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:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of u?l? ? > Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2019 2:40 PM > To: FriAM <friam@redfish.com> > 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
