abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott) (08/24/89)
In the world of instantly accessible information that we are constructing I'm beginning to wonder what one should actually bother to learn. That is, why know something when one can look it up using an information locator service? I also wonder what the difference is between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something. I suppose that one answer is that one should learn (i.e., internalize?) something when the task of looking it up imposes an unacceptable overhead. And I suppose that there are at least two kinds of conditions that lead to that situation: frequency of use and difficulty of learning. That is, if one uses some information frequently, one does not want to have to look it up all the time. Also, if looking something up is difficult, e.g., XYZ theory for some sufficiently complex XYZ, then one may not be able to spend the time to learn it at the time one needs to use it. Any thoughts on this subject? (Also, any suggestions about where this discussion should take place?) -- -- Russ abbott@itro3.aero.org
eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (08/24/89)
In article <56543@aerospace.AERO.ORG> abbott@itro3.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott) writes: >learn. That is, why know something when one can look it up using an >information locator service? I also wonder what the difference is >between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something. This is a philosophical rather than scientific question. There are also far to many groups, so I cut it to sci.edu [I don't know why does not complete belong there either]. There are several reasons why locator services are deficient: 1) There is distinctly larger amount of information which we don't know, than we do know. There is some tendency to believe that all the inventions which ever will be, will be. To better appreciate that you have to consider the state of knowledge before something was known, some great recent scientific discovery. Consider warm superconductors in recent knowledge, or lasers (1963). These are to some degree old hat now. Technology and research products find their way slowly into new areas. Knowledge alone isn't enough. One must dervive some appreciation for our state of ignorance. 2) Information and knowledge can be wrong or falsified. This is why consumer and social responsibility groups are concern with credit ratings databases, crime databases, etc. The potential threats are greater than this. Errors are made. You don't feel this until it happens. It is a strength in a free society where science (for instance) stakes its claim by the ability to reproduce something. Other areas use the term "checks and balances." 3) There are other reasons, you think about them based on these. Another gross generalization from --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers: "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?" "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology." {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene Live free or die.
fhadsell@csm9a.UUCP ( GP) (08/27/89)
In article <56543@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott) writes: > In this world of instantly accessible information that we are > constructing I'm beginning to wonder what one should actually bother to > learn. That is, why know something when one can look it up using an > information locator service? I also wonder what the difference is > between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something. > Being a professor at a specialized engineering school, just recently exposed to the terms SCOOPS, OOPS, LOOPS, etc., I find myself applying object orientation in the strangest places. For example: In Academe should we do away with specialized studies (Geophysical Engineering?) and devote our energies to the more generally applicable objects. Thus instead of teaching XYZ, which inherits from XY, which inherits from X we would teach all variables and methods of X and then look at a few instance variables and instance methods of XY and XYZ. I know that my good friends in the Oil Business usually disagree with me on this point, but let's follow the lead of Mr. Abbott and talk about it.
arch_ems@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (09/01/89)
>In article <56543@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott) writes: >> In this world of instantly accessible information that we are >> constructing I'm beginning to wonder what one should actually bother to >> learn. That is, why know something when one can look it up using an >> information locator service? I also wonder what the difference is >> between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something. I think that it is interesting to note at this juncture the argument attributed to Socrates regarding books -- there was an philosphical opinion in Greek times that the reading and writing of books was a destructive practice -- it allowed people to stop relying entirely on their memories. It seems to me that there is a direct correlation between the book/ memory argument and the learning/information retrieval one. The acceptance of books as an information media did indeed allow people to stop relying entirely on their memories -- with the result being a vastly greater ability to 'manage ever larger amounts of information.' The notion of the specialty that one would have to learn emerged (at least in part) because the varying terminologies, massive numbers of books, and multiple information sources became too great for one individual to 'remember.' Thus we had to learn how to find things out in our individual specialties. Many lawyers have told me that the majority of law school is about learning how to look things up in a library. I think this phenomena is fairly wide spread. The advance of information retrieval systems will (initially) free people from narrow specialties since the capacity for knowing where to look for information will be vastly extended through artificial intelligence, expert systems, neural nets, or whatever your favorite retrieval system is. Information Retrieval might eliminate our need to learn alot of things that can mor easily be retrieved as necessary in the same way that the introduction of books allowed the Greeks to stop remembering a lot of things that could more easily be written. By the way, I have been writing 'book' when I meant to be writing 'writing' The text I had in mind in particular is Plato's Phaedrus where the story of the Egyptian god of learning presenting the Pharoh with the gift of writing is related. Of course there are many interesting transformations that the book had on our culture and my comments regarding specialization probably have more to do with the advent of the book. Putting aside the question of the historical reality of technological advances, an interesting model for the development of information technologies could be a psuedo-economic one: Stage 1 -- Verbal culture -- A limited amount of information primarly stories (entertainment) and crafts --as story-telling and crafts develop over time and peoples begin to settle into particular geographic areas it becomes increasingly desirable to keep written records-- Stage 2 -- Written culture -- Writing emerges as a valuable technology to store and convey the increasing amount of economic data, entertainment, and skills (sword making etc) --crafts people begin to gather in guilds, the sciences emerge as a way of furthering technical achievment, economic transactions become more complex -- in short an information explosion-- Stage 3 -- Publishing culture -- At first used to convey the text that everyone wanted (the Bible) soon the printing press was being used for everything -- to convey and store information. The book was popularized about fifty years after the printing press and fueled the growth of knowledge and accumulation of information. -- as in all of the above cases, the advance of a new technology was heralded by an increasing amount of information and then the new technology in turn fueled the growth of information... Stage 4 -- Electronic culture -- Instant access to exact infor- mation from an ever increasing pool of common data. It will soon become more important to have access to good information management tools than it will be to have expert knowledge of a particular narrow specialization. This too will change.. I wonder what technology awaits us out beyond information retrieval systems -- I'm sure that Guttenberg and Aldus could never have imagined a Sparcstation or Macintosh... *********************************************************** * Edward Shelton, Project Manager ----- * * ARCH Development Corporation / * * \ * * The University of Chicago | | | * * arch_ems@gsbacd.uchicago.edu | \ / | * * (312) 702-3706 (is this a smiley? -->) \ \-/ / * ***********************************************************
kent@sunfs3.camex.uucp (Kent Borg) (09/03/89)
In article <56543@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott) writes: > In this world of instantly accessible information that we are > constructing I'm beginning to wonder what one should actually bother to > learn. That is, why know something when one can look it up using an > information locator service? I also wonder what the difference is > between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something. [I have been reading the comp.cog-eng thread, so I might be redundant with the two .edu groups. If I get myself in trouble, sorry.] A key here is the fuzzy word "Information". "...why know something [use] an information locator service" Don't confuse learning with accumulating facts. They are *not* the same. Databases collect facts. The powerful aspect of learning, however, is understanding. It is tempting to look at a computer being fed data at an extreme rate and equate that with what a person does when "learning" the same material. Why does it take a person years to learn what a computer can absorb in a few seconds? Why are people so terribly inefficient? Why can't people do as well as a computer when it comes to learning? The answer is that people are doing something entirely different from just collecting data. Once a person has learned something she can put it to marvelous use. But the computer which as sucked up the same facts, can mostly just sit there and inertly repeat them. It is a red herring that many so-called teachers substitute the drilling of facts for teaching. Rote learning is a largely distructive teaching technique which only works by a side effect: People are very bad at memorizing facts (compare them to computers to see how easy it is to out-memorize a person). Rote learning only works when the poor student attempts to cope with a volume of facts by trying to understand them. Very often, though, the reaction is the reverse. Students will be so overwhelmed with the facts that they don't dare try to *understand* them. "That would take too much time, I have an *exam* to pass!" "I'm beginning to wonder what one should actually bother to learn." I say: everything. You can't use any information without having it in your head first. Certainly having good reference works available can help, but they themselves can do nothing. Owning a dictionary is different from knowing a language, and reading a dictionary is different from learning a language. Facts are only good to the extent they can be plugged together, and that plugging requires understanding and broad knowlege. All a reference really does is lessen the need for rote learning and doing a lot of rote learning has never been as powerful as a little understanding. Spending much effort on memorizing has always been a waste, the availability of enormous online databases makes that even more true. Related point: Many people like fun-facts about how much more information is being produced these days and say that it is no longer to possible to be a "renaissance" person. Well, the renaissance is over, but I say that it is now *easier* to be multifaceted. Two reasons: =One, the infrastructure is so much better, there are reasonable libraries nearly everywhere in the developed world, these libraries are full of explanations of how the universe works. (And National Public Radio is available in nearly all the US...) =Two, many of these explanations are much simpler and more powerful than were their counterparts during the renaissance. Sure, there are people who have the time to study more minutiae than does anybody other than their fellow specialists. There is no way you can keep up them unless you are one of them, but I say that that has always been true and that that minutiae is only of real value if you are in the speciality. The rest of us should be more interested in their explanations than in their lab notes, and good explanations have the wonderful quality that they make sense without requiring reading all the cited references. Do we live in a more complicated world now? Only in that it is bigger in some ways. Can one person master it all? No, but that has never been possible. Is it easier these days to learn a lot about a lot of subjects? I say, yes. Is it easier to be best in a field now? No, the world has lots of smart people who have the time to compete with you. Does that mean you can't still do better than that poor Renaissance Man? No, learning is easier now. -- Kent Borg "You know me, bright ideas kent@lloyd.uucp just pop into my head!" or -Mrs Lovett ...!husc6!lloyd!kent (from Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeny Todd")
rayt@heraclitus.UUCP (R.) (09/09/89)
In article <56543@aerospace.AERO.ORG>, Russell J. Abbott writes: > In this world of instantly accessible information that we are > constructing I'm beginning to wonder what one should actually bother to > learn. That is, why know something when one can look it up using an > information locator service? I also wonder what the difference is > between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something. From a basic `fact' point of view, I see little to be gained from memorization other than reduced retrieval time - assuming, of course, that the external repository is always available. (There _are_ certain pathological cases where the lack of instantaneous retrieval can inhibit the activity, e.g. dictionary lookup - but I'll ignore such dilettantism.) However, much human activity is spent reworking information to address new problems, impling some level of understanding of the concepts, applicable contexts, potentialities, etc. (that is, facts in isolation are usually of little value). Also, I doubt whether such high-level constructs can be readily assimilated at a single sitting (i.e. _effort_ must be expended to bring this information into cohesion with the rest of one's experience): this is where learning is of significant value - it is the essense of experience and (probably) wisdom. (Note that knowing that E=IR is conceptually a datum as is knowing that a silver stripe on a resistor indicates a maximum of 10% value variation; the difference is in how it is _used_, and, perhaps, how the datum was arrived at.) Retrieval time is also an issue in itself, however: unless the information access is timely one is wasting one's time. While this is obviously the case with skills such as driving, dancing, etc., it also pertains to information communication: much information transfer is done on a conceptual level, that is, the data has been processed so it can be available to be used in general contexts - interest tends to flag if significant processing it required at each juncture and if one must start from scratch every time one wants to do something. A fact base (including generalities) can be viewed as the set of current assumptions about the world; AI has clearly demonstrated the need to have a comprehensive fact base as well as a processing engine. Not only does this reduce time to retrieve information, but then the high-level constructs can themselves be wrought into more comprehensive views. This is the essence of personal development and creativity. Is there a difference between knowing something and knowing where to find out about something? Yes, it is the difference between being an idiot savant and being a competent, fully functional, person. R. -- Ray Tigg | Cognos Incorporated | P.O. Box 9707 (613) 738-1338 x5013 | 3755 Riverside Dr. UUCP: rayt@cognos.uucp | Ottawa, Ontario CANADA K1G 3Z4
rayt@heraclitus.UUCP (R.) (09/09/89)
In article <496@sunfs3.camex.uucp> Kent Borg comments: [A number of points I agree with omitted] >It is a red herring that many so-called teachers substitute the drilling >of facts for teaching. Rote learning is a largely distructive teaching >technique which only works by a side effect: People are very bad at memorizing >facts (compare them to computers to see how easy it is to out-memorize a >person). Rote learning only works when the poor student attempts to cope >with a volume of facts by trying to understand them. ... Spending much effort >on memorizing has always been a waste, the availability of enormous online >databases makes that even more true. I agree with this to a point: rote learning _does_ have a place, however, when one is trying to convey context and technique. The learning of a language is a good example; you noted earlier that having a dictionary does not imply having language use, but neither does theoretical grammatical knowledge do any good without a vocabulary. Taking this somewhat further, _both_ of these are still insufficient to become proficient in a language: reading widely and/or listening to _competent_ speakers is the basis for developing a comparable facility; a process that can be accelerated by the _memorization_ of passages and the clear enunciation of text while reading aloud. Language is sound, tempo, rhythm, in short, context. There is no real way that this can be assimilated _without_ rote practice. >Well, the renaissance is over, but I say that it is now *easier* to be >multifaceted. Two reasons: > > =One, the infrastructure is so much better, there are > reasonable libraries nearly everywhere in the developed > world, these libraries are full of explanations of how the > universe works. (And National Public Radio is available in > nearly all the US...) > =Two, many of these explanations are much simpler and more > powerful than were their counterparts during the renaissance. Again, I largely agree, but would like to qualify it somewhat: while the renaissance _did_ involve a significant amount of new scientific investigation, its main emphasis was upon the rediscovery of ancient Greek (and Roman) _art_. A renaissance man like Leonardo Da Vinci, for example, played and composed music, painted, sculptured, carried on innovative investigations in various sciences, and was also a notable political entity. Granted, one can still do this today, but it should be noted that he was on the leading edge in _all_ these activities: one can be more thoroughly multifaceted today, and the level of scientific comprehension which we would classify as mediocre far outstrips his understanding, but the ability to be on the leading edge in a constellation of activities I consider to be lost. This, however, is not a repudiation of the notion of a renaissance man, only an indication of what the term _must_ mean to have relevance today. >Does that mean you can't still do better than that poor Renaissance Man? >No, learning is easier now. Here we diverge considerably. Learning was only one aspect of the renaissance; what characterized it most thoroughly, however, was the _activity_: the drive toward personal excellence. I doubt very much that this has become easier since we still deal the the same substratum - the biological organism. We may accomplish more with less effort, but that is not the point; the point of comparison is to determine what can be _achieved_ with the same effort; whether we are _willing_ to exert the same effort. R. P.S. Rene Descartes believed that if he could procure a couple of intelligent assistants, the _totality_ of scientific knowledge could be determined (under his direction) in his lifetime. This was only slightly post- renaissance, and it highlights the level of understanding that was available. -- Ray Tigg | Cognos Incorporated | P.O. Box 9707 (613) 738-1338 x5013 | 3755 Riverside Dr. UUCP: rayt@cognos.uucp | Ottawa, Ontario CANADA K1G 3Z4