2013.04.12 First tangent - Part 3

Language allows us to learn from those who came before us, allows us to see the past, their achievements and mistakes, their thoughts and actions, their intent and the result. This is important, because without it, we would simply repeat exactly what they had done, as we would be exactly where they were. It allows us to build on the efforts of those who came before, and allows for the compounding of human effort. This flow of knowledge being passed to us, and us onward is an opportunity if you choose to utilize it. To read, and learn from others is a definite way to learn and grow your mind, to understand the concepts behind their ideas, so as to improve your own.

This leads into the last stretch of this introduction. One of the ways we can learn from others is to read. Usually, we read stories, rather than textbooks. I used to wonder why things like Aesop's fables stayed around, why Shakespeare? Why not the middle aged version of a math textbook? Do we learn more from these anecdotes than we do from a technical description of certain specific concepts (a textbook)?

It seems we do. Let's consider that given the assumption that a piece of writing has the purpose to pass along a thought, concept or lesson. We would then try to do so in a concise fashion that leaves nothing out, adds nothing extraneous, is not too vague, but only clear enough to be conceptual and applicable in many instances, since it is an idea and not an instruction.

My experience has been, that in any mathematical theory, there are always the exceptions. And corollaries. It seems to me, that they teach what the core lesson is, and then continue to spend more time after that showing and teaching every one of these exceptions, so that you see exactly the boundaries of each idea, no more, no less. In order to prove you learned it, you are then required to metaphorically draw out the exact boundaries of this idea you just learned, with every instance where it works, and every instance where it doesn't. Every. Single. One.

Then there are Aesop's fables, teaching by using a story as an example of a situation, showing the reader the actions and consequences. In this way, the reader strives to understand the concept, the idea behind the actions, and in doing so, by understanding the idea, they also know the boundaries and all the exceptions to each lesson intuitively without having to have thought about a single exception.

I use mathematics to represent communication in the scientific approach, simply because I believe that math is logic in graphic representation. But any scientific approach will do.

I am not saying that the scientific approach to learning is inefficient, because that is not true. In some instances, it is the only way to learn something. But I do find that in the present day, people are losing the ability to learn by listening, by hearing, by really understanding what another person is saying, through a story, through an anecdote. To read and hear the concept instead of the instruction. To hear what is implicit, over the ruckus that the explicit seems to be causing. It is through the scientific approach that we learn how to imitate, and memorize, but through the conceptual approach that we learn innovation through an intuitive understanding.

I find that in the present day, a great deal of problems arise simply due to a lack of communication. Not just words, but the things that don't translate well into binary. The expressions, tones, and gestures of whom you are speaking to. There is not yet a way to send someone these things via texting. All too common today, are shorthand spelling, tYpInG LiKe ThIs JuSt BeCaUsE, using punctuation and symbols instead of actual letters. Mostly only things my generation is guilty of, but it seems not a moment too soon to be mourning the loss of linguistic depth in casual communication. It may have been true that puns were all to common at one point, but I find that wordplay and turn of phrase has long ago started to fade from common usage.