On Stuart Firestein on The Pursuit of Ignorance

I happened to re-watch Stuart Firestein's 2013 TED Talk.

Thoughts:

Reality is Hyper-Localized

At any particular point and scale in the universe exists a locally dominant system that defines that reality.

For example, as I sit here typing this, there is a system that governs the “reality" of my thinking process that communicates with the “reality” of my mechanical body to the “reality" of the computer and Internet, through my fingers as it were.

Each of these three “realities" are fundamentally separate from the other, yet they are coupled together and can interact: E.g. if I had a pain in my right foot, the pain would interfere with my ability to think, which would affect the words that I write.

Of course, there are a vast number of “realities" that are “going on" at the same time and place. There's the reality of the microorganisms in my body, the reality of the sun setting as the Earth revolves, the reality of atomic and quantum phenomena. There very well might be an infinite such realities at any point in time and space.

In this sense, how can there be a single absolute “reality”? Even if we were to plumb the depths of quantum phenomena, understanding those interactions don’t necessarily tell us anything about how “higher order” systems they comprise work. i.e. knowing about how hydrogen bonding works doesn't give you a clue about how the mind functions, or even predict the existence of that system.

Likewise, understanding higher-order systems may be simpler than understanding how all the parts it is made of work: The behavior of a coin sliding across a table can be modeled quite accurately using Newton's laws, but that doesn’t even consider what atomic structure the coin or table has.

To be clear, understanding the deeper mechanics of the universe is very important (and powerful), but learning more about the “fundamental laws” of nature won't help solve the vast majority of our problems. They need to be explored and understood at their own systemic level.

Asking Better Questions

Wouldn't it be great if there was a global website where the big questions in every field are neatly arranged by hierarchy? Anyone could see what the big questions of the day are, and how much progress is being made to answer them.

PhD. candidates should be required (or at least rewarded) for expanding this “tree of questions”, and later hopefully filling in some of the blanks.

“You Always Get What You Screen For.”

Prof. Firestein made a point that when people talk about “evaluation", they are really talking about “weeding out students”.

This shows that the system is optimized for the institutions and people whom the weeding out is for (i.e. industry), rather than the students. Education should be focused on improving each student's chance of success in life.

There is a fine balance though. Yes, there must be accurate evaluations. It's important to give honest (even brutal) feedback on where someone is at vs. their own aspirations. But (and this is a big but), the system should be geared towards helping the students overcome those barriers, not beat them down with them.

This is a controversial subject. No, of course we shouldn't lower the bar. But if someone is willing, why not let them attempt to overcome the bar as long as is reasonable? If someone really wants to be a doctor, let them take organic chemistry for 2, maybe even 3 semesters before politely suggesting another field. On the other hand, we also need to be honest about how much organic chemistry your average G.P. really needs to be an effective doctor.

Related: TED, Society.