here, science, mathematics, rationality and a large chunk of stuff that at the moment rather confuses me.
I started education with a prominent interest in mathematics, which later expanded to include the sciences and writing, and consider myself at least somewhat lucky to have escaped ten years of light indoctrination from church-school education, later finding warm comfort in the intellectual bosom of Richard Dawkins. I’ve also become familiar with the likes of Alan Turing, Steven Pinker and yet others, from fields of philosophy, mathematics, computing and science.
I’m currently at college in the UK studying my second year of Mathematics, Philosophy, English Language and entering a first year of Physics (I have concluded a year of Computing). As much as I enjoy and value philosophy as a mechanism for genuine rational learning and discovery, I often despise the canon for its almost religious lack of progression and for affixing value to ultimately meaningless questions. It is for this reason that I value having access to Less Wrong et alia. Mathematics is a subject which I learned (the hard way) that I cannot live without.
I think I’ve said as much here as I can and as much as I need to, so I’ll conclude with a toast: to a future of enlightenment, learning, overcoming biases and most importantly fun.
Hello! I’m Oliver, as my username should make evident. I’m 17 years old, and this site was recommended to me by a friend, whose LW username I observe is ‘Larks’. I drift over to Overcoming Bias occasionally, and have RSS feeds to Richard Dawkins’ site and (the regrettably sensationalist) NewScientist magazine. As far as I can see past my biases, I aspire to advance my understanding of the kinds of things I’ve seen discussed here, science, mathematics, rationality and a large chunk of stuff that at the moment rather confuses me.
I started education with a prominent interest in mathematics, which later expanded to include the sciences and writing, and consider myself at least somewhat lucky to have escaped ten years of light indoctrination from church-school education, later finding warm comfort in the intellectual bosom of Richard Dawkins. I’ve also become familiar with the likes of Alan Turing, Steven Pinker and yet others, from fields of philosophy, mathematics, computing and science.
I’m currently at college in the UK studying my second year of Mathematics, Philosophy, English Language and entering a first year of Physics (I have concluded a year of Computing). As much as I enjoy and value philosophy as a mechanism for genuine rational learning and discovery, I often despise the canon for its almost religious lack of progression and for affixing value to ultimately meaningless questions. It is for this reason that I value having access to Less Wrong et alia. Mathematics is a subject which I learned (the hard way) that I cannot live without.
I think I’ve said as much here as I can and as much as I need to, so I’ll conclude with a toast: to a future of enlightenment, learning, overcoming biases and most importantly fun.