intersection of three ideas +3
from iPad presentation by Steve Jobs... why 600 & 1500?
Over the course of the last few weeks various ideas have crossed my path, and, as any pattern recognition device does, commonalities were found and are detailed below. The ideas are from Tony Judt, Italo Calvino & Samuel Bowles with Ugo Pagano. The +2 are recently found examples of the intersection of these ideas provided by Garry Kasparov Leonardo da Vinci. General descriptions and links to each of their contributions, are provided at the bottom of this post. On a personal note, Tony Judt has terrible health problems and I send him my best. Nonetheless, I think when discussing the ideas it is better not to get distracted by the people behind them, but to focus on understanding the ideas. Therefore I will not refer to the ideas by authors, but instead acknowledge their work with appropriate credits and dive into the ideas at hand.
Three ideas:
- a verbal argument for social policies
- a data rich argument about possible social policies
- a verbal argument for creativity
The thread that weaves them together is not the obvious literal one: social policies. Deeper than that is an idea about how human beings will operate in the future. Increased knowledge available and new tools to use this knowledge
- has implications for the Western view of the liberal arts
- will change our means of communication
In summary:
the verbal argument for better social policies is a normal viewpoint expressed by empathetic people across millenniums. The terms and the references are updated for 2009, but basically this is the same old story heard as humans live their lives through natural calamities, such as wars and climatic disasters. There is nothing wrong with it, but it doesn’t help our society make decisions about our future. Fundamentally it is not breaking any new ground, it is only updating an argument that extends back thousands of years.
The data rich argument about possible social policies is a valiant attempt to understand the factors in our world that influence social policy. It utilizes new technologies such as data gathering and mathematical models of dynamic systems, to understand these influences. There is a certain amount of new thought put into it because it requires looking at the problem differently… even if just to use new tools. Karl Marx did not have these tools so readily available. It opens new vistas from which, one can look at social policies, and hopefully someday, change things in an effective manner.
The verbal argument for creativity is put forth in the following quotation about the ability to see, to conceptualize, new possibilities and the utilization of ideas as means to new achievements:
(However much effort they put into it, the two scriveners) are lacking in the kind of subjective gift that enables one to adapt ideas to the use one wishes to put them to, or to the gratuitous pleasure that one wishes to derive from them, a gift that cannot be learned from books.
Adapting and “putting to use” ideas for a new purpose is creativity. Thousands of years ago, few people could read, which limited the ability to communicate through time and space. As more and more humans gain more and more knowledge, we can communicate more complex thoughts, utilizing more complex tools (including advanced mathematics). New tools and knowledge, has always changed how we communicate, it is just that, like everything else, the change is happening at an increasingly faster rate.
If that’s the summary, how long is the paper?!
Skip the body, here’s the conclusion:
The verbal argument for better social policies could not adapt ideas to the uses put forward: a personal goal of better health care, and a general goal of better societies. In a sense, there was not a new idea to adapt ideas to. There was an old idea, universal this and that (health care), Western liberal morality, generalizable statements and all-ecompassing theories of a better society, but fundamentally all based on tired, worn-out 20th century notions of Communism and capitalism… blah, blah, blah.
The data rich argument about possible social policies by contrast, is armed with data found in the real world. His data describes a totally new and different world, however narrowly defined by the data, than the 20th century “us versus them” dichotomy. It therefore compels the reader to see things differently, to develop new policies that relate to the actuality of our situation. And that was the goal of both the verbal argument for better social policies as well as the data rich argument about possible social policies. It is a hint of new forms of communication, in that, it transmits richer information. This richer information is then available for knowledgeable others to use.
The verbal argument for creativity, oddly, provides a sense of order in the chaos. The subjective skills that turn disparate information into a useable form. Doing something with it. It is not easy. It requires advancing ones knowledge; courage to propose something that has never before been considered; and the subjective skills to stay focused on the goal, working it through whether it be long term or short term. Courage and risk-taking… courage might be more apt, anyone can take a silly risk (wall street?), courage implies a bit of thought, of consideration involved; and a level of commitment to accept the consequences. From the context where the quotation about creativity was taken from, comes the additional value that this subjective skill enables one to “end a story” and thereby avoid getting lost in the futile, encyclopedic quest for ultimate knowledge. Accomplishing a task.
background data… or foreground data… where is this leading me?
Using data such as dynamical mathematics, charts, diagrams, simulations of interactions, etc., to communicate has become increasingly common and is becomming necessary. For the last 30 years, Western Liberal Arts academics have pursued the notion of “critical thinking” postulating that verbal arguments through better writing style, is the answer to communicating the complexities of our world. This has been a failure. It is a sign of the unwillingness of “old dogs to learn new tricks.” Yes it is difficult to learn, and become experts at utilizing these new tools to communicate the complexities of our world. But the alternative, is to become irrelevant…
Western notion of “Liberal Arts”? This is dangerous territory here, because I don’t have any data, nonetheless here it goes:
Education as a model emerged as an elite activity: training leaders to lead, whether in China or Europe, aristocrats and emperors always had the “best education.” America modeled its education system on this template, but attempted to “apply it to all people.” Currently some of the most successful people have no college degree (Bill Gates, etc.), and the system is beginning to collapse under the weight of preconceived notions: summers off, 4 year college degree, post-graduate work, difficulty in finding post-collegiate jobs & the need for training before actively producing in the work-force, etc. And of course this includes the idea that a Western Liberal Arts education, must be a part of any education. I am certainly not smart enough to declare this is good or bad, simply taking note of the common assumption that some amount of “Western liberal arts” is a part of any good education.
Universities are becoming a self-indulgent exercise. Western education has become a futile, encyclopedic quest for ultimate knowledge… for one’s self. It has lost its sense of purpose, and so cannot find the end of the story. We are no longer educating the elite to lead their respective “dominions.” Education has become a process of socialization, whereby getting into the certain schools, ensures a specified social network. Any knowledge gained is used in the socialization process. However it is not used to butress the subjective skills that enable one “to adapt ideas to the use one wishes to put them to,” or said another way, accomplish something that one chooses. Finding the end of the story…
The end of this story is that all of this points to a new found means of communication between people who are accomplishing things. These new communication tools are technology rich, data intensive, diagrammatically able. Not all people will communicate with these means. Some will prattle on with the old tools and old viewpoints. But for the sake of any social realm, be it community, city, nation, region, or nomadic group, learning these new skills will be essential to creative accomplishments.
Two examples:
As an odd example of this new creative “language”, consider this story by Gary Kasporov, and what becomes of chess once the computer has beaten the best human chess player. The 20th century dichotomy “us versus them” extended into the realm of “Man versus computer.” In 1997 when the computer beat the best human chess player, many thought the game was over. But it was not, like all living systems there are always more possibilities open to us… if we can see them. This is the big subjective, conceptual leap: one has to imagine them first. Now with humans and computers working together, we humans, are learning even more!
And many many years ago, one of the originators of data rich forms of communication Leonardo da Vinci, utilizing many diagrams and numbers and contrivances in his notes,
…offers a significant example of the battle with language to capture something that evaded his powers of expression.
It is amazing to think that an entirely new form of communication is emerging. A data rich form pioneered by Leonardo da Vinci hundreds of years ago, but rapidly becoming pervasive in the 21st century. These are changing times… shall we choose to remain limited by language, by verbal (or written) arguments for and against? The arguments for actions exist in a more more complex environment, and utilizing our data rich tools of expression will help human beings to communicate more complex ideas.
Three ideas:
- a verbal argument for social policies: Tony Judt, “What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?” adapted from a lecture given at New York University on October 19, 2009. New York Review of Books, Volume 56, Number 20 · December 17, 2009
- a data rich argument about possible social policies: Samuel Bowles and Ugo Pagano, “Economic Integration, Cultural Standardization, and the Politics of Social Insurance” research paper from the Santa Fe Institute, 8 June 2005.
- a verbal argument for creativity: Italo Calvino, “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1985-86. The quotation is taken from the middle of the last lecture on Multiplicity, page 114.
+3:
- example of the subjective gift that enables one to adapt ideas to use: Garry Kasparov, “The Chess Master and the Computer”New York Review of Books, Volume 57, Number 2 · February 11, 2010
- example of the subjective gift that enables one to adapt ideas to use:: Italo Calvino, “Six Memos for the Next Millennium” the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1985-86. The quotation is taken from the end of the lecture on Exactitude, page 77.
- example of life expectancy and health care spending: The hero on this chart is Cuba, and the looser is the US.
Oddly, we find that “US Health and Human Services Department found”:
1.) people with lower incomes and less education tended to die younger.
2.) Life expectancy also varied by ethnicity: whites 76.8 years, while African Americans lived an average of 70.2 years
3.) some countries achieve high life expectancy with low health spending because clean drinking water and preventive health care can be provided with little spending.
Clearly the US Health and Human Services Department is not looking in the right places if they are finding conclusions 1 & 2. Cuba has lower income, African Americas and spends 1/18th as much money as the USA, and returns a longer average life spans. And if the US Health and Human Services Department has found conclusion 3, then there is no need to spend more than $2000 per capita. Health Care revisions should focus on lowering costs at least by 50% and raising life expectancy.
