[FRIAM] are we how we behave?

[Marcus Daniels]

If one could even show that one convex hull subsumes another, then maybe I start to believe that the well-roundedness notion isn’t complete nonsense.    But knowledge isn’t just a container, it is at least a network.   And how do you jump from point to point in this high dimensional space if the points are too far apart?  Do the dimensions in this space mean anything anyone agrees upon?

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 4:00 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

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



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