That within the set of those interested in studying Jaynes the set of those interested in studying Jaynes through a virtual book study group is small. Some people find virtual study groups ineffective. That’d be my reason for not responding.
If you find virtual study groups ineffective, then—ineffective compared to what ?
To study some material, two things are quite useful: access to the material, and access to someone who can help you over difficult spots in the material. Even if you intend to study alone, having the latter as an option can reasonably be expected to increase your chances. (Modulo the objection “I’ll expect too much help from outside and that’ll degrade my learning”, which I could understand.)
In this case Jaynes’ book is a free PDF; on the other hand, the LW readership probably doesn’t have formal access to a formal teacher for this material, I’d expect occasions to meet others interested in it IRL are fairly rare.
Given all this I’d still expect more of a response than has been the case so far.
I’d like to study Jaynes, although it’s not on the top of my priority list—and I’m under the impression that the free PDF has been taken down at the moment.
If you find virtual study groups ineffective, then—ineffective compared to what ?
Wasn’t making a comparison, actually—just saying that joining a group of people online to study something hasn’t actually led to me studying in the past. Ineffective compared to taking a course, I suppose.
The PDF may’ve been taken down by whomever was hosting it, but it’s easily found: http://omega.albany.edu:8008/JaynesBook.html for example, to say nothing of all the download sites or P2P sources you could use.
That within the set of those interested in studying Jaynes the set of those interested in studying Jaynes through a virtual book study group is small. Some people find virtual study groups ineffective. That’d be my reason for not responding.
OK. Who wants to study Jaynes—at all ?
If you find virtual study groups ineffective, then—ineffective compared to what ?
To study some material, two things are quite useful: access to the material, and access to someone who can help you over difficult spots in the material. Even if you intend to study alone, having the latter as an option can reasonably be expected to increase your chances. (Modulo the objection “I’ll expect too much help from outside and that’ll degrade my learning”, which I could understand.)
In this case Jaynes’ book is a free PDF; on the other hand, the LW readership probably doesn’t have formal access to a formal teacher for this material, I’d expect occasions to meet others interested in it IRL are fairly rare.
Given all this I’d still expect more of a response than has been the case so far.
I’d like to someday, but unfortunately not now.
:-/
I’d like to study Jaynes, although it’s not on the top of my priority list—and I’m under the impression that the free PDF has been taken down at the moment.
Wasn’t making a comparison, actually—just saying that joining a group of people online to study something hasn’t actually led to me studying in the past. Ineffective compared to taking a course, I suppose.
The PDF may’ve been taken down by whomever was hosting it, but it’s easily found: http://omega.albany.edu:8008/JaynesBook.html for example, to say nothing of all the download sites or P2P sources you could use.