[FRIAM] are we how we behave?

[Steven A Smith]

Nick -

I think you described the difference between vocational training and an
education.   Hazing seems more relevant to fraternal organizations and
perhaps working as a GRA  or TA?

My university motto was "to become more educated is to become more
human" and my Philosophy 101 professor made a very strong point of that
to the class.  I don't know if it effected anyone else like it did me. 
I had been angling toward sharpening my head to the finest point
possible on the natural sciences (physics in particular), mathematics
and some of that new-fangled computer-engineering stuff.  His
admonition, along with a number of professors who made their subjects
much more interesting (and relevant) than I had ever encountered in
public education to that point caused me to take a very broad selection
of liberal arts courses which I feel almost exclusively enrichened my
life (personal and professional) to this day.

I chose to study (a minimum of) Latin (as well as Greek and Esperanto)
to add to my street/border Spanish and I think I would have been served
(yet more) well by having more language education expected of me.  
Dentists absolutely need to understand Calculus (and Tartar) as do
dental hygenists (bad pun), and doctors of course should understand the
chemistry of organisms (more bad yet).

Dave -

I for one would be interested in some elaboration on your point(s), or
at least to watch you jump up and down?

- Steve

> 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
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