Endless River of Knowledge and stuff (zaibatsu), 01/15/2019
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If I was more wise, I'd keep better track of the things that
I read. Recently, I came across an article which spoke of
the incredible quantity of published works that the printing
press (and other newer tech) made possible; an explosion of
material to consume, and an explosion of people producing
that material. The article made me think. I wish I could
reference it now.
In the beginning, written knowledge (including the kind that
is intended only for amusement) used to exist as scattered
and uncommon oases in the vast and dry desert of humanity;
we relied heavily on oral tradition and memory, for that is
what we had. In any case, we were busy subsisting, and might
not have had time for a lot of reading anyway.
In the 15th century, printing advanced, and the oases
coalesced to form a tiny rivulet, then a creek, and by
the 18th century printing efficiency combined with other
efficiencies to give us the time and access to printed
materials that launched humans into a new era; our creek was
now a river whose torrents grew stronger and fuller with
each passing year.
Today, in the 21st century, one might look out over the vast
expanse of available knowledge and information and imagine
an oceans-wide river, endlessly flowing and growing. "If I
were to dip into this river daily," one might muse, "I could
never drink it all." Indeed, even a concerted effort of
Herculean intensity with one's face buried in the water,
sucking in and gulping down incessantly, couldn't drink the
river down one inch.
Why, then, do we drink at all? And why do we pour our souls
out into this endless river, where the precious drops that
are our ideas and ideals might never once parch the thirsty
soul in the way an oasis did long ago?
Still, it wasn't the article that I read that prompted this
post, it was the sight of a book on my shelf this evening.
I'll share a quote from it:
"The proper study of mankind has been said to be man. But
I have argued that man- or at least the intellective
component of man- may be relatively simple; that most of
the complexity of his behavior may be drawn from his
environment, from his search for good designs. If I have
made my case, then we can conclude that, in large part, the
proper study of mankind is the science of design, not only
as the professional component of a technical education but
as a core discipline for every liberally educated man."
The small volume is titled "The Sciences of the Artificial,"
copyright Herbert A. Simon, 1969, The MIT Press. It appears
to contain a series of lectures that Simon delivered at MIT;
he may have written the language in the book, but the
content appears to be based on lectures by Karl Taylor
Compton. I have only read parts of the book, at random.
From my searches, Simon- who was, before happening upon this
small book, previously unknown to me- appears to be a man of
achievement and impact. His impact, wikipedia tells me, was
in the field of economics, AI, computer science, and
political science. These are areas that hold some interest
for me, yet I had never heard of the man.
Nor did I search out the man's works, nor this book. I came
across it on the "free books" shelf at my local library a
couple years ago. I saw it sitting there, the binding
entirely unbroken, more than 40 years old but existing as it
if it were fresh off the press; only the dingy 1969 cover
colors, the type, and the $2.45 price tag gave it away. A
text book for "MIT 136 Science," on the topic of artificial
intelligence, was worth saving. Imagine, a text book for
$2.45 in 2019, even adjusting for inflation...
This book- and all of Simon's works- are part of the river
of human knowledge. I sit by the edge and ladle out a cup,
take a sip and then carelessly strew it back into the
deluge. Simon didn't mean for anyone to treat his work this
way, I am sure. He's not here to stop me.
All of these thoughts really go back to an unresolved
problem that I had with a college psychology class, which
I'm still working out (and which I may have mentioned.)
There were two things that bothered me about the class: that
I got a B when I felt I deserved an A; and, my teacher's
insistence on our tracing all ideas back to their most
original recorded source. The grade I can probably let go by
now, but the idea of tracing my thoughts still digs into my
mind.
Why do we need to attribute our thoughts to someone else,
just because they thought them first? Perhaps all of society
and our experiences were shaped by their once-original
thought, and all things came together to form our lives and
therefore we can fairly attribute our thoughts. But I'm
convinced that if I suddenly sprung into existence on some
deserted island, I'd still have many of the thoughts that I
have, eventually. What then, when two humans, entirely cut
off from one another, have the same thought? To what or whom
must they necessarily attribute that shared thought?
The connection here is the question that I already asked (I
don't know who it belongs to, as I haven't traced who asked
it first): why do we drink, and why do we pour out our souls
into the river? Ought we do these things? The river is so
full, we can't take it all in; the river is so full, it
doesn't need anything more.
For my part, I can't seem to stop pouring something- of
worth or not- into the river. There are my phlogs, of
course. There have been blogs in the past, and websites,
and ramblings. There have been sermons, delivered or not,
and journal entries, letters to friends and loved ones, and
even a song or two. I suppose I pour into the river for the
same reason I dip and sip: it brings me joy. Maybe this is
a good enough reason to justify both behaviors.
