Category Archives: Polymathy

Educational Philosophy: from Perfect Citizen to Honorable Individual And Back Again

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I have been reviewing educational philosophies of the past and have come to the conclusion that they have evolved in much the same manners in which the dominant societies of the times have. This should not be such a surprise, as education and leadership have tended to go hand-in-hand throughout history.

What is interesting is that these societies also undergo thematic shifts throughout historical periods: generally from a “gemeinschaft”, communal focus to a more recent “gesellschaft”, capitalistic/individualistic focus. This is of course the economy at work. What is interesting is that this trend appears to have brought us full circle.

And in this tumult, education gets dragged along too.

Hellenistic and Roman societies emphasized the role of an educated individual as a “model citizen”, destined and groomed to serve the State. This model’s ideal is Plato’s Philosopher King. As the proper purpose of the State in this context is to teach and govern the people with virtue (“Virtu”?), helping the state ultimately helps everyone. It would be a few more centuries until Machiavelli tore this idea to shreds.

The fall of Rome took with it much of the accumulated knowledge, which became the provenance of the Church. It is thus little surprise that the next educational model to emerge was one heavily steeped in Christian doctrine: emphasis was placed less on rigorous understanding as it was on morality, religious study, and interpretation of classical works and traditions. In essence, the purpose of education was to become “sacred” and promote the glory of God on earth. The ostensible Ideal of this era was Aristotle (whose errors and insights alike became incredibly canonical); as actually practiced, however, it was probably Ptolemy. While this model may have been beneficial at the individual level, it drew attention away from reality into a metaphysical realm, and thus caused progress in this earthly realm to stagnate for several centuries – the Early Middle Ages, also called the “Dark Ages”.

With the High Middle Ages came a shift in culture and the beginnings of the university model in Western culture. The philosophy in this era was one of syncretism and reconciliation: the union of doctrine with scientific, reasoned thought (again with an unfortunate over-reliance on the classics). The champion of this era was undoubtedly St. Thomas Aquinas. By wrenching the focus back to solving problems in the real world, society began to again limber onward. This age more than any demonstrated that religion and science can indeed coexist if neither intrude into the domain of the other.

The Renaissance, Reformation, and Scientific Revolution were proto-“Modernist” reactions against ingrained tradition and blind doctrine, and it was here that the individual as an individual began to shine. Most would choose Calvin as an exemplar, but his ideas fell more squarely into the preceding century; I would argue that Pico della Mirandola gave these eras dignity and Descartes gave them rigor.

The result of this was astounding, and has reverberated to this day. Many of the foundations for calculus, chemistry, physics, biology, art, music, and literature were set in these time periods. And why not, when the central theme is the ability of the individual, armed with the power of reason, to overcome any obstacle? In my mind, it was the first era in which it was acceptable for human beings to live as human beings should: rationally, passionately, transcendently (yet grounded in reality), and confidently, and it is to this period that I begin to look with great interest.

The Enlightenment abruptly took the focus back to the State. The new ideas and ideals applied so successfully to the natural world during the preceding era were now being tested in government. The role of education in such a society was again to train a model citizen, ultimately to become involved once again in the governmental process (noticing an association between democratic governments and a civic-focused, “participatory” system of education?), but now in the sense of dictating how he wished to be governed! Paine and Locke wrote extensively on these ideals, but it was Thomas Jefferson who actually lived them: “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

As in Rome, such a nationalistic philosophy was bound to end in violence. And so it did, this time in the form of popular revolts. But people arguably had more freedom to determine their own destinies when the heads had finally stopped rolling. As in Rome, such a nationalistic philosophy was bound to end in violence. And so it did, this time in the form of popular revolts. But people arguably had more freedom to determine their own destinies when the heads had finally stopped rolling. And from the tumult, “new nations conceived in liberty” were created.

It is at the industrial revolution and with the advent of Modernity that progress in education reaches its present form (albeit one now universally mandated). The state-centric motivation remains, but the driver behind education now becomes economic rather than political in origin. It is here that the great systematization of education begins, with students treated in much the same rigorous, rule-based, inflexible manner as a product on an assembly line. The key philosophy is one that remains painfully obvious to this day: the purpose of an education is now to be useful to the workforce and thus to society: to Get a Job and Make Money.

Coupled with a system of organic solidarity, this system works reasonably well, but it represents a regression in philosophy from one in which the individual is valued as an individual to one in which one’s worth is solely determined by one’s usefulness.

Here the history ends and my argument begins: for the majority of the population, these “canned” methods work, just as the majority of components on an assembly line will fit perfectly into a functional yet clonal final product.

Nevertheless, as with any method that caters to a mean, the outliers are left by the wayside.

What is missing here is individualism, and with it, a license to be creative or different. More precisely, what is missing at this crucial point in time is something that has never been systematized: a synergy between the individual and the social.

And to finally bring this to a pitch (since I wouldn’t have such an interest if I didn’t have an idea for a better model…): this is what we are trying to do with Project Polymath: place the focus of education on becoming a more creative, more skilled individual for its own sake, yet show these individuals how they can make a difference in the world using not just what we are teaching them, but everything they are and everything we hope they will become.

The responsibility of education must ultimately lie with the student, for the student. There is more latent potential today than at any time in human history, for individuals to put towards realization of their own creative visions for themselves and for society: one aids the other.

For them and for us, now is the time that this potential must be realized.

The Polymath's Manifesto

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The results of a long and interesting LinkedIn discussion:

We are conditioned to think of concepts such as “skill” and “talent” being specific to single fields and conferring little ability beyond the boundaries of those fields, when in actuality the boundaries are very arbitrarily drawn.

Children are all born polymathic. They must be, because there is simply so much in the world to learn: language, shape, quantity, motor function, reasoning, and causality among many other lessons. Even if brilliantly gifted at one of these, a child unable to use the rest would not thrive. The brain of a child is wired to learn as much – about as much – as possible, and for good reason.

Schooling supports this during the younger years. Primary education is modeled around establishing a foundational knowledge base in many areas. However, as one progresses further, the focus narrows, finally culminating in a borderline obsessive focus on a single narrow research question in a doctoral program.

Part of the problem at the root of this is the system of organic solidarity, in which everyone performs a single task and the pooled effort, coupled with a system of trade (money), keeps society functioning. Despite the negative aspects of this system, it is actually necessary for our current way of life, unless we wished to spend our days farming our own food. However, we do not have to take it to such a degree that everyone is expected to specialize in a single task. With the right combination of skills, individual workers would be more able to carry out both their own organic functions and those of others. Consequently, fewer workers would be required overall, less money would need to change hands, and the employers who hired broad workers would reap most of the profits. There’s an economic incentive; most simply have not yet realized it.

Another aspect of the problem, going back to education, is an emphasis on individual subjects rather than fostering general thought and creativity. Once the general reasoning ability is in place, it can be applied across many different subjects. I’ve thought of the intuition that comes with this as a more advanced level of “common sense”: because many areas of knowledge follow similar patterns, picking up on these patterns causes similar principles across many disciplines to become “obvious”.

However, because the reasoning taught in advanced education tends to end sharply at a disciplinary boundary (“cliff-shaped” rather than “hill-shaped”) without abstracting to general principles or crossing into other disciplines, the skills we acquire tend to also end at that boundary. This doesn’t indicate a deficiency or limitation of talent or ability, however – it merely represents the limits of one’s education and practice. However, it creates a fairly thorough image of talent or skill as a “single subject” phenomenon.

Even worse is the lack of a driving force for self-expression. I remember reading a study that surveyed the satisfaction levels of workers in demanding occupations, such as medicine and law. Those without a means of self-expression reported the least satisfaction of those in any occupation, while those with a means of self-expression reported the most satisfaction. In endless pursuit of answers that are correct or techniques that are proper, schools have left behind study of subjective, expressive, and creative problems, such as morality and autopsychoanalysis, and the result is a society that has forsaken humanity for a very narrow definition of competence, when in reality the two concepts are much broader and are in fact intertwined.

To resolve this final issue, I think we all need to go back to childhood in a sense… to the childhood sense of wonder and the desire to learn, create, and express. To make things not only because they are functional or profitable, but also because they are significant or bring joy to behold.

Persuasive Writing: Always Have a "Take Away" Idea

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When trying to present an idea or vision, one important aspect of the presentation is establishing a central idea that will stick in their minds long after the remainder of the prose has faded.

For instance, take this:

“Because curricula would be problem and goal-oriented, spanning diverse subjects, and chosen primarily by students in accordance with their own goals, and because performance would be measured by proficiency rather than completion of a set number of credits, graduates of such a university would emerge highly versatile, with the insight, confidence, and experience required to pursue not only the challenges that society will set before them, but their own private visions of how the world should be. In fact, because students tailor their own experiences and can easily change fields without losing time due to our proficiency-oriented measure of progress and our goal-directed curriculum, they will have already exercised a great deal of personal choice, ensuring that their values are fully developed and their ultimate visions are well-defined and inline with their training. In short, they would satisfy the criteria for personal advancement set forth in Maslow’s concept of self-actualization or Dabrowski’s positive disintegration. Polymath graduates would not only be well-versed, but further along in their human development and realization of their potential.”

Very few people will read through that whole paragraph, and very few of those who do will actually understand and remember it all. But the one message that the paragraph (and the text of the site as a whole) conveys is:

“We are going to train polymaths”.

That’s it. In an honest world, I could trim the text down to this sentence and be done with it.

Even though this is the primary thematic idea people take away from the text, it’s a very powerful and compelling one. It captures the very essence of the vision, and thus represents the project’s goals. Those who agree with it resonate with the goals of the project and very often become its most ardent supporters.

This is a natural consequence of idea-orientation as well – the prose grows around an idea because that is the way the writer is thinking. It’s a component of natural leadership.

MBTI types of generalists?

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I’m a member of several groups on polymathy and on harnessing talent in multiple areas (it’s something I’m interested in myself, after all). One of the more interesting things I’ve noticed is that when asked about their MBTI types:

1. Everyone knows them already.

2. Almost everyone is an INTJ. Next common is INTP, then ENTP.

3. Most historical polymaths are thought to be INFJs. (What happened to cause the shift? Did thinking types suddenly become more in-tune with their artistic sides recently, or was there something cultural to it?)

How much faith one can put in MBTI types is questionable, but it does support my hypothesis that nonlinear intuitive thought, not straight logic, is required to see the connections between disciplines.

Thanks to the trustees!

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Now that it’s time to develop workable strategies to institute a university, the trustees of the foundation, who were selected primarily on the basis of their ideas, are showing their worth. The strategy we’re developing is a masterwork. This is by far the most competent group I’ve ever seen – it’s the first time I’ve actually seen “synergy” in action. Thanks, everyone!

Four INTJs, taking on the world for something they believe is Right. The world doesn’t stand a chance 🙂

More artificial intuition ideas…

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A post I just made on Slashdot in the context of an article about improving computer “Go” opponents:

Intuition is something a successful AI (and a successful human Go player) will require, and while we can model it on a computer, most people haven’t thought of doing so. Most systems are either based on symbolic logic, statistics, or reinforcement learning, all of which rely on deductive A->B style rules. You can build an intelligent system on that sort of reasoning, but not ONLY on that sort of reasoning (besides, that’s not the way that humans normally think either).

I suspect that what we need is something more akin to “clustering” of concepts, in which retrieval of one concept invokes others that are nearby in “thought-space”. The system should then try to merge the clusters of different concepts it thinks of, resulting in the sort of fusion of ideas that characterizes intuition (in other words, the clusters are constantly growing). Since there is such a thing as statistical clustering, that may form a good foundation. Couple it with deductive logic and you should actually get a very powerful system.

I also suspect that some of the recent manifold learning techniques, particularly those involving kernel PCA, may play a part, as they replicate the concept of abstraction, another component of intuition, fairly well using statistics. Unfortunately, they tend to be computationally intense.

There are many steps that would need to be involved, none of them trivial, but no one said AI was easy:

1. Sense data.
2. Collect that data in a manageable form (categorize it using an ontology, maybe?)
3. Retrieve the x most recently accessed clusters pertaining to other properties of the concept you are reasoning about, as well as the cluster corresponding to the property being reasoned about itself (remembering everything is intractable, so the agent will primarily consider what it has been “mulling over” recently). For example, if we are trying to figure out whether a strawberry is a fruit, we would need to pull in clusters corresponding to “red things” and “seeded things” as well as the cluster corresponding to “fruits”.
4. Once a decision is made, grow the clusters. For example, if we decide that strawberries are fruits, we would look at other properties of strawberries and extend the “fruit” cluster to other things that have these properties. We might end up with the nonsymbolic equivalent of “all red objects with seeds are fruit” from doing that.

What I’ve described is an attempt to model what Jung calls “extroverted intuition” – intuition concerned with external concepts. Attempting to model introverted intuition – intuition concerned with internal models and ideas – is much harder, as it would require clustering the properties of the model itself, forming a “relation between relations” – a way that ideas are connected in the agent’s mental model.

But that’s for general AI, which I’m still not completely we’re ready for anyway. If you just want a stronger Go player, wait just a bit longer and it’ll be brute forced.

Bootstrapping a University.

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My funding plan for the Polymath Foundation has always relied upon a combination of donations and tuition for courses. Although my upcoming stint as an adjunct at Monmouth University has shown me that adjuncts in general are underpaid and lack job security, this is actually positive at the same time – even as I’m on the receiving end of the poor benefits, I also realized that it only takes two to four students’ tuition to pay the course instructor’s salary.

If we assume classes of 20-30 students, this suddenly seems like an excellent way to bootstrap the university.

Another good summarization

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It is comforting to occasionally stumble upon the site of another who shares my philosophy, unique as it is. In this case, the site is “Filling a Much Needed Void”, a blog by Hanne Blank. Specifically, I’d like to point readers to the post entitled The Renaissance Woman, which is mostly a summary of many of the major issues that those of us wishing to be polymaths end up facing. Particularly poignant is her attention to the problem of perceived arrogance: doing so many things successfully intimidates people, and is therefore Bad (because many people are apparently very sensitive about their intellectual prowess and view any potential superiority as an affront, arrogance of this sort has come to be regarded as one of the most heinous personal failings, even though it is really a base trait required to advance society in significant ways. Oddly enough, I would say that most polymaths, whom you’d expect to have the most reason to guard their own intellectual self-efficacy, are not nearly so sensitive, instead looking forward to the chance to learn from superior intellects).

Coincidentally, her blog even has the same theme that mine does.

I would anyone looking to eventually become a polymath to read her article. It’s helpful to know the social forces you’re up against in advance.