Rigorous empiricism eventually wears down any narrative needed to make sense of our world. No theory of the world seems capable of making sense of ALL the data.
The trick of making sense of the world is knowing when to stop paying attention to data and start paying attention to your narrative. If you start too soon, you land in a fantasy world, deluded by your own simple explanation. If you start too late at the game of ignoring data and focusing instead on your narrative, you are never quite able to convince yourself that you - or the world - make sense.
We started down the path of the empirical method with the perhaps naive notion that we could make sense of it all. That might have reflected a conceit that only ignorance can breed. It might just be that reality in all its messy sprawl is simply defiant of any neat theory to explain it. If anything does make sense of the world, it might be music. I'll have to collect more data before I can tell.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
Showing posts with label knowledge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knowledge. Show all posts
30 October 2009
Like Dogs Watching Television
It is not just that they don't understand. You can't even begin to get them to understand just how much they don't understand.
11 November 2008
The Three Stages of Understanding (Or, Why We Don't Trust Experts)
In this country, we have a distrust of experts. I have one theory about why that might be.
Systems are defined by interaction. Worse, the influence of any ONE element depends on at least one other element. For instance, two children who are continually undermined by their mother will experience this differently. The impact of the mother will depend upon at least one other element - from differences in personality to fashion daring between the siblings. Systems - from markets to people - are hard to predict.
This is one reason why experts in any domain become tiresome. As people learn more, they become harder to understand. Imagine you are asked to predict the behavior of a system - from an economy to the effect of summer cold on wheat production. There are three levels of understanding that will generate three different answers to the question, "What will happen when ...?"
1. "I don't know." At this level you might be able to define the system but you can't predict it.
2. "I know! It will ...." At this higher stage, you've seen the system respond to this variable before. You can predict based on the example or two from the past.
3. "It depends." At this, the highest stage of knowledge, you know that the influence of any one variable will depend on at least one - maybe dozens - of other variables.
And once an expert launches into his list of variables upon which the system depends, the average person begins to hear, "blah, blah, blah ..."
This is one reason that liars and people at stage two are more likely to be trusted than experts at stage three. They are easier to understand. They sound more confident. This preference is not certain, of course. Because whether or not people will prefer someone at level 2 to someone at level 3 depends on ... blah, blah, blah. But of course, I'm no expert.
Systems are defined by interaction. Worse, the influence of any ONE element depends on at least one other element. For instance, two children who are continually undermined by their mother will experience this differently. The impact of the mother will depend upon at least one other element - from differences in personality to fashion daring between the siblings. Systems - from markets to people - are hard to predict.
This is one reason why experts in any domain become tiresome. As people learn more, they become harder to understand. Imagine you are asked to predict the behavior of a system - from an economy to the effect of summer cold on wheat production. There are three levels of understanding that will generate three different answers to the question, "What will happen when ...?"
1. "I don't know." At this level you might be able to define the system but you can't predict it.
2. "I know! It will ...." At this higher stage, you've seen the system respond to this variable before. You can predict based on the example or two from the past.
3. "It depends." At this, the highest stage of knowledge, you know that the influence of any one variable will depend on at least one - maybe dozens - of other variables.
And once an expert launches into his list of variables upon which the system depends, the average person begins to hear, "blah, blah, blah ..."
This is one reason that liars and people at stage two are more likely to be trusted than experts at stage three. They are easier to understand. They sound more confident. This preference is not certain, of course. Because whether or not people will prefer someone at level 2 to someone at level 3 depends on ... blah, blah, blah. But of course, I'm no expert.
24 October 2008
Transforming Education Through Action
"Knowledge and action are the central relations between mind and world. In action, world is adapted to mind. In knowledge, mind is adapted to world."
- Timothy Williamson
The history of education has basically been one of adapting the mind to the world - imparting knowledge about what is. This works. It is powerful and explains a great deal of why our world is vastly different from that of medieval peasants.
The model of learning and work now is to first learn about the world and then to go work in it. You graduate from high school or college and then get a job. In school, we learn what is. In work, we attempt to change it to what could be. Learning and action are sequential.
But of course this is not how it works. Most of what we know comes from what we have done. This effectively means that great potential for learning in the early years is wasted because of a lack of action.
What if the line between learning and work were not so clear? What if even in school, students were expected to take action, to adapt the world to mind?
This suggests the possibility of students beginning to take action on their world early on. First graders might raise a garden. 12th graders might build homeless shelters. Sophomores in college might re-design or build bike paths to encourage healthier commuting.
By blurring the boundary between action and knowledge - by making the adaptation of mind and world iterative rather than sequential - would both be enhanced. Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about the modern world is how powerless so many people feel to change things, to change their world as they experience it. How different could it be if from the very beginning, students felt able to take action, to make change?
- Timothy Williamson
The history of education has basically been one of adapting the mind to the world - imparting knowledge about what is. This works. It is powerful and explains a great deal of why our world is vastly different from that of medieval peasants.
The model of learning and work now is to first learn about the world and then to go work in it. You graduate from high school or college and then get a job. In school, we learn what is. In work, we attempt to change it to what could be. Learning and action are sequential.
But of course this is not how it works. Most of what we know comes from what we have done. This effectively means that great potential for learning in the early years is wasted because of a lack of action.
What if the line between learning and work were not so clear? What if even in school, students were expected to take action, to adapt the world to mind?
This suggests the possibility of students beginning to take action on their world early on. First graders might raise a garden. 12th graders might build homeless shelters. Sophomores in college might re-design or build bike paths to encourage healthier commuting.
By blurring the boundary between action and knowledge - by making the adaptation of mind and world iterative rather than sequential - would both be enhanced. Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about the modern world is how powerless so many people feel to change things, to change their world as they experience it. How different could it be if from the very beginning, students felt able to take action, to make change?
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