[FRIAM] are we how we behave?

[Steven A Smith]

Roger -

If your point is that it is not my place (or within my ability) to
determine the (desired) shape of said Pareto Frontier for anyone else, I
can't argue a bit.  

My position is that I favor each and every one of us taking whatever
responsibility for understanding our own "convex hull" of
capability/knowledge/intuition as we are capable of and "managing" it to
the best of our ability.  

On one extreme, that might mean just joining a harsh cult and managing
one's own "convex hull" by "picking a good cult" and subsuming oneself
well into it.  On the other is some (not quite so caricatured, perhaps)
version of Heinlein's near-belligerent "Human Chauvanist".

If I can attain proper non-attachment, even enlightenment (whatever that
actually means), I might well "manage" said "convex hull" merely by
observing it as it evolves into whatever it is becoming as I stumble (or
float or charge or careen) through life.

- Steve

On 3/6/19 3:59 PM, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> When you ask people to be well rounded, aren't you assuming that you
> know the convex hull of the knowledge they need?
>
> But as Hamming pointed out in Learning to Learn
> (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30), they knew
> in the 50's that most of the scientists who had ever lived were alive
> right then, that the scientific literature was growing exponentially,
> and that no one would ever review it all.  And those things have been
> true in every decade since then.
>
> So who's got their finger on the pulse of knowledge?  We've all been
> becoming absolutely and relatively more ignorant all through our
> lives.  Experts rule over ever shrinking domains.  Laboratories are
> organized gangs of specialists competing to recast problems into nails
> for their hammers.  Narrow specialists dominate because it's the only
> safe thing to profess.  Spread out and some specialist will rip you a
> new one.
>
> -- rec --
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2019 at 4:47 PM Steven A Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com
> <mailto:sasmyth at swcp.com>> wrote:
>
>     Marcus -
>
>     Marcus -
>
>     My quote of Heinlein the renowned "Human Chauvanist" was somewhat
>     tongue-in-cheek.   I applaud the general spirit of the polymath,
>     always seeking, never-say-die he implies here, but as you point
>     out, there is no clear boundary around how much one can learn.
>
>     And in the spirit of your last response characterizing polyculture
>     over monoculture somewhat as the "foam" Glen referenced earlier, I
>     cannot but agree with you.
>
>     The richness obtained and experienced by being *an individual* in
>     the context of a (multi?)culture is not only that everyone else
>     "has so much to teach you" but also that "there is so much you can
>     defer to others".  This doesn't have to be an either-or between
>     depth/breadth, but maybe more of an appreciation for being (more)
>     able to choose a subset of what breadth/depth one will seek to
>     explore/cover?
>
>     - Steve
>
>
>     On 3/6/19 2:29 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>
>>     Steve writes:
>>
>>     “Reminds me of the (in)famous Robert Heinlein quote so
>>     (s?)favored by Libertarians and other strong Individualists: 
>>
>>     /A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an
>>     invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a
>>     sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the
>>     dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve
>>     equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
>>     computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
>>     Specialization is for insects.///
>>
>>      
>>
>>     Life has finite length and the rate of learning is finite.  
>>     Individuals aren’t going to learn how to do everything.   It
>>     isn’t even helpful to write down a list of `everything’ and say
>>     go learn that.  Because it just insults the vastness of
>>     everything, and assumes that collectively we see even a little of
>>     it.    Why not throw “become a world class violinist” or “become
>>     the top cited researcher in string theory” or “break the two hour
>>     barrier on the marathon” into the mix too?
>>
>>      
>>
>>     Marcus
>>
>>
>>     ============================================================
>>     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
>
>
> ============================================================
> 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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20190306/3798530e/attachment.html>