The Polymath isn't dead and there are still great men around who are able to contribute towards the development of knowledge in a number of key areas. The modern world, though, is one where specialists predomoninate and with the progress of time it can be increasingly difficult for people to have a broad grasp of their own particular subject and we are often pushed into ever narrower areas.
There is danger to society in this dependence and if society struggled to produce them for a period of time most of our modern world would collapse. We should never forget that even though we live in a time of plenty, our cities are only a matter of weeks from starvation. How many of us have stocks of tins in our cupboards like previous generations? Having people with a broader knowledge base and less dependent on specialists ensures socieity is more robust, whereas ours is increasingly fragile.
It also means those with great brains, of ilk of Thomas Young from a few hundred years ago, are unable to contribute as they once would have, although, you could argue we have more educated people now so it should deliver us more great brains. They still will typically contribute in only one area whereas in the past we would have had a much broader benefit from their genius.
The additional problem is that everywhere in many ways the knowledge base of an individual is shrinking and it is often acceptable to be ignorant. Creativity is often driven, in my view, by someone that can bring a new way of looking at problem, a new angle or perhaps something they have seen in a different area or study or analysis. We are losing the cross fertilization that has helped make previous epochs creative and this is exacerbated by the increasing specialization of the modern wold.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
Gaia James Lovelock
I read voraciously. If I have one talent it is my ability to read at speed like few people I know. Most people don't read and sometimes I worry that the capacity to read books may slowly whither. I was so impressed with the Chinese PM, I think it was the PM, who said he reread the Wealth of Nations. How many of these gurus we have to listen to have actually picked up the Wealth of Nations?
I love to live, but i also feel it should be a duty for us if we have time and a brain to spend some of it thinking about something serious. I laugh at the French and their pretentiousness, occasionally showing off their knowledge, but also think it is perhaps better than the British pride in what we don't know.
So the two authors I would like to hear in conversation are Jared Diamond and James Lovelock. I recently read one of James Lovelock's books and he is clear thinking with a willingness to challenge himself by considering the unthinkable.
Now his core prediction and yes he has made a prediction Mr Taleb, we shouldn't predict, that billions of us may die this century as Gaia takes her revenge. He uses the phrase Gaia to evoke the image of a living planet as opposed to one of those lifeless rocks that inhabits our solar system.
At a simple level something intrinsically feels right about what he is saying in terms of there are no free rides in life and surely for the abuse we have heaped on mother earth, how we have exploited her then surely there must be some payback. We unthinkingly buy another mobile phone, drive miles to see someone, burn fuel visiting some far off country, throw our rubbish on the floor, waste, waste waste, waste....
So what will be the payback and will we be able to flee to another country that remains unaffected. That is the key. Throughout history we have been able, or the lucky ones have been able to flee the problems afflicting a country. There has always been a safe haven and the idea of I can escape to a better life has existed, once in that country then you remain relatively protected from the more local problem.
Perhaps the only time this was not applicable was with the great plague and occasionally with a war which has been more total, however, for much of history there may have been a great war but if you were a little farmer in the middle of nowhere, unless you were really unlucky life just went on, so we have remained largely local in our thinking as we have been able to. One could discuss this for hours and my little theory probably misses loads of important details, the fact remains we are very locally orientated.
Now if Gaia takes her revenge, if the global planet system begins to collapse like some of the societies that Jared Diamond looked at what would happen to us. Would we become a squabbling rabble or would some part of the world escape so they could assert some kind of structure on the world. Would we turn on each other setting off nuclear weapons, where will we be?
The scary thing is the scientists simply don't know. The Earth system is too complex to truly know what our impact on our beautiful planet has been, and how she might react. We may have been lucky and done something to help her, delaying the problems for later, the system as far as i can see is really too complex to model correctly so they have to make assumptions some of which may be wrong. At at a simple level, however, there will be payback, of that i am certain and what will it be I wonder? Is Mr Lovelock right, or is he simply more pessimistic given his age? Could he be right will billions of us die? Will large parts of the world become a waste land?
I think it is time to take that drink, take that person out you always fancied, tell the people important what you always wanted to, visit that place you always dreamed of and read that book you always said you would, because this century could be payback century and I am scared. Mr Taleb this is something you should think about predicting with your fractals rather than the movement of stocks.
Taleb views our world as living in extremistan whereby most key events do not not live around the average therefore, applying the bell curve is a waste of time we need to use fractals which scale IE they look the same what ever the scale you use unlike the bell curve which has extreme events as becoming increasingly unlikely. Unfortunately he uses his theories to think about stocks and making money sad really.
Finally for the Economists and their obsessions with interest rates, growth rates, unemployment, innovation for god sake people, stop for one second and think. Where is mother Earth in this concept, where is she? When did you last sit in a field and look at her? Economics and ever greater growth and consumption is dead if she doesn't die then she will kill us all.
I love to live, but i also feel it should be a duty for us if we have time and a brain to spend some of it thinking about something serious. I laugh at the French and their pretentiousness, occasionally showing off their knowledge, but also think it is perhaps better than the British pride in what we don't know.
So the two authors I would like to hear in conversation are Jared Diamond and James Lovelock. I recently read one of James Lovelock's books and he is clear thinking with a willingness to challenge himself by considering the unthinkable.
Now his core prediction and yes he has made a prediction Mr Taleb, we shouldn't predict, that billions of us may die this century as Gaia takes her revenge. He uses the phrase Gaia to evoke the image of a living planet as opposed to one of those lifeless rocks that inhabits our solar system.
At a simple level something intrinsically feels right about what he is saying in terms of there are no free rides in life and surely for the abuse we have heaped on mother earth, how we have exploited her then surely there must be some payback. We unthinkingly buy another mobile phone, drive miles to see someone, burn fuel visiting some far off country, throw our rubbish on the floor, waste, waste waste, waste....
So what will be the payback and will we be able to flee to another country that remains unaffected. That is the key. Throughout history we have been able, or the lucky ones have been able to flee the problems afflicting a country. There has always been a safe haven and the idea of I can escape to a better life has existed, once in that country then you remain relatively protected from the more local problem.
Perhaps the only time this was not applicable was with the great plague and occasionally with a war which has been more total, however, for much of history there may have been a great war but if you were a little farmer in the middle of nowhere, unless you were really unlucky life just went on, so we have remained largely local in our thinking as we have been able to. One could discuss this for hours and my little theory probably misses loads of important details, the fact remains we are very locally orientated.
Now if Gaia takes her revenge, if the global planet system begins to collapse like some of the societies that Jared Diamond looked at what would happen to us. Would we become a squabbling rabble or would some part of the world escape so they could assert some kind of structure on the world. Would we turn on each other setting off nuclear weapons, where will we be?
The scary thing is the scientists simply don't know. The Earth system is too complex to truly know what our impact on our beautiful planet has been, and how she might react. We may have been lucky and done something to help her, delaying the problems for later, the system as far as i can see is really too complex to model correctly so they have to make assumptions some of which may be wrong. At at a simple level, however, there will be payback, of that i am certain and what will it be I wonder? Is Mr Lovelock right, or is he simply more pessimistic given his age? Could he be right will billions of us die? Will large parts of the world become a waste land?
I think it is time to take that drink, take that person out you always fancied, tell the people important what you always wanted to, visit that place you always dreamed of and read that book you always said you would, because this century could be payback century and I am scared. Mr Taleb this is something you should think about predicting with your fractals rather than the movement of stocks.
Taleb views our world as living in extremistan whereby most key events do not not live around the average therefore, applying the bell curve is a waste of time we need to use fractals which scale IE they look the same what ever the scale you use unlike the bell curve which has extreme events as becoming increasingly unlikely. Unfortunately he uses his theories to think about stocks and making money sad really.
Finally for the Economists and their obsessions with interest rates, growth rates, unemployment, innovation for god sake people, stop for one second and think. Where is mother Earth in this concept, where is she? When did you last sit in a field and look at her? Economics and ever greater growth and consumption is dead if she doesn't die then she will kill us all.
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