[FRIAM] Homo Hiveus

[Prof David West]

I am constantly amazed, entertained, informed, and enriched by the divergent discussions on any given thread in the FRIAM list. At the same time, there are instances where something of great personal interest gets lost. Such is the case with the notion of "modern polymath."  Just to see if there is any interest in pursuing specifics of this concept, I offer the following.

I have been told that Leibniz was the last true polymath — knew "everything there was to know." Obviously not true in any literal sense, but likely mostly true in the sense that he had some depth of knowledge in every subject taught at a typical university of his day. But, as several people have pointed out it would be impossible, today, for any single individual to be a true polymath.

So what might a "modern polymath" actually be? My idiosyncratic understanding begins a thousand years ago when I was in 2nd grade and reading A.E. van Vogt's SF novel, "Voyage of the Space Beagle." The hero of the book was a "Nexialist," a new profession and someone who could solve (most often existential for the space ship) problems that the various specialists (physicists, chemists, psychologists, ...) could not.

Fast forward a bit and another SF novel, "Rite of Passage," by Alexi Panshin wherein two more new professions were described: "ordinologist," someone who knew everything there was to know in a particular domain, had it all sorted, organized, and thoroughly indexed; and a "synthesist" who could wander from one ordinologists domain to another and note that this idea or concept or practice would be really useful in this other domain.

A final SF novel, "Polymath," by John Brunner added the notion that a polymath was someone with 'sufficient' knowledge to "make the right decision with imperfect and incomplete information."

A final root was James Burke's TV series, "Connections."

>From these roots, the ideal that an individual possess an integrated body of knowledge, transcending traditional specialization silos, that enabled informed and useful communication and exchange of understanding across those same specializations. The key term here is "integrated" something that is impossible to achieve in a modern educational system, even in the most ardent 'liberal arts' institution.

A practical influence on the modern polymath idea comes from Business, the Applied Arts (especially architecture, graphical, and product design), and to a far lesser extent, software development. In all cases it is noted that most work product comes from teams, not individuals. And a real problem with teams is the fact that they are comprised of silo-ed specialists.

Even if there were a specific profession like Nexialism, putting such an individual on each team to facilitate cross-disciplinary communication would not be very effective. Instead it is essential that each member of the team possess sufficiently wide, and integrated, knowledge that they can follow (to a significant extent, but not completely) the contributions of others outside of their own narrow specialization. Everyone needs the ability to recognize how ideas or concepts in other domains might serve as metaphors for solving problems or gaining insights into their own domain.

The production of such individuals, who were also tier one software developers, was the goal of the program at Highlands.

davew


On Fri, Mar 8, 2019, at 9:31 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
> Marcus -
> 
> > If person with skill 1 delegates to individuals with distinct skills 2 and 3 and person with skill 3 delegates to individuals with skills 4 and 5 the kind of overlap of the kind you mention still can occur.     If developing any these skills takes decades, why is it important that everyone have some practical understanding of the other skills?   More importantly, why should we ever want to decrease the total number of skills?   So that we can `relate' to one another and keep the peace (be luddites)?  
> 
> I think that can (and does) work already.  We are already becoming a
> eusocial species in many ways.   I am (instinctually/habitually?)
> distrustful of hive-like contexts/behaviour (for myself).   That is
> likely a product of my ego's desire to remain a distinct individual with
> (inter)dependencies on others and/or any system kept to a minimum, so as
> not to threaten said ego (as formed).  
> 
> It is interesting to note that even *bees* who we tend to hold as the
> archetypal form of eusocial creature, apparently are only about 30% (by
> number) eusocial and the remaining 70% operate as individuals.  I
> remember as a child being told that "some bees are rogue bees and do not
> live in a hive" which suggested that they had left their hive to live on
> their own.  As it turns out, those bees were the "native" or "wild" bees
> which were simply not of the same species as the European Honeybee...
> the one we have elevated, husbanded, and celebrated.  In retrospect, I
> do not believe there were any beekeepers in my remote region, yet there
> were plenty of bees going about their business collecting nectar and
> distributing pollen for the donors.   I also assumed that *bumblebees*
> always lived as individuals because I never saw (or heard of) their
> hives, nor knew anyone who "kept" bumblebees for honey/wax.    It seems
> that what I know of as a bumblebee is likely to be a member of a tiny
> (by bee standards) colony of perhaps 200 and most likely the hive is
> underground in a natural cavity or one created/abandoned by other
> burrowing creatures.   
> 
> I should also acknowledge that my own model of the "renaissance human"
> or "polymath" is a caricature developed/formed/held by the cultural
> embedding of our (sometimes) hyper-individualistic Western/Frontier culture.
> 
> I will withdraw to the position that *diversity* is what is worth
> maximizing or at least conserving and that diversity can be within an
> individual, distributed across a community, a species, and all of life
> or existence.   My ego was simply formed in a context where diversity of
> the "individual" organism was held high.   It is reflected in my choice
> of living rurally (most of my life) and being somewhat uncomfortable
> within any overly organized matrix (large institution, city, etc.).    I
> know others for whom this is acutely uncomfortable and instead seek
> their complexity within a group (tribal?) or built environment (city) or
> cultural (regionalist/globalist/culturalist).   In the abstract, it
> would seem to be nothing more than a question of the distribution of
> entropy and optimization of structure and information/energy flows
> through a "system".   As often is the case in such questions, the
> scoping of our observation might be the key... individual, family,
> tribe, city, nation, species, etc?
> 
> Homo Hiveus would seem to have emerged in the last 10,000 and would
> appear to dominate our actual behaviour and context even if not in the
> imaginations of those of us who continue to identify as homo sapiens or
> homo faber or homo ???
> 
> - Steve
> 
> 
> 
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