[FRIAM] are we how we behave?

[Prof David West]

Nick, you pose an interesting question. From one perspective, that of an idealist who believes in the old version of a liberal arts education and the modern notion of a "modern polymath" I would answer yes to your question. As a veteran of academia i would emphatically jump up and down and say no - it is nonsense. 

I could elaborate on my answer, should anyone be interested.

davew


On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 2:57 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> Did I really REALLY have to learn Latin to be an Educated Man.  Read in 
> two languages to get a PHD?  Do you really have to get an A in organic 
> chemistry to be a good doctor?  In Calculus to be a dentist?   
> 
> How do we tell the difference between hazing and education? 
> 
> n
> 
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
> Clark University
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM
> To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?
> 
> I can't help but tie these maunderings to the modern epithets of 
> "snowflake" and "privilege" (shared by opposite but similar 
> ideologues).  I have to wonder what it means to "learn" something.  The 
> question of whether a robot will take one's job cuts nicely to the 
> chase, I think.  How much of what any of us do/know is uniquely (or 
> best) doable by a general intelligence (if such exists) versus specific 
> intelligence?  While I'm slightly fluent in a handful of programming 
> languages, I cannot (anymore) just sit down and write a program in any 
> one of them.  I was pretty embarrassed at a recent interview where they 
> asked me to code my solution to their interview question on the 
> whiteboard.  After I was done I noticed sugar from 3 different 
> languages in the code I "wrote" ... all mixed together for convenience. 
>  They said they didn't mind.  But who knows?  Which is better?  Being 
> able to coherently code in one language, with nearly compilable code 
> off the bat?  Or the [dis]ability of changing languages on a regular 
> basis in order to express a relatively portable algorithm?  Which one 
> would be easier for a robot?  I honestly have no idea.
> 
> But the idea that the arbitrary persnickety sugar I learned yesterday 
> *should* be useful today seems like a bit of a snowflake/privileged way 
> to think (even ignoring the "problem of induction" we often talk about 
> on this list).  Is what it means to "learn" something fundamentally 
> different from one era to the next?  Do the practical elements of 
> "learning" evolve over time?  Does it really ... really? ... help to 
> know how a motor works in order to drive a car?  ... to reliably drive 
> a car so that one's future is more predictable?  ... to reduce the 
> total cost of ownership of one's car?  Or is there a logical layer of 
> abstraction below which the Eloi really don't need to go?
> 
> On 3/5/19 11:04 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> > Interesting to see the "new bar" set so low as age 30.  Reminds me of 
> > my own youth when the "Hippie generation" was saying "don't trust 
> > anyone over 30!".  Later I got to know a lot of folks from the "Beat"
> > generation who were probably in their 30's by that time and rather put 
> > out that they couldn't keep their "hip" going amongst the new youth culture.
> > 
> > ...
> > My mules are named Fortran/Prolog/APL/C/PERL and  VMS/BSD/Solaris/NeXT 
> > and IBM/CDC/CRAY/DEC and GL/OpenGL/VRPN/VRML.   I barely know the 
> > names of the new 
> > tractors/combines/cropdusters/satellite-imaging/laser-leveling/???
> > technology.
> > 
> > Always to be counted on for nostalgic maunderings,
> 
> --
> ☣ uǝlƃ
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe 
> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
> 
> 
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
> to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> archives back to 2003: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
>