Actually, Steve, despite spending 40 years doing what it was I did, I
never felt an expert. One of my criteria for expertise, which I felt
I never met, was the capacity to explain a difficult subject to an
attentive, well-educated lay person. And the emperor's new clothes
has always been one of my guiding myths.
So, I confess, these guys bemuse me a bit. "Frustrate" is way too
strong. There is no place that I can stand to expect /experts/ to
answer lay questions about everyday phenonmena. However, for myself,
I find curiosity intensely seductive, and, if I ever ran into somebody
who was curious about what I did all those years, I would leap at the
chance to explore it with them. So, I don't understand why another's
curiosity doesn't delight them as much as it delights me. But, of
course, that's stupid. People are just different.
Actually Nick, I think we *have* tapped your experience off and on here
and it has been useful and informative if never (as it should be)
conclusive.
I have a friend who's e-mail signature reads:
"Life is flux, everything else is opinion".
I think this may sum up the discussion to date on this topic quite nicely!
- Steve
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
