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A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

paulrcohen.github.io

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Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#51

Post by michaelhoney »

nuancebydefault wrote: post #31
PaulHoule wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of crap too as well as stuff that is hard to characterize. I like this guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Badiou who basically plays the same game as Derrida. Except Derrida plays it very sloppily even if you might blame yourself for not understanding it because he is analyzing a difficult text in German in French and now you're reading a bad translation in English. Badiou on the other hand will mash up Mar…

"Badiou has been involved in a number of political organisations, and regularly comments on political events. Badiou argues for a return of communism as a political force."

a not-unreasonable point of view. Remember “communism” and “Stalinism” are not the same thing

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#52

Post by PaulHoule »

michaelhoney wrote: post #51
nuancebydefault wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Badiou has been involved in a number of political organisations, and regularly comments on political events. Badiou argues for a return of communism as a political force."

a not-unreasonable point of view. Remember “communism” and “Stalinism” are not the same thing

Also Badiou was doing his best work before the Soviet Union fell. For all of Stalin's crimes it's not so clear Russia was going to survive the 50 years 1917 in retrospect and it developed from a economically and politically backward country with a few culturally advanced spots [1][2] to an economic, technological and political rival to the US. People in "non-aligned" countries like India and Egypt could only wish they could develop that quickly.

Academically, Marx was ahead of his time even if his prophecy that capitalism would be smashed by "the tendency for the rate of profit to decline" and the labor theory of value turned out to be bunk. He was popular in the 20th centuries and even David Bell chair of the social sciences department of Harvard and as ardent a supporter of the status quo as there ever was claimed to be Marxist. [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konstantin_Tsiolkovsky [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Futurism [3] https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Contradictions-Capitalism-20...

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#53

Post by mizzao »

musicale wrote: post #20
greekanalyst wrote: post #2

Great piece. One of the best places cultivating this type of polymathy today is Stanford's Symbolic Systems Program. https://symsys.stanford.edu/

It does look interesting (and related to the Systems school proposed by TFA), though I've also heard it described as a watered-down or easier CS degree. (Then again, CS itself is sometimes criticized as a watered-down or easier engineering degree, or a degree in calculators.) Data Science sometimes gets a similar watered-down label, but it looks like Stanford's program (at least) might be somewhat technical and may i…

The prestige of the degree seems to come more from the quality of the students that are admitted, than what is actually taught to them.

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#54

Post by drewcoo »

satvikpendem wrote: post #18
bullshy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can't create real polymath... polymaths are self-created... that's the physics of this.

Yeah this is what I don't understand as well, most of the polymath type people I know are naturally curious and self motivated for whatever it is they want to study and do. I am not sure what or how an institution can cultivate such behavior. I suppose it can encourage it to people but again, most polymaths are naturally self motivated and don't need encouragement at all.

If you don't understand, then seek the places that do that. Colleges like Reed.

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#55

Post by jhghikvhu »

openrisk wrote: post #32

> Those colleges and universities that figure out how to organize research and teach new foundations and polymathy and prepare their students to understand a world in which every system, at every scale, acts causally on others, will see their stock rise. The rest will struggle to remain relevant. It is safe to say that this prediction did not come to pass. The system (pun) keeps churning idiot-savants, well-trained c…

In an unexpected turn of events I think Chatgpt qualifies as a polymath.

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#56

Post by rramadass »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #47

A few books which I enjoyed that are somewhat on the subject of polymathy: - The Polymath by Waqas Ahmed. This one directly discusses polymathy in history, and how our "natural state" really is of that of the polymath, not the specialist. A nice book that helped me get past some mental blocks and really embrace learning whatever it is I'm interested in, without reservations on what others may think about such "distra…

Great comment.

Agree with everything; Indeed "polymathy" is our natural state because we are always thinking/playing with different concepts and their interrelationships. It is highly frustrating when i see folks saying things like they "can't learn/understand/grok something" and treating it as some sort of an intrinsic limitation whereas the reality is that all people have the potential and if they really applied themselves will be far better than most folks. Skim/Browse/Read books/articles/watch videos on any and every topic that takes your fancy, think over connecting the dots, debate/discuss/argue to strengthen understanding and always keep switching between "the forest"(i.e. the holistic big picture) and "the trees"(i.e. the individual specialties). This is true Education and should be approached with full enthusiasm and distinct from Schooling/Job needs.

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#57

Post by imoreno »

alganet wrote: post #19

> If one is looking for a single label to encompass many of the new foundations – perhaps to form a new school or department – I would suggest Systems. What about good old philosophy? Philosophy already has a long tradition of birthing new sciences, a long tradition of encouraging polymath thinking and a long tradition of estabilishing foundational ways of thinking.

>Philosophy already has a long tradition of birthing new sciences

Historically, yes, but what about in recent years? I know there have been some new fields that arose out of philosophy, but this seems to have slowed down.

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#58

Post by mschuster91 »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #44
mschuster91 wrote: post #36

> Universities have an opportunity and an obligation to train polymaths. The opportunity comes from the emergence of new foundations that unify fields. The obligation arises because humanity’s pressing problems are not neatly confined within academic disciplines. However, the divisive organizations of academic departments and curricula make it hard for faculty and students to understand systemic problems such as clim…

Why is the author responsible for solving the "elephant in the room" of affordability? The rest of your comment is about how politicians and capitalists have completely hijacked the mission of education - why are they not held more accountable for fixing it? It seems like excuses are constantly made for those responsible for education's conversion into a means of resupply for employers i.e. "capitalists be capitalizi…

> Why is the author responsible for solving the "elephant in the room" of affordability?

They could have at least mentioned it! Complaining that academia doesn't do what the author wants is one thing and completely justified - I think we both agree that the situation of modern academia is a disgrace - but to not even mention the two biggest drivers behind the situation once is ... sad.

> It seems like excuses are constantly made for those responsible for education's conversion into a means of resupply for employers

Oh I'm not excusing that. I'm accusing, both employers for demanding their prospective employees go through many years of training that they won't ever need and saddling themselves with debt for it (we used to label jobs requiring one to pay for training as scams, 'member?), and society itself for not pushing back on this crap. But in order to credibly accuse someone, one first has to name the goddamn thing and state that there are two giant elephants in the china shop that is our modern society.

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#59

Post by numpy-thagoras »

brm wrote: post #27
satvikpendem wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is what I don't understand as well, most of the polymath type people I know are naturally curious and self motivated for whatever it is they want to study and do. I am not sure what or how an institution can cultivate such behavior. I suppose it can encourage it to people but again, most polymaths are naturally self motivated and don't need encouragement at all.

They don't have to actively cultivate it but they should remove the walls between it. There's a lot of red tape/administrative confusion at most schools if you want to do anything interdisciplinary, especially if you want to cross more than two disciplines. Institutions should be more like buffets for the polymath. If I want to interlink say landscape architecture, sculpture, acoustics, materials science and biology…

The way to 'beat' the system's hard testing requirements is to make the interdisciplinary programs more involved, more quantitative, and just be more thorough and engaging, including soft skills elements.

I think the best outcome is to have such students crush their standardized tests by outperforming them due to having a higher baseline because of the interdisciplinary program's curriculum.

Re: A Return to Polymathy (2015) [pdf]

#60

Post by dinkumthinkum »

michaelhoney wrote: post #51
nuancebydefault wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Badiou has been involved in a number of political organisations, and regularly comments on political events. Badiou argues for a return of communism as a political force."

a not-unreasonable point of view. Remember “communism” and “Stalinism” are not the same thing

Really? Communism is terrible. In a communist regime, we don't need all of these book-reader "polymaths;" we need ditch-diggers.
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