Hi Randall, (01)
You wrote "The relatively small minority of people with the cognitive abilities
and proclivities to do science and engineering are enough to move the human
race forward" (02)
Aside from the inference that artists haven't moved the human race forward, I
don't think you can lump engineers and scientists together quite so easily. The
two communities think very differently, and probably have very different
"cognitive abilities". Most scientists would argue that engineers don't
actually have any cognitive abilities, and we'd be happy to bandy insults with
them too, if we thought they'd get the joke. (03)
It's true that engineers tend to use the products of scientific discovery (at
least the 1% of those that actually stand true outside the laboratory), but I
think it requires a different mindset to be a good engineer to that required to
be a good scientist. (04)
Cheers
--
Ian (05)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Randall R Schulz
Sent: 11 October 2009 19:29
To: ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] memory loss (06)
On Sunday October 11 2009, Paola Di Maio wrote:
> Ravi
> as humans, we err, and as societies, we err in corresponding orders
> of magnitude (there is an opposing argument to collective
> intelligence, which is collective stupidity)
>
> I am always surprised what humanity has managed to achieve (the
> actual), especially when we compare it to what we manage
> not to achieve (the potential). Amazing to see how far we got, given
> the inherent limitations of our human nature (07)
The relatively small minority of people with the cognitive abilities and
proclivities to do science and engineering are enough to move the human
race forward. With their contributions in circulation, exploitation of
novel developments is easy and never requires anything like the depth
of understanding required to realize any given bit of technology (with
its attendant scientific underpinnings). This is why we have so many
nasty "side-effects" and "unintended consequences" from our use of
technology—'cause those who make decisions about using the technologies
do so with scant understanding of what accompanies those technologies
and are almost always primarily motivated by their desire to accumulate
wealth with little regard for other predictable outcomes. (08)
And, to be honest, even the genuine experts do not and cannot predict
all of the consequences of a given technology (let alone combinations
or constellations of technologies), but when the unexpected occurs,
they're still the ones who have to figure out what's going on but are
not often the ones who are listened to in figuring out how to respond
to these unforeseen and undesirable results. (09)
> ...
>
> The web (okay, and Google) is changing everything, including
> allowing this discussion, enabling us to make exponential progress in
> all areas of knowledge (cetainly in my case). For that alone, I am
> perfectly happy and grateful. (010)
Let's not overestimate Google's essential contribution to either the
potential or current state of realization of networked information
systems. Surely they're big, important players now, but it's largely
incidental; a "right place at the right time with the right tool" kind
of thing. That allowed them to jump ahead of their immediate
predecessors and accumulate a lot of resources that fed their
phenomenal growth, affording them the opportunity to explore so many
fields well beyond Web indexing and search. (011)
> >From here onwards we ll just have to work things out on a daily
> > basis. See what sticks.... (012)
That is not a new state of affairs! (013)
> P (014)
Randall Schulz (015)
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