I am getting caught up on reading your post. Sorry I got so far behind, but apparently I have been busy??? Anyway I enjoyed this post very much. History was my first major, but psychology was my second major and a lot of what interested me was how we learn. So your post here made me think about stuff I haven't had to think about for a long time.
Also, the material you had on Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel reminded me how much I really want to read that book. I will have to see if I can fit it in along with everything else.
I hope that whenever you have time to enjoy a post or two you get something out of them, even if just a chuckle or two. Jared Diamond "conclusions" in GG&S are thought-provoking. My sense is when we collectively don't know something we tend to migrate to far-fetched ideas. We manage to show those don't make sense and back to the drawing board. It seems to me, especially with my love of science that how things work often reduces to a rather elegant and almost simple explanation. I am sure you would enjoy it.
For me, late in life, both history and psychology are equally pulling me in. You are fortunate to have the background.
I tend to agree with you on the "elegant and almost simple explanation." I was teaching World History at a private academy in the years before COVID. Now, you have probably heard me talk about this at our book club. Frankly, I never had "World History" as such at Gustavus. The first required courses were two semesters of Western Civilization. Then two semesters of American History. From there you could take classes in Russian or Chinese or English history, etc.
Well, I'm sorry, but "Wester Civilization" leaves out a whole big part of the world. And piecemeal learning about other countries doesn't give you the big picture. So basically, while I was teaching this class, I was learning along with the students I was teaching. We ran across something I had never heard of - the Columbian Exchange. The very real results of Columbus discovering the New World. What the Old World got from the New - potatoes, tomatoes, cocoa, etc. and what the New World got from the Old - grains, domesticated animals, etc. All those things that Jaren Diamond delineates as those things which seem to have decided whether societies would become "advanced" or remain hunter-gatherer.
Those were ideas that were very new to me and caused many hours of contemplation and additional reading. One of the books I read was Charles C. Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. A difficult read, I will say that first. But very illuminating about the history of pre-Columbian American societies. It really opened my eyes to what we teach when we teach American History and talk about "savages", "uncivilized" and other terms like that. (Sorry, between the grey weather and little sleep, my brain isn't functioning like I would like it to be.)
I don't know if I was going to take this any further, but you get the idea. It's one of the reasons I really want to read Diamond's book.
I am pet-sitting this week for some friends, so I have some time to do nothing but get caught up on things like your posts and other materials I run across, i.e. Conversations with Bill Kristol on YouTube, particularly one with James Carville on Biden, Trump, Our Parties and 2024 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d886hjFaYg (if you are interested) I am having a fun time just wandering through things I never seem to have time for. Have a good week.
Thanks so much for the comment. It is fun when reading takes our minds in unexpected directions. I agree with you about the limits of Western Civilization. The bookclub in fact read 1491 and I agree it was useful but a slog to read.
The interchange between old and new led to the need for dentists with all of the sugarcane in addition to all the other things you mentioned :)
I have fond GG&S to be a useful way to explain the world and how it ended up.As a sidelight I enjoy genealogy and his thesis fits the movement out of Africa very well. It is now thought that pehaps only 40,000 humans survived when the trek out of Africa happened. Lack of domesticable animals and very limited places for wild grass to be turned into a steady food supply. If we had not moved, we might have remained humter-gatherers for a lot longer. I may listent o Kristol and Carville, that sounds fun. Thanks again for commenting.
I once read a quote by the physicist, Emerson Pugh (full disclosure, I had to look up his name): "if the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't." Still, I'm so curious to know what tools scientists will use to understand our brains in the future. After all, it wasn't too long ago that machines like fMRI's seemed impossible.
Yours (and Mr Pugh's) observations are often the keys to breakthroughs. After a career in science and engineering, what always floors me is that we are not surrounded by unmitigated complexity but rather simple elegance. Even if you do not study math and science, it is not lost on me that the formulas that describe how things work are SIMPLE in their elegance.
The fMRI is a remarkable breakthrough machine and led to the refinement of regionalism and "centers" in the brain. I posted about a remarkable and ingenious set of experiments involving fish. Through CRISPR-like tech we have been able to watch an idea form in a fish brain by making it fluoresce when the neurons are activated. Kinda cool. Then it is only a matter of stimulating the fish in some way and watch it all happen. It is almost always the uncelebrated DESIGN of the experiment that leads to breakthroughs. I have read a fair amount about the field. My bystander conclusion is that neurons are neurons and they are not elegant but merely rather numerous. It seems the ORGANIZATION of the neurons into ad-hoc networks is somehow the secret sauce.
The post would have been arrogant if I had expanded on my opinion as I am no expert. I believe our brains are pattern-recognition experts and that is rooted in our sensory centers which are quite primitive and shared with many other animals. I think what makes us special is we repurpose these neurons and create spontaneous networks to function as memory, support contemplation, etc.
I wrote another post juxtaposing our senses to other creatures. What makes us REMARKABLE is the ability to make tools. It sucks we don't have eagle eyes but only humans will ever build telescopes.
The point of the post that I hoped would ring true for people is that something like a housefly contains the SAME COMPONENTS as us humans. Our approach in AI & ML thus far is brute force computing. The fact that a child, after only touching a hot stove ONCE with some help and guidance from a parent will likely construct a nearly perfect means of recognizing the risk and behave accordingly.
Thanks as always for commenting and stimulating a conversation.
Thank YOU for your thorough, fascinating responses! I love learning from you, and these comments help me get a better understanding of what you're discussing. You've obviously spent a lot of time thinking through these ideas, so I don't consider your opinions arrogant at all. They're thought-provoking. Honestly. You've changed the way I think about oceans. And now I know we can watch an idea form in a fish! Thanks!
I will find the link. I am a big optimist in case it doesn't show in my writing. I love your writing and it will undoubtedly inspire future posts! It seems to me that people who best get to know and improve themselves journal. Scientific breakthroughs are so often rooted in the copious note taking and review. You have helped me remember this even more.
Enjoyed the Houdini story and will comment after I let it bounce around in my head -- I would guess neurons are self-organizing as we speak :)
When I think about that silly game, it is crazy how lifelike the games have become in our lifetimes. If my blog is like Pong, there is definitely room for improvement :)
Perhaps I did not present this very well. The theory of how disease is spread came because we eventually built microscopes. Until that time we just had guesses of what might be happening. I think that medical advances that go ever smaller will do the same for how a thought is developed. This is the big discovery that I just don't think we will figure out without observation. What you caution about I agree with you. I think the nature of discovery will stumble upon how a mind works. I hope we can apply the knowledge for good not evil.
I am getting caught up on reading your post. Sorry I got so far behind, but apparently I have been busy??? Anyway I enjoyed this post very much. History was my first major, but psychology was my second major and a lot of what interested me was how we learn. So your post here made me think about stuff I haven't had to think about for a long time.
Also, the material you had on Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel reminded me how much I really want to read that book. I will have to see if I can fit it in along with everything else.
I hope that whenever you have time to enjoy a post or two you get something out of them, even if just a chuckle or two. Jared Diamond "conclusions" in GG&S are thought-provoking. My sense is when we collectively don't know something we tend to migrate to far-fetched ideas. We manage to show those don't make sense and back to the drawing board. It seems to me, especially with my love of science that how things work often reduces to a rather elegant and almost simple explanation. I am sure you would enjoy it.
For me, late in life, both history and psychology are equally pulling me in. You are fortunate to have the background.
I tend to agree with you on the "elegant and almost simple explanation." I was teaching World History at a private academy in the years before COVID. Now, you have probably heard me talk about this at our book club. Frankly, I never had "World History" as such at Gustavus. The first required courses were two semesters of Western Civilization. Then two semesters of American History. From there you could take classes in Russian or Chinese or English history, etc.
Well, I'm sorry, but "Wester Civilization" leaves out a whole big part of the world. And piecemeal learning about other countries doesn't give you the big picture. So basically, while I was teaching this class, I was learning along with the students I was teaching. We ran across something I had never heard of - the Columbian Exchange. The very real results of Columbus discovering the New World. What the Old World got from the New - potatoes, tomatoes, cocoa, etc. and what the New World got from the Old - grains, domesticated animals, etc. All those things that Jaren Diamond delineates as those things which seem to have decided whether societies would become "advanced" or remain hunter-gatherer.
Those were ideas that were very new to me and caused many hours of contemplation and additional reading. One of the books I read was Charles C. Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. A difficult read, I will say that first. But very illuminating about the history of pre-Columbian American societies. It really opened my eyes to what we teach when we teach American History and talk about "savages", "uncivilized" and other terms like that. (Sorry, between the grey weather and little sleep, my brain isn't functioning like I would like it to be.)
I don't know if I was going to take this any further, but you get the idea. It's one of the reasons I really want to read Diamond's book.
I am pet-sitting this week for some friends, so I have some time to do nothing but get caught up on things like your posts and other materials I run across, i.e. Conversations with Bill Kristol on YouTube, particularly one with James Carville on Biden, Trump, Our Parties and 2024 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d886hjFaYg (if you are interested) I am having a fun time just wandering through things I never seem to have time for. Have a good week.
Thanks so much for the comment. It is fun when reading takes our minds in unexpected directions. I agree with you about the limits of Western Civilization. The bookclub in fact read 1491 and I agree it was useful but a slog to read.
The interchange between old and new led to the need for dentists with all of the sugarcane in addition to all the other things you mentioned :)
I have fond GG&S to be a useful way to explain the world and how it ended up.As a sidelight I enjoy genealogy and his thesis fits the movement out of Africa very well. It is now thought that pehaps only 40,000 humans survived when the trek out of Africa happened. Lack of domesticable animals and very limited places for wild grass to be turned into a steady food supply. If we had not moved, we might have remained humter-gatherers for a lot longer. I may listent o Kristol and Carville, that sounds fun. Thanks again for commenting.
I once read a quote by the physicist, Emerson Pugh (full disclosure, I had to look up his name): "if the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't." Still, I'm so curious to know what tools scientists will use to understand our brains in the future. After all, it wasn't too long ago that machines like fMRI's seemed impossible.
Yours (and Mr Pugh's) observations are often the keys to breakthroughs. After a career in science and engineering, what always floors me is that we are not surrounded by unmitigated complexity but rather simple elegance. Even if you do not study math and science, it is not lost on me that the formulas that describe how things work are SIMPLE in their elegance.
The fMRI is a remarkable breakthrough machine and led to the refinement of regionalism and "centers" in the brain. I posted about a remarkable and ingenious set of experiments involving fish. Through CRISPR-like tech we have been able to watch an idea form in a fish brain by making it fluoresce when the neurons are activated. Kinda cool. Then it is only a matter of stimulating the fish in some way and watch it all happen. It is almost always the uncelebrated DESIGN of the experiment that leads to breakthroughs. I have read a fair amount about the field. My bystander conclusion is that neurons are neurons and they are not elegant but merely rather numerous. It seems the ORGANIZATION of the neurons into ad-hoc networks is somehow the secret sauce.
The post would have been arrogant if I had expanded on my opinion as I am no expert. I believe our brains are pattern-recognition experts and that is rooted in our sensory centers which are quite primitive and shared with many other animals. I think what makes us special is we repurpose these neurons and create spontaneous networks to function as memory, support contemplation, etc.
I wrote another post juxtaposing our senses to other creatures. What makes us REMARKABLE is the ability to make tools. It sucks we don't have eagle eyes but only humans will ever build telescopes.
The point of the post that I hoped would ring true for people is that something like a housefly contains the SAME COMPONENTS as us humans. Our approach in AI & ML thus far is brute force computing. The fact that a child, after only touching a hot stove ONCE with some help and guidance from a parent will likely construct a nearly perfect means of recognizing the risk and behave accordingly.
Thanks as always for commenting and stimulating a conversation.
Thank YOU for your thorough, fascinating responses! I love learning from you, and these comments help me get a better understanding of what you're discussing. You've obviously spent a lot of time thinking through these ideas, so I don't consider your opinions arrogant at all. They're thought-provoking. Honestly. You've changed the way I think about oceans. And now I know we can watch an idea form in a fish! Thanks!
I will find the link. I am a big optimist in case it doesn't show in my writing. I love your writing and it will undoubtedly inspire future posts! It seems to me that people who best get to know and improve themselves journal. Scientific breakthroughs are so often rooted in the copious note taking and review. You have helped me remember this even more.
Enjoyed the Houdini story and will comment after I let it bounce around in my head -- I would guess neurons are self-organizing as we speak :)
Sometimes your blogs remind me of Pong.
When I think about that silly game, it is crazy how lifelike the games have become in our lifetimes. If my blog is like Pong, there is definitely room for improvement :)
Perhaps I did not present this very well. The theory of how disease is spread came because we eventually built microscopes. Until that time we just had guesses of what might be happening. I think that medical advances that go ever smaller will do the same for how a thought is developed. This is the big discovery that I just don't think we will figure out without observation. What you caution about I agree with you. I think the nature of discovery will stumble upon how a mind works. I hope we can apply the knowledge for good not evil.