Subjects of interest

From an e-mailer requesting anonymity.

Professor Mobus,

I have been reading your blogs now for about three months. I have tried to go back and read some of the older ones that you have linked to in your newer ones too. I have been wondering how it is a computer scientist can write so much about completely different subjects. Not to denigrate computer scientists; some of my best friends... I actually do know a couple of CSers and they do have various interests, not completely geeky. But your blogs!

I get some of your interest in politics and economics, but you really seem to be all over the place in terms of how many different areas you try to cover. Don't get me wrong. I am an avid science reader. I have a Master's degree in psychology so I have been following your series on Sapience, though I'm not sure I understand some of what you are claiming (or should I say proposing). But you jump around between energy, economics, and other areas. I'm beginning to wonder if you are really just one person!

The last line cracked me up. But, yes, Anon, I am just one person.

First off, I've been around for a while. I've had time to absorb a lot. I also have a keen interest in why things work the way they do and especially why they don't work the way everybody says they should. But aside from an insatiable curiosity, I was extraordinarily lucky to fall into the study of information theory early in my life. I started out as a biologist and came across information theory in the course of my excursions outside of the standard coursework. I was fascinated by embryology (development), evolution, and the origin of life. Information theory had been applied in several of these areas as well as ecology, and, obviously, psychology. I am a voracious reader and except for an occasional science fiction novel (what else?) I stick to science books for the most part (call me shallow!)

Also, early on, I got an intuition about the role of energy in all of the above. A professor of mine gave me a book he thought was interesting but outside the then mainstream of biology, called "Energy Flow in Biology" by Harold Morowitz (I've mentioned this book on several occasions). Fortunately I had taken physics and chemistry, sufficiently to understand the main points of the book. In it, Morowitz tied information theory and energy (work) and life together in a way that just stunned me. It opened up a whole new way of looking at the world as a unified whole, a system, and a process of increasing complexification.

From there I got interested in general systems theory as a unifying framework. Information and feedback (cybernetics) constitute a major core of systems thinking. Later I was able to put a lot of this together in the nascent solar energy field back in the 80s. From there I learned computer programming and worked on computer modeling of neurons and learning. After working for years in industry I parlayed my generalist knowledge into a PhD in CS and the rest, as they say, is the future!

Below is a diagram, a map, of the major areas I have been interested in and have spent a few hours studying and thinking about. They are all tied together, as indicated, by causal relations (arrow) with feedback, so to speak. At the center of my world is the theory of evolution. This isn't just the neo-Darwinian evolution of biology, but the universal principle of evolution of complexity from simple components under the influence of energy flow. It can be traced back to the Big Bang and forward to the evolution of culture — actually the co-evolution of the human mind and cultures. I might have made this representation as a Venn diagram, showing the overlap or intersection of the various elements, but that would have been too messy. In one way or another, they all overlap with each other, sometimes substantially. And that is what I am trying to impart in these blogs.

Figure 1. Subjects I have pursued because they are strongly connected.

I got interested in all of this because I have a natural tendency to ask questions when I'm piqued by inconsistencies in conventional explanations or seemingly missed subtleties of behind-the-scenes interactions. I remember an argument that I got into with my fifth-grade teacher. We were studying a science module about the solar system and astronomy, you know memorize the names of the planets and such. My teacher was making a big deal out of how important the sun was and I suppose, just to be contrary, I mentioned that the sun was no more than an ordinary star. My teacher (she must have been over 60 at the time, or at least she looked really old to me) was flustered and blurted out that "The sun is not a star. It is the sun." Naturally I took exception, having read about stars and the sun being one in a 'Field Guide to the Planets and Stars', a book my father had bought me. She got understandably irritated and berated me for my insolence. Cut to the scene in the principal's office where the big paddle emerged from behind her desk to teach me to not talk back to my teachers!

After several such object lessons, I realized that a better approach to challenging authorities is to phrase things like questions. I should have said, "But Miss Applegate, isn't the sun just an ordinary star?" Very likely the same result would have ensued, but I have since refined my technique to follow one question with another based on the answer given. I'll be the first to admit this is somewhat disingenuous since I'm really using question asking to assert something I think I already know in a roundabout way. Fair enough.

But upon a lot of self-reflection over the years I have realized that most of this is not because I know anything. It is because I realized that most so-called experts didn't know what they claimed to know and I was just good at picking up on the discrepancies and inconsistencies in their claims. Call me a critic. Then, as my training in scientific thinking matured, I became less the know-it-all brat who used questioning to show up the authorities to become genuinely interested in pursuing some version of truth based on evidence. And that required learning how to turn my critical sense into a sincere formulation of questions that would advance me in understanding. I no longer question just to show up the supposed authorities. I now do it for me, to help me gain understanding.

I never really set out to become a generalist. I did, however, run into Buckminster Fuller once and asked him how he became a generalist. I was a 'fan' and found it wonderful that he offered me some advice instead of answering my question. He told me something that I have actually tried to practice throughout my life and that has contributed to me becoming something of a generalist (I could only dream of being of his caliber though) as well as being successful in most endeavors I undertook. He told me to always look for something that needs doing and that nobody else seems to be taking care of, and then take care of it. And, as an add-on, never compete with anyone.

It's been relatively easy to do the first part. In this world there are so many big and little things that don't seem to get taken care of that finding something useful to do wasn't that hard. The second part, though, that is a lot tougher. We are educated to think that competition is the answer to everything (after all that is how things improve/evolve, right?) And competitive spirit is part of the makeup of the human mind. So it took me years to subdue my natural tendency to want to beat the other guy. But I did find that if you stick to the first part, and manage to pick some important things to take care of, and do a good job at it, the second part seems to work out. I can honestly say that all of my promotions have been on the basis of fulfilling the first piece of advice and not because I had to fight against competitors. I will be forever grateful to Dr. Fuller for that sage advice. And now I've passed it on to you if you care to try it.

The other contributor to my generalist tendances has been that I seem to get bored after a while working at one thing. I guess you can say I have a restless spirit. But I think it is more a characteristic of once I get to know how to do something, and understand it well enough to do some useful work in that area, I can't help wondering what else it is attached to! As in the up-page figure, after fiddling with biology and energy I got to looking at neuroscience and artificial intelligence and psychology and... It just never seems to end. Plus there is the whole business of integrating all of these knowledge areas into a kind of cross- trans- inter-disciplinary whole. Looking at how evolution and energy work through the mind because the brain is a hierarchical control device brings home the idea that you really can't have one area without the others. The world isn't a fragmented collage of disparate laws of nature. Why should knowledge be parsed as if it were.

Finally (at last) I assert that you don't really need to do research work in any of the sciences in order to have a reasonably deep understanding of them. You would, of course, if you want to earn your living doing science. Then being a disciplinarian, a specialist, has a dollar value placed on it. That said, note that some of the most important work in the sciences today is strongly, at least interdisciplinary. And the trend looks to become even more integrative in the future. Well, systems science shows us why. In the end, everything is connected, to one degree or another, to everything else. As someone once said, pull one string and the whole assembly comes along. Every human can understand the world as a whole to some depth if they were to receive the right kind of education. But, unfortunately, our education system is based on specialization and fragmentation. If you want to understand things as integrated, that is left up to your devices. Well, look at the result. The vast majority of people have no inclination to read science articles. A near majority, in the US, don't even understand evolution well enough to grasp its importance, preferring to 'believe' in 4,000+ year old myths and rejecting the most important part of understanding our world. Had they not been forced to try to learn science and math as if they were going to be scientists and mathematicians (where memorization of facts plays an important role) they might have actually learned to appreciate the wonders of our world as illuminated by science, and hence appreciate science itself. I'm betting many more of them would, today, be pursuing careers in science had they not had too many teachers like Miss Applegate trying to teach them facts as if they were absolute truths.

OK, I confess to having been an academic rebel (ironically the model name of my motorcycle) who wanted to learn in spite of the so-called education system. I was lucky enough to have just enough cleverness to pass the PhD hurdles and practice as a quasi-disciplinarian long enough to get some grants and publications (and tenure, let's not forget!). But after a while I got bored, again, of being a disciplinary practitioner.

Now, what do I want to be when I grow up?

Comments

[Neven]

"I will be forever grateful to Dr. Fuller for that sage advice. And now I've passed it on to you if you care to try it."

Thanks for the confirmation, George!

And thanks for explaining a bit more about yourself. Messages get more depth when you know something about the messenger. Although I'm not a scientist, I can relate to many of the things you write.

[Tickmeister]

Since you have a long term interest in evolution, maybe you can answer a dumb question. We have seen several species become extinct (dodo's, passenter pigeons, those big woodpeckers, etc.). Have we seen any new species formed? I haven't heard about it if we have.

[George Mobus]

Thanks Neven.

Tickmeister,

You might want to read up from Wikipedia - Speciation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciation_(biology)

George

[Salient Green]

You are a holistic thinker George. I can't remember if you have used the term in your recent writings. Do you like it or do you prefer system science?

I am curious as to why anon had trouble following your theme.

I have been a fitter and turner/toolmaker and now have my own orchard business. Never been to university and yet I find your works easy to understand and fully 'get it'.

Does this add to the Sapience versus Cleverness theme in the form of Specialist versus Generalist/Holistic to explain how we have come to our predicament?

[George Mobus]

Hi SG.

I have to confess, it never occurred to me that the world wasn't a whole! I've never been comfortable with specialization. I get bored doing the same thing over and over.

Anon, in other e-mails has been asking me for clarification. I don't think that s/he didn't grasp any major points, but having had a Master's degree in cognitive science s/he felt that at times I didn't represent the science as well as I should have. Her/is suggestions will show up in a subsequent draft when I get a chance.

My main objective was to keep things at a level that the average intelligent and well-read reader could absorb. No college necessary! What I hope for is just to get people thinking that there is another dimension to human capabilities beyond intelligence, creativity, and emotions.

If I understand your last question, I suspect that most people find it comfortable to specialize because so much specific knowledge and skills are needed to be productive. And society expects productivity in cooperative efforts like agriculture and industry. There really is a limit to the amount and complexity of knowledge one can acquire in a lifetime. What I like about systems science and explicit systems thinking is that it allows for a lot of knowledge 're-use' (to borrow a term from software engineering). Systems principles, once learned and understood, are applicable to virtually every other more specialized field of knowledge. You can go from one area to another with transferable basic knowledge already in place.

For anyone who is interested in reading an excellent general book based on systems thinking, see: Hidden Connections by Fritjof Capra (or any book by Capra).

George