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:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM
> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
> 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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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe
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>
>
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>

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[Steve 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:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM
>> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
>> 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
>>
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>

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Steve writes:

"I think you described the difference between vocational training and an education."
 
Do you believe the courses captured something deep, learned by humanity over generations, or is it simply that it was broader than vocational training?
I don't really buy it.  I think there is not a useful skeleton that connects people.   We are all aliens, or at least can aspire to be, and that is for the best.

Marcus
 

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[Steve Smith]

> Steve writes:
>
> "I think you described the difference between vocational training and an education."
>  
> Do you believe the courses captured something deep, learned by humanity over generations, or is it simply that it was broader than vocational training?

I think there is a difference between learning the 'bare minimum' set of
techniques as pre-scribed to handle a task (or set of tasks) and
learning the theory (and metatheory?) of a discipline which was
developed over generations.  

There are many contexts where technicians (Dental, Medical, Electronic,
Mechanical, etc.) can be very effective at doing many of the tasks
currently handled by the Dentists/Doctors/Engineers they work with/for.  

> I don't really buy it.  I think there is not a useful skeleton that connects people.   We are all aliens, or at least can aspire to be, and that is for the best.

I'm not sure I track this one? 

Taking my best guess, I think my answer would be that culture (whatever
that is) as encoded/presented in natural language is a kind of fascia
that does in fact connect people thoroughly and deeply.   It might be
arguable what/when/how that is "useful" but the fact that it (rich,
shared natural language, with lots of embedded knowledge about relevant
humans/nature) seems to exist across many (all?) cultures and a great
deal of time (thousands of years minimum?)  suggests it is adaptive to
*something*, like living/working/(playing) in large groups while
navigating/negotiating/exploiting novel/harsh environments.

"We are all aliens, or at least can aspire to be, and that is for the
best" sounds a bit like nihilistic cynicism?

  I think I might be able to agree that given that *most of us* are
embedded in a rich cultural milieu, there are times and conditions where
withdrawing from it and acknowledging/reveling-in our sometimes-island
status might be a "darn good thing".   That is what I think I experience
when I am in my "loner"mode which is most of the time...  whether it is
sitting in meditation, doodling on a piece of paper, hiking along the
river, chopping firewood or reading a good book... though the latter
provides a *significant* coupling for me with not only the author, but
to her mother tongue/culture, all of her technical/literary influences
and all of her other readers.

Maybe I'm missing the point(s) entirely?

- Steve




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[gepr]

I really like your framing of the environment (part built, part natural) as a kind of complicated manifold, maybe like an irregular honeycomb or the closeup surface of a sponge, where the surface is the constraint boundary -- the problem statement(s) -- and the pocks and holes are the areas we specific intelligences wander into and "solve" problems framed by those holes.  Presumably, some of the solutions then partly fill those holes, making the surface slightly more complex.  Of course "foam" is a more accurate word since the problem and solution spaces are high dimensional and perhaps disconnected (which speaks a bit to Marcus' point about us all being alien, separated at least by being in different holes of the foam).

However, I completely reject the (perhaps mis-inferred) idea that welfare and social justice are somehow force-fitting people into the pockets of the foam.  Things like welfare and social justice are merely part of the foam, just as much a "natural" part of it as, say, artificial island nation states in the pacific and/or the system that sets up urban coyotes as a top predator.  Those programs may seem like artificial bandaids.  But if they are, then *every* part of the built environment, including roads and termite mounds are *also* artificial bandaids.

On 3/5/19 5:42 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> Glen -
>
> What a great (continued) riff on the (general) topic, in spite of the
> thread wandering more than a little (no kinks but far from straight and
> smooth).
>
> I would like to contrast "learning" with "problem solving" as I think
> the latter is the key point of what might allow "general intelligence"
> (if such exists, as you say) to distinguish itself.  Many may disagree,
> but i find the essence of "problem solving" at it's best to be the art
> and science of "asking the right question".  Once that has been
> achieved, the "answer" becomes self-evident and as Feynman liked to say
> "QED!"     Contemporary machine learning seems to confront the
> definition of "self-evident" and "quite easily"
>
> The 1970's computer-proof of the 4-color problem is a good (on that
> boundary) example.  Perhaps we could say that the program written to do
> the search of the axiom/logic space is a prime (if obscure) example of
> "asking the right question" and (though it is a bit of a stretch) the
> halting/solution of the program represents the "self-evident" answer
> (nQED?).  At the very least, this is how I take the idea of "elegant"
> solutions to be (though the complexity of the 4-color problem-solution
> would seem to be a far stretch for what one would call "elegant").
>
> Contemporary machine (deep?) learning techniques (even those emerging in
> the late 80s such as evolutionary algorithms) seem to demonstrate that a
> suitably "framed" question is as good as a well "stated" question with
> the right amount/type of computation.  EA, GA, Nueral Nets, etc.  are
> all "meta-heuristics" .
>
> I am not sure I can call applications of these techniques, even in their
> best form, "general intelligence" but I think I would be tempted to call
> them "more general" intelligence.   I would *also* characterize a LOT of
> human problem-solving as NO MORE general, and the problem of "the
> expert" seems to frame that even more strongly... it often appears that
> an "expert" is distinguished from others with familiarity with a topic
> by *at least* the very same kind of "supervised learning" that advanced
> algorithms are capable of.   Some experts seem to be very narrow, and
> ultimately not more than a very well populated/trained associative
> memory, whole others seem very general and are *also* capable of
> reframing complex and/or poorly formed questions into an appropriate and
> well-formed enough question for the answer to emerge (with or without
> significant computation in between) as "self-evident". 
>
> There are plenty of folks with more practical and theoretical knowledge
> of these techniques than I have here, but I felt it was worth trying to
> characterize the question this way.  
>
> Another important way of looking at the question of what can be
> automated might be an extension/parallel to the point of "if you have a
> hammer, then everything looks like a nail".   It seems that our
> socio-political-economic milieu is evolving to "meet the problem of
> being human" halfway, by providing a sufficiently complex set
> (spectrum?) of choices of "how to live" to satisfy (most) everyone. 
> This does not mean that our system entirely meets the needs of humanity,
> but rather that it does at a granularity/structure that it many (if not
> most) people can fit themselves into one of it's many compartments/slots
> in a matrix of solutions.   
>
> Social Justice and Welfare systems exist to try to help people fit into
> these slots as well as presumably influencing the cultural and legal
> norms that establish and maintain those slots.   The emergence of ideas
> such as Neurodiversity and this-n-that-spectrum diagnoses seem to help
> deal with the outliers and those falling between the cracks but this is
> once again, an example (I think) of force-fitting the real phenomenon
> (individuals in their arbitrary complexity) to the model
> (socio-political-economic-??? models).

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Steve writes:

<   Taking my best guess, I think my answer would be that culture (whatever
    that is) as encoded/presented in natural language is a kind of fascia
    that does in fact connect people thoroughly and deeply.   It might be
    arguable what/when/how that is "useful" but the fact that it (rich,
    shared natural language, with lots of embedded knowledge about relevant
    humans/nature) seems to exist across many (all?) cultures and a great
    deal of time (thousands of years minimum?)  suggests it is adaptive to
    *something*, like living/working/(playing) in large groups while
    navigating/negotiating/exploiting novel/harsh environments. >

My view is that progress occurs in spite of culture and not because of it.
The fascia is too restrictive, and the need for it has passed.  What we now need are tools to collectively function in a large dense, but well-resourced population.   Telecommunication, mass transit, health care, fair access to jobs and credit.

A culture is just one of a huge set of local minima in a high dimensional space.   The more one culture becomes dominant, the more minorities are subjugated and the more today is just like yesterday.    The formation of culture proceeds as a sort of energy minimization.  Once the system gets cold enough, it no longer is possible to find a lower (better) energy state.   Multi-culturalism is a metaphorical heat source.
Ideally each milieu would constantly be destroying and reforming itself.   A preference for sovereignty is a preference to lower the temperature.  

What are billions of people for, if not to explore high-dimensional spaces?   Why cluster around the same fire?

Marcus


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[Prof David West]

Ok Steve,

First some elaboration:

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

davew


On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM
> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
> >> 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
> >>
> > ============================================================
> > 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

[Nick Thompson]

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

============================================================
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

[Frank Wimberly-2]

Parts of this discussion remind me of my struggle to find my identity when I was in highschool.  My father was a nuclear engineer and a manager of large projects. I had always thought that science and engineering were, respectively, the royal road to the truth and the methods for constructing the built world.  I had already been admitted to Carnegie Institute of Technology with an Alfred P. Sloan scholarship.  Then I read a book by Mortimer J. Adler and Clifton Fadiman about the great books of Western culture.  They argued for the importance of a liberal education and I was convinced.  I started regretting that I had committed to a school that wasn't a University.  Then a few things happened.  During freshman orientation at CIT the provost said something like "If you came to a technical university because you think that humanities and social science are BS you might be surprised to learn that 40%of your coursework here will be in those areas".   In 1967, two years later, CIT became Carnegie Mellon University.  I transferred to UC Berkeley during my sophomore year.  For what it's worth.

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, 10:12 AM Nick Thompson <[hidden email]> wrote:

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

> 

 

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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/
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============================================================
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
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FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove

[Prof David West]

Nick,

Yes the program and a similar effort led by Richard Gabriel — Master of Fine Arts in Software — was pitched to numerous universities, generating huge enthusiasm and ultimate falling victim to curricular affairs committees.

davew

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, at 10:12 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

============================================================

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

Attachments:

• Pyschobiology as a form of general education.pdf
  

============================================================
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

[Prof David West]

Nick, forgot to add -- I do not remember that anyone wrote a sonnet, but several did write poetry and we did analyze poems. This was, in part, due to the influence of Richard Gabriel and his personal journey from Stanford Ph.D. in Computer Science to MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College. He is currently writing the history of Common Lisp for the ACM History of Programming Languages (Guy Steele and Richard created Common Lisp) and his third volume of poetry.

davew

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, at 10:12 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

============================================================

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

Attachments:

• Pyschobiology as a form of general education.pdf
  

============================================================
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

[Nick Thompson]

DON’T GIVE UP!

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 11:10 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Nick,

 

Yes the program and a similar effort led by Richard Gabriel — Master of Fine Arts in Software — was pitched to numerous universities, generating huge enthusiasm and ultimate falling victim to curricular affairs committees.

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, at 10:12 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

============================================================

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

 

 

Attachments:

• Pyschobiology as a form of general education.pdf

 

============================================================
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

[Nick Thompson]

Ok.  I give up.  Software developers ARE the new philosopher kings.  Take me to your leader.

 

Nick

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 11:19 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Nick, forgot to add -- I do not remember that anyone wrote a sonnet, but several did write poetry and we did analyze poems. This was, in part, due to the influence of Richard Gabriel and his personal journey from Stanford Ph.D. in Computer Science to MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College. He is currently writing the history of Common Lisp for the ACM History of Programming Languages (Guy Steele and Richard created Common Lisp) and his third volume of poetry.

 

davew

 

 

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, at 10:12 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

============================================================

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

 

 

Attachments:

• Pyschobiology as a form of general education.pdf

 

============================================================
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

[Marcus G. Daniels]

I met him at SFI once.  He is as odd as he sounds!

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 6, 2019, at 11:19 AM, Prof David West <[hidden email]> wrote:

Nick, forgot to add -- I do not remember that anyone wrote a sonnet, but several did write poetry and we did analyze poems. This was, in part, due to the influence of Richard Gabriel and his personal journey from Stanford Ph.D. in Computer Science to MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College. He is currently writing the history of Common Lisp for the ACM History of Programming Languages (Guy Steele and Richard created Common Lisp) and his third volume of poetry.

davew

On Wed, Mar 6, 2019, at 10:12 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West

Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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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> >>

> >>

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> 

 

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Attachments:

• Pyschobiology as a form of general education.pdf
  

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[Steve Smith]

Marcus -

I don't mean to dismiss the true value of diversity and the phenomena of
"punctuated equilibrium".   What I think we are describing AS culture
would be the equilibrium-of-the-moment/millenia and it would seem
natural/inevitable that punctuation will occur.

I think you are advocating for more punctuation more often, or perhaps,
just getting a comma, semi-colon, or even full-stop and/or !Bang in
sooner rather than later?  

Deferring/Referring over to Glen's (re)characterization of my
maunderings on "search spaces" and the question/answer duality as a
complex evolving foamscape:   I suppose I agree with *both* of you (even
though you might disagree) on the implied topic.   You seem to be more
leery of the space inside an individual "bubble" in the foam and seek to
see it burst or collapse (if it is too big/long-lived?).   I feel the
same way about such foam-pocket bubbles when they are large/robust
compared to my own personal scale and perspective... that is when they
become onerous/limiting, though I prefer to develop enough perspective
to *recognize* the bubble (subculture?) I am operating in and develop
the energy/skills to transcend it... to find a higher-dimension to slip
over into another (more interesting to me?) part of the foam?

Glen points out that social welfare/justice "systems" are merely "yet
more" of the human-built environment which are therefore just another
set of dimensions/scaling of the "natural" environment.  I generally
agree with (accept?) this, and only called it out as something specific
because of the *presumption* that we are creating more freedom through
these institutions when in fact it seems to be trading "some" for
"other".  Having a place to live out of the elements and healthy food to
eat increase the dignity of the individual and subsequently of the
context in which they live, but standing in line to fill out forms and
swear on affidavits to obtain a minimal "welfare check" or to fumble out
"food stamp coupons" in line at the grocery somewhat undermines those
dignities.  Of course, I realize both images are somewhat archaic... I
was happy when I noticed that food stamp coupons were replaced by EBT
cards and I *trust*, maintaining welfare or disability or job-retraining
status within the system is less onerous/undignified than it once was.   

For these reasons, I'm *for* ideas like medicare for all and guaranteed
minimum incomes.  I suspect there are some (other) unintended
consequence to be acknowledged/dealt-with/discovered,  but my
progressive side wants to see those experiments embarked on as
graciously as reasonable. 

Recasting this topic as "foamscape", I think my point is that some of
the "foam we don't know yet" has features in dimensions we may not have
considered while clinging to the "foam we know".   It might be relevant
to reflect on the ideas that:  "Constraint provides form", "form
leads/follows function".   Termite mounds and Social Justice systems
exist in response to functional needs in the land(foam)scape that they
themselves are part of?

Mumble,

 - Steve

> Steve writes:
>
> <   Taking my best guess, I think my answer would be that culture (whatever
>     that is) as encoded/presented in natural language is a kind of fascia
>     that does in fact connect people thoroughly and deeply.   It might be
>     arguable what/when/how that is "useful" but the fact that it (rich,
>     shared natural language, with lots of embedded knowledge about relevant
>     humans/nature) seems to exist across many (all?) cultures and a great
>     deal of time (thousands of years minimum?)  suggests it is adaptive to
>     *something*, like living/working/(playing) in large groups while
>     navigating/negotiating/exploiting novel/harsh environments. >
>
> My view is that progress occurs in spite of culture and not because of it.
> The fascia is too restrictive, and the need for it has passed.  What we now need are tools to collectively function in a large dense, but well-resourced population.   Telecommunication, mass transit, health care, fair access to jobs and credit.
>
> A culture is just one of a huge set of local minima in a high dimensional space.   The more one culture becomes dominant, the more minorities are subjugated and the more today is just like yesterday.    The formation of culture proceeds as a sort of energy minimization.  Once the system gets cold enough, it no longer is possible to find a lower (better) energy state.   Multi-culturalism is a metaphorical heat source.
> Ideally each milieu would constantly be destroying and reforming itself.   A preference for sovereignty is a preference to lower the temperature.  
>
> What are billions of people for, if not to explore high-dimensional spaces?   Why cluster around the same fire?
>
> Marcus
>
>
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[Marcus G. Daniels]

Steve writes:
   
<    I think you are advocating for more punctuation more often, or perhaps,
    just getting a comma, semi-colon, or even full-stop and/or !Bang in
    sooner rather than later?   >

Think of a Venn diagram with many tightly overlapping circles vs. one that forms a mesh or a chain.   I'm in favor of the latter because it covers a larger space.    Too much culture and it looks like just one circle, not billions of them.  

Marcus
 

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[Steve Smith]

Dave -

First some elaboration:

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

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.”

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

I do think Alexander's point here is acutely relevant to this discussion.   Having the experience/background to consider *what* is worth doing is as (more?) important than merely knowing *how* to do it efficiently.   This brings me back to the thread(s) with Glen/Marcus on the question of the role/value of "culture".   I think I want my fellow citizens/travelers in this world to be broadly aware of a range of cultural/social/historical issues if they are to help me make fundamental/important decisions about the world we live in.  Those decisions can take the form of high-level policy formation, of voting (or not), or of everyday decisions about our "built" environment.   Alexander was a proponent of Vernacular Architecture which seemed to put off many Architects who did not like the idea that each culture and every individual in it had a lot to offer regarding the understanding of built environments.  It threatened their elevated status as priest-like experts.   But that is not to say he did not value a rich understanding of the context for which someone was going to design a building, a room, a garden, or a neighborhood.  He was a proponent for allowing the embedded knowledge of the people living in those places to guide the design process.

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

My own experience as a "hiring manager" from time to time during my career at LANL reinforces that *beyond* college.   I looked at interns (mostly undergrads) to begin grooming as potential full hires later and was disappointed with A) how few were actually studying a rich set of topics, not just following a fairly narrow line. and B) how the institution (LANL) made it hard for me to consider them even as *student interns* if their grades were not top-notch.   I would MUCH rather have a B-student who was *trying* to be a polymath, taking a wide range of classes (and sometimes biffing them) and even more importantly, getting some kind of work experience (even fast-food service) than an A+ student who only took classes they *knew* they could ace, didn't bother with things they might be *interested in* outside their core curriculum, and weren't risk-taking enough to have outside interests. 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

I was not aware of your approach at Highlands and applaud what you were up to there.  You must have a few significant "success stories" out there in the wild by now?  Do you stay in touch with any?  I don't know your tenure at Highlands, but I suspect your heyday with this program was after I quit seeking newhires (about 2004).  In any case, it reflects my own blinders, assuming HIghlands *couldn't* be doing anything so aggressive/successful!

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

I look forward to reading about it.

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

Reminds me a tiny bit of what I believe to be the case of my grandparent's generations 8th-grade educations.   Best I could tell, reading some of the textbooks and curricula required in those days for graduating 8th grade, most of the material exceeded what the average grade 12 student is expected to master. 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

Seems like the advantage of working at a fringe/lesser-known 4 year college where you were (apparently) allowed to be very aggressive in developing your program.  Was this a consequence of enlightened management or (benign?) neglect on their part?   Jenny Q. has reported to me her own experience there somewhat more aligned with the latter assertion than the former.

- Steve

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[Steve Smith]

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

or butcher a hog or plan an invasion?

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

> 

 

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

My problem is not with “or X or Y”, it is with the idea that any particular assignments of X and Y are especially valuable, assuming that learning X or Y (whatever the assignments) is equally difficult. 

 

From: Friam <[hidden email]> on behalf of Steven A Smith <[hidden email]>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Date: Wednesday, March 6, 2019 at 2:13 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Thanks for the elaboration, Dave.  Sounds like a great program.  Have you ever written it up AS a program proposal and broadcast it to universities?   That's how I got my job at Clark, surprisingly enough. The program description was published as a letter in The American Psychologist although the program itself was never formally created.  If you read it, please bear in mind that it was written half a century ago.  Some of the language is a bit … funny.  Also not the brief letter published just ahead of it on… yes … psexism in sychology. 

 

But could your graduates write a sonnet? 

or butcher a hog or plan an invasion?

 

N

 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2019 9:24 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] are we how we behave?

 

Ok Steve,

 

First some elaboration:

 

In 25 BC, Vitruvius (considered the founder of the discipline of architecture) stated:

 

"The ideal architect should be a man of letters, a skillful draftsman, a mathematician, familiar with historical studies, a diligent student of philosophy, acquainted with music; not ignorant of medicine, learned in the responses of jurisconsults, familiar with astronomy, and astronomical calculations."

 

In 2004(5?) Christopher Alexander (architect) spoke to an audience of 1000 or so software developers; noting that professional architects are responsible for 10 percent of the built environment while software developers would be responsible for, essentially, 100% of the environment within which we all live, work, and play.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect software developers to have an equivalent, in terms of modern knowledge, educational foundation?

 

The term "modern polymath" has gained significant traction in the business and the design press. Business attention comes from an awareness that in order to thrive, to innovate, in a highly dynamic and complex context, decentralization of analysis and decision making is essential. But, this requires a qualitatively different kind of employee — one with both breadth and depth of knowledge. Moreover, both in business and design, work is done by teams  — multi-disciplinary teams; teams that must transcend individual silos of expertise. A modern polymath is someone with significant, integrated, breadth of understanding with multiple (albeit to different degrees) instances of depth. The visual metaphor is a "broken comb."

 

Much more could be offered in terms of identifying and arguing for the need of broadly educated individuals and extension of that need into almost any discipline.

 

Now the jumping up and down with a bit of YELLING.

 

AS THEY HAVE EVOLVED, CONTEMPORARY UNIVERSITIES CANNOT GRADUATE INDIVIDUALS THAT EVEN APPROXIMATE MODERN POLYMATHS.

 

I could list numerous reasons for this assertion, but will, instead, offer a single illustration.

 

The program that I delivered at Highlands (co-taught with Pam Rostal) was designed to graduate software developers who were modern polymaths. We devised a set of 321 "competencies" and students had to demonstrate their mastery of each at up to five different levels ranging from "rote application under supervision" to "making a contribution to understanding." Competencies ranged in subject matter from Anthropology to Zooloqy. We also utilized 'just in time learning' and tinversion of the teaching approach: graduate level first, fundamentals later.

 

It worked. The first year we had half the students (Freshmen to Graduate level) presenting refereed papers at two conferences with the highest rejection rate of all conferences at that time. All of our students were offered mid-level positions in industry - very notably at a national, not just local level) in software development — not entry level.

 

[An article for the Cutter Journal on this subject should appear in the next few weeks. I will share with anyone interested when it is published.]

 

The point of this reminiscence: As an experiment we put the knowledge base expected of our students in the form of traditional 3-4 credit courses. The number of courses and credits required was the equivalent of 4 undergraduate degrees and 3 Masters Degree programs.

 

Our program could not be replicated at any other university as it violated EVERY precept of university teaching and organization.

 

davew

 

 

On Tue, Mar 5, 2019, at 9:29 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

> 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 [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of u?l? ?

> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM

> >> To: FriAM <[hidden email]>

> >> 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

> >>

> > ============================================================

> > 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

> 

 

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[Marcus G. Daniels]

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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