Eric Drexler on Learning About Everything

Vladimir_Nesov

Eric Drexler wrote a couple of articles on the importance and methods of obtaining interdisciplinary knowledge:

Note that the title above isn't "how to learn everything", but "how to learn about everything". The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in deep detail — many facts and problem-solving skills — and knowing the structure and context of a topic: essential facts, what problems can be solved by the skilled, and how the topic fits with others.

This knowledge isn't superficial in a survey-course sense: It is about both deep structure and practical applications. Knowing about, in this sense, is crucial to understanding a new problem and what must be learned in more depth in order to solve it.

This topic was discussed intermittently on Overcoming Bias. Basic understanding of many fields allows to recognize how well-understood by science a problem is and to see its place in the structure of scientific knowledge; to develop better intuitive grasp on what's possible and what's not; and to adequately perceive the natural world.

The advice he gives for obtaining general knowledge feels right, even for studying the topics that you intend to eventually understand in depth:

Don't drop a subject because you know you'd fail a test — instead, read other half-understandable journals and textbooks to accumulate vocabulary, perspective, and context.

Eric Drexler wrote a couple of articles on the importance and methods of obtaining interdisciplinary knowledge:

Note that the title above isn't "how to learn everything", but "how to learn about everything". The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in deep detail — many facts and problem-solving skills — and knowing the structure and context of a topic: essential facts, what problems can be solved by the skilled, and how the topic fits with others.

This knowledge isn't superficial in a survey-course sense: It is about both deep structure and practical applications. Knowing about, in this sense, is crucial to understanding a new problem and what must be learned in more depth in order to solve it.

The advice he gives for obtaining general knowledge feels right, even for studying the topics that you intend to eventually understand in depth:

Don't drop a subject because you know you'd fail a test — instead, read other half-understandable journals and textbooks to accumulate vocabulary, perspective, and context.

I think it's all too typical in geek culture for someone to consider just one topic worthy enough of his or her intellect. I run into this sort of person a lot... any given programming convention for example, but it's certainly not everybody. Still, a lot of people scoff;

"Philosophy? It's all total bs, who knows the answers to that stuff anyway?" "Literature is for english majors. Don't make me gag." "Economics is guesswork, at least programming follows defined rules for sure" "Physics and chemistry is for newbs, biology is where it's at."

One field that gets disregarded repeatedly is feminism or women's studies. Lots of geeks want to look at it like a solved problem, but anybody who has worked in the industry knows the ridiculous sexism that continues to pop up without the geeks-in-charge even noticing it. Understanding why these issues are important helps increase your total understanding and helps you tackle more difficult problems.

Interdisciplinary understanding at least some basic points in many different fields gives you more than just a hammer in your toolbox to handle problems that aren't nails. I'd agree that it's essential to solving the Big Problems. The payoff of specialization in things like agriculture and industry is obvious. With difficult problems requiring many different fields of knowledge, the clarity and bandwidth of your thoughts you can convey from one specialist in one side of the problem to another specialist in another side of the problem drops to nil without some basic understanding on all sides.

One field that gets disregarded repeatedly is feminism or women's studies. Lots of geeks want to look at it like a solved problem, but anybody who has worked in the industry knows the ridiculous sexism that continues to pop up without the geeks-in-charge even noticing it.

It's true that feminists make some correct empirical and moral claims that are prematurely discarded. Yet this mistake doesn't mean that Women's Studies isn't rightly looked down on as a real academic field.

I've taken Women's Studies classes at a top university. Here's a quote from my F... (read more)

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Eric Drexler on Learning About Everything

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Eric Drexler on Learning About Everything

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